Halloween Carnival Gone WRONG!

Got this picture outside our hotel room after we got back from the carnival.

Ah, it is Halloween time and the kids are excited!  Over the weekend Bailey and I saw an advertisement for the Tempe Halloween Carnival.  We thought it would be fun to take the children.  Bailey also has a half brother and sister who are 3 and 5 respectively.  I agreed to go to way east Mesa and pick up her siblings, then drive to the carnival in the other direction, go to the carnival, and then drive them back.  It was about a 40 minute drive EACH direction.  I ended up using half a tank of gas.  That is a LOT!

The trip went wrong pretty much from the start.  James has been SO sick.  He was feeling better though and I thought he might enjoy getting out.  I knew Margaret would not mind.  Joseph is always up for pretty much anything.  We drive across town and I knew it was going to be bad when I had to fuss at the kids several times to behave in the back.  We get to Bailey's siblings house and we get the three year old, Jacob, and the five year old, Abby.  As soon as the car got going Jacob started crying.  Bailey calls back to her Mom and asks if he got a nap.  No!   The answer was no!

We left anyways but the WHOLE 40 minutes I was driving Jacob was crying and that set off Joseph and Margaret.  I was SO loud Bailey was telling them to be quiet.  I told her to ignore them because it was a long ride and there were so many children.  We get to the carnival and it was PACKED! We had two strollers.  One for Joseph and the other for Jacob.  I had Margaret and James on their backpack leashes while Abby was exceptionally good and could just follow orders.

We walked down to the fairgrounds.  It was neat.  Each booth was run by a local charity for fundraising.  Bailey bought tickets with her own money.  That was VERY nice of her.  We walked around for a bit looking at what was there and the kids decided they wanted to go to the moonbounce.  So we went over.  Keep in mind Jacob for the most part was still crying...lol.

At the moonbounce Abby, James and Margaret wanted to bounce.  Bailey said that was fine.  I stayed with Jacob and tried to entertain him and Joseph.  I fed Jacob candy to keep him quiet.  Joseph wanted to get down so I let him but he was trying to crawl since the ground was grass and uneven.  The kids had to wait their turn in the bounce house so while waiting Bailey lost track of Margaret.  We, thankfully, quickly found her.  She went into a bounce house for older children.  I sent her back to Bailey.  All the kids went into the bounce house and they had their turn.  Abby did great.  She got out.  Margaret got out but then screamed and threw herself on the ground because she did not want to leave and James cried because he did not want to leave either.  So we had Abby acting SO nicely, Margaret screaming lightly, James crying, Joseph crying because of everyone else and Jacob crying.  Bailey and I were NOT having fun!  To cut a long story short I convinced Bailey to sell her tickets to someone else so we could get out of there.  On the car ride to drop off the siblings and then go home there was SO much crying and screaming.  It reminded me of my drive from Las Vegas to Phoenix.  I HATE driving in a car full of screaming kids!

Click here to find out why... HERE

Hiding!

John came over for his two hours of visiting the children tonight and I left the house.  I took off in my car and headed over to a local wi-fi hotspot and I am sitting in my car with the windows rolled down playing on my computer.  It is SO humid outside tonight!   LOL

I am just enjoying the quiet time here. I can get some work done on the blog.  I was busy today trying to make some phone calls and get some packing done.  The kids are SO curious!  I was out in the sun room area of our house trying to go through the boxes out there.  It is a lot of their baby stuff and the kids were having a great time!  I was able to pull some things out where I had hand prints or pictures of them when they were just little babies.  They were loving it...lol.  Called UCLA and I was told the doctor STILL had not finished reviewing Joseph's medical records so NO appointment!  Called the UMOM homeless shelter again but still no reply.  Called the   pulmonologists and got an appointment for Joseph but not until the end of the month.  It will cost me $70 to see him so I am waiting.  I need to start looking for specialists in the Phoenix area for the children and making appointments.  For many specialists there is at LEAST a two month wait to get in so I want to make sure I am on the ball.

Before I left the house I had been listening to the children screaming for the last 90 minutes.  I did not stop it because it was happy screaming...lol.  They were having fun.  Joseph was on a small ride-on toy, Margaret was in a large dump truck and James was on his scooter board.  They were all pushing themselves around the "track" in my house and chasing one another.  One would scream and another would scream in reply.  It was hard on the ears but I am glad they were having fun.

Earlier today one of the things James mentioned to me was Shawn. James said Shawn is Daddy's friend.  So I asked if Shawn was a girl or boy and James said she was a girl.  So I asked if Shawn was little like James or big like Mommy and James said, "Big like you silly!"   So I texted John...

Me: Who is Shawn? Boy, girl, work friend, church friend or what?
John: Why are you concerned?
Me: Because he knows a lot about them and you have not mentioned them.  Just as I am sure you would be curious if the situation was reversed.
John: Not particularly.
Me: If she is someone you are seeing then you should just say so.
John: It is not.  It is A friend from church.

Notice he does not say if Shawn is a boy or girl.  He does not tell me much.  It seems to me if he was interested in getting back together with me he would be forthright.  Also am I SO out of line for wanting to know the people who are around my children when I am not there?

Tonight I have to go to bed early.  I have to roll out of bed at 5am and get the kids out of the house by 5:30am.  I have an appointment for Joseph to have his blood drawn at 6am.  This way he will not be starving for too long since this is a fasting thing.  It will be a LONG day tomorrow!  Hopefully the children will want to nap.  One can dream....