It was an interesting and productive weekend for the most part.  Friday night Mike and I had a “date”, since Mom and Dad were in our neck of the woods so we could leave early Saturday morning for the March of Dimes WalkAmerica event.  We tried to see Da Vinci Code but of course it was sold out.  It was weird to see protestors standing outside the movie theatre. I haven’t even read the book so I really have no idea what all the fuss is about.  I didn’t even know Catholics protested anything other than abortion, but apparently they do. Strangely, most of the protesters looked like they were in high school. 

We had a nice time and ended up at Poseidon.  If there ever was a chance to get Mike on a cruise, it’s been blown now by seeing that movie.  He picked it - not me. 

Saturday morning my mom, Lily and I hit the road around 7.30 and picked up Sara at Jennifer’s house.  We all caravaned to Williamsburg for the event.  The weather was gorgeous and the 5k course wound its way through the College of William and Mary, what I hope to be the future alma mater for Lily and Arden. I love the campus.  All of us completed the walk in good time, even my mother, who was convinced she wouldn’t make it due to her back surgery.  She had no problem completing the course.  Lily had a lot of fun too and bonded with Jennifer’s Uncle Phil, who basically is “Grandfather to the World” (Jennifer’s unofficial title is “Hostess to the World”, so I’m not surprised Uncle Phil has a similar role).  Lily even rode on his shoulders for some of the way and gave him a big sloppy kiss goodbye.  Awww.  Who wouldn’t love a Lily Kiss?

Speaking of Jennifer, we received a beautiful copper-roofed birdhouse for Christmas from the Yeagers last year.  A family of bluebirds made a nest in it almost immediately after we hung it, and we noticed a few weeks ago that the babies had hatched and were creating a noisy ruckus from their house every time their mother came near with various food items for them.  As I was cleaning the grill yesterday, I heard one of the babies chirping but not from the house.  Turns out he had gotten curious and while checking out the world from the peephole of his house, he had fallen out.  He could only fly a few inches off the ground and only for a few seconds at a time.  With Mike’s help I was able to capture him but we were unsuccessful in getting him back in his bird house.  In the meantime the mother kept dive-bombing me to show me her intense displeasure. 

We ate dinner and kept an eye on him.  He stayed right under the birdhouse and his mother occasionally hopped down to the ground and fed him.  We decided that if he was still there once the girls went to bed, we’d try one last time to get him back in the nest.  Around 7.30 we checked and he was still there, trying to fly and making a lot of noise.  I finally grabbed him as gently as I could and stuck his beak into the hole of the house, and he was in.  From what I can tell, they are all still there.  We think there are three or four of them and they look like they are within a few days of leaving the nest permanently.  That was my good deed for the weekend. 

I still felt like on Friday our karma or luck was way out of whack.  When the heating people showed up to assess our leaky, recalled gas furnace flue vent, they determined it wasn’t going to be covered by our homeowner’s warranty, even though the warranty company had assured it would be.  Three angry phone calls and one hour later, I had accepted the fact that we were going to be paying $1350 to get it fixed.  Later that evening I hopped on the internet trying to figure out who I could send a nasty note to (beside the Home Warranty company - I had already drafted that one).  Turns out the government is paying for part of the recall and all we’ll be responsible for is around $200-$230, which is the part that the original manufacturer used to pay.  They pulled out of the recall program in November, those irresponsible corporate poo-heads . . . They’ll be getting one of my letters, too.  I just think that if you manufacture a part that could potentially kill an entire family with carbon monoxide poisoning, you ought to make an effort to let the homeowners know it’s an issue.  We’ve lived in the house since ‘03 and never received anything about it.  Still, it made me very happy that our responsibility will be for a couple of hundred bucks as opposed to $1350. 

I took this as a sign to mean that our luck may be changing, and possibly nothing else in the next few weeks is going to blow up.  April and May has been a difficult month for many people I know.  I hope that things are going to mellow out a bit for all of us.  If not, then I hope I am able to deal better with whatever comes my way. 

Arden has entered a happy phase, right around the time that Lily has regressed back to the horrible, screaming, Exorcist-child style temper tantrums.  We had 3 or 4 of them yesterday.  One of them was so volatile and loud that she actually fell fast asleep when she was able to calm down. It drained her energy.  When she doesn’t get her way, she falls apart.  However, now when she falls apart, she won’t move, and she holds up her arms and screams at the top of her lungs, “Mommy, CARRY ME!”  This happened as we were leaving the playground at Wyndham yesterday.  A family walked by us and the mother looked at Mike and said, “Come on, just give in!”  She was totally kidding and we all started laughing.  I offered to give her Lily for a special free price, but she wasn’t interested and said she’d had enough of her own.  I ended up dragging Lily into the car kicking and screaming. The entire way home she screamed in this horrible, hoarse voice, “CARRY CARRY CARRY ME HOLD ME HOLD ME MOMMY MOMMY HOLD ME HOLD ME HOLDMEHOLDMEHOLDME”.  I looked back at her and said to Mike, “Satan’s spawn is in the backseat with us.”  We cracked up. What else can you do at that point?  My only hope is that it truly is a phase, it will pass, and we can really laugh about it then.  It’s just frustrating to feel like you are done with the regular tantrums and find them coming back with a vengeance.  In terms of parenting, Mike and I do a lot wrong, but one thing we do right is that we are consistent and firm, and we never give in when we say we are going to do something.  So how come this isn’t working better???  Why does she still fight us, even though she knows she will not, nor has she ever, gotten her way when we’ve laid down the law on any particular issue?

Mom of course has a million reasons why - she’s tired, she misses her grandparents, she realizes it’s Sunday and she doesn’t want to go to school, she’s read Nietzsche and realizes the futility of the human race, etc.  I finally said, “Mom, she’s 3 1/2.  Maybe that’s the reason.”  I’m tired of trying to figure out the whys of Lily. I just want to know how to fix it.