11/19/09 Playground

Before my day turned upside-down, it started off normally enough...as normal as anything gets with three children at a school playground. I really don't have to walk Julian to class anymore, but I've been working so much I just felt like it.

Gabriel and Katrina had a great time chasing each other and playing hopscotch, while Julian reunited with his kindergarten friends. It'd been hours since they'd seen each other, after all.





But, I can always count on Katrina to take a vision of a nice relaxed morning and inject a tantrum into it. Starbucks had some stuffed animals and other kid-attractive items in a basket at her level (on purpose, I'm sure), and my gentle admonition to her to put a monkey back into the basket was not well-received.


The tantrum continued on the sidewalk outside the store. The difference between Katrina and Gabriel at this age, though, is that when I walk away, Katrina loses her nerve and gets up and runs after me, wailing pitifully: "MOM-*MEEEE*!!!!" Uncharacteristically, I wasn't at all rattled by this. I wonder if my calm attitude was viewed by onlookers as lax ("DO something!") or strong ("way to keep cool mom!"). Some onlookers did shoot me a glance of sympathy -- for Katrina, like, "ohhh, poor girl!" to which I responded with a giant eye-roll.


I'd planned to spend the afternoon baking a nice-looking tart for a dinner we were going to Friday night, and I did, but not in a relaxed way at all. I rushed through it so I could hit the books and prepare for an interview I had the next day. It's one thing to really not know something, but another thing entirely to know something but not to be able to speak about it intelligently because it's one or two sentences removed from your immediate memory.

Children, grownup social life, work....the day was balanced, but there was too much work in all of it!

11/19/09