Apparently...NOT.

I thought we were done with rain. I thought those days were behind us. Mother Nature clearly gave us a resounding NO yesterday.

It's just the TIMING of the no,that got to me.

The kids and I had to go the the open house/icecream social for their school, where they meet their teachers/find their desks and lockers/put all their supplies away, etc. The social was from 3:30 to 5:30. We needed to go early, because Thing Two's soccer practice was at 5:30.

At 3pm, it started raining. And I don't mean light rain. I mean WHOOSH rain. The kind where you run to your car and you get in and you're soaked and your glasses are beaded and you are ruining the leather seats. THAT kind of rain.

We waited until 3:30, and it still hadn't let up. So I said "to heck with it" and we all got in the car, each kid with their big mongo bag of school supplies. We were all dressed to the nines, and I had even DONE MY HAIR. You want to make a good first impression on the teachers, right?

When we got to the school, there wasn't even one parking spot. NOT ONE. People were parking in the road, on the grassy fields, etc. I was tempted to park in the loading zone, but it would have blocked lots of cars in, and I wouldn't have been very popular.

Now, keep in mind, Hubby is still in Vegas, so I had all four children, (one of them a baby and the stroller) and all their school supplies. And it was still WHOOSHING rain.

We found a place about fifteen miles away from the school (yes, I exaggerate but it FELT that far away) and we got out. I had two big umbrellas, and the kids were screaming about getting wet and I couldn't get the stroller to unfold and they were complaining about how heavy their bags of school supplies were (can't fault them there, they were HUGE bags) and after some very tense moments we finally started sloshing our way towards the school, shortly after which Thing One dropped her bag and all her school stuff spilled out into a puddle. All her spiral notebooks and folders, ruined. I started laughing uncontrollably. All that needed to happen was a lightning strike, and our day would have been complete.
Then Things Three and Two started fighting over who was going to hold the umbrella and I was worried about the baby getting soaking wet, and when we finally got to the school we were all disheveled and soaked and I was SO OVER IT.

My hair had turned to straw, we looked like drowned rats (so much for good first impressions) and I was juggling about five things and all these moms were coming to talk to us/coo over the baby/talk to the kids and and HOUR AND A HALF later we had finally gotten to all the classrooms and done the obligatory stuff. I had to scoot the kids out of there with their icecream half-eaten because of Thing Two's soccer practice. So we ran to the car (thankfully the rain had let up a little) and then we ran home and got into clothes and ran to the soccer fields. I left the baby home with Thing one because he was dead asleep from being kissed and fondled for two hours straight.

The fields were a mess. I won't even mention the lovely MOSQUITOES.

I hate rain now. Anybody want it?