Adventures in Babysitting

Wednesday.  Two days done, two more to go.  I was supposed to meet up with my cousin and her kids today, but she got busy.  So the kids and I hung out, did some laundry and whatnot until after lunch.  Then we drove to Bellingham to go to Bellis Fair Mall.  Emma is growing and the number of dresses that fit her is dwindling.  I think she has 2 or 3, so I had this great idea to buy her one or two more.  At the mall.  With all 4 children.  All 4 of whom haven't slept at home in 3 nights and might be a little extra tired.  Ha.  I should have known better.

Fast forward.  I have a bag from Target holding a new dress for Emma, two new duffle bags (a story for another post?) and a bag of Goldfish crackers.  I am also holding a screaming 3-year-old and making my way to the other end of the mall where my car is parked.  I'm trying to ignore the stares from college-aged kids ("control your children already") and the pity-looks from the older mall patrons.  Why did I think this would be a good idea?

We let ourselves in to Ryan's hotel room and I signed up for Netflix's instant streaming videos and plugged the kids into mindless entertainment.

Ryan was supposed to be done at 5 pm.  5 pm came.  5 pm went.  No calls, no texts.  No responding to my questions.  At that point I was ready to be done with the hotel room, so I packed up the kids and we left.  I drove out to Sehome Arboretum and drove to the top.  We took the trail out to the look-out tower and climbed up.  The view was a little disappointing.  What was once a beautiful view of Bellingham Bay has turned into a nice view of the growing trees, and if you look hard, you can almost see glimpses of the bay.

 Yah, we were kind of disappointed at the lack of a view.  But at least there was a big tower to climb, which almost made up for it to the kids.

They liked the tunnel too.

Ryan finally called and said he was done, and then I got 3 texts at once.  Either his cell phone or mine had it out for me.  So we got some dinner and went swimming again.