Hi. I’m going to try something a little different today.
Amanda (that’s my girlfriend) is attending a C.M.A.A. event this evening and I
will be watching the girls because, well, that’s part of my life now. It’s just
after 4pm, and I’ve worked, worked out, and showered for the day, and I will be
leaving in just a few minutes to pick up the two caterwauling tornadoes. The
rest of this post I will try to transliterate what is happening around me to
you as it is happening. I will embolden
real-time events.
At the daycare center I walked past a few rooms to find the
oldest child. It’s easier to pick her up first because the fewer distractions
the better when getting a two-year-old. I find the oldest on the floor of the
gymnasium picking up bb’s from a small plastic toy box she has dropped. I can’t
imagine why any kids toy would contain bb’s, but here I am trying to find them
on the floor of a daycare gym so no other kids pick them up and eat them. The little one is done with her snack that
you will read about below, so she is trying to hand it to me. I don’t need it
for anything so I tell her to put it on the table.
We leave the big room and head down the hall to get the
young one. She runs to me with arms open and I give her a huge hug: it makes my
day every time. We gather together her things which include: a backpack; a
scarf; various art projects from the day; a hat; and her coat. The little one wants juice now. She doesn’t
really want to put on her coat, so I lie and tell her mommy is at home and it
works. The lie won’t matter in the long run because she isn’t old enough to
remember in the short term, and I can distract her with treats when we get
home.
We get home. Both children want a snack and I oblige them.
They both want Nature Valley granola bars, but they don’t want to eat them out
of the package; they want them in Ziploc bags. Again, I oblige. The little one is again done with her
snack, so this time she sets it on my keyboard; small crumbs dance their way
across the keys until they find a temporary home somewhere in-between the letters.
The older one is now by my side telling me she wants to go to her friend’s
house because she didn’t see her today at school, and I tell her no because I have never met their parents and I don’t
know where they are. The little one is now directly to my left, coughing on my
face several times and whining to me that she can’t find her juice which is on the table in front of us,and now she
wants a pear. She’s crying again saying, “I want eat”. The older is now to my right, sniffling
because she can’t see her friend. I can’t win.
They are both done
crying: It’s one minute later. It’s not dinner time yet, and the girls just
had snacks. They are both whining now.
It’s not crying, but it’s close. The big one still wants to go to her friend’s,
the little one wants her blanky, so I tell her to go get it. She obliges. Nope. She came back without it. I
don’t like giving them snacks too close to dinner time because they won’t eat
their dinner, so if she actually is
hungry now, it is possible I’m being neglectful. Either way, I will start
dinner after I finalize this post. The
little one found the remainder of her sister’s bar and is chewing on it while
she stares at me. She coughs. Her hands and face are sticky and covered with oatmeal
and sugar. It is my responsibility to clean her up, so I will do that now.
We are all settled down now and relaxing in front of the
big-screen watching Angry Birds. It’s time to do something fun before dinner.
Last week I showed the oldest how to start up a batch of agates in the tumbler.
Today we get to check the progress and make sure everything is working properly
before they get closed up for another three weeks.
We checked the rocks, and we found a blanky. I started a
load of laundry, and now it’s time to start dinner. When I started this post I
thought it would be fun to sort of write down what was happening in my life
with two children on a given night. What I realized was that when I’m focused on something else (this post),
I’m not being in the moment with them, and that is the most important thing. So
I’m ending this here, and I will come up with something more substantial when I
have some free time in the coming week.
