After spending yesterday doing nothing too interesting, the girls and I were up for a treat. Our friend had scored some free passes to Ciccotti Center in Colonie, so that sounded perfect. I dumped the ice skates out of our big canvas bag and filled it with towels and goggles instead. Hooray!
Except that some time between the morning confirmation call and our actual arrival, the fabulous pool area was shut down by a health inspector! Dang! Four children in bathing suits, pressing their noses against the glass to look at the looks-fine-to-us-because-we-don’t-have-microscopes pool area. There were some tears. We needed a Rapid Response Plan B, so we ended up going to see Rio. Both grown-ups were pretty grouchy, because chit-chatting while our kids ran around having wholesome and physically active fun had been our plan, and now we were reduced to eating Milk Duds in front of a large screen. And yes, of course we had to buy the Milk Duds. Wonderful: if you can manage to go to the movie theater without eating popcorn and Milk Duds, I am happy for you. But not so happy that I want to hear about it, okay?
The movie was cute. We skipped the nausea-inducing 3-D option. M, who recently saw Hop at a birthday party, liked Rio better than Hop, in case you’re pondering your options. Because the weather forecast calls for Continued Crappiness for the foreseeable future.
However, I have had a Domestic Triumph, at least. For weeks I’ve been trying to find a cabinet for tucking away some of our many, many games. Cute W loves games. He’s always getting new games. And he wants them to be quickly and easily accessible in the living room. I’ve struggled with this for a while, as you can see from a photo I posted over a year ago. More recently, I’d tried to pare down the games and store them under our coffee table. Here’s how that looked:
Yeah: not so good. Anyway, I have this odd little space in my living room where I could put a cabinet, but they were all too small inside or too heinous outside. But lucky for me, I was killing time at Target, where they choose to put a bunch of furniture in one place, and then some other furniture in an entirely different place so that you don’t notice it at all unless you are just standing around because your children could look at the Littlest Pet Shop toys all day.
And since I wasn’t clever enough to pick up a magazine before heading to the toy section, I found the answer! Looky-look-look!
These baskets contain 23 games, 8 puzzles, 50 movie DVDs, and eight seasons of Little House on the Prairie. I know, can you believe it? Cute W assembled the shelves and I organized the stuff last night, but the real triumph came late this afternoon, when my daughters spent an hour and a half playing several different games. First, there was an hour and a half of harmony before any drama set in, but even after the drama, the living room looked fabulous. Because they put everything away perfectly. Now if only I could conquer the rest of our house, maybe I could vanquish chaos forever. Probably not, but a mama can dream, right?
