N's Best Day

N had a great day on Saturday.

The trip to the dog park and the half-hour of climbing and sliding at the next-door-to-the-dog-park playground was OK, but it was on the ride home that the fun really started. Smoke! Pouring out of the back of Mommy's car! Cool! And then the car stopped dead in the middle of the street on a major boulevard. Even cooler! But the Best Thing Ever came after Mommy called Daddy in New York (where he was spending the weekend celebrating Uncle B's 50th birthday) and got the AAA number (only to finally find that her copy of the card had been tucked behind her license all the time). That was when THE TOW TRUCK CAME. And N (and Em and Mommy) got to ride in a tow truck WITHOUT CARSEATS! And everyone laughed at Snug, who had to ride in the towed-behind car, and sat, looking quite proper, in the front passenger seat.

It was also fun when the man from the mechanic's shop gave everyone a ride home, since N got to ride in yet ANOTHER car without a car seat! But there was still more to come...

After Mommy heard from the mechanic (HUGE crack in the radiator; they'll have to replace it on Monday, and only then will be able to see what, if any, damage was done to the engine during the failed oh-my-god-the-car-is-totally-overheating-and-sounds-like-it's-about-to-explode, I-have-two-kids-and-a-dog-in-the-car-and-my-husband-is-in-New-York, wonder-if-I-can-make-it-just-another-mile-or-two-so-I-can-get-them-home-before-the-car-dies experiment), she called a rental-car place to come pick us up so that the three stranded travelers would have a way to get to Emmy's last soccer game of the season, which she would be just DEVASTATED to miss. And when the guy came to pick said travelers up, guess what he was driving? A CONVERTIBLE! Once again car-seatless, N drove to Enterprise in style, hands fluttering in the air, whooping and hollering as if he were in a parade. (Em, freaked out by the smoke, was very, very quiet through all of this, although she has managed to appreciate the convertible in retrospect.) And then they all got to drive home in a NEW CAR, which N persists in calling it, no matter HOW MANY TIMES his mommy tells him it's not their car, and they're only keeping it until tomorrow, since Daddy's home now.

So, car towed, rental car procured, soccer game played (a tie, but everyone makes the playoffs in the U-10 league), the weary gang arrived home, and Mommy gathered up the mail and brought it inside. She was sorting it onto the kitchen table when she suddenly gave out a shriek. There, climbing up her arm after coming out of hiding from between two bills? A black widow spider. N thinks black widow spiders are really cool.

So, let's sum up: A dog park. A playground. A car billowing smoke. A ride in a tow truck, a convertible, and a cool new car (because cars you've never been in before are cool, right?). A black widow spider. And all of that before 3 pm!

To a 5-year-old, that is like your birthday, Christmas, Chanukah, and Halloween all rolled up into one on the fun-o-meter scale.

Me? I sent an email to my husband cautioning him to be careful on the plane the next day (the last time I'd found a black widow in the house on my own was on September 10, 2001). And then I added a single P.S.: Please bring alcohol.

[I apologize in advance for the overly precious third-person/childish tone to this post, but I couldn't think of any other way to recount our day yesterday without breaking down into a heap of why-hast-thou-forsaken-me anxiety and hysteria. Trust me, this was definitely the lesser of two evils.]