Today, we had to leave the house early, so as to be absent during decontamination cleaning. Carl did not want to leave the Lego set he acquired last night, ostensibly with his own money, but in reality highly subsidized by me. Probably I shouldn’t have chipped in, but I got tired of explaining that he could only afford the stuff he either didn’t want or already had, and I will just adjust his birthday gifts from Mommy and Daddy accordingly.
So we worked out a deal to put together the little Lego guys and leave the rest until later. Then, it was off to one of the local panaderías for a completely nutrition free breakfast for the kids and a taco for me, all because I am an incompetent housekeeper.
My big plan for today was to go to a storytime tour at the local mansion/decorative arts museum. I had forgotten just how insidiously snobby this place is, and even though it was a well-promoted children’s program, the general vibe from the docents and guards was ‘let’s get this over with as soon as possible and you grubby kids just be quiet and hold still, exit that way, good-bye now…’ It also seems that it helps to be an overdressed subdued little caucasian girl child of about six years old, tethered to a nanny, grandma, or impeccably groomed upper-income stay at home mom. We didn’t really fit the mold.
I figured it wouldn’t be Carl’s exact cup of tea. My reasoning was that it was a short program, it wouldn’t hurt him to try something new, and I thought the novelty of the place would work in my favor. He liked the storybook readings, and he was much more interested in some of the paintings, statues, and porcelains than I would ever have guessed. However, I was still a bit disappointed and rather stressed by his behavior while we were there….not quite bad enough to remove him immediately, but certainly not as good as I know he is capable of. Ruby really liked the place, though.
After, it was getting hot outside so we headed for the downtown library. I read about eight story books to them while we waited patiently for a turn with the library’s Wii, and then Carl and I ineptly played the Lego Batman game for our allotted hour. By then, we were all starved, and since I am Such a Cool Mom, and I didn’t want to mess up a clean house any sooner than necessary, we went to one of those places with a play area, where the kids burned off almost as many calories as they consumed. The late afternoon was devoted to Lego construction (me), W@bkinz (Ruby), and running back and forth between the two (Carl).
Ruby decided Carl needed a W@bkinz account of his own, which was part generosity on her part, as they have been playing together with the stuffed animals constantly and he has been interested in what she does online with them. But it was also motivated by Ruby’s realization of the possibilities, if there were two accounts she could get into, so she has been giving Carl rather firm direction on how to manage his animals.
Tomorrow the kids are going to gymnastics daycamp: expensive for me, but exhausting and usually fun for them. We need a break from each other and I have a few grown up things to do.
What’s a cannonball’s favorite game? Swallow the leader! Ruby checked a book of “gross out jokes” out of the library and was reading them to us on the way home. I heard several cannonball jokes and I must confess it took me more than one to grasp that she meant to say “cannibal.” Which brings up the point that she is both in a spell of creative mispronunciation (the other fun one is the W@bkinz she bought Carl: a St. Bernard puppy, but she calls it “Saint Beard”), and she is old enough to unselfconsciously enjoy and mostly understand that kind of joke.
PS: The font size thing is completely out of control. Would someone like to teach me enough html or whatever so that I can fix it?