This morning, I took Katrina running at Rancho San Antonio -- about half the distance and one-tenth the climbing from my galactic effort last Thursday, but rewarding nonetheless. To me, anyway. She mostly slept through it.
Meantime, Gabriel and Julian went to their first Saturday morning swim lessons together at DACA. Well, together at the same time, but a different class. Julian is a "rainbow" level right now, but his teacher said he's almost a "green." Dave was impressed with the way the classes were run, and thinks they both got a good lesson in. Though my intent is for Dave to take the boys on Saturday mornings, I'll miss my time alone with Gabriel on Tuesday mornings for swim class.
After running, I went straight to Portal Park for a Las Madres 2006 picnic, with my 2006 baby. I toyed with the idea of leaving my 2002 and "2004" babies at home, but I'd told Betsy they were coming, since Gina and Andrew wanted to play with them. So as much for her sake as theirs, I had Dave bring the boys to the park.
It worked! We didn't see much of Gabriel or Gina, but as is often the case, if you can find one, you can usually find the other. Julian and Andrew played a lot together too.
All four ran around the bushes together in teams of two, hiding, chasing, and calling the other "team" names. Andrew and Julian tried to keep up with the older two, but were at a serious disadvantage -- not just in age, size, strength, speed; but in force of personality.
Katrina had little interest in swinging, pausing in her relentless, piercing, downright obnoxious screeching just long enough for this photo.
Meantime, Julian pushed Blake, the younger brother (and just 4 weeks older than Katrina) of his pal Kyan at Tonya's. (Blake and Kyan's mom is a very serious athlete, who's done something like 15 marathons, including the elite Boston Marathon.)
After the park, we had a fairly peaceful afternoon at home. We all went out to dinner at Spoons later, but with mixed results. Katrina was impossible, with her high-pitched screech cutting right through the whitenoise at the restaurant and making it unbearable for anyone within 20 feet. I did my level best to distract her, feed her, entertain her; but it's hard while cutting up broccoli for boys and trying to eat something myself too, and she was horribly demanding.
Then we trucked the whole family to the new Whole Foods, with a lack of eggs as a thin excuse to check it out again. At 7pm on a Saturday night, we still had trouble parking. It was packed once again, and no wonder. The place is mind-blowing. I'd like to go back and check out the olive-oil and balsamic-vinegar tasting bars, the Asian Food Express area (with dim sum and sushi chefs), the changing room (for all the organic-cotton clothing), the soup bar, the massage room, the Market Bistro area, the enormous chocolate and sundae bar, and, of course, the bakery. This is the biggest Whole Foods west of Austin Texas, says the newspaper. But an overtired Katrina sapped the fun out of it again, and we hurried through the new express checkout (one line for six express cash registers). It'll be fun to explore it without a screeching baby in tow.
In fact, I could do without the screeching baby in general. The screeching, anyway. The baby, I'll keep.
8/25/07
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