Wednesday, February 13, 2008

A little more

Yesterday we had the carpets cleaned, which meant that I had to fabricate stuff to do out of the house all day long. LOL First we went to Lowe's (see above) and then to the park, which is known by the twins as "The Elementary School Park". Harrison suprised (and scared) me by going down the fireman pole repeatedly. Luckily he practiced while I was on the swings with Cam. The first few times I'd seen him attempt that feat I was up on the playground too, and that view from the top made my knees weak with the thought of him crashing from a great height. Once I saw that he was confident (and not lying in a heap) I stopped worrying.

We did a few more errands, and the boys took a nap in the car. I anticipated this and bought a "House Beautiful" magazine on one of our stops. I parked the car in the shade at Deseret Book and read, which may have been my favorite part of the day (!).

Then we went to DB, picked up M., and took her to her piano lesson. (Have I mentioned that she started piano lessons last month?) We played with the Shapiros for a while and then headed to a different park (Cinnamon Ridge) with all four kids. Poor Tyce is sick, and even though he went to school yesterday he felt terrible. I talked to our former neighbor Drake, and hardly recognized him now that he's in 8th grade. I used to take him to school when he was in elementary school. (Once in middle school I harldy saw him except zipping by on a skateboard occasionally.) And there he was, with one of my Young Women! I wanted to say, "Hey stay away from each other! You both have problems and you're just going to make trouble!" but I didn't.

After that we went to McDonalds for dinner, just so the kids could keep running around. I went through the drive-through and then took our stuff inside. Mary was lucky enough to have two friends there (sisters). Tyce did a little homework, played a video game, but felt horrible. The twins had a great time playing until . . . Harrison took off his pants/underwear and peed in the play tunnel. I. Wanted. To. Die. There was a mother there who freaked out and dragged her son out of there, which maybe I would have done too, but as it was I was just shouting "Put your pants back on!" which H. scurried away laughing. And what does Cameron do????? He takes his pants off too but doesn't pee (that I know of). So here are two boys, naked from the waist down, running around these tunnels trying to avoid capture by Mary (who has a history of making things worse), while Tyce crawls up with paper towels to clean up the mess.

I gathered my things without making eye contact with anyone. When the boys made it down the slide I took one, Tyce took the other, and I vowed to never take those naughty boys out in public again.

2 comments:

Mopsie said...

How DOES one instill a sense of social correctness in a small child? Some kids seem to have it, others don't. Does talking do any good? Reasoning? Explaining? I'd guess everyone gets it eventually. Till then, SMILE! You've just made some Mom's day.

Anonymous said...

Becky,
This is hilarious! I know at the time it wasn't, but the way you describe it is a riot. Thanks for sharing!