Day of Hell

After an excruciating day at home where Bastian played with batteries and spilled an entire ill-gotten bottle of massage oil on himself, I decide the kids need to get out of the house. We manage to do so, though getting into the library involves a lot of screaming on Bastian's part because we can't take cookies inside. He quiets down upon seeing the toys and we have a nice few minutes. First, he puts some puzzles together.This one is ironically called, "At School."
He's really pretty good at puzzles. He's been doing ours at home a lot too. They're the only thing he'll help pick up and he usually dumps them right back out again.
After a fish puzzle, we look at the real fish in the tank.
Aleks plays puppets with some other kids. He even avoids making the puppets fight, miraculously and they just talk to each other, saying silly things and play slightly rough.
I work my butt off to get this awesome floor puzzle of the United States put together. The kids help a bit, though it's a pretty advanced puzzle with so many oddly-shaped pieces. We talk about where we live (Ohio) and where we used to live (Montana), as well as who Lewis and Clark were and where exactly Alaska is.
The fun only lasts so long. Both boys run off from the children's section, don't help me pick out books, get really impatient in the adult audio visual section, run off some more, scream some more, then Aleks insists that he wants no videos and didn't get to pick out books, which is really hard to do as Bastian keeps trying to run off and I'm carrying a purse, coats, hats, scarves, mittens, and a really heavy load of picture books. Bastian runs all the way upstairs while we check out and I lose my temper. He screams on the way out too.

Once in the car, I apologize and take them to Tommy's for dinner to make up for it. They are both really well behaved the whole time. Bastian has a little trouble getting ice out of his glass with a fork, though is mostly successful. He makes me read the same story Whatever Happened to the Dinosaurs (interestingly, a question Aleks asked just the day before, which led us to this article and a settlement on climate change) three times before our food comes.

After Tommy's, there is more screaming at Mac's Backs, then screaming crossing the street to City Buddah for Papa's holiday gift, which is closed, so there is more screaming crossing the street back to Big Fun instead. Big Fun involves more mama torture with more running off, more screaming, and indecision galore about what to get for Papa for the winter holidays. I gently persuade the boys away from Star Wars action figures knowing that these will just end up in their collection rather than on Papa's desk at school. I won't let on as to what we got in the end because Papa will then find out. Bastian also insisted we get our picture taken in the photo booth, which went off for eight photos instead of just four and the pictures turned out really dark, unfortunately.

We finally made our way home (with more screaming on exiting Big Fun) and the boys watched the movie I picked out for them at the library, Ewoks. All was finally quiet and I made Papa put them to bed.