Wonderful Chaos

We were at Abby's Pizza for dinner last night, celebrating Henry's 5th birthday. We had a great time with my Dad, Judy, and Judy's daughter Alison and granddaughter Ryleigh (thanks for coming guys!) To be honest, the only reason Henry picked Abby's is because of the Candy Crane. Ever seen one of these things? It's a machine where you put in two quarters and then, using the controls, try and make the giant scooper grab some candy. The good news is it keeps on going until a piece of candy is eventually picked up. The bad news is for some people it releases the flood gates of candy and for others it only gives one little Tootsie Roll. I think you know where I'm going with this.

So we were getting ready to leave and the kids ran over to the candy machine each armed with their two quarters. Henry goes first. He puts in his quarters and expertly maneuvers the machine down, down, down and...scoop. A Tootsie roll.


"Not bad", I say to him. Havah goes next. She drops the scoop and voila, easy as pie, the floodgates are unleashed! She's hit the candy jackpot. I'm rolling my eyes. Just great. If you know Henry AT ALL then you know how much he loves candy. And let's just say we're working on the whole "good sport" issue. I won't go into the scene that followed. Did I mention the place was packed out with end of soccer season parties?

So anyway, we are finally leaving and here's what I'm carrying: my purse, a large heavy pizza box that has enough leftovers to entirely fill the box, a bag of birthday presents, a bag of garbage (I didn't want to leave the wrapping paper from the presents for the staff to clean up), one of Havalah's toys, AND finally, perched precariously on top of the pizza box is none other than Henry's brand new Star Wars Clone Walker Lego. Here's what the kids are carrying: candy.


All of a sudden, Henry's Lego goes sliding off the pizza box and shatters on the sidewalk. All 72 pieces of it. (Did I mention it's dark outside?) Henry glances my way and *graciously* says: "oh it's OK, Mommy, and I can build it again." And then goes back to pleading to Havah about CANDY. {{Sigh}}

Normally I would ask/make the children help me clean up the Legos, but it's late. I'm tired. I ate too much pizza. So I set down all "my" stuff and begin collecting Lego pieces. We head to the car, work out the candy fiasco, get home, read books, brush and floss teeth, and get in bed. I've given Henry his Lego pieces and the directions so he can rebuild.

Finally, I sit down to watch The Middle. Have you seen this? Hilarious. About 10 minutes into the show, Henry calls me upstairs.

"Uh...Mommy. I'm missing a Lego piece, it's like this one" (holding up a minuscule little triangle that is approximately the size of a tip of a mouse's tail - a measurement reference that we use all the time around here. Don't ask). I'm thinking: he must have a billion of these in his Lego box. "Don't you have another one of those somewhere?"


"Yeah, but not the color gray. We're gonna have to go back to Abby's, Mommy. Can I try for more candy while we're there?"

"G'nite Henry."