the best laid schemes

the temperature outside began this morning at 1 degree celsius.  we can remember that 0 is freezing, so when henry jumped at the chance to have greg take him to school and my friend sent me a message saying she couldn't make it to our planned meeting at the gym, i immediately started plotting in my head the ways in which i could justifiably stay indoors this morning.  it wasn't easy planning-- we needed groceries and too, i'd previously committed to exercising.  because my friend wasn't going, did that get me off the hook as well?  

but... i could do some yoga at home.  i would make the time for that.  yes, of course i would!  or, i could go to the gym in the afternoon and pick the boys up on my way home (when the temperature would surely be higher than a single lowly digit).  and i could make bread.  i didn't exactly have the means or the sole ingredient necessary to make peanut butter though.  could i make some sort of delectable bean paste spread instead??? no, that would take the boys months, if not years to accept, no matter how benign the flavor.  i scratched that idea.  i still didn't have things completely worked out when, nearing 9 a.m., i suddenly noticed henry's "mappe" sitting on the bookshelf.  his mappe is his binder where they put in photos and drawings and other memorabilia from his classroom, and on friday i wrote on my hand: 'mappe' so that i wouldn't forget to bring it on monday because they were going to do something with them today.  and of course-- i forgot.  well, that settled it.  the thought of henry sitting in a big circle with his class and being told he didn't have his mappe while all the other 3 & 4 year olds (with much more responsible parents) happily worked on theirs, was too much.  i threw my gym clothes and the grocery list (and the mappe) into my bag and headed out into the cold.  though even by then it had warmed up plenty.   i dropped off henry's mappe.  i went to the gym and did my workout, and after that, i biked to the grocery store and bought the bread and peanut butter (and the olives and olive oil, and the greens for tomorrow's dinner, and the bland, crunchy crackers i've tricked henry into thinking are a delicious treat, and also the milk, because we always need another liter of milk, and the apples and carrots and bananas, and the mangos i can't quit buying, and the pomegranate because they don't usually carry those and today they did).  

and by the time i fit all that into the bike basket and rode home, the weather was so nice i didn't even need to have my sweatshirt and purple raincoat zipped up... 

i got home.  finished cleaning up wherever i'd left off when i discovered the mappe, finished my unfinished coffee, too and ate lunch, proofread a few articles, and by that point, it was time to do my little pep talk as i put on my shoes to pick up the boys (you're about to embark on one of your most important parenting jobs of the day-- to get the boys home.  and you have to do it well.  'well' does not necessarily mean 'efficiently' (my default desire), it means 'with love'.  it doesn't matter if it takes 2 hours to get them from point a to point b. (a very plausible scenario that occasionally drives me crazy-- hence the pep talk).  and if you need to use an incentive to push them a little, there's a package waiting for them at home (from their grandpa, it had arrived around lunchtime), and if you need an incentive to slow down, just remember that you don't have to rush home to make dinner tonight (we were eating the community dinner)).    and you know what?  it worked!  and it didn't even take us two hours to get home.  and henry only took a crazy spill on his bike once (which is about average, though this particular spill's craziness was on the high end of his typical crashes).  and on our way i asked henry if he did anything with his mappe today.  "ummm... nope."  well, oh well.

but what a beautiful day a single degree can lead to...

and somehow i had such an abundance of energy today (which doesn't always happen).  (and that's good because at 9:45, greg is still at work, so i wouldn't have had his help if i hadn't had enough energy to get two little ones to sleep.)

when we got home, they worked hard at opening the package...

and in it found eyeball bouncy balls...

and plastic cockroaches...

for halloween.  they're still hoping to frighten their dad with them.