Adventures in Parenthood

I love my babies. I think they are hilarious, wonderful little people. Today when Pudding drew a caterpillar and gave it eyes and a mouth I was ecstatic. When the Tyke pulled himself up on the desk next to where I was working and gave me that "Holy Cow did you see what I just did!" look, I was thrilled. But I have discovered one thing about my children. They turn into holy terrors after more than 45 minutes in a church office.
You see I had to go into the office today. I'm leaving town tomorrow, there were some loose ends to tie up and there was no way to do most of it at home. So, I get up early, I get showered, I get the kids fed and cleaned up and then bundle them into the car with a minimum of fuss. We're on the road by 9am, a personal victory!
At 9:15 we hit traffic and my babies hate traffic. We sat in traffic, stopping and going and hollering for 45 minutes and finally got to the church around 10. When we get into the church there are some things that must be done in the far flung parts of the building. I have to retrieve something from the Sunday School room in the basement, I have to drop something off in the kitchen on the 2nd floor, etc. So I figure we'll do all of this running stuff first so that Pudding will be only too happy to sit down and color after a while of this. And it works. For 15 whole minutes things are quiet and handled. Pudding draws her picture, the Tyke crawls about and pulls up on things and I revise some marketing material that has to be out today.
Then something switches in their little heads, right around the time that I'm getting to updating the web site. I'm trying to edit and make sure my text doesn't sound inane and someone is pulling on me and someone else is making a break for the hall way to go pester those happy people with nannies watching their bratty children at home.
I stuck it out for another hour with the kids getting progressively worse as time wore on. The Tyke had to be on my lap for most of that time or he'd start yelling. When he was on my lap he was lunging for the keyboard or the phone and calling very busy people on the intercom. Meanwhile the Pudding is watching me tell her not to open the door as she is opening the door and running down the hall way to play in the library with the very old, expensive and fragile books. She won't touch the kids wall, only the old and irreplaceable.
We made copies, we got copies where they needed to go. The Tyke tried unsuccessfully to crawl the entire length of the hallway chasing the Pudding to the library. He was only unsuccessful because I caught him. Pudding took a stubborn turn and simply refused to walk down the hall to the office so that mommy could finish her work. Oh, and all of this craziness is taking place in the office that adjoins that of my boss.