If You Give a Mouse a Battery ...

Well, I sat down at the computer a few minutes an hour ago to engage in a little mindless blogging, but it turned out that the wireless mouse's batteries had died (One of the many reasons that I objected to the wireless mouse and voted for the wired version, but I was overruled.  Another is that the children - particularly Ruby - make off with the mouse from time to time, rendering the computer useless until the house has been turned upside down to find it.  Another is that it was $50, where the normal one was free.).  Anyway, after cursing Matt for a few seconds for buying said mouse, I had to fix the problem.

Of course, the batteries are in the kitchen, so I went the long way from the computer room into the kitchen, hoping to avoid detection, but nonetheless, I popped up on the children's radar.  They had all three been happily coloring in the boys' room, but as I made my way into the kitchen, they suddenly all realized they were hungry.  So I set about making snacks.

Of course, each child wanted something different.  Finn wanted a peanut butter & jelly, but I realized that the peanut butter was empty, so I had to go downstairs to the other kitchen to get a new jar.

While I was down there, I remembered that I needed to switch the laundry into the dryer, so I went into the laundry room.  Once in there, I realized that I had left the laundry in the washer for so long that it needed to be washed over again (I only do this for Matt's benefit - he recently complained that his clothes all smelled funny, but he didn't know why.  I did know why, but it hadn't seem to bother anyone, so I had just been letting it go).  So I started the wash again, after making a mental note to go back to scented detergent which does a better job of covering up that left-in-the-machine-too-long smell.  But then I noticed that the cats did not have any food in their bowls, so I thought I would just put a little in.  Unfortunately, there was no food in the bin, and I remembered that the new bag of cat food is currently sitting in the back of my car, which is sitting in the parking lot of the repair shop, waiting to be repaired.  Another mental note to self to go get cat food, but in the meantime, I decided I would give them some tuna fish.  So back upstairs to where the tuna fish is, but then I realized I hadn't brought up the peanut butter.  As it turned out, however, once the children saw the tuna fish, they all wanted some of that, so I had to make a little tuna salad for everyone.

After snack time, I had to clean up the kitchen a little bit, when the phone rang.  Seeing the Baltimore area code, I thought it was my college roommate, so I picked up, excited for a good chat.  Unfortunately, it was Arbitron Ratings.  Unfortunately they were calling to remind me that today is the last day for the radio listening journal that I've been supposedly keeping for the last week (sort of like Nielson ratings for radio).  I have no idea why I agreed to do this, but I knew that I had and in fact had agreed for every person over 12 in our house to keep a journal.  I also knew that I had already put the $4 they sent as a guilt-inducing incentive to compliance into my wallet and had used them to buy a latte the day before.  So I told the guy on the phone that I absolutely had been keeping the journal, as had my husband, and we would be dropping them in the mail tomorrow.  Hanging up the phone, I began hunting around the house for the journals, disorganizing all of my ordered chaos in the process.  I finally found them back in the computer room, where I also discovered that I still had not gotten the two AA batteries needed to cause the computer to function so that I could sit down and write a little bit while the house was nice and quiet and the children were otherwise occupied.

So now, obviously, I have replaced the batteries.  But of course, the quiet art project is long-forgotten and the boys are jumping from the couch to the ottoman waiting for me to come play Apples to Apples Jr., which will be a total nightmare with Ruby trying to eat the cards, Gus (who can't read and doesn't like games anyway) not playing after five minutes, and Finn taking everything too seriously and yelling at Gus to keep playing.

Damn wireless mouse!!!