Tales of an overzealous Mom, volume 492

NOTE: This was supposed to post on Friday, but I forgot to hit "publish." Yay me! Birthday and Mother's Day post coming tomorrow!
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So my kids had a zoo trip Friday, which I couldn't go on, because of work. (Thank God Lester has a more flexible schedule!)

But I wanted to contribute something to the day, so I made sure to pack a delicious brown-bag lunch they'd love. For Dean, I went heavy on the jelly and light on the peanut butter. For Cary, both sides of the sandwich were spread with equal amounts of each. I made sure to include fruit snacks in with their grapes, because they think fruit snacks are candy. I found stickers of zoo animals and decorated their lunch bags with zebras, giraffes, tigers and toucans. And I made sure to freeze their fruit-and-veggie juice boxes overnight so they'd be nice and cold after hours of walking around the zoo.

Here's a photo Lester took of the boys having their lunch. Look closely. Dean is JUST about to be frustrated. And thirsty.

Because. The juiceboxes were still frozen.

For some reason, they gave the kids lunch at 10:45. Why? No one knows. If they'd eaten lunch at 12 or 12:30 like normal people, maybe there would have been more time for thawing.

But noooooo. 10:45.

The thing is, Lester said to me last night as I was packing the lunches to just put his water bottle and their juices in the fridge. That they'd be plenty cold. But did I listen? Noooo.

Instead, I imagined my kids -- tired from walking the miles and miles of the Baltimore Zoo, sweat rolling down their little temples from the hot sun -- taking that first, long sip of ice cold, refreshing juice and saying, "Man, that's cold. And so delicious. That Mom! She is the best! This sandwich is just right! These fruit snacks are such a treat! But this here cold juicebox? That just really takes the cake. We are so lucky!"

First of all, folks -- it's not even all that hot today. In fact, my poor boys are probably a little bit shiver-y in those shorts. (WHAT IS UP WITH THIS SPRING??) And they got to the zoo at 10 a.m., so I'm sure they weren't even close to being tired from walking around the zoo by the time the dinner bell rang at frikkin' 10:45 (in the MORNING).

So -- all my best-laid plans, thwarted. By too-early-lunches, chilly May days and not listening to my husband's suggestion.

Oh, and P.S. I made Lester a turkey sandwich with Monterey Jack cheese. Guess whose sandwich Cary wanted to eat? "I don't want peanut butter and jelly," he said. "I want a TURKEY sandwich."

Curses. Foiled again.

Packed weekend yet again (vegtivals, trees, music, friends and meltdowns)

Saturday, we went to a festival in my neighborhood, with live music and popcorn and slushies and hula hoops and tons of kids. One little girl recognized C & D from school. She's in the 3s class, and came right up to them, saying, "I know you! You go to my school!!" Cary and Dean looked puzzled and a little bit nervous, but the girl was delightfully cute. Turns out I'd met her mother more than a year ago at Mother Goose on the Loose at our local library. We'd even exchanged phone numbers back then, but never called one another. Isn't that funny? I told her we definitely should link up.

The boys loved the Fall Festival! They still keep asking me about going back to the "vegtival."

 After the festival, we went to a park and climbed a tree.

I still remember when we came to this park when the boys were newish walkers, and they had trouble navigating the ground because of all the roots and sticks strewn about. And now they are attempting to climb the biggest tree at the park!  Wow. This blows my mind.

This was August 2011 at the same park. They could barely walk! I remember being nervous that they were going to trip and kill themselves.

On Sunday, we went to their first music class, and saw a couple with twin girls, Abby and Maya, who we met the day before at the vegtival!!  What a coincidence! Turns out their girls are a month younger than C & D, and they live just a few streets over. So perhaps we'll link up.

(That's two couples I'd like to get to know better. Will I ever link up with them? I don't know. We shall see. Making friends at this age is so...bizarrely hard. It just seems weird to call up people we don't know and say 'Hey! Let's be friends!' But I do want to know more people in my neighborhood. So I'm going to try to get over my reticence. I'll let you know how it goes.)


We also went out to lunch before going to visit my friend Stephanie. This was one of those lunches that goes down in the annals of "Worst Outings Ever."

It started off wonderfully. It was a beautiful day; we sat outside. We ordered food we thought we could eat the bulk of, but keep the boys happy with, too. Turns out, Cary and Dean don't really like fancy grilled cheese sandwiches with apple slices cooked in. Or fancy chicken salad sandwiches with golden raisins. Or butternut squash soup with crabmeat and shrimp. Turns out, they get really mad when it's lunchtime and there's really nothing for them to eat. So that started the shift in the day's happy mood toward Grumpville.

Then, I gave Clair a piece of bread to suck on. She loved, loved LOVED it!

When it was getting close to time to go, I took the soggy chunk of grossness from her to clean her up. She LOST HER EVER-LOVING MIND. We're talking bucking, kicking, screaming, crocodile tears streaming. And it was LOUD. I was shocked!

Then I went to pay for the food at the counter and saw that, as it was a day before Rosh Hashanah, they had samples of kugel. I brought one back to the table for Cary and one for Dean. As we packed up our things, Cary asked for more "macaroni." We told him there was no more and it was time to go. He LOST HIS EVER-LOVING MIND! We're talking screaming, kicking, falling on the ground, crocodile tears streaming. And it was LOUD. I was shocked!

People were giving us the serious stink eye so we tried to hustle on out of there, with Clair in her stroller screaming and Cary in Lester's arms, kicking and screaming. To keep Dean from joining in the meltdown ('cause believe me, he was looking a little left out), I asked him to help me push the stroller. Zealot that he is, Hercules Davis rammed the stroller into the table in front of us. I actually started laughing, because it was just like, "Are you kidding me?"

The people trying to eat at the table were. not. amused. We could not get out of there fast enough.

In other news, Clair has decided that she can't sleep without her pacifier. She wakes up three to four times a night for it. I am exhausted.

And we decided to get a cat. I cannot deal with the mice in Baltimore. And nothing else has worked.

Neither one of us really wants the responsibility of a cat. And I have a bit of an allergy. But I seriously can NOT deal with the mice anymore. Have I said that already? I CANNOT deal.

I'll let you know how it goes.