So I deposited a check at Schwab...a simple errand, right? No! I parked illegally right in front of the door, ran inside to grab an envelope, drove circles around the parking lot until Katrina was calm, stopped and filled out the envelope, drove more circles until she was calm again, then parked illegally again to zip in there and drop off the envelope...whew!
Then I took Julian and Katrina to the Ice Center in Cupertino to sign up for ice-skating classes (!). Starts Thursday! And Dave is taking the class with me!!!!
We still had some time, so I met up with my Las Madres group at a park with huge open fields of grass, to find all the kids sitting in a line watching a construction crew work on a play area. (Left to right: Erin, twins Kate & Allison (all three sisters), Julian, Gavin, Gina and Andrew.)
Then Julian and Andrew played together with a ball. I got their attention by holding the ball, then tossing it to them, catching the ball midair once (with the camera, that is). It was so sweet to see Julian and Andrew play together; they're getting to know each other and seemed to have a lot of fun (that's cutie-pie Kate in the background).
But the highlight of my day came in the form of inspiration by example.
First, some background: Dave got me a Beatles Love CD for Christmas, which is Beatles music remixed for a Cirque de Soleil show in Las Vegas. We talked about how if we didn't have kids, we'd got to Vegas for a weekend and see the show, what fun that'd be. I LOVE Cirque de Soleil and I LOVE the Beatles. But, that's impossible. We can't go to Vegas by ourselves for a weekend!
Or can we? I was floored when Kristi told me today that she and her husband did exactly that -- they went to Vegas for two days, without their THREE kids, and saw the Beatles Cirque de Soleil show!!! I couldn't believe it! Kristi was the first of our mom friends who had 3 kids (thanks to twins), so she's sort of a trailblazer. It can be done!! Especially if you have a reliable nanny you've known for years and who can take care of the kids overnight. Wow! Katrina's too young to consider that now, but in a year...? We're there!
Yesterday I took all 3 kids to The Smiling Frog, a wonderful used kids' clothing store right in Sunnyvale, and scored some great long-sleeved Gymboree shirts for the boys. Buying used clothes teaches you a lot about quality: these are heavy, strong, but still soft and look great after a lot of washings. And it's so nice to see Julian in a shirt that's not just a little too small for him, and not in a years-old hand-me-down.
Jeans are another story...two pairs of size 3 jeans I got for Julian turn out to be too big for him, and one of those is even too big for Gabriel. So if a used size 3 jeans falls off Gabriel, you can only imagine how the new size 4 jeans I just bought for him worked....forget it! Gabriel wore a new pair today, and they were just enormous -- falling off him, and cuffed twice. Didn't I try them on him at the store?! I did! And I still can't get it right! Julian's no heavyweight either. This problem gets worse every year, as they get taller and relatively skinnier. It won't be a problem for Katrina, since so far every store I see has 10 times more girl clothes than boy clothes. But I'll probably still get most of her clothes at the Smiling Frog, which is far more equitable toward boys than most clothing stores. If I buy her clothes at all that is. So far, hand-me-downs from friends and family for girl clothes demonstrate same favor as stores do.
Dust, dust and more dust. I am SO tired of construction! I never knew painters generated so much dust, but when they sand drywall, you get this fine stuff that flies around and settles on everything: doorknobs, drawer handles, the washer/dryer, dresser and table tops, light switches....even the walls are dusty and the boys' shirts always have smears of dust on them from going up and down the stairs. I've already spent a fair amount of time painstakingly wiping dust from the shutter louvers in the boys' room, and have hours ahead of me.
Though it's a daunting task, I get some consolation from spending time upstairs and trying to get it under control. Slowly, I'm moving the boys' things into their room, and preparing our room to be livable (such as wiping the ubiquitous dust out of our medicine cabinet and setting up the shelves). Slowly I'm trying to reclaim the upper half of our lives, literally.
Tomorrow, back to the Y!
1/9/07
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