Values

Oh, New York, how I love you. I just bought a sweater and a hot chocolate. The sweater was $5. The hot chocolate was $6.

Vagaries of the Young and Hungry

Tonight, between dinner and bedtime, Thyme disappeared into the kitchen. A moment later, he returned to the living room, holding a large box of sopressata.

"Didn't you already brush your teeth?" I asked. Both boys have been debriefed on the threat that sugar poses to teeth.

He nodded vigorously. At that point, Sage piped up.

"It's hot sopressata, not sweet."

Cleaning a Couch

The only effective way to clean a couch is to burn it.

I'm hearing voices in my head...

...but that's because two toddlers have been screaming in my ear all night. Whatever problems I have, auditory hallucinations aren't among them. At least, not anymore. I took a pretty good hit to the chin the other day, and my ears were ringing for a while after that, but now I'm left with only a bruise.

Look at me, blogging again, like it's 2005.

So, tonight Sage screamed and bucked as I attempted to place him in the bathtub. I would have skipped it, but he and Thyme spent at least an hour playing in the sort of dirt patch surrounding a tree that many of the city's pent-up large dogs have probably taken delight in defiling. I struggled and wrestled him in, and then finally handed him a cup with which to play in the water. After calming down and playing quietly with it for about ten minutes, he turned to me with his little soggy head and asked, "Why I didn't want to take a bath?"

I thought my evening would be clear after that, but then Thyme peed the carpet, requiring that I hurry along the diaper-applying process. Then, Sage refused to wear a clean diaper. I was dealing with that just fine until he actually went and FISHED A USED WET DIAPER OUT OF THE TRASH AND DEMANDED THAT I PUT IT ON HIM. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHICH CHILD SOILED IT ORIGINALLY. I flatly refused, and finally coaxed him into a dry one. Then Thyme demanded the wet one. I am not kidding. After that, Ty and I fed them on the fly, catching the scraps of food that they flung in an effort to get some sustenance for ourselves.

This night hasn't been all that unusual. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I often have nothing but a birth control pill for breakfast.

Broken Fashion Plate

You can tell I'm having a difficult week because of the way I dressed today to take the kids to school. I wore my old Costco pajama top beneath my coat, the one I've been wearing since Tuesday. That's something I would never usually do. Usually, when I wear my pajamas out in public, they're no more than 24 hours old.

Take Monday, for example. The pajamas I wore to sign my children up for school for next year, at the first-come-first-served registration place, were less than 12 hours old. I think that's some kind of record. I even wore underwear underneath them, and I would have pulled on pants, too, had my much-more-awake-than-me mother not scream-whispered, "Don't get dressed! Just GO!" in my ear. She knew; she had run all the way from the school to my apartment, because my cellphone was off and I slept right through my ringing landline. I had set my alarm for 6:30 so that I could relieve my wonderful parents at 7, who were doing the early shift waiting in line. Lo and behold, registration started early, and now my mom doesn't need to have a stress test for quite awhile. She is clearly in better shape than me, because I ran the same distance, and I still feel like I've been hit by a Mack truck.

It was worth it, though. We got about 90% of the schedule we wanted. Bottom line is, WE GOT IN. Chalk one up for the little guy. Actually, the little guys.

Waste, Post-Haste

When Ty and I got married, his old bachelor “love seat” served briefly as our living room couch. I put a stop to that not quite as promptly as I did the sublet from his ex-girlfriend, or his old mattress, but with all due haste nonetheless. Said loveseat became mere extra seating, and, upon the arrival of Sage and Thyme, was further demoted to a baby-changing area. As they grew and the composition of their diets changed from primarily liquids to primarily solids, we even did away with the waterproof pad and towel that covered the upholstery.

In doing so, perhaps we were finally too hasty.

Things I’ve learned in the past week include, feces is a protein stain! Who knew? Vomit, apparently, is a protein stain as well, according to the good folks at Woolite Stain Solutions, who, by the way, have singlehandedly managed to save our living room rug, which is the most expensive household item we own that isn’t somehow connected with food or sleeping. Props to you, Woolite. Props to you.

And speaking of rugs...while I try not to strain my imagination in contemplating the protein stains that Ty’s loveseat saw before I came on the scene, I’m quite certain that they were obtained more enjoyably than its modern protein stains.

Games People Play

So now I’m in the process of applying to local nursery schools for next year. I missed one of the application deadlines.

Do you know why? Because the deadline was November 30th.

When I was applying to college, I applied to a Seven Sisters school. The application deadline was January 15th. I also applied to an Ivy League school. That application deadline was January 1st.

Another local nursery school has a more forgiving deadline: February 1st. They notify you whether you got in during the first week of March. (Here, I should add that the nonrefundable down payment for next year at our current school--in other words, the only school we currently have two guaranteed spaces--is due in early February.)

When I got into college, my school notified me that I’d gotten in before the end of January.

The payment needed to hold my spot in college was approximately one-fourth of what I will be required to pay to hold ONE spot for ONE of my children.

And, as we all know (all 0.3 of my regular readers, anyway), I HAVE TWINS.

I probably shouldn’t count on getting into the March school, though, as I’ve called them twice to find out minor issues like 1) the hours my children would be in class next year, assuming they got in, and 2) how much tuition I would be paying, and they’ve never returned my phone calls.

I’ve defaulted to the old maxim: If you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it.

In the meantime, my brilliant children continue to make me feel guilty for not absolutely getting them into the Very Best School in America, by asking questions such as, “Where do shadows come from?” and then listening intently to my explanation. Later on, they’ll say over dinner, “Light is both a particle and a wave, Daddy.”

They ask so many wonderful questions, it’s exhausting. So exhausting that I’ve had to resort to some tricks.

“Sage,” I say. “Do you want to play a game?”

“Yeah.”

“How about you, Thyme?”

“Yes!”

“Ok, we’re going to play Sleep Study.”

“I want to play Seep Tuddy.”

“Good. Here’s how you play: I’m the subject, and you’re the researchers.”

“I’m the ree-searcher.”

“Good. And I have to be asleep, and you have to monitor my pulse while I sleep. Now, here, you each have to hold one of my wrists, ok? I’ll be asleep, and you’ll be monitoring my wrists, got it?”

“Got it.”

They each grab one of my wrists and stare at it, expectantly, while I close my eyes.

“Don’t let go, okay?”

“Kay!”

I got about 90 seconds of sleep out of the deal, which was enough time for Ty to boil water for coffee and tea without tiny fingers trying to interfere. Not too shabby, if you ask me.