My mom, our GG, sent this email to me last week and asked me if I wrote it (she had to text me to tell me to check my email). YUP, thats me mom, and this email is from 2008. I read it and laughed and the memories of this day came back, barely. It is something I wrote in 2008. We lived in Arizona, where both boys were born. I had just taken a leave of absence from my job at Abbott. Mason was almost 2 and Luke was 4 1/2. They were busy boys.

What a day, what a fun day, really. Some of you won’t understand how I find the day I had today “fun.”
5:30- wake up and cycle 12 miles, take dog running 1.5 miles (hey, I’m taking all the credit I can get)
7:00- come home to 2 hungry boys wanting breakfast, Ben leaves, we play choo choos. The boys fight over who gets the engine train but they both agree mommy gets the caboose. Go figure.
7:45- shower, dress, dress kids. Negotiate snacks for boys, pack swimsuits, towels, drinks, extra clothes, and monster trucks, retrieve all the tools in the garage the boys have gotten out while I am getting ready, feed dog, pick up all shoes so the dog doesn’t chew, track down boys and lasso them into the car(this is the hardest and most aggravating part of my day). All of you parents with more than one kid understand the amount of energy it takes to get 2 kids locked and in their car seats.
8:45-arrive at the park with play fountains, etc. Play, get really wet then cover with sand, climb trees, chase lizards up trees, chase birds, eat snacks, and we made some new friends.
10:30- clean up boys, put Mason in dry clothes, load up, and head to Lukes’s swimming lesson.
11-11:45- Lukes’s swimming lesson. Mason and mom socialize with friends, eat popcorn, and watch Luke. Get Luke showered while chasing Mason- he loves to leave the main room to watch the big fish tank. Make Luke go potty as it is inevitable that he will have an “emergency” 2 minutes after we leave which means pulling over, unbuckling, etc. I’m not the most patient person in the world but I am still learning. Kids and husbands are the best teachers!
12:00-put Mason down for a nap, feed Luke lunch, grab a bowl of Lucky Charms for me, switch laundry, unload the dishwasher, and place clean laundry in a basket next to the couch to pretend to fold and put away. Thinking, I’ll do it tonight while I watch American Idol. Guess what, I’m watching Idol, writing this, and laundry is still there. Whatever…so the house is in order, Mason is sleeping, and I think I need to just sit for a bit. I help Luke pick out a movie- Peter Pan’s Return to Neverland-which we “accidentally” bought because when we rented it from Blockbuster we lost it and didn’t find it for 3 months. So, now it is ours. Great. I curl up in my soft leopard blanket, Luke is sitting next to me. We get to Chapter 18 of the movie and the DVD player gets all *$#@#$#$%. It might have something to do with the fact that last week I caught Mason feeding the DVD player with all of his Baby Einstein DVDs. No kidding, I pulled out 10 DVDs one at a time. Every time the opener would go back in it popped back out another DVD. There is still one jammed in there that is stuck, I can hear it, BUT I got the DVD working otherwise. We just can’t use #3. This will all be news to Ben BTW. So after turning off all electricity to the DVD player, ejecting, turning, and all but shaking the DVD player-did this routine at least 6 times- Peter Pan is back on. Well, in the meantime when I fired Luke from trying to help-he tends to think the more buttons you push, the more likely it is to work- I get back on the couch, snuggle up, and hope for more time before the Masonator wakes up. Luke turns around and says “mommy, look, I handcuffed my hands together!” I immediately know he doesn’t have the keys. He has been playing with these handcuffs the last 2 days but this morning Ben asked him where the keys were and said if he didn’t know then he shouldn’t play with them. The past 2 days I had visions that this was going to happen and I even thought about what I was going to do when it did. Why didn’t I take the cuffs away? And endure the tears of sadness, the negotiating tactics to try and get them back, or was I secretly hoping he would do it and all I had to decide was what to handcuff him to? Ok, not really. I’m not that mean. So, he says “mommy, I can just slide my hand out.” Well, he got one of his hands out but the other was VERY tight. I just started laughing…and I couldn’t stop. In my mind, I was trying to keep it light for him so he didn’t panic. I laid back on the couch and said “well, you better go find the keys.” Of course, I eventually got up and we searched the house for keys. At one point we sat back down and I told him he at least had a really pretty bracelet. He didn’t think that was very funny. At first, Luke was sort of laughing, because I was definitely laughing. Why in the world do we have so many “mystery” keys? We have more random keys that I have NO idea what they are for. It is sort of like socks-there is always one but never a pair- I’m convinced the dryer eats them. So, we try all sorts of keys, we go to the workbench and the ridiculous amount of tools my husband has for lord knows what, (he probably doesn’t really know what, but they are cool tools) and we try to pick the lock. I have actually gotten really good at picking locks because Luke sometimes locks his door, falls asleep into his deep sleep coma, and then I pick the lock to go back into his room and carry him to his bed and tuck him in. We even keep a long skinny screwdriver above his door, it happens that often. So, I don’t really want to go to the police station to have them get the cuffs off. I decide that when Mason gets up from his nap, we will go to Home Depot. They know me there-mostly the guys in the painting department or rental tools (ie shit happens). I’m not known at the latest fashionista Scottsdale boutique or at the hottest new club in town, or the philanthropic volunteer BUT the boys at Home Depot…they know me.
Now, Luke is starting to get upset and wants to wait for Daddy to get home, he wants to swim in his cuffs, sleep in his cuffs, etc. He is just nervous it is going to hurt. Mason wakes up, we head to Home Depot with lots of tears from Luke. 7 Home Depot “volunteers” later, many tears, many tours of Home Depot, much drama, and many laughs later, the cuffs are off. All this time Mason is somewhat following us around because Luke won’t let go of my hand, and Mason is carrying my car keys trying to unlock everything he can get his hands on. The cuffs were cut and then eventually 2 guys picked the lock. We had some giant bolt cutters in our cart to take home for Daddy to do. Luke got scared so I just said we could buy some and cut them at home. We had to take the cutters back to the shelf when they got the lock picked. I said “my gosh, I thought I stumped the men of Home Depot!” They said “almost!” I said “Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll be back.”As we are walking out Luke says “mommy, next time can we buy the cool tool cutters to cut them off?” Next time? I said, “sure.” OH MY GOSH! We go home, and put back on our wet swimsuits, sunscreen, etc. Then, Ben walks in. He has some work to finish in the office so I say please come have a cocktail with me and when you are done with work come out and swim. Great! He finishes work, jumps in the pool, the boys are winding up, and his phone rings (which it does 1000498472394759387498725 times a day) but he got called into a case. He was gone as fast as he jumped in the pool. I did get to finish his cocktail for him though. So, swimming, dinner, baths, dance party, teeth brushed, pjs, books, and bedtime. Ben got home about 8-just in time that I had tucked the boys in bed.

Once I stopped laughing at the cycle and running at 5:30 am, the memories fill me up. I remember how tired I was during these years, but I remember how much fun we had with all the random adventures we have been on together. Later that week in 2008, I found the keys to the handcuffs and Luke asked me if we could dig the handcuffs out of the trash since we had found the keys. Umm, NO! Now we have a different kind of handcuffs on. Handcuffs that the Home Depot boys can’t fix. But, I know we will find the keys with a transplant.

After we got home from our whirlwind hospital in’s and out’s today, I had a bowl of Lucky Charms and picked out all the marshmallows. Threw the rest away. Some things never change.

Handcuff buckets,

Suz