LizaWasHere

We had an action packed and fun-filled weekend — excessively fun and action packed, actually.

On Saturday morning, we tried to go to the playground, but it was raining. So Noah and I went to the grocery store where he got to drive in a car cart, and firmly rejected the free balloon he was offered.

Then all three of us went to the museum, to a new exhibit about penguins and polar bears.

The exhibit had 3 awesome costume related areas, but this was the only one where we remembered that we had a cell phone camera. Fortunately, it was also the very best one.

Theoretically, you were supposed to hold a penguin egg on your feet and walk it from one basket-nest to the next, in the costume (complete with penguin feet). Noah just liked wearing the costume and playing with the eggs.

There were also polar bear paws, and a front-padded penguin suit for sliding down a penguin slide on your belly. Noah loved those too, but we don’t have any pictures of that. Yet. We’ll be back.

After a nice long Saturday afternoon nap, we went to a going away party for a family at church. Darn all those academic theologians, always getting jobs and moving away. It was at a huge park, and unfortunately, had to be moved from where it was originally supposed to take place. We walked a LOT looking for it.

Fortunately, we eventually found it. Noah and the other toddlers and preschoolers “played baseball” with a few of the parents. And I was struck anew by the large number of little blond boys. Noah is the youngest of them, but the others are only 4-8 months older than he is. And since he’s such a giant, they all look the same.

There *are* children who aren’t little blond boys. But there’s not a set of them who all look the same.

Home for pizza, bath, and bed, thank goodness. I crashed shortly after Noah, but Jill got caught up in a Degrassi: The Next Generation marathon and was up until something like 1:30 am.

Today’s big event was another WNBA game. Unfortunately, Noah refused to nap between church and game time, so he was Mr. Clingypants at the game. And he began begging to go home shortly before the end of the first half.

Even though we were at the game with friends, including this adorable little charmer:

I took him home, and once we got in the car at the subway station, I offered the choice between home and ice cream. “Ice cream! Ice cream!” Five minutes later, Noah was sound asleep in his car seat. I had ice cream myself, and then read in the car while Noah slept, until Jill got back from the game.

Apparently the second half was better, but the Dream has still now tied the “worst opening record in WNBA history” with an 0 – 13 record.

And like the Dream, I’m going to crash.

Remember when I won a sports trivia contest on the jumbo-tron at the WNBA game?

My prize package finally arrived!

I find it hilarious, and at least some of the items will be useful.

All of them are emblazoned with the logo for our local subway system. None of them have any reference to the sports team at whose game I won them. Or any other sports team.

From the top, we have: a smallish insulated lunch bag, suitable for Esmerelda Freugenspeigal’s eventual day care needs, a water bottle from a BPA free recycling category, a cup with no recycling information that will be tossed shortly, one of those recyclable grocery shopping bags, a coin purse, a desktop calendar/calculator/clock which Noah has claimed as a phone, a strangely flask shaped business card holder, something that looks like drug paraphernalia to me — mysteriously mounted on a blue plastic base, a 20-trip subway pass, and a small mirror.

And since my “check engine” light went on this evening, that 20 trip subway pass may come in very useful.

In other news, Noah got bitten at day care today. The school sent a complete report and we’re happy with how they handled it. Also, it seems like Noah might have provoked the biter by taking a toy. Not that biting is an ok response, but I can better understand it as a response to something else.

As is typically the case, the school has a confidentiality policy in which they don’t identify who bit Noah. But he can talk now, so when we asked, “Noah, did you get bitten at school today?” he answered, “E*** bite me!” We’ll try not to hold it against little E***, and hopefully it won’t happen again.