Julian said he wanted to play with Erin, but he wasn't exactly generous about sharing his toys with her or her sisters. He can climb up all the ladders now, to my surprise, though he got panicked and cried for me once on an easier ladder than this one.
It was cold though! I had to bundle a jacket over Katrina's adorable sweater that Bonne Maman made. She was happy like this for a while, but started getting quietly grouchy, so I left unusually early for me. I called it right: she almost fell asleep in the car on the way home, and needed to eat.
I braced myself for another afternoon, made even more complex by another contractor. I've become overly sensitive to having to coordinate times and deal with strangers in my house, and absolutely hate the prospect of it, even though I was very looking forward to finalizing my closet setup.
California Closets was on time and professional, and the installer was very, very helpful. He had to go back to the shop twice to fix mistakes in his written instructions, and also got me some extra stationary shelves made to move drawers around. I almost thought I should tip him.
I'm thrilled with my new closet setup. The "long hang" (where you hang dresses) should have been tucked way way in the back to begin with. That's essentially storage for me, it doesn't need a prominent position. Shelves for my day-to-day clothes, on the other hand, need to be easily accessible. I've rearranged shelves since taking this picture, and am delighted that the shelf pegs can be moved around without pliers.
I've gotten rid of so much Stuff that all my day-to-day clothes fit in two laundry baskets. These two big white laundry baskets contain all my pants, shorts, T-shirts and long-sleeved shirts. The dresser has underwear, bras, socks, camisoles, things like that; and a few dressy and special-occasion items are on top of the dresser.
Actually, I'm not as frugal as this makes it appear: I also have a lot of workout clothes, including things I only use for specific activities (cycling stuff, swim stuff, dance stuff). Then there's cold-weather gear, special-occasion clothes, sweaters and such, much of which can really be stored rather than put in a prominent place in the closet. Still, I'm psyched that just about everything in my closet will actually get worn on a regular basis.
Incredibly, there was never a time during the closet reconfiguration and talking to the installer that I was being pulled by more than one child at once.
Even more incredibly, Katrina took a real afternoon nap today. A whole hour and a half!! With the boys, that would have been a bummer short nap. But the main thing I don't like about Katrina's ultra-short afternoon naps is that she doesn't like them either. Today, after a decent sleep, she woke up gurgly and wiggly and cute and happy. And for me, having some real time off -- and a happy baby when that time "off" was over -- made a huge difference in how the whole afternoon went. Yay!
Gabriel wanted to play with Play-Doh this afternoon, a relatively rare thing for him. He cleaned up the whole family room first, then spread out a mat to work on. Of course, the rug was still covered with teeny bits of Play-Doh afterward anyway. After dinner, the boys played together happily with it for quite a while. Then they started arguing during cleanup and Gabriel held the whole canister of Play-Doh over Julian's head as if to hit him, and it all went downhill from there. Sigh.
Still, today we closed on an uptick. I needed that.
3/27/07
p.s. Oh, I forgot: Gabriel didn't get into the alternative school we'd applied for, so he'll be going to Collins Elementary starting in late August for kindergarten. I'm glad we know where he's going....to...KINDERGARTEN!!
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