Just Another Day

Alexander puts on a tough-guy face to go along with his new tattoo, courtesy of a McDonald's Happy Meal. (I know, I said I would never do that. The fast-food stuff, not the tat stuff.) Actually, Mikel put this tattoo on him one evening when I was out singing or something. Needless to say I was very taken aback the next morning when I was helping Alexander get out of his PJs and into his daily wear.

We had a busy busy day. It felt good to get going early and get some things accomplished. For starters I got myself dressed early while Mikel helped the children get ready. He had a doctor checkup, so I took Anna to school. Normally he drops her off on his way to work. Alexander and Shreve came along, also, because once we dropped off Anna we stopped for coffee and then headed over to Shreve's vet. His groomer gave him a much-needed pedicure. Alexander was so cute. He LOVES animals and is very gentle with them. He got to pet about four other dogs, two cats, three tiny kitties. And he asked before petting. Well, actually, in some cases he asked as he was starting to pet. And he also got to help the lady behind the desk feed the goldfish. When he wasn't busy with the animals he played at a little kiddy table.

We were back on the road and headed home by 9:45 a.m. We stopped long enough to drop off Shreve and then headed back out to the YMCA, where I signed us up for a family membership. The Y here is awesome! We signed up because they have a nursery drop-in, where you can leave your children for as much as 2.5 hours a day while you're working out or doing whatever on the Y's properties. Among many other things, the Y offers swim lessons (which we will be taking advantage of) and gymnastics classes. I observed a gymnastics class for Anna's age-group the other night. I have to say I was a little disappointed, but I know I'm comparing it to the specialized private gymnastics-only training center where she goes now. I felt this class got a little better as it went on, and Mikel and I decided that we could make the change now since we don't even really know how well she likes it or will want to stick with it. I really believe in consistency for children, so I hate the change for that reason. But she can still learn the same basics at the Y. And they do have all the same equipment, just the structure of the class and the surroundings didn't seem as nice to me. And there was only one teacher per the 5 or 6 kids. We can always bump her back over to the better gymnastics-only center if it seems like this is something she is really good at and wants to pursue. The Y also has a wonderful free-standing arts-and-science center for children next door and offers lots of classes like children's pottery and what have you. It also offers many levels of all-day or half-day preschool classes, which I originally looked into more than a year ago, but we're not going to bother with that since we really like Anna's Montessori school.

Anyway, Alexander and I left the Y by 11:15 a.m. and headed a few blocks over to Mikel's office, where he met us out front. He and Alexander walked around the block to get their hair cut together while I went to pick up Anna from school. The children are so used to each other and routines. Anna's first words were: "Where's Alex?" We had a brief chat with her teacher about our parent-teacher conference time next week, then we went back downtown and met the boys at their hair appointment.

Next, we had lunch next door at a cute little greasy-diner-type place where Mikel usually eats when he doesn't come home for lunch. In fact, he was still at the hair place when I walked the kids in, sat them down and ordered so we could speed up the process a bit. The waitress knew exactly what he usually orders and I didn't even have to tell her his name. I just said, as I was scanning down the menu items, "My husband comes in here sometimes for lunch and he always gets the same thing..."

On our way back home the kids and I drove the car through a carwash. Alexander, who used to cry at the thought of them, seems to be comfortable enough nowadays. Still a bit tentative though, I think. Anna said to him several times: "It's OK. You don't have to be scared."

It was 2 p.m. by the time we got home, pottied and down for a nap. They both slept but only a little over an hour. After nap we had a snack, a little play time and then hit the bathtub. I let the kids take a longer-than-usual bath today, while I sat on the bathroom floor and folded up clean clothes and read the paper. By the time we got out of the bath, brushed our teeth and dried off it was probably 5:30ish.

Then the really yuckiest, most-disgusting thing you can think of happened. Alexander pooped right on Anna's carpeted floor! I had not made sure he covered his bottom fast enough but thought it wasn't much of an issue since I've been bragging to my whole family about how he's now potty-trained. I have no idea why this happened. I was in his room at the time about to hang up his clothes when he ran in and told me there was poop on the floor. When I saw the enormous mess all I could say was that Shreve doesn't even do that! I had to bring out the rarely used pet carpet-cleaning supplies for this job!

Needless to say, even though I felt it was a pretty good day, I was glad it was near the end and that Mikel would soon be home. I didn't have time to cook dinner after all this, so we enjoyed leftovers.