I have to confess that the first few days of this solo stint have gone quite well. Our nanny has been an absolute rock star, and Anna has been a lot of help in the evenings.

On Thursday, I got out of work fairly late and realized just as I walked in the door at home that I had approximately 30 minutes to feed the children and get them over to kindergarten to an afterschool event. Kid cuisine for Anna, leftovers for Tara, nothing for me. Anna probably spends 90 minutes on dinner more often than not. Amazingly, we made it on time to the event. However, this was a parent-kindergartener event, and we were a parent-kindergartener-toddler contingent, which makes for a really difficult situation when kindergartener attention is required, as Tara was mostly interested in running around and Anna was mostly interested in running after her. Who can blame them? We bailed about 15 minutes after we arrived, then went home and played on the swings. I have to give myself props for even attempting to attend, as the event was scheduled to end at Anna’s bedtime and 1/2 hr after Tara normally goes to sleep. And by “give myself props” I mean “think I might be prematurely senile.”

Tara continues to love reading, particularly when there are items in the book she can name. Since lots of kids books have animals, she is almost constantly commenting as I read: “Duck. Wack wack. Puppy. Woof woof. Meow. Mou (mouse).” I really need to get some video, but Jennifer’s camera is in Germany with Jennifer.