So last week, the kids and I went with hubby to Detroit, Michigan on a mission trip. Our church's youth group did neighborhood surveys for a local church. They also held sports camps in the afternoon, did concerts in the evening, and after dinner, passed out 9V batteries to be used to replace the old ones in smoke detectors.
I figured since I didn't have any obligations except to feed the baby and watch the 3-yr-old, I'd then get lots of sleep. Not so. I also figured I'd finally get around to sending out a new batch of agent query letters with my "GH 2007 finalist" info. Not so. And I figured I catch up on the crits I wanted to do for my CPs. Again, not so.
What did I do? Well, the only thing I found I could do to help anyone was washing dinner dishes. Oh, I helped here and there with meal stuff, but basically the only real help I was came in the form of scrubbing pots and pans. I really wanted to do more, which often led me to feeling frustrated because I either couldn't help becuase I had to take care of the baby or no one needed any help.
On Friday, hubby loaded up the students and our chitlins and took us to a spot in downtown Detroit where we could see Canada across the river. Kinda cool. Would you believe Canada looks very much like the US? How freaky. ;-) While the students were admiring the view, I figured I'd change Niley's poopy diaper. I laid her on a seat and went to work. Only the bus front door was open, so once I had the pooped wiped off her, I slid the dirty diaper off and reached for a new one at the same moment a nice chilly breeze flew through the door. Needless to say, Niley felt the chill and took a long pee on the bus seat. Oh, not just any bus seat, but a practically brand new bus seat. *sigh*
After I bundled her up in a cute Old Navy bear coverall thingy, we ran to where everyone was so we could have a family pic taken. Niley wasn't too impressed with Canada. She fell asleep.
From there, we drove to some outlet mall in Northern Detroit. Actually, I don't think we were in Detroit city limits anymore. Anyway, all 66 members of our group sat down for dinner in the Rainforest Cafe. Cool place. Really really nice manager. Our waiter was nice too. And that came in handy when I waved my hand to show Jadan (7) where his drink was and ended up hitting the cup of steamying hot marinara. Oh did my hand burn. Our nice waiter kindly brought out some burn cream and a huge bandaid. Since my hand hurt, I had to eat my dinner with my left hand. Not an easy task.
After our waiter brought our main courses (hubby shared a steak/ribs/shrimp dinner with Jerah (9); I had a side salad), Rhyinn (3) decided she wanted to eat a shrimp skewer. I didn't know she liked coconut shrimp, but she did. I think she likes what everyone else is eating...except salad, which she calls "leaves." Well, I decided to adjust her shrimp so she wouldn't eat the tail and ended up sticking the skewer into my finger. Once again, we appealed to our nice waiter.
I left the restaurant with a throbbing right hand and a throbbing left pointer finger.
I blame Canada. Everything on the trip started going downhill after a glimpse of our Northern cousins. Actually, we didn't even see any people. Just buildings. Oh, you cursed Canadian skyscraper.
