We Eventually Had Fun

I just got back from the school party at Classic Skating. I took the 3 boys by myself because Nate had to install servers this evening. Sometimes I wonder why I leave the house when I am not in the right mental state to do so, but it always comes down to the fact that I want my kids to have a fun time and good memories. So...let me see if I can sum up some major set backs that almost prevented our going to the skating party:

1. I had to decide if I really wanted to take the kids without Nate -- especially when I was not in a very happy mood (perhaps that has something to do with our broken a/c!!! It is so hot in this house.)
   
2. This was kind of a contentious day with the children -- not very normal, but when I'm crabby it sort of rubs off. When the kids are rude to each other or defiant, I simply give them another chore to do. So...we couldn't get ready to go if the kids were constantly being given another chore.
3. Jake's new friend from Kindergarten kept ringing the doorbell -- apparently not understanding that Jake could not play AT ALL today.
   
4. We had an issue with dinner -- nobody cared to eat.
   
5. During dinner, my mom called to tell me that a family friend just died of a heart attack while on a trip with his wife. So, then I was crying and no longer cared about dinner -- and obviously neither did the boys who had left the table while I was talking for so long.
6. After the phone call, I had to round them up to do the dishes.
7. By this time, it was 7:00. The party went from 5:00-9:00. So, now the questions: Did I really want to go? No! Did I already tell the boys that we would go when they finished all of their stuff? Yes. Was Devin tired? Very. As always, the "fun" (yet very cranky) mom side of me came out and I decided that we would still go.
   
8. As we were getting shoes on, every child had holes in their socks because that's what boys do -- ruin every pair of socks they own because they forget the rule that shoes need to be worn outside.
9. Once finding new socks to wear, we had to find the shoes to wear.
   
10. After finally finding shoes to wear -- (honestly! where can they all possibly be? We have a specific place in the mud room for shoes. If they are not there, where are they?) -- we discover that all of them have hard double or triple knots to remove. Very time consuming and frustrating.
    
11. Once getting to the Classic Skating place, the boys started to unload their own scooters. Both Max and Jake accidently wacked each other in the head with their scooters and both thought that the other did it on purpose. Not funny!
12. After talking about it and finally getting an apology out of both of them, we entered the skating place. But, it took them about 10 minutes to feel comfortable even going out on the floor with people skating so fast.

We ended up staying there until 8:45. Once the boys started riding out on the floor, they loved it. Even Devin took his scooter out on the floor and rode around. (He's very fast on his Sponge Bob scooter!) There were several people that I knew there and I enjoyed talking with them. We all ended up having a fun time, which was probably better than staying at home and being contentious until bed time. And somewhere in all this blabber, I'm sure that there is a good moral to this story. I'm just too tired and still too cranky to find one! (And, yes -- I forgot my camera -- again!)