Weekend of Wild Things

After my sad despair on Friday afternoon, the weekend was a pretty good one. I didn't watch the news. I did a lot of socializing. In fact, I saw a couple of friends Friday night that I don't see very often and we had one of those evenings of conversation and wine where you lose track of time--I thought I'd be home by 10:30 and when I first thought to glance at the time, it was almost midnight. I can't even tell you the last time I was out so late! I'm so wild and crazy.

On Saturday, we took the girls to the Where the Wild Things Are exhibit at Central Library, which was really cute. Zuzu was acting so bratty as we were getting ready to go, didn't want to put her shoes on, and was being generally obnoxious. We practically had to drag her out to the car, which is weird because she's usually up for any kind of going out. In fact, I asked David if we should just skip it, but both of us wanted to go, so we decided to power through.

She continued to be difficult as we walked the block from our car to the library--it seemed like pure naughtiness and I was SO aggravated. As we climbed the steps to the library, we looked at the big banners with illustrations from the book, and I asked her to pose for a photo. She didn't want to cooperate, which I should have expected from Captain Contrarian. Then, as we started to open the door to go inside, she asked me to carry her.

And that's when I finally realized that she was SCARED of the seeing the Wild Things, but didn't want to admit it.

So I quickly explained that we weren't going to see real wild things, that it was all just pretend and for fun, and I showed her the cut-out wild thing monster in the lobby of the library.

Then she was all smiles, skipping and following the wild thing footprints up the stairs and to the display. If only we could have cleared up that misunderstanding MUCH EARLIER.

(Side note: I love when Zuzu substitutes the word "footprints" for "footsteps"--as in "Do you hear the Big Bad Wolf's footprints, Mommy?")

The display was cute and small and I took a zillion photos and blew up Instagram with them, even though my subjects were not always cooperative (ahem, Coco). 

Coco was actually hilarious--she loved having a taste of freedom at the exhibit (thankfully, it wasn't crowded). She didn't want to be carried and really didn't want to be held for the photos in front of the green screen that I coerced them into taking. 

She basically ran laps around the display, grinning and waving at other visitors.

Both girls fell asleep on the way home, so I went and visited my friends who recently had a baby while the girls were napping. I had a nice conversation with them and reminisced fondly of the days of sitting around holding a sleeping newborn and binge watching Netflix. Ah, good times.

When I got home, it was past time for us to leave for dinner, but of course since I hadn't been there all afternoon, no one was ready to go. Insert that emoticon that is gritting its teeth.

Thirty minutes later, we were more than thirty minutes behind schedule, but on our way. My friend Erin had invited us and another couple over for dinner at her new house. The girls were pretty well-behaved, although I did haphazardly childproof her living room as Zuzu and Coco came upon, among other things, cat toys, wire cutters, a box cutter (!), a box of kleenex just asking to be destroyed, and several pens and pencils.

We all went outside after dinner and sat around a fire pit. It would have been the perfect night for it, but it ended up being totally nerve-wracking for David and me. Coco stumbled around like a tiny drunk person, but didn't want to be held. She only wanted to (1) eat gravel or (2) run staggering as close to the fire pit as possible. Every effort to deter her from these two activities was met with very strong, very LOUD resistance.

Zuzu, meanwhile, entertained all present by pretending to make cupcakes out of gravel (gravel! the BEST TOY EVER!), singing "Let It Go," and occasionally asking me nervously if I thought there was a scarecrow behind the tree in Erin's yard.

She's also discovered poop humor and tries to tell poop jokes, which is a delight.

When we went inside for cake, Zuzu insisted she wanted a piece because it had strawberries on top, then didn't care for the sweet whipped cream frosting and asked if she could get strawberries without "that yogurt" on them. So she passed on the (delicious) cake and ate an orange.

Coco shared my cake.

On Sunday I went to brunch with friends from work to celebrate a birthday. I ate a gluttonous and disgusting amount of food and had a nice time, even though I wasn't feeling great.

In fact, I ended up feeling worse as the day went on. I thought I was just tired because Coco did another wee-hours wake up and then I couldn't go back to sleep (I ended up watching TV at 3am and finally dozing off some time around 4, only to have Coco wake up again at 6). But I never rallied (in spite of the coffee I had at brunch).

Zuzu refused to nap, and Coco slept in the morning and wouldn't go down in the afternoon. This was ominous since we'd invited friends over for dinner Sunday evening (this was basically the most social weekend ever). So I was forcing myself to clean house for company and do laundry and other stuff to get ready for the week even though I was just dragging. I'd invited our friends (and their daughter who is Zuzu's age) to come over around 4pm and I ended up calling them to delay start time by an hour because the meat David was making was taking forever to smoke and I still needed to run up to the grocery store to get bread.

I sent the girls outside with David to play while he finished up yard work slash meat smoking and drove up to the grocery store. As I headed to the bakery section, I realized I was being ridiculous. I was so tired and crappy feeling that if I were getting sick, I didn't want to pass that along to our friends, and regardless of their immune systems, I felt bad enough that I wasn't going to be any fun. I felt like curling up and going to bed, not chatting at dinner. If the roles had been reversed, I would have told my friend that we'd take a raincheck, but I still felt bad about it.

Zuzu was so excited about seeing her little buddy (which was probably part of the reason she hadn't napped, but as a result she was acting like a hell-beast all afternoon--and I mean that in the most affectionate way possible). But in addition to Zuzu's excitement, David and I had been looking forward to seeing these friends too! Still, there was no point in having them over so that I could stare blankly and mouth breathe at them. So I ended up calling from the grocery store to explain I wasn't feeling well and asked if we could reschedule. Which of course they were super nice about because, obviously, they are friends who understand such things. It was just a bummer that I didn't feel up to it.

When I got home, David had the girls already eating dinner and I didn't really feel hungry. By 6pm, I'd given them baths and put them in their pajamas. 

We loaded up in the car and drove back to the store to get ice cream, and then cruised around until they were both asleep. It didn't take long.

We got home, transferred the girls to bed (Coco required rocking, Zuzu was totally out), I ironed clothes and got stuff organized for the week, David made himself some dinner, and then we watched TV and went to bed early.

Whew. This week--this month!--is a busy one for us. I'm still feeling tired today, so I'm busting out the zinc and vitamin C and special tea and essential oils to homeopath myself to health! In the meantime, you'll find me drowning in stacks of papers to grade.