Tubular Rescues & Flour Fun

I went to the dentist a few weeks for the first time in like 4 years, and I really only went because of the cavernous hole in my molar that my gum kept getting snagged on. I thought for sure a filling fell out, which was accurate, but it fell out because there was a cavity underneath the filling. (Is that a thing? I just typed a bunch of words that I think the dentist said but I could be way off.)

As he was filling the cavity he was all, "WOW. That's a really big cavity." so that made me feel pretty good about the state of my teeth.

The point is: before my appointment I had a cavity in the back of my mouth, whatever. After the appointment and cleaning I have a new issue: periodically while I'm talking, a bubble escapes between my two front teeth.

I don't know what's going on, but I do know that it's very distracting. I'm pretty sure the other person I'm in conversation with doesn't know what's happening, but I cannot pay attention to the topic at hand because while I'm conversing - bubble.

That's all. Thank you for listening.

Tubular Rescues

I had a laugh with my cyberfriend recently about tube crawls of shame.

My friend Tara introduced me to a church nearby with an indoor tube playscape thing that is a) free and b) open 4 days a week. It's a pretty sweet gig when it's hot, cold, windy, rainy, or sunshiny outside. So pretty much it's always awesome.

My favorite part about it is the minimal amount of supervision required for your children to play there. There's nothing more irritating than a play date at a park where 87% of your time is spent chasing down your child and yelling, "HOLD ON A MINUTE...FINISH TELLING ME THAT STORY ABOUT YOUR CRAZY MOTHER-IN-LAW IN A SEC." over your shoulder at your friend chasing her child in the opposite direction.

So, yea, this church. It's an enclosed play area. (That phrase, enclosed play area, makes a host of heavenly angels sing the most glorious theme music in my head.)

Bonus: it's padded. It's really quite hard to get injured in this place.

The only downfall is that the Beck is still a liiiiittle small for it. He loves to play in it, but it often ends in tears.

It goes like this:

All parents have done it. If you've had any experience with tubage, you've totally had to find your kid in a maze of pipes and slides. It's a parental tube crawl of shame. Either your kid got hurt, lost, or scared.

Here you are, 15x the size of all the other tubers, squeezing your way over and through and under, periodically stopping to ask sweaty kids for directions to the "blue tunnel by the slide". It smells like feet and farts, and there is a fine layer of saliva and chicken nugget grease oiling the tubes - so you really don't even have to crawl very hard, you can just slide right along.

You finally find your kid after 9 wrong turns, slide your way out (possibly obliterating that one kid who refuses to do anything but climb up the slide), bathe all appendages in hand sanitizer, and repeat.

It's shameful to be the parent inside the tubes, but awesome to be the parent on the outside watching the parent on the inside. Since it's not you smelling the stench and experiencing the claustrophobia, you can sit back and be entertained. Sometimes you even get to point the parent in the general direction of their crying child, but mostly you can just laugh at them.

Tubular rescues.

They're the best.

Flour Fun

Unlike the kale chips that "are -30 calories and totally taste like real chips you'll never even know the difference omg crossfit!!!!"...or the home remedy for healthy, beautiful skin using only coconut oil and angel kisses...or the toddler sensory activity that is guaranteed to keep an 18 month old boy occupied for hours AND teach him to count to 10 in 4 languages...

Unlike those ones, we had an actual Pinterest success.

It's simple, really. 3 ingredients.

It really did keep him occupied for an hour. One whole hour. 60 minutes.

Momma read a book (since she caught up on Psych and hasn't decided the next show to start on Netflix), toddler made a colossal mess. It was perfect.

The only downside is getting the flour out. I was going to try to scoop it back out for the cookies I was making later for my ladies' Bible study (just kidding. you hope.) but Beckett turned the water on before I could, so our drain pipes are coated in a lovely flour paste. Oh well. Good thing we're still renting.