I'm babysitting all this week, much to the delight of certain almost-three-year-olds (and possibly an approaching-thirteen-year-old, even if she feigns annoyance when I set up "booby traps" on her iMac . . .). We've been "benturing" ("adventuring" in Alec-speak), worked on counting to 10, played numerous games of hide-and-seek and watched blackbirds and bunnies in the backyard (yay for alliteration). Amidst such a carnival of activity, Lane and I have discussed American pre-WWII isolationist policies, talked about installing BootCamp on her Mac and started watching the "Indiana Jones" trilogy in anticipation of the upcoming fourth movie.
The most memorable part so far came when the twins and I were watching "The Land Before Time" and Kyle was talking about a character that's some sort of purple fish. I asked her if it was a dolphin and she said "No, it's not a dolphin." I asked her if it was a shark and she said "No, it's not a shark." I asked her if it was an icthyosaurus. She looked at me in a very puzzled way and then sternly pronounced "That's not a sticky horse! That's Mo."
Lane and I saw "Iron Man" today. Very good movie. Robert Downey Jr. was an excellent casting choice (sort of for superhero movies what Johnny Depp was for pirate movies). I highly recommend it. Not so big on casting Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury, but then again I haven't liked one of his roles in ages. Lane wants a suit of powered armor.
Last weekend when I was at Lisa's house watching the twins Lisa asked me to pull my car forward about 15 feet to allow Scott to get to the garage. She pulled the twins out of the way as I walked to my car, and almost immediately Alec became very distressed that I was "leaving" and began crying and protesting loudly. Followed immediately by my car not starting. After messing with it for a few minutes, Lisa and I finally just pushed it forward and left it, and I spent the next few hours stressing about calling a tow truck and where to take it (on a Sunday) and being without a car. When Scott offered to look at it later it started right up (grrrr). Scott thinks it was either vapor-locked or a failing fuel pump. Lisa thinks it was just a fluke. *I* think Alec has latent telekinetic powers and was so unhappy that I was "leaving" that she disabled my car with her mind . . .
I hear through the grapevine that Alec called me yesterday. On a toy cell phone. And proceeded to sit and tell me about her day in great detail (in the ever-growing vocabulary of a two-year-old).
That's kind of cute (for me). And doesn't bode well at all for Scott and Lisa's future phone bills . . .
Any sort of whining or implied discontent with my lot in life cowers in humbleness at Lisa's week, which, in one day alone, involved a brand-new-yet-broken refrigerator Sears is adamantly refusing to fix on a technicality, an auto accident with an uninsured driver and an overflowed toilet. Bad things come in threes, right?
Saturday my friend Elizabeth and I attended Film Streams, Omaha's valiant attempt at a non-profit art-style theater (showing independent and artistic films), where we saw "Lady Chatterley." The film was good, although the eventual shifting of the audience leads me to believe I was not the only observer who felt 3 hours was probably too long for a movie with a single plot line.
Sunday the twins and I explored the backyard, where Kylie delighted herself with chastising the birds for not taking their baths as she splashed in the bird bath. Later, while exposing Lane to a variety of musical samples on iTunes, we discovered that Alec has a marked preference for techno (she literally had no reaction to top 40 or Weird Al, but started bouncing in my lap and swinging her arms on both of the techno songs I played). As a foreshadow, Alec has also learned to ask "Go shopping? Pweeze?" after Lisa took her on a quick shopping trip to a bookstore.
I've begun rewatching my Sports Night DVDs as a "comfort food" of sorts the last few nights. On the surface it would seem perhaps ironic that someone with such an antipathy for organized sports in general would enjoy a show called "Sports Night," but anyone who has seen the show will agree with the show's one-time tagline "It's about sports the same way Charlie's Angels was about law enforcement."
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Tuesday, February 13
Personal Playground
Assorted photographic and video evidence will attest to the twins' opinion of the new digs (and that roller coaster is pretty damned cool). I'm also told that the twins have started asking when I'm coming back (in suitable one-syllable sentences), which is very cute.
