three failed attempts at taking the monkeys out in public and having them keep those little boxy hats on and hit their drums in rhythm.
1. went outside when it was 9 degrees. face palm. henry looked so pale i just wanted him to feel the sun on his head for a wee moment...and it was so sunny and deceptively nice looking outside and we were so cooped up and we were only going to go to the park for a minute and....anna poopsploded all over herself about halfway down the block and then cried hard because she was so embarrassed and then when i told henry we'd have to turn around to go fix anna's situation, he was VERY disappointed and so also started screaming at me and....police were not called but headline would have been 'crazy lady drags 2 kids and a stroller through the snow in arctic temps while everyone cries.'
2. went to the movies with a 2 week old baby. sigh. i think i was underestimating how much i don't get my life back yet. and i was all excited because there are SO MANY good oscar pics this year and i SO wanted to get out of the house to go see one. so a friend and i went to 'her,' thinking it'd be a quiet movie conducive to infant sleep...and it was, sort of, but anna seemed to cry every time there was a sex scene, which there were surpassingly many, considering it's about a man and his computer device (yep), and so i'm convinced all members of the audience were equally appalled i'd bring a baby out in that weather and annoyed i was messing up their indy movie sex moments with infant squeaks. long story longer, i ended up nursing her on the floor of the lobby while spike jonze asked existential questions about the status of our human condition and diminishing ability to connect and joaquin phoenix mustached really well with his pants pulled up super high.
3. went to the fancy mall. trying not to spend much money while on leave, so won't make a practice of going shopping, but my sister's birthday is soon so in my head, i took my lovely silent children for a poke around the mall and found just the right cute little something for her and we all shared a spot of tea and had a gay old time.
what actually happened is that the connector thingy for the carseat to the stroller wasn't yet connected, so i watched a youtube video of how to do it in the parking garage of the mall and after swearing it into place finally, the locking mechanism on the wheel of the stroller wouldn't unlock so stroller wouldn't roll and my phone died from being out in the cold....and so i borrowed a wheelchair from the mall concierge (this is a very fancy mall, did i say that?) and pushed my baby in carseat around in that....and the other kid lagged behind and wouldn't go into any of the stores with just the right cute little somethings for my sister in them, but would only go into the lego store, and so we bought $20 of way age inappropriate legos with 500 pieces and swords and guns and all other stuff he shouldn't play with so that he would play quietly while i bought and ate another $20 worth of mall food court food. no presents were bought. but he did mention his penis to a stranger in an elevator. and then the baby screamed herself hoarse the whole way home.
so now we're inside the walls of my home and here we shall stay until they are about 7 and 9.
i actually think we're doing ok. i have yelled at henry way more than i ever used to. (because he's not used to it, it sort of startles him out of whatever he's doing and kind of works. but i mustn't over apply or it will lose its magic). i haven't broken down and sobbed on any park benches or torn any doors off their hinges or gone through with any of my threats to throw a kid in a snowbank or sell one to passing gypsies. i consider that a win.
and everyone's dressed and clean and fed and the house is actually not too filthy. and we have lots of new legos to play with.
but, seriously, this winter can lick my left nut, am i right? we need some balmy 30 degree weather already. sheesh.
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