the ways we torture each other

On Wednesday Damien had basketball practice. I ended up bringing all of the kids because I had just enough time to run from work, pick them all up and get Damien there on time.
Things went much smoother this year than last year. Last year Damien looked like one of the little guys on the team, he had no skill and messed around....a lot. This year, he's one of the tallest on his team, no screwing around, and actually knows how to dribble, pass and shoot. He even swooshed, it was fun watching him....when I actually got to watch him.
Emily found a little girl to play with and they rolled a ball around and then played cards. Cali wanted to play ball too, so she got a ball, ran within one foot of me and threw it directly at my face. She thought this was a great game. I didn't like it as much. When I put a stop to it, she started throwing the ball to Damien....out on the court. Ha. Yes everyone, I brought my toddler to interupt your children's practice, it's all part of my evil plan, bwahaha!
I finally got her settled on a game of tossing an orange cone in the air and trying to hit herself in the head. I'm sure I wasn't the only one entertained.

After practice I just wanted to take a quick drive to the mall to pick up our xmas pictures. Quick....mall......xmas......yeah I can see where my thinking went wrong. If I thought the portrait studio was busy when we went to get our pictures done, well, I was wrong. Here it was 8 days till Christmas and the place was wall to wall people, cranky kids tired of watching Shrek the Halls for the 5th time were running around, crying, tearing out their picture perfect hair....harried parents were shooting daggers at the two employees running the place....let's just say I was thanking my lucky stars that I was only there to pick up, and get the hell out. I still had to wait 10 minutes or so. Plenty of time to lose a kid or two. Damien said he had to go to the bathroom. I reminded him that it was around the corner. He said he knew where to go and ran off. By the time I finally got my pictures he wasn't back. I grabbed the girls and we went running halfway through the mall looking for him. I asked a security guard if she'd seen him and she helped us look. He wasn't too far from where we'd left him and he still had to go to the bathroom. Heart attack for Wednesday...check.

Everyone was suitably cranky by the time we were headed home at 7:00. We all wanted dinner and to just be home already. Caliana started crying over something, probably because Emily touched her carseat or some such thing.
This is how it went.

C- *cry, cry, cry* In that annoying fake-y tired cry.

Me- "Ugh, Caliana PLEASE stop crying, we'll be home soon"

E- "Cali don't cry, it makes me sad"

D- "Cali don't cry, it makes me want to hug you....and throw you out the window" (all in that sickly sweet sympathetic voice)

So the rest of the ride, hell, the rest of the night, we got to hear:

"Damen says he put me out da winow, I tan't doe out da winow, I cwy" *cry cry cry*