The Adventures of a Mother and Daughter...with a 20 month old.

I don't know what it is about the two of us, but anytime...every time, mom and I are together a series of unfortunate events follows us. This time was no different. Dad was away on business, Alicia and Granny had to work. So...just Mom, Madison, and myself. The goal...get April moved and settled in Knoxville. Here is the story. Hold on, it's bumpy ride.

Day #1 So we planned to leave Monday earlier this week. We got up, finished packing, and started loading the cars and trailer. Most of my things were already in Knoxville, but I still had two carloads and a trailer full of stuff. It's amazing how much crap one person "needs". We have most everything loaded, this task in itself has taken way too long, what with all the attention Madison in craving. Elmo's World wasn't working for her anymore. There were only a couple more boxes to load, then we'd be outta there. Mom went up in the attic to pass down the last few boxes to me. As I was putting a box down, I heard a loud thud, followed by "APRIL!!" I knew exactly what happened. I ran into Mom and Dad's room hoping I wouldn't find Mom on the floor with a giant hole in the ceiling. While I didn't find mom on the floor, this is what I found.

So after I see that my mother's leg is through the ceiling, I ran up the ladder and found her laughing hysterically, and she tells me to run and get the camera and snap some pictures.

Madison kept saying, "Mimi stuck! Mimi stuck!"

After I took the pictures, I ran back up the ladder. now the task is try to get mom out the ceiling without both of us falling through. There are only so many places to stand. After several attempts to help mom up, we are unsuccessful. Now the panic starts to set in. Mom is stuck in the ceiling, dad is out of town, the baby is screaming downstairs scared for Mimi and she is trying to climb the ladder. We start thinking that we are going to call 911 or something to help get a lady out of the ceiling. Then I had the idea to go downstairs, get a ladder, put it under her foot for her to step on. So I ran down got the ladder, the highest step was only like 5ft tall. So I got on it, then she could step on my shoulder...still not quite tall enough. As we are hollering/laughing through the ceiling at each other, we decide to try one more thing. I ran to the bathroom and got a stool that Madison uses to reach the counter. I place the stool on the top of the ladder, stand on top of the stool, Mom stands on my shoulder, and finally she is free! It worked! And the best part, no one was hurt! As we loaded the very last of the boxes downstairs on the trailor, I looked over at the stairs coming down into the garage. I see Madison walking down the stairs with a laundry basket on her head. I don't know how she didn't fall down the whole flight of stairs. Man, we were just accidents waiting to happen. We laughed about everything, put a piece of cardboard over the hole in the ceiling, cleaned up, and hit the road. This is just the start to the week ahead of us. Lucky for us, the rest of the day went smoothly. We got to Knoxville, unpacked to vehicles, and decided to take it easy for the rest of the night.

Day #2 The next morning, we got to work. Mom was in the kitchen, laying shelf paper and organizing cabinets. I was going through the bazillion boxes in the dining room. After we had lunch and gave Madison some of our attention, I was off to the store. I had a number of things to pick up. While I was out, I noticed that there was a storm moving in. When I got back to the apartment Madison was up from nap and we were getting hungry. As we were about to fix something to eat, power went out. Then it came on, then it went off. It hailed. It rained and rained. Still no power. Finally the rain let up, but still no power. We didn't have much we could fix for dinner without power, not to mention we couldn't see anything. I had a tons of candles, but they aren't much use if you don't have something to light them with. So...we left the house to get something to eat and to stop and get a lighter or matches. We decided to go somewhere where Madison could run around and play a little. She had been so good all day. We found a Burger King that had an indoor playground so we stopped.

Madison loved her "princess hat". She played and played on the playground. She did so good. It was the first time she really went all the way up the tunnels and came down the slides by herself. She kept saying "self! self!". She did it all by herself. You could tell she was so proud. It was really cool to watch. So we left Burger King and prayed that we had power when we got home. I had sheets in the washer and really wanted to get them dried. We got home and Woohoo! We had power. We made a plans for the next day. The plan: find bookshelves and nightstands, rearrange the living room furniture, get wireless internet working, and hook up the tivo.

Day #3 We got up, showered, fed the baby, and headed out. We had looked up several second hand stores, Goodwill, and other cheap furniture stores. I got my GPS and we were on our way. We wanted to be back early in the afternoon. We stopped at Goodwill first. I dropped off a tub full of items I didn't need. While we were there I found an awesome lamp.

It is really heavy, it is wrought iron. The tags were still on it when I got it. Its from Target originally, it just needs a little cleaning and a shade. Total: $8 Madison even got a couple things. She got a Beauty and the Beast figurine set, brand new in the box. And a little tikes art desk. I think mom paid a whole $7 for both things. We used her desk as her table to eat at, since I don't have a booster seat.
After we left Goodwill, we went to a discount clearance furniture center. It was discount alright, things were marked down from $800 to only $300. haha Like I could afford anything in there! Strike 1. We left real fast! Then we went to a consignment "furniture" store, that didn't have a lick of furniture. Strike 2. We stopped by another goodwill. Nothing. Strike 3. Off to another discount furniture store. We found 2 sets of night stands. One set was all wood, a bit beat up, scratched on the top, and totally the wrong color. The price was good though. Only $40 a piece. Then there was the other set. Perfect size, color, and style I was looking for. But the price...$100 a piece. After looking at them several times, we decided to leave and see what else we could find. If nothing else, we would go back. But still no bookshelves. Next stop...Walmart. They didn't have any nightstands that were a better deal that the ones we already found. They did have bookshelves, but in the wrong color. Ugh! By this point I was getting frustrated and we were all hungry. So we left in search of food. After lunch we were all feeling much better and spirits were high again. We found a thrift store that looked promising. We checked it out...nada. What is that like Strike 5 or something. Then off the Big Lots...nothing. Home Depot...nothing. Lowe's...nothing. Target...ding ding ding ding. We have a winner. I found bookshelves and an entry table. I was pumped. I had decided I wanted to go back and get the nightstands at the other store. So I had what I had set out to get. So our quick 2 or 3 hour shopping trip had now taken 6 or 7 hours. We were exhausted. We wanted to get a take and bake pizza from Papa Murphy's, it is a really good pizza. We would cook it later at home when we got hungry. We drove way out of town to get one, only to find out when we got home there was one right down the dang street!!!! Ugh...oh well. Just one more thing the laugh at later.

We finally got home, and started building furniture. I built the entry table, mom cleaned up Madison's desk, and Madison watched Elmo's World at least twice. It was getting late, and we decided it was time for dinner. We fed Madison and I pre-heated the oven. I went back to put the pizza in and...it wasn't hot at all! Mom came in the kitchen ready to cuss the thing out...I think we both were. We moved the whole stove away from the wall, checked to see if it was plugged in. Yep, it was plugged in. Aghhhh! I wanted to cry. We were exhausted, starving by this point, had a crazy day of running around the world, and the house was in total shambles.

We had our minds set on our delicious pizza. Too bad! Mom said we needed alcohol. haha So mom left in search of food and drink. I continued my furniture building, and babysitting. She finally returned with a bag of food from Chili's, a bottle of wine, a 12 pack of coke, and a bottle of Captain Morgan Rum. We pretty much called it quits. We ate, put Madison to bed, had a drink, or 2, or 3. And watched a movie.

Day #4 Goal for the day: do all the stuff we didn't get done yesterday, done today. So we started out by putting together the last bookshelf, rearranging the living room furniture, and attempting to get the tv/dvd/tivo stuff functional. Easier said than done. The furniture was a piece of cake. The tv was a whole other issue. My mom and I are very smart people and for some reason we could not figure out what was wrong. Technology can be so frustrating! So about 3 hours into the mess, we finally had it figured out...or at least working. As we were checking that things were working, we found that somehow in all the wiring and rewiring of things, the phone stopped working. "Are you kidding me?!" We decided to take a break from all that mess and focus on something else. Next was the wireless internet issue. Again another challenge. So as mom was attempting to fix that, Madison was down for a nap, I went to collect the 2 $40 nightstands at the discount furniture store...and grab a Starbucks. So here are the nightstands. I am going the sand them down and stain them dark dark brown.

You can kind of see the giant scratch on the top of this one.

When I got back home, Mom was still working on the internet thing. Madison was up from nap and bored out of her mind. So we went left Mimi alone, and had some Madison and Auntie April time. When we returned, Mimi was still working on it. Ugh...just one more thing that can't go smoothly. Mom told me the next morning, that it wasn't until about 3am that the darn thing started working. At least it works now. As for the phone...it just started working again on its own. Wasn't that nice of it?

Day #5 The goal for this day was to get a few things hung on the wall that I knew would be a 2 person job and then mom wanted to be on the road during Madison's nap time. So we hung some shelves, a couple mirrors, and my jewelry box. Everything went smoothly for once. We ate lunch together, and then it was time to say goodbye. I helped get the trailer hitched to Mom's car, gave hugs and kisses, and waved goodbye.

Mom's 2 or 3 day visit turned into 5 days. Thanks so much mom for all your help, I couldn't have done it without you! I love you! It's always an adventure with you!

Here are some pics Mom snapped before she left. The apartment still needs a bit of work, but it's getting there!