I dare you to read this whole thing...

So I'm sitting here by myself right now, Dave is away on travel, the kids are in bed, and I am doing some blog-stalking. It's great. I hardly ever just go around reading people's blogs anymore. And then I start to think how shameless it is, that here I am doing nothing, NOTHING, and yet I'm still procrastinating updating my own blog. See, some of my friends update lots and lots. So it's cool if they blog about Interesting Daily Events, Fun Grocery Shopping, or Fun Things to Buy. But after leaving you all hanging (desperately on the edges of your seats I'm sure) for a freaking month and a half, it better be this great post, right? The bright red hair, if I do say so myself, met my standard of "It's been forever, so this better be good." Back in the day when I used to blog all the time, I had a couple posts like that too. The airplane one. The Christmas Poem. And, in it's own incredibly long and somewhat indulgent way, the Disney one. Never mind, not the Disney one. But now? I finally am shamed by my lack of excuses and complete and utter boredom into updating, and I find myself, instead of actually WRITING anything, giving you all an entire paragraph of Journey to the Center of my Blog Post.

Lovely.

How about a story? Before I tell this story, lest you think I am a heartless and neglectful mother, I will tell you that I did call poison control, and they said he would be fine. So I guess Conner tasted some of my nail polish remover. I found him in my bathroom, and said to myself, what is that smell? And then I recognized it, and (rather frantically) pointed to my nail polish remover and said, Conner, did you taste that??? And he said, "yeah, it was spicy." Thankfully it was the kind that you have to squirt it up into the top first, so he didn't get a whole swig of it. But I swear, it is rather amazing that I have managed to keep him from going to the hospital yet in his young life, what with all the things he climbs on, gets into, and puts in his mouth.

I appear to have covered Interesting Daily Events now, despite my entire paragraph of nothingness telling you that I wouldn't. What else is there to do, but to move on to Fun Grocery Shopping? Couponing rocks. For quite some time, I was in the habit of blasting my food budget out of the park. In my Post-couponing world, I'm going to have to move it down if I don't want to come in way under budget every month. And I don't. Because then I would have to, you know, SAVE that extra money. And I already save plenty of money. I either need to move it down, or make it, instead of my "food" budget, my "food and whatever I want to buy for myself this month" budget. I like that one better.

So about two months ago, we went on vacation. It was fun. Yeah.

[IMPORTANT NOTE: It's really a lot harder to write about something interestingly if you wait so blasted long between when it actually happens and when you write it down, you know? Let's try again.]

So about a million years ago I went on a vacation that seemed really interesting at the time. It started out in a rather un-fun way, though. When we got to the airport an hour and a half early like the Seasoned Airline Travelers we are, we had no idea we would be in that airport for HOURS. First we stood in line and went through security. Apparently AJ was not accounted for on our tickets, so I had to go back and stand in line to get my ticket changed and then stand in line and go through security again. Not a great start, but it was about to get a whole lot worse. We apparently weren't sitting together on the flight after this one. So Dave went to the desk and asked if he could fix it. And apparently it didn't matter that we weren't sitting together, because this flight was delayed and we were not going to make the connection. You notice that the only reason they informed us of this is because we asked about our seats. She said she'd work on it. Meanwhile AJ, in his baby bjorn, has decided that now is the perfect time to leak out of his diaper and onto me. I go into the bathroom and do the very best I can with my very limited cleaning supplies, and am still feeling pretty nasty. You all know how much I love those types of bodily whatever. So after about half an hour of Good News Lady trying to come up with a flight (ANY flight) for us to get there, she came up with one that would have us arriving in Salt Lake City at 1:00 AM our time. (We were supposed to get there at 3:00 in the afternoon) Nothing else available, apparently. So we suddenly had HOURS to kill in this tiny little airport. We decided we would try and get on the standby flight in a couple hours, and then that would put us in the airport slightly sooner so that we could maybe get on the standby flight that would get us there by 8 instead of 1. In the meantime, a very nice man came and asked the kids if they wanted some horse stickers. Which they did.

This is a lot longer than I meant it to be. Oh, well. Anyway, we went to the flight and made sure we were on the standby list, and began the waiting game. Slowly our names crept to the top until--hallelujah! They called us up. And said that our party of 3 could get on that plane. Wait, we said, there are four of us. Oh, they said. Well nevermind then.

So then we had a couple more hours to kill, and I decided I was going to have a good attitude if it killed me. So I went exploring with each of the kids in turn, and we found a giant lego house, and actually had a decent time for those couple of hours. As long as I didn't focus on the horrible 1 AM end to the day coming up, I was good. Then a nice man came up and asked if the kids wanted some horse stickers. Which they did. Again. So we got our names on the list for the standby flight that was going to arrive at 8 anyway, because even if it was going to be a little tight, we could still make the connection if we hurried. Then THIS flight was delayed. And they said, Oh. Well, probably not now. So I asked if there was any way we could tell them that we were coming in case our names were called and we weren't there yet. And they said "no." If we weren't there when our names were called, we were out of luck. And then a nice lady came and asked the kids if they wanted some horse stickers. Hey, why not?

So we got on the super-ultra-delayed flight, and Conner fell asleep. Which would have been okay except he wet himself. So there was that. And yet, despite everything, I refused to give up hope. I prayed for us to make it on the standby flight. I came with a Plan. I would wear AJ and the backpack and tear though the airport as fast as I could while Dave brought the kids and carry-ons on the off chance that maybe THAT flight would be delayed and they would call our names. So I put on those, and THE MOMENT the seatbelt light turned off (which was approximately 20 minutes before the standby flight was going to leave), I TORE up the aisle--and got about 10 feet. Then I was waiting, waiting, until it was my turn to get off the airplane, and I started a very level and smooth (wouldn't want shaken baby syndrome) but fast run that was really quite exhausting. I got to the gate (two concourses over, by the way), and I said, "I know this is a long shot, but you don't happen to have any seats left for standby on this plane?" They said (very predictably) "Sorry, no." " Well, thanks anyway," I said. I think. It might have been more like 'NOOOOOO!!!!" or "&%$$##!!!!" but I think it was "thanks anyway." "Wait," they said, "what is your name?" "Reynolds," I said. "OH, they said, we have tickets for you!" "WHAT?????" I said. "Yes, Reynolds, party of 3, right here." "PARTY OF 3?" I said? "Oh, wait," they said. "We have tickets for four of you." And at this point it was only my excellent upbringing that prevented me from climbing over the desk and kissing all three of them right there. But the story's not over yet, my friends.

So there I was, blissfully happy, and waiting for Dave. They called final boarding call. Still waiting for Dave. They tried to do some paperwork something to give me extra time, but the nice man said they had to close the doors now. I said, "Can't you wait one more minute? He can't be that far behind me. We can't miss the flight after all this!" and he said," I'm sorry, ma'am, I have to close the doors now." I did one last frantic sweep of the airport, and THERE HE WAS! I said, "I see him! He's right there!" And the guy said, "Tell him to run." And so I yelled across the airport, "DAVE!!!! RUN!!!!!" And so he ran. Right into some poor guy's lunch. He apologized to the poor guy. still running, right onto the airplane. As we were walking to our seats, Chris said, "I think we're going to make it!" And everybody laughed.

We weren't sitting together, so Chris ended up sitting next to this nice man and telling him absolutely everything about us. (Chris and I had a talk about how much to tell strangers later.) But one of the things that he said to his new friend was, "My Daddy said that we're not going to give this airline any more money. He said they care more about making money than keeping people happy." Conner, meanwhile, was looking at the safety instructions and trying to figure out how he could get to go on the slide. He finally said, "If the plane will crash, THEN we will go down the slide?" So I guess in Conner-land, the plane crashing was a small price to pay for such a fun-looking slide.

So anyway, we got there and I was ecstatic after a very long hard day because it wasn't as long and hard as it was supposed to be. And I thought that was nothing short of my own personal little miracle.