The Good, The Bad, and The Metro

This morning I woke up with a cold coming on. I didn't want to get up, but get up I did, got ready, Steve took off to teach class, and I started to work with the kids on their home schooling.

As they were working, I started to bake cookies for a get together with the students tonight, and my hand mixer broke. Since Max was going uber-slow on his writing and Jack had finished his work, I decided we would take the metro one stop to the closest store that sells hand mixers.

We loaded up, got onto the metro, and then realized we were heading the wrong direction. We went back out of the metro, tried to get on again, but our Navigo cards wouldn't work twice in the same station. So, we decided to walk since it's only one stop away.

We finally got to the store, and the boys were moaning that they were hungry. We finally found the mixer, got in line at the store, when an old French woman got in line behind me and asked me (in French) why my children were not in school. (In my very poor French), I told her that I am American and that I teach my children at home. And she proceeded to tell me my children should be in school, and luckily I plead ignorance and told her I didn't understand her. She didn't understand English so I started walking off, and she started telling the cashier that I should have my kids in school. A great example of when not knowing French works in your favor.

After the altercation with the French woman we headed out of the store and the boys were whining that they were still hungry so we went to McDonalds across the street. The cashier was SLOW, and when we finally got our food and went to sit down there were no tables available, so we took it to go and went to jump on the metro (since our cards would work now).

We jumped on and then found we were going the wrong direction (must be the cold that is making everything backwards for me today), so we jumped off and tried again. As we headed down the stairs I heard the train coming and as we hurried Jack tripped (luckily I was holding his hand so he didn't get hurt), and we just made the train.

When we finally got home and were eating our lunch Max said "A lot of things didn't go right today Mommy". I laughed and said that was true, and then I asked him what went right. Here's his list:

1. It was supposed to rain today but instead it was sunny.
2. We got to go on a nice walk.
3. We got to get McDonalds for lunch (and a toy).
4. When we got home we were right by the Metro exit that comes out by our front door.
5. All these things that went wrong made us laugh.

I'm so glad I have a six year old around to help me keep things in perspective.