We go to the Museum of Natural History today. Because it is summer and we can do this. Lilly is wearing underpants, the thick cozy cotton kind, which really just means I spend alot of time taking her in the bathroom. She does not like to get on the potty. She will pee though, if I do the pee pee dance. I set her on the potty and then she tells me to dance, so I dance around and look at her under my legs and she'll pee. I am a trained monkey, and I miss diapers. Diapers means she's little. I'm going to buy diapers tomorrow.
The museum looks just like museums look. Like time has stopped since Eisenhower was in office.
I learned that T-Rex has narrow hips and therefore lays a narrow egg, and that Triceratops has wide hips and lays a nice round egg. T-Rex has teeth the size of bananas.
I learned that I don't like to leave downtown LA without all the children in the car - they stayed with the friends we met there for an extra hour. It took Lilly about 20 minutes driving down the freeway before she figured out we weren't driving around to pick the kids up, but actually driving home. She howled. She wanted them with us. Then I started thinking, does she know something? What if something happens? Perhaps they'll be mugged by a dinosaur gang. Museum guards will lure them into dissecting rooms. And the usual child snatching. I managed to eat pizza at home, obviously not that stressed, and they made it home. Went to pick them up at their friends' house. Ended up staying 2 hours while they played Clue. One of their friends was determined to win. Nathan was interested in the game for about 40 minutes (a miracle for him) and then spent the rest of the game drawing on his face with a pen. Emma was so hungry she forgot how hungry she was. Lilly peed in her pants.
I also learned that the day after you go ice skating with a 3 year old (that was yesterday), your shoulders really kill. Bent over like the witch from Hansel and Gretel, helping someone tiny who is trying to balance on tiny metal strips on ice. Good times. Or maybe I'm sore because I forgot the stroller and had to heft Lilly around the entire museum.
She only held my hand when she was a little scared, which for her usually means live grenades exploding. She never wants to hold hands right now, so when she snuck her hand up to mine as we approached the huge elephant exhibit, it made me feel like yes, I can do something here. She still needs a little protection. She didn't understand why the elephants didn't make the elephant noise. I'm surprised she didn't notice that the elephants didn't move, like, AT ALL.
The kids probably had the best time sliding down the bannisters and throwing ice from a pile of cast off McDonald's ice at lunch. Outside the museum, in front of the rose garden, as we ate our highly nutritious lunch, the kids got cups and cups of ice and threw the pieces in high arcs into a trash can. It's the best part of summer, not necessarily the learning, but the friendship, the time stopping for a bit to shove an icy hand down someone's shirt.
Being out in Downtown LA with three blondies, being responsible for - I figured out - 30, 65, 100, almost 200 pounds of human aside from my own flesh... it's a big job, this mothering. The best part is, I weighed myself on the "How Much Do Your Bones Weigh" scale, and 32 pounds of me is bones. Which you really can't count. So I am technically at my ideal weight. Which is a nice feeling.
In the car, I was daydreaming about getting back to my piano, the new love in my life. And the garden, where the squash plant is growing up and wrapping it's tiny veins around the metal trellis I stuck around it. You set it out there, and it looks up for your support. Nature answers you. I guess these are the little moments of peace, the knowing that no matter where you are, there is a stretch up ahead, of peace, waiting for you. In fact, it's all around you.
Putting Emma to bed, I was feeling her heavy 8 year old head. And ice skating with Nathan, he let me hold his meaty 9 year old hand. He's going to knock me over someday, with his hugeness. He's still that tiny baby in Florida, he's just, well, smarter.
I talked to Robert, my friend, about how summer is busier than school, in a way. It's hard to find moments of peace in all the commotion and all the meeting of needs and household work. On the ice yesterday, feet throbbing, Lilly in tiny bird skates, she looked up at me and said "I wanna see the kitty movie." She was done skating. She just wanted to be home in bed. Watching "The Aristocats."
My little pieces of peace. We're coating ourselves with summer.
