Wishing I was outside

There are no pictures of today's episode, and I will claim that any and all security videos must be doctored fakes. The whole family was able to attend the banker's 3rd floor office today, as Lisa and I wanted to discuss our options. The kids and I meet Lisa there, in hind sight I realize this was her plan so she would have a get-a-way car and could deny knowing us or "them." In preparation for the meeting I made sure that Merrick was changed and had clean cloths on. Both kids grabbed a quite toy on the way out of the house, Merrick grabbed board book about trucks and Sophia grabbed a dry-erase board and marker. I thought this was a good sign as the toys were both educational and quite. Given last night's rain and my children's attitude towards picking up their toys outside, the sidewalk chalk was still all over the patio. Merrick thought it was great fun to stomp, squish, smear the sidewalk chalk all over the patio on the way to the truck. I didn't know he was doing this as I was helping Sophia (a.k.a Imelda) try on her third pair of shoes. Due to the construction season in GB it was almost impossible to get to the meeting but alas we arrived right behind Lisa. Everything started off fine, although my fate had been dealt and determined 20 minutes earlier. The kids were on the floor at my feet in the lush carpeted and posh little office. Sophia was practicing her words on the white board and Merrick was flipping pages in his board book. Sophia is a very thoughtful child so not only did she bring a marker for herself, but also had provided her brother with one as well. Of course I did not notice this until Merrick had traced figure eights around his body with his marker. I retained my horror and carefully slid my foot out of my shoe and tried the ol' sock mop--it didn't work. It actually got worse after that. Merrick was squirrelly as only a two-year old Y chromosome can be. Lisa put him on her lap to help keep him in check. By this time however the sidewalk chalk (yup, remember the sidewalk chalk) had dried enough in the treads of his shoes to start falling out, so all around lisa chair starts to look like a rainbow of dandruff. This sleet of chalk is not limited to her chair area as it is impossible to keep merrick still and trails start to form in the deep blue carpet of the office. Meanwhile Sophia has switched to working on her numbers and the Banker has even been so kind (and short-sighted) as to get Sophia a chair so she can sit at the ladies desk to write. Sophia is getting sleepy and continues to rest her head on her outstretched arms. I prevented it for the first three times, but eventually I started to pay attention to fixed loans vs. arms and 15 years compared to 30 years and should I consider buying some points--thats is when it happened I lost my focus and Sophia's outstretched arms clean all of the stacks of files off the ladies desk. It was a 17 inch high stack of manilla folders, paper clips, post it notes etc. It would of course by hyperbole to suggest that is was a file cleansing larger than Enron, but it was close. At this point the lady gave the kids some pens and tablets to write on, because her computer had crashed, twice, continuing the agony and embarrasment. Merrick had his pen for about 2 minutes before he tore it in half and sent the spring mechanism fling a twitter around the office. I think it got better after that, it may not have I know I eventually found myself in the elevator heading out of door only to load up my kids in the truck just in time for them to hang out the window and holler obnoxiously at a different banker returning from lunch.
As it turns out (to nobody's surprise) we did not sign all of the papers that we were supposed to and the banker called later in the day and as expected offered to come to our house and Lisa's work to get the final signatures.