Cold play

Today we had a very nice brunch with mima and papa; O was particularly excited to taste some of their yummy Keurig hot chocolate, which was supercharged by adding both whipped cream and sprinkles. Then Meh and we parted ways, with her heading to work and the boys and I off to run a brief errand to pick up groceries. Of course it's never a "brief" errand with the boys, and they were wild enough (thankfully at least sitting still long enough to accept and devour free chocolate chip cookies from the grocery store's bakery) that we clearly needed to find someplace to go burn off energy afterwards. Lately I've been walking them up to Z's elementary school -- the dual benefits of them actually walking (exercise) and going to a playground without swings (more exercise; they're guaranteed to be doing more than just sitting there while I push them) has made it an attractive option. I've also mentioned O's renewed interest in his tricycle, so off the three of us went.

It was, shall we say, an adventure. O continued to want full independence on the tricycle (except when he didn't), and Z wasn't always interested in holding my hand. Somehow we arrived at the park at roughly the same time, at which point the boys ran around like wild men before it was time for snack. I miscalculated just how cold it's gotten; while the boys were fine with their heavy shirts and (somewhat light) jackets, I was freezing. Of course this meant it was time for an extra-leisurely snack. The boys found it super funny when I huddled way down in my jacket -- hah hah. Anyway, some more play time warmed us up, though it was finally time to head back home. Again, getting both boys to head the same direction and rate of speed was a bit of a challenge.

Friday night was the Seattle opening of my friend J's film, and I was excited to be able to take Meh on a date to see it while the boys had a fun evening with their favorite sitter S (seriously -- Z just smiled and said "byyyyye mommy and daddy" when he saw her). I was rooting for a full audience, and was texting live attendance numbers to J as we counted down to showtime; in the end, the theater was at about 90% capacity, hooray! Meh was a big fan of the film itself, even though the theater had to do a restart after accidentally showing the first few minutes with a bunch of the frame clipped. As the end credits rolled, a huge cheer went up from behind us for the assistant editor credit; apparently he's got family and friends in Seattle. It was fun to see the film again on a big screen in my own town, and encouraging to see people flowing into the theater for the next showing as we headed out afterwards. Congrats again to J!