Tuesday, August 11, 2009

8/11/09 The reset

Yay....we managed to go OUT to dinner tonight, all of us. Old friends in town was enough to get us all to our longtime moto-friends' Tuesday night dinner. I love that the boys are old enough now to feed there, no bringing things for them (which has been true for a while)...but Katrina still needs toddler-attention. High chairs, pacifying food, getting up a lot to deal with her whims.

Still, our plan worked: I managed to persuade Katrina to have some dinner at home first (though most of our pre-dinner time at home was spent in a full-blown tantrum), arrived at the restaurant early, ordered dinner for the boys, and got my waitressing started. Dave met us there and got his dinner started, and we were well under way by the time friends arrived. Then, by the time the kids were getting socially unacceptable, Dave was ready to whisk them away, and I got to stay and chat. And Katrina loved Louise! Louise cleverly mentioned something about a pony, and Katrina lit up.

Someday, going out to dinner won't be such the scramble...or will it? The boys weren't exactly on their best behavior, but Katrina is still the one who occupies most of my attention. These times remind me again how "done" I am with the tantrumy toddler thing. "Pick up me, Mommy! Pick UP me!"

But the real reset came at work today.

Our new director scheduled 20-minute meetings with all 10 worker-bees who work under him now, to meet each of us individually and review our areas of work. 20 minutes each, back-to-back meetings -- hardly warm'n'friendly. It's something I just shouldn't wiggle out of this time, but I have been seethingly resentful that it's on the first day of school. But the day he scheduled was inconvenient for him, so he (or someone for him) rescheduled 10 other people's afternoons....to a week after the first day of school. YOOPEEE! Now I'm taking that whole day OFF so I can be there to greet both my boys after their first day of school! On paper I can't explain why that would be so important...but it really is.

8/11/09

1 comment:

Louise said...

Hey, that's good news on the work schedule.

It was really great to see you last night. I really enjoy how we can drop into Tuesday dinner anytime and fall back into the old groove as if we never left. Very nice.

I'm glad that the magic word "Pony" won us all Katrina's charming giggles. She really is a cutie. Maybe a pony-themed bribe will finalize the potty training? I had Breyer horse toys as a kid and looooooved them.