Scooped

I fear all sorts of things when it comes to the twins.  Falling off the deck.  Accidently stabbing each other with sticks.  Catching some sort of dread disease.  Falling on their heads trying to escape from their cribs.

The most predominate of these fears, however, surfaces whenever I have to get the twins in and out of the car in the parking lot.  It's not a problem to unbuckle one child; the difficulty is figuring out what to do with the first child as you unbuckle the second.  They don't really understand the concept of "stay," nor will they hold each other's hands and wait.   Thus far, I've kept the first child standing in front of the one that's getting unbuckled or put him down right in front of me, holding him with my knees.  Nevertheless, I keep seeing a twin darting out into traffic before I could say or do a thing.

It happened once.  It was terrifying.  Even though there weren't any cars moving down our row in the parking lot, there could have been.

When I take the kids with me to the gym, I try to get a space as close to the door as I can.  This vastly simplifies things as I can open the mini-van doors with the clicker from the sidewalk.  This leaves one less thing to do in the middle of the parking lot.

Although getting a good space can be hard on a Saturday, I managed to catch a woman just as she was backing out and put on my blinker.  However, as she pulled away, I could see another car on the other side of her speeding down the lot with it's blinker on.  I hesitated for a minute and the other car spead into the spot.

I was furious.

I had to go deep into the middle of the parking lot and walk far across it, holding a twin on each side of me.  As we passed the Usurper, unpacking her children from the car, I announced to the twins that here was a Mean Lady. 

I am nothing if not Passive Aggressive.

Of course, the Usurper wasn't only going to my gym, but also dropping her kids off at the same child play area.  I managed to get in several looks before she pulled me aside.  "I had my blinker on," she said.

"I did, too," I said.

At this point, I should tell you that I suck at confrontations.  I always want to get away as soon as possible and never know what to say at the time.  I told her that I was there first.  I said that I saw her speed down the lot.  And she asked me if I wanted her to move her car.

You know what?  I should have said, "yes."

Instead, of course, I said, "no" and walked away.

It should have ended there, but the Usurper went to the same BodyFlow class as myself.  She parked her fat ass in over-tight workout clothes right next to my mat and proceeded to exercise there for an entire hour.  I couldn't even get away from this woman during the class.

My only hope was that Hen-Bug somehow managed to cough on her kid while on the play area.

I'm going to be seeing the Usurper again, probably next Saturday.  Maybe I'll just sit in the parking lot with my blinker on, waiting to pouch on whatever parking spot she believes herself entitled to.

Gone

They left this morning.  My MIL, FIL, and BIL left and are on their way home.  Although I'm glad that they came, the lightness in the house is palpable.  I think that three or four days is probably the limit for visitors here.  At six days, the traits that were okay in the beginning become impossibly annoying.

My mantel-piece stocking holders spell "NOEL."  For the duration of my BIL's visit, however, they spelled "LEON."  I'd come downstairs.  I'd arrange them to spell "NOEL."  By the time I came from working at the coffee shop, there would be "LEON" on the mantel.

I don't know a LEON.  I don't want to know a LEON.  NOEL suits me just fine, thank you very much.

My house is also a bit trashed from so many people living in it.  Spots have appeared on the carpet.  There are cigarette butts on the deck.  Fruit flies have spontaneously generated in our kitchen.  It's like the aftermath of a frat party except that nobody got drunk and nobody (I think and hope) had sex.

It's going to take some time to set the house back in order, but it does feel a little better already.  I think, next year, we're going to pony up the extra cash for them to fly back a day or two early.  And I'll know exactly how my parents are going to feel when we descend upon them for six days for Christmas.  At least, we don't smoke.  Or carry fruit flies.  I think.

Blue Birds

One of my favorite, most memorable Thanksgivings, occurred twenty-six years ago.  As a thirteen-year-old, I had several days off from school.  I had nothing to do in terms of either studying or cooking as my mother's ability to prepare dinner seemed to depend on her being almost completely alone.  Holed up in my room, I worked for almost two days drawing a map of Middle Earth with paintings of the major characters scattered around the margins.

Although I would spend other Thanksgivings alone, mainly in graduate school, that holiday a long time ago stood out as one in which I devoted myself to doing something creative for exclusively for myself.   I wonder sometimes, whether the strong desire to spend time alone impacts the twins, as my mother's dislike of having anyone in the kitchen with her, influenced me. 

One of the lovely things about having almost-two-year-olds, however, is that very little seems to faze them.  Although we eventually might trace elements in their personalities back to specific moments or habits, we are thankfully oblivious of these for now.  Everything is good.  The boys are happy.  Having spent the day on my kitchen chairs and planning to spend the day with them tomorrow, so am I.

Before....

After.....one of six chairs.

And close up for the blue birds

One Large Glass of Wine, Please

Last year, I hit upon the perfect Christmas present for both my parents and the in-laws.  I engrave one of those small eighty-page picture albums with their names and the date.  Then, I fill it with pictures taken of the boys throughout the year, arranged by order of month, and preface each month with a description of their activites and skills. 

It's the perfect gift because 1) they don't already have it and 2) it's not something that they can buy themselves.  However, the gift also has a negative side.  Not only does it take me a while to do, but it involves going to the mall and I've shopped online since back when online shopping was a Big Deal.

Whenever I go to the mall, I always park near and enter through Saks Fifth Avenue.  This also has its pros and cons. 

On the pro side, the elevator is large and empty.  Leaving the elevator, you walk through the children's department to get to the mall.  One time, I found a $70 onesie on sale for $15, which meant that one of the twins got to look like some baby out of Pe.ople for a few months.  The part of me which gravitates towards Peo.ple while waiting to purchase groceries got a little thrill from this while the other part worried that I was giving the impression that I would drop $70 on a onesie.

On the con side, I have to deal with the crazies.

The mall was crowded and someone, obviously in a hurry, had parked in the fire lane in front of the store.  I had the boys which proved to be a problem as the car largely blocked the wheel chair ramp.  As I manuevered the stroller up onto the sidewalk, barely on the ramp, the right side knocked against the bumper of the car.

I was on the sidewalk when the young twenty-something came running out of the store screaming at me.  "You Bitch!," she yelled, "Did you hit my car?"

"The stroller might have bumped it," I said, "but you're blocking the ramp and you're in the fire lane."  I was trying to be reasonable here.

"I'm going to sue you if there's a scratch," she screamed, running around the back side of the car to check.  It was nice that she was taking good care of the Chrysler certainly purchased by mommy and daddy, but I doubt that this is what they had in mind. 

As she hurled insults at me, I practiced my usual immediate response to crazy which is to proceed quickly in the opposite direction.  In my book, any overblown, threatening response to a slight, if not non-existant offense, ranks as pretty damn nuts.

My judgment was confirmed when a patrician-looking older woman came up to me in the lobby.  "Did that girl just call you the B-Word?"

"I think she did," I said.

"You should get her license plate," said the woman, "report it to Saks." 

By this time, however, the girl had already sped away.  As I regretted not grabbing that license plate, I wondered what the folks at Saks could do.  Ban her credit card?  Call her parents?  Throw a Manolo Blahnik shoe at her?  In retrospect, any of the three would have been just fine with me. 

And that's the down-side of my response to crazy.  By the time I decide to stick up for myself, however ineffectually, it's usually too late.