alarm clock catastrophe

Mother's Day started off with a little excitement. Mike, being the thoughtful husband that he is, set his alarm clock so he could get up with the boys and give me a chance to sleep in. The alarm clock in question is the old-fashioned kind, not digital, the kind that rings a shrill and extremely loud bell. The alarm went off at the appointed time (6:30 a.m.), and that's when the trouble began. Mike couldn't get the darned thing to shut off. It blared for five minutes straight! He tried holding it as tightly as he could to muffle the sound, which reduced it to loud ticking that actually shook Mike (and in turn, shook the bed). There was much thrashing and groping around, and finally, Mike (who was mostly still asleep) jumped up, ran over to my dresser, yanked the cord out of the baby monitor, and proceeded to bang the monitor on the dresser top. I asked him why he did that, and he replied, "I thought it would help." Sigh. He finally shut the alarm off by hitting it repeatedly as hard as he could on the edge of the dresser. By this time, we both had headaches, and Mike laid back down, "just to rest [his] head." Yeah, right. I, of course, was up for the next 90 minutes, while Mike went back to sleep. Doesn't that just figure?

After that, the day proceeded on a more even keel. Mike and the boys presented me with a pot of violets they had dug out of our yard (sweet!), along with hugs, kisses, and cards. Later in the morning, I headed out to my family's traditional mother-daughter brunch while Mike and the boys hung out at home. We all took nice long naps in the afternoon, then went to my mom's house for a Mother's Day cookout. My dad, brother, and Joe were working on installing a new flowerbed at the front of the house (we were all supposed to pitch in, but the plans got cancelled due to rain -- except that those three decided to trudge on and do it anyway). The boys did their part by riding along on the tractor, getting load after load of edgers for the bed. Whee! We had a feast of burgers, brats, potato salad, brownies, and ice cream, then eventually brought two very tired boys home for bed.