Fun on the Twirly Slide

Fun and games and elbows and knees. Its all fun until someone gets hurt, right?

Our nanny called out sick yesterday, so I had the rare opportunity to hang out in the city with the twins. It was so fun to see the crazy little people that they are becoming.

In the morning Euge and I went on our first tour of a school, to look at a possible preschool program... It was funny with all the little kids, little chairs, little tables... even their own little toilets!

It reminded me of mom's stories about me singing in the bathroom at our preschool. I'm not sure it was the school for the boys, but the tiling in the bathroom looked promising for good acoustics.

It was lucky for me that one of the other families in our building has a son that is good buddies with the boys - they had a playdate while we were on the school tour. Childcare co-op! So Capitol Hill of us!

After I picked them up, we went to the big neighborhood playgroup at one of the local churches and, for the first time in at least a couple of years, I got to hear the supremely talented Mr. Troy perform for the kids. He's an amazing local parent who performs for all of the kidlets every week, singing and playing his guitar. Its the sort of thing that I can imagine the boys talking about with their friends from the 'hood when they are all growed up.

'Hey, remember Mr. Troy at the church playgroup?'

"Yeah, he was awesome. I always wanted to learn to play the guitar because of him.'

He's like Mr. Rogers. Only younger. And more energetic. And he wasn't wearing a cardigan. At least not this week.

We wandered into the church proper after the playgroup ended and were treated to his rendition of 'Boy Named Sue' while he tested the church's new sound system. Sweet!

I was perhaps overly proud that, as we were leaving, a Mom at the group (with her non-walking singleton baby) commented on how well I seemed to handle the boys and how impressed she was with how I talked to and managed them. Hah! Fooled her!

Afterwards, the boys' friends and their nannies came back to the apartment for a pizza partay. Woohoo!

There were five toddlers, three babies, three nannies, and me. I was a little self-conscious that they might not think I was as capable as the mom at the playgroup did. I think I disappointed them when I suggested (after 2 hours of toddler wound-up mayhem) that we settle down a bit and watch a show about how trucks are built.

TV!!! Bad Mommy!

Egh, whatever.

After everyone left, the boys and I took a little more time in front of the boob toob, played a rousing game of both Chutes & Ladders AND High-Ho Cherry-O, before I decided that it was time for a trip to the playground.

And then the twirly slide child dogpile commenced. The kids (around twenty of them) loaded themselves over and over again into the slide, bundled in so tight that noone could move. Except to laugh. Hysterically.

Then we went home, there was a bath, some food... maybe a little more TV... and sweet sweet bedtime.

No one was harmed in the making of this photo. Proof that the twins aren't total animals?

Word of the Year, 2012

I never did get on a ferry over winter break. There were a LOT of things I didn't do - paint the kitchen, for example. I didn't read reviews, and while I'm glad I didn't, I also paid for that in terms of the scramble and chaos of the last few weeks at work. Today we approved 12 promotions and all of our merit increases. We are the Lake Wobegon of workplaces - all employees are above average. Monday will be spreadsheets and merged letters, four different versions, multiple spreadsheets and 56 envelopes at least. Then I'm good. Until the hiring for the year gets approved, at least.

I've been making things. Food things. Potato latkes and little meatballs and gougeres and apple sharlotka and cabbage with ham and chocolate chip cookies from scratch and cranberry apple crisp or crumble or whatever it is and fresh wild mushroom toasts and really a lot of lacinato kale. Beyond this, I'm not making much progress, but this IS progress, I keep telling myself. Even though tonight dinner was lasagna from the co-op deli (which I don't feel bad about buying because really, lasagna is a royal pain to make) and I bought beet salad for lunch tomorrow, which I do feel bad about buying, because I suspect it's easy enough even for me, and I forgot to even get the chevre I was going to add to it. 

It's alright. This is what I tell myself nightly, in the little journal I've been keeping about the house. I just want to make that white bolognese sauce some time this month, and learn how to write letters again. Progress. That's the word.