Raise Your Hand If My Mom & Dad Rock

All of your hands should be raised. So get 'em UP there, people!

Let me just tell you how much my parents rock.

While the boys and I were in New England for two weeks, mom & dad kept an eye on the house. They took in the mail and let my bug guy in to spray. When I got home, my house was picked up and vacuumed. That nutty mom.

After getting home, I did my finances and realized I didn't have enough money to pay for the boys to go to day care for the rest of August. I was trying to decide whether to ask for a loan from my parents or to just keep the boys home. The former means debt - yah, I'm all set there, thanks. The latter means the boys would spend a mind-numbing 2 weeks in front of the TV and distracting me from work. Yick. My mom must have sensed I probably spent much more than I intended in Boston. Because that same night she said that she and dad had been thinking. Maybe they could just take the boys for the rest of the month. Normally, I would poo-poo such an idea. But I needed the help. So I took them up on it.

So for the past two weeks, mom has come over to pick up the boys, fed them breakfast & lunch and entertained them all day. I'd pick them up and they'd have a fort built in the living room with chairs and sheets. Or they'd be watching TV (which means dad couldn't watch the news). Or they'd be getting computer time on my parents' computer. That's a lot for my mom to take on. And also, when I'm 80, I doubt it will be real easy for me to have my space invaded every day for 2 weeks. Dad was awesome about it but I think it was a stretch for him.

On top of all of this, my mom would call up on days where she could tell I was getting pounded at work. She'd say, "How about you guys all eat dinner here tonight?" I tell you, when you need the help and someone sincerely offers it? It's just the most amazing feeling. So, very frequently, I have had full on home-cooked meals. I mean, meat, veggies, a full salad, some kind of bread. That's like Thanksgiving every DAY to me, folks!

The topper came today. On Sunday, I noticed things in my fridge were rather cool. Not cold. Cool. I thought perhaps I had left the fridge door cracked open while I went to church. But I had a feeling it was more. This morning, after cranking the dial up to coldest all night, it was still rather cool. And the freezer was cold. Not frozen. ARGH.

Mom came to get the boys and I was already pounding away at work. I told her quickly about my lack of cold food. She offered to call GE for me. Honestly, if she hadn't called them, I don't know when I would have had time to. And I'd have a fridge/freezer full of tepid bad food.

Mom got the model & serial numbers, called GE, told them the issues and made an appointment for tomorrow morning. Then, she called to offer a cooler full of ice and freezer packs. While she drove over, I called my next-door neighbor. She's a wonderful person and a good friend. I was hoping to just get a smidge of fridge/freezer space for my most vital perishables. Well, she has a full fridge/freezer in her garage that she uses to hold bottled water for her walks & workouts! It was EMPTY. And since I care for her dogs while she's gone, I have the code to her garage. She said, bring over your food.

So who do you think brought all the food over? Guess. Yup. MOM. She got my laundry basket and little red wagon and brought it all over there, load by load. And she brought me the ice chest so I could keep some milk and juice here for the morning.

Who's got the best parents in the whole freaking world?! That's RIGHT! BOO yah!

Oh and on a side note? My neighbor and I have decided we've stumbled onto the perfect weight-loss plan. It's called, "Move Your Food Over to Your Neighbor's House". Because after only an hour of the food being over there, it kept me from having ice cream I didn't need and from putting heavy cream in my coffee. We were joking that we might just switch out all our food. I mean A) you'd want to look healthy so you wouldn't want to store Oreos and Lindt dark chocolate at your neighbor's house. You'd be all [ding dong], "Oh yah, I was just stopping by for, like, four carrots." B) Even if you did have no shame and kept all the junk food, you wouldn't want to bug them every 15 minutes when you get bored or frustrated at work. So you'd only get the necessities like twice a day. It would keep that evil snacking thing way down. Yah, we're pretty sure we're on to something here.