Sightings on a Typical Day

It's not easy trying to work from home. I sometimes fantasize about having a cubicle somewhere, removed from all the chaos of three sticky little kids. But here are a few of the things I saw today that I wouldn't have seen from that magical, misty cubicle:

1) Pebbles trying to comfort a screaming Toth while he had his blood drawn for his 1-year checkup. Imagine a 3-year-old gamely trying to stroke the head of and speak calmly to a baby who's tossing his head and doing his best to scream it right off his neck.

2) Pebbles meeting her nursery school teacher during the traditional home visit, making conversation like a champ, and later saying wistfully, "I wish Daddy could meet Donna." (He will, of course, on the first day of school next week.)

3) Nutmeg, having been sent down the outdoor basement stairs to come in through the cellar door since she got so dirty at the playground, discovering a web with a spider and egg sack stretched across that doorway. Instead of being scared, she was intrigued, and together we leaned in until we saw, to our amazement, a hundred or more teensy baby spiders moving around on that web.

4) Toth wanting to ride Pebbles' scooter like he always does, then having it tip over and clunking his head on the sidewalk, ok that's not the part I was glad I didn't miss. But after I hugged him for a moment and dried his tears, I set him on his feet to make sure he was still functioning properly. He immediately stopped crying, walked over to the capsized scooter, set it upright, and got back on it, grinning.

And that was all on a day when I was basically ignoring them all in an effort to get a little work done. Nonstop action, and we don't have to give equal time to the stamp-pad ink and baking soda combo all over the dining room table, or the strawberry toothpaste spread over the inside of our gleaming white tub. We can go ahead and let those parts recede into the mists of time, while holding onto Nos. 1-4 for, I dunno, forever?