Days 3 and 4

Well, I felt the verdict for these last two days yesterday when we woke up to heavy skies, heavy rain and heavy smog.  Stay inside!  Shoot!  My plan relied entirely on keeping the boys outside and having them expend all their energy that way.  The gavel came down even harder when Aiyi called to say she was not coming.  Apparently it was raining to hard on the west end of the city.  I must admit to feeling slightly irritable at the weak excuse for not coming (thereby depriving me of my only human contact other than the boys - Chinese lessons!).   

I found myself thinking of Ma Ingalls, my new hero.  In On the Banks of Plum Creek, she valiantly holds up the fort with four children, stuck in the cabin through a three day snowstorm, with the knowledge that her husband is somewhere out in the storm, possibly dead.  But instead of loosing her cool, she spends those three days playing Pea Porridge Hot, making paper dolls for the girls and singing.  Honestly that sounds hellish to me.  But she did it and many other mothers have been trapped in the house with children to feed and entertain.

Well, if I were to make paper dolls for the boys, they would no sooner be created than be headless, armless and legless.  So I settled for solid, sturdy, dinosaurs folded from sturdy construction paper and heavily taped.  These babies are not ripping.  Besides, I let them take out their destructive tendencies on the paper scraps with child-safe scissors.  But I expect that the boys will soon discover that they can rip the tape off.  

This morning looks the same, but we might brave the weather to go find some cheap picture frames.  This video clip is more of an experiment than anything and it demonstrates a little of how silly the boys are during a dreary, somewhat tired and grey breakfast.  I think the most humor is in the music playing from iTunes in the background.  I apologize for the heavy glare of grey light off of our favorite piece of furniture: the glass table.  Again, I feel obliged to point out as many times before... we did not decorate this apartment! 

The sound of banging in the background is our new best friends, the work crew renovating the apartment below us.  They started the day James left and the noise is overwhelming.  You can tell where they are hitting things by tracing the floor vibrations to its source and standing over top.  Without fail, everyday, they have waited until the boys go down for their nap to start sledge hammering right underneath the place where their heads are laying.  Sigh...