Thorns and Thorin

Yesterday morning I found myself with a bare-bummed boy on the changing table, kicking his heels as I rummaged around looking for a diaper. But I out of luck, because there was no other package of diapers in the huge cardboard box on the floor. It had been empty for weeks, and I'd been tripping over it every day for naught. And so the boy had to go into a pair of training pants, and I had to run to the store.

Later that day, one of my daughters looked in the washing machine and remarked how disgusting it was. Now, the washing machine is on the fritz. Every time it hits the spin cycle it sounds like an express train roaring through the house. Oh man, I thought. The thing has finally busted, like the repair man said it would and why don't we just buy a new one because the parts won't be in until 12/31/9999 according to the manufacturer's website? But when I went to look in it, the problem was not the spin cycle. The problem was that there were bits of poop all over the drum, and one pair of training pants sitting damply in the bottom.

Baby had pooped while I was gone, and my hard-working children had cleaned him up, put him in the tub, and put his pants in to soak and then wash. They had made sure to get the loose poop off the pants first. But not having the benefit of Mom's 17+ years of experience (the + is for all the years I spend changing younger siblings before we used disposable diapers), they didn't know that you have to rinse the pants out in the toilet or sink first to get all the other bits off.

I couldn't get mad about it, in context, so I added bleach and ran the rinse and spin cycle again, which cleaned off most of the tidbits. Then I wiped out the washer and ran a hot load of towels with the pants. Everything looks okay, and we're all still alive, so that's a win, right?

The washer is not the only thing acting up. As I was leaving for the store, the minivan's brakes were grinding so badly it sounded like something was dragging underneath the car. By the time I got to the end of the block the wheels were grinding whether I was braking or not. Fortunately, I have another working vehicle at home, so I turned around and took the behemoth instead. And I added the minivan to the list of Things That Need Money.

Microwave: stopped working 2 months ago, error code SE which means humidity. $300+ to fix, so for now we're not.
Stove: The large two burners only heat to high, or to low. There's no middle ground.
Living Room Ceiling: bulging under the upstairs shower; held in place by the paper on the ceiling. If we don't look at it, we will not have to do anything about it right now.
College Tuition: Yeah.

But you know what's free? DVDs from the library. And I'm sorry to report of myself that after we watched the last Hobbit movie, I went and got the first two. The past two nights, after I painstakingly get the three younger ones to bed, the older four and I have sat and watched the padded adventures of Bilbo and Co.

It was not all evil. I'd forgotten that the first half of the first Hobbit movie is quite serviceable. It's not until Rhadagast the Brown shows up that things get too ridiculous. (Why is it that when Rhadagast is going to draw the Orcs away from where the company is hiding so that they can escape, he keeps running his sledge in circles around where the company is? Why not just go in straight line somewhere else? I know the filmmakers have some gorgeous NZ landscape to work with, and I'm happy to see as much of that as possible, but let's think strategy here.) The Orcs pursuing the Dwarves, and the whole Necromancer subplot could have been cut, and so could the running time, and the movie would have been better for it.

As to the second movie: I could happily watch an entire movie just about Aiden Turner as Fili (or was it Kili?), and Lee Pace chewing the scenery in a restrained way as Thranduil was good value, but let's put Legolas and Tauriel the She-Elf in their own movie so that we can all skip it. I'll go to bat for Martin Freeman's adorable mug, though. I wish I could have liked Richard Armitage's Thorin more, but it was just so much glowering under brows.

I just watch for the scenery.

And I caved yesterday afternoon and let the younger ones see the second half of Fellowship, after holding out for 18 years about people who don't read the books don't get to see the movies. I skipped all the orc bits except Boromir's death scene, and I made baby cover his eyes, which he didn't like. Everything was just too truncated to me, but now the kids are agitating to watch The Two Towers.

"No," I said. "It goes even farther astray. Read the books."

"But it's a snow day, Mom!"

"Go read."

I'm left pondering the phrase "Lead us not into temptation." I brought the Hobbit movie into my house, and now my kids are all going to have Peter Jackson in their heads. This is what happens when you are an old parent and don't have the clarity of your earlier convictions. Don't get old, folks. That's all I've got.