Home! FLIPPIN sweet HOME!

SOOO I left off my story at going to buy the mini van... WELL- we went and picked it up. We paid $1500 for it. (and no. it was not a steal. it is definitely WORTH $1500). They had cleaned it up nice for us and sprayed some febreez in there, after finding out I was pregnant. The smell was bearable to me... kinda like a wet shoe.

Brooklyn LOVED the van! (She couldn't care less about the looks of something... it was just REALLY roomy to her and she was running around like a loose monkey in there- and sneaking chocolate out of our ice chest- SO much like her daddy, it kills me). The van is a maroonish color (and Starling has named it the Purple Panther. I wanted to name it the Quaker because it shakes and quakes if you go above 75mph). It is a 2000 Dodge Caravan with NO power locks or windows and, after the guy put 4 cans of whatever makes the air go cold in, NO airconditioning. ALSO when I sat in the drivers seat and tried to sit the seat up a little straighter, I discovered the handle to adjust the seat was missing. Gone. So I faced the challenge of driving the car 13 hours in a RECLINED position. (I didn't meet that challenge. I sighed and told Starling he'd have to drive the whole way).

But, at this point, I would've sliced off Starlings hand if he'd tried to back out of getting the van bc I wanted to leave North Carolina THAT bad. I didn't care that one of the sliding doors had a huge dent and shredded paint. AND I loved the built in car seats. (Almost as much as Brooklyn who buckled herself in and said, "WEE! Lets Go BYE BYE!"

So Starling drove the van. I drove my Altima. We parked the Altima at a DIFFERENT place, the Honda dealership where, upon searching for vehicles, met the owner who is a pretty big wig in the community and agreed to help us get the title work done correctly through his dealership. (BUT it will take several months of paperwork and changing the title into several differnet names). I was ready to SALE the car, but Starling is NOT willing to give up on it, especially when we found out we were getting 30.5 mpg. And truthfully I LOVE my car and I WANT it back! The guy tried to get us to stay through the weekend and try a couple more things but I put my foot down FIRMLY and said, "NO WAY IN-" and STarling said, "OKAY-okay... we'll try to work it out from MS."

We drove the van back to M&M Motors in South Carolina to give Rick, the owner a bunch of paper work that he'll need to help fix this mess. Upon arriving, and I must note it is after 6p.m. (Rick closes at 5 and has been waiting on us) Starling spots the same mini van we just bought in Rick's salvage yard. Starling runs over to it and offers Rick $100 bucks for the driver's seat and the side door. Rick accepted and Starling borrowed some tools and got to work. He brought the old sliding door home with us so he could change out the locks.

Brooklyn was loving the salvage yard. She told her daddy, "Me wanna help." And so I gave her one of the tools that unscrews things and hooked it up to a random screw in the front of the salvage van and she set to work unscrewing all the bolts. She was giggling and excited, "Mommy I DID it!" She is SUCH a little Starling. I told him for her second birthday we are going to buy her some coveralls and a tool set and let her go help Starling work on cars and motorcycles because that's what Starling loves to do for FUN and so does his DAUGHTER. When we FINALLY left the place around 7 or 8 or later Starling said, "Man... THAT is a cool job right there. I think all of this happened so I could recognize my dream to open a salvage yard." I snorted and choked on my drink. "Your dream. My worst NIGHTMARE!" But it seems to be a pretty lucrative endeavor according to Rick who informed me they've pulled in over a million in the last 3 years. (And I'd merrily spend the money as long as I don't have to LOOK at the mess... as long as there is nothing in my YARD or my DRIVEWAY...)

We drove straight through the night only stopping for gas. Brooklyn "talked" on my cell phone for over an hour to her Mia and PiPaw... then to her Daddy... then to Jesse... then Stephi... then back to Mia and PiPaw.. (the phone was locked and I was playing all the voices to whoever she said she was calling). Then I quit talking because I got bored with it and she kept on talking for another 15 min. until she fell asleep telling Mia about "eat more chich-en."

Starling let me drive so he could sleep and couldn't have gotten a wink of sleep for all the PASSENGER seat DRIVING he was doing. Oh yeah. The CRUISE control is ALSO broken in the van. I ATTEMPTED to stay at 75mph BUT the gas petal is pretty hard to press and my leg kept cramping up so I'd push a little harder or take a rest and every time I looked at the speedometer it was between 58 to 90. And luckily the van would start shaking if I got over 75 to let me know to slow back down... but I tended to speed up and slow down with the mood of the radio. And STARLING didn't even give me a chance to slow down before he was popping up, "WENDI! WHAT are you DOING?? Can you not feel the van SHAKING? We know NOTHING about this van. You can't just TRUST vehicles not to break down. Until I've fully examined this thing, you need to keep it at 70mph." I'd roll my eyes and say, "GO TO SLEEP or DRIVE!" and then I'd wait for his eyes to close and try to level out at 75 again.

I got really excited when I saw a sign that said Laurel. That is the first time I've ever been EXCITED to see Laurel. I said, "STARLING! I think we're in MS AGAIN!!" He swiped his eyes and said, "UH- we've OBVIOUSLY been in MS for a while." But I never saw a sign... I was too busy trying to watch the speedometer.

We drove straight to Krispy Cream, but they didn't open for another 15 min, so I drove to WalMart and picked up everything I needed for Jesse's babyshower (that was 11a.m. Sat. the same day that we got home). Starling picked up a dozen doughnuts while I finished shopping and then picked me back up. We went home, ate ALL dozen doughnuts (don't worry we gave Brooklyn one) and I put all my babyshower goodies together and texted Jesse for her favorite salad recipe. My eyes were blurring and trying to roll back in my head so I decided to take an hour and a half power nap. Our clocks said seven a.m. so I set my phone to 8:30 and laid down. Well as soon as I fell asleep my alarm went off! And then I realized that we hadn't changed our clocks for daylights savings time and I'd just taken a 30 min nap. TOO BAD. I showered my nasty hair, looked at the time, had a panic attack, woke Starling up, well TRIED, he wouldn't budge. I shook him and smacked him and finally I got a "hm" out of him. "I need you to go buy all this salad stuff! I bought the wrong lettuce and didn't know about all this other stuff! HURRY!! I need it NOW!" He didn't move. I got a little violent (I won't go into detail) but he got out of bed, took the list, and returned in record time. Unfortunately he didn't buy bags of lettuce, bags of brocolli, or bags of anything. He bought stuff I had to chop up. (And I do NOT know how to chop ANYTHING). I needed to be walking out the door, but my hair was still wet and I was shredding the lettuce with my fingers. Starling was doing the broccolli, realizing sleep was out of his immediate future. I cooked the almonds, butter, and roman noodles, and he picked out all the lettuce that wasn't supposed to go in the salad that I didn't know and put in.

Finally I left, went to the shower, ate until I was stuffed like a pig, and played the games I brought. The first one, "Diaper race" to see who could best diaper their team member out of toilet paper, went well. It was pretty hilarious. The second one, where Jesse had to put a marshmellow in her mouth and read a baby word, then another marshmellow, then another until only one person was still understanding what she was saying... didn't go so well. Apparently Jesse hates marshmellows anyway and was literally GAGGING on them to the point everyone was saying, "MAke it STOP!" and then I felt really bad. But I bet some good pics came out of it!

I went home after laughing with the girls for a while and laid a blanket in the yard and fell asleep. When I woke up I saw my neighbor, who is nine, playing on her swing set with two little girls and no adults. "That's sweet." I thought. Then when I started walking inside I saw Eric batting bees with a tennis racket and Starling shampooing the van. Then I realized that those two little girls were Alayna and Brooklyn. "Starling? are you keeping an eye on the girls?" a rhetorical question that was obviously NO. While I am asking him this Alayna and Franja, the 9 year old, walk into our house. I stop them and ask, "Where is Brooklyn?" Franja shruggs and says, "She said she was coming."

I go to find my child who is by herself playing in the road. I say to Starling, "STARLING! It is GREAT that Franja plays with the girls but you are NOT to use her as a SITTER! She is NINE and an only child... she isn't used to being in CHARGE of a ONE year OLD!" He nods, still busily consumed with the van. "UGHGH. I need you to keep an eye on them. I feel like a walking pile of lead and I'm going to bed." He nods again, "We're going to take the girls to play at Chic Filet." I thought that sounded like a swell idea. At least there are other adults there if our children escaped from the playroom.

I slept until I heard Brooklyn crying and CRYING saying, "Daddy! Daddy!" I got up, more disoriented then I've ever been in my life, and almost walked out of my room indecent, but thought better of it and put on a robe. I looked at my clock. It was 9:45. I walked into the living room and pulled Brooklyn onto my lap. "Where IS your daddy?" I didn't even have my contacts in and they wouldn't have helped anyway because my eyes were still shut. Some blurry dude walked into my kitchen and said something like, "oh, you got her. k" and walked back out. I said, "WHERE is Starling? And what is going on?" I was utterly confused. The blur popped his head back in and said, "Starling went to Sonic. He'll be back in a min. He told us to keep an eye on Brooklyn since you were asleep." I nodded ready to murder my husband. I closed the door that was WIDE open while all the guys were outside playing ping pong. A cuZiLLION bugs were aLL over my house. I felt my way back to my room, found my phone, and called Starling. He had a good explanation but he needed a SUPERB EXPLANATION to suffice. He got home QUICK and I laid into him for about 30 min. until I was too tired to keep yelling. Missionaries are ALSO not BABYSITTERS!!! I am so scared what will happen to my child if I die. He does things like that and then says I make him nervous letting her climb stairs and jump on trampolines. We are both SUCH good parents. Good thing Brooklyn is one going on 12 because if I had a "hand-ful" child... I don't want to imagine what would happen to that poor kid.