389. CMOM

Diana had to write a paper today. Last night she asked if I would take the day off. I have 5 personal days, so I took the day off. Andrew went to Abuela's, and Janet took over after she left for work, as usual. I took William to the Children's Museum of Manhattan. We went to a Wahol exhibit. He identified the dog, "wow wow" and others. There was a class there, getting a lesson. They took photos of you with an Uncle Sam outfit or Superman, or others, but William was somehow very shy at that moment. Second floor was a Dora The Explorer exhibit. I met a woman with a daughter William's age, and another daughter around Andrew's age. She said her daughter did not qualify for speech, but they for her 3 days a week. The exhibits were nothing profound, but it was cool to let the kids run wild, to have so many kids. We went upstairs and there was story time, but William was not into that. He said "triangle" or close to it, when he held up a big triangle. There were buses to fake drive, he had fun with that. Then he said, "juice," which means milk, which means he's hungry. We went to a deli around the corner, that obviously sees lots of children because they gave him water in one of those plastic cups with a straw. He ate fries, slaw and some of my vegetarian ruben sandwich, but not much of the milk I got for him. He was sweet in the high chair for about 10 minutes, but then we was bridling to get out, and stood up. He wandered around. Out on the street he was hard to contain, and I put a new diaper on him in the car. I got a $65 ticket (museum $16, lunch $20=$101). I went to get a new parking spot, because I'd wasted my quarters in what turned out to be a misreading of the sign--what it really said was that the alternate parking applies also to the metered spots, but I read it the other way...opse. We got a spot on Central Park West, and walked down 3 blocks to a park around 84th street, that had a huge sand box, and other interesting areas. Lots of nannies, and mothers. It took me a while to spot a man, and then I saw a few more. The sand box was fun, nobody was picky about their things, and shovels were easy to get unless you tried to steal one from a kids hands, and then an interesting drama unfolded, to see who would enforce justice. Some kids came over to me, a white man, they felt safe, and played with me. At one point, there was so much fighting about a hole, that I made another one, to distract some kids and they just transfered the fight to the new hole. I made a bunch of holes, but it lost energy. William at one point found a cement mixer, which he absolutely would not give up, until the mother/owner asked for it back. A woman shot noisy balloons around, which was attractive to the kids. One kid had a bubbles gun, that William liked to chase the bubbles. The nanny defended the kid from others who tried to snatch his toy. My ebb in energy had me begging Diana to come home, but eventually it was time to head home, and we left. Took 75 minutes to drive home. William slept the whole way. My back hurts. I hope William had a good day. It was good to see Andrew when Janet and Victor brought him back. Diana is happy to have 2 papers turned in, glad to see her brood.