Friday afternoon when Nilda arrived I knew I would be chopped liver. As usual, she showed up with a special treat for the tribe. This week it was McDonald's cheeseburgers. In addition she made them her very special chocolate pancakes! Needless to say I had no guilt about going out for the afternoon and then having an early dinner with a friend, Linda Gould. However, my evening was brought to a screeching halt when I received a text message from Nilda - "pls call home, Jack need to tlk to u."
I called home and he and Owen were in tears, something about being afraid of the dark (that's new) and not wanting to go to sleep until I got home. Well, I hopped in the nearest taxi and was home in about 15 minutes. When I walked through the door, Nilda smiled and said, "I'm sorry, they are already sleeping." I was relieved that they were able to fall asleep, but it was a sign of things to come.
Saturday morning I was awoken by Jack at 5:45 a.m. "Mom, today I want to go see the Changing of the Guard (COG) at Buckingham Palace." Feeling quite sure of myself and my ability to make this a great weekend I said, "sure Jack, you got it." After the kids inhaled the Krispy Kreme donuts that super-Mom bought for our fun weekend I was assaulted with, "why do we only get one donut?" "why can't I have more?" Pacifying them with strawberries and melon was not working, so I chose to ignore these whines and move on.
We got dressed and it was time to make our way to the tube and head to Buckingham Palace. Along the way I heard just a chorus of: "Mom my feet hurt" "Mom, hold me!" "Mom how long will it take to get there?" "Mom are we there yet?" "Mom how many stops is it to Green Park?" "Mom make Owen stop hitting me!" "Mom are we at Green Park yet?" "Mom are we going to miss the guard changing?" "Mom why do they change?" "Mom can I have a snack?" "Mom are we late?" "Mom where's Dollie?" "Mom is this our stop?" "Mom will we miss it?" "Mom Jack took my seat!" "Mom, I have poops." "Mom I think this is our stop" "Mom I'm hungry." "Mom, do you know where you are going?"
Green Park. Finally. It was 10:30 a.m.
The COG occurs at 11:30 a.m. Holy Crap, I had one hour to kill with these three. We walked VERY slowly through the park, looked at tulips and daffodils, chased pigeons, played tag...and arrived at the gates of Buckingham Palace at 10:45 a.m. Good grief. Thankfully a very nice group of tourists saw the pained look on my face and let Jack and Owen push their way to the front of the crowd - they literally had front row seats for the event. Kate sat on my shoulders, which is why I have no pictures of the actual COG. Finally at roughly 11:20 a.m. the band started playing and the pomp and circumstance was underway. All told the ceremony takes about 40 minutes. Five minutes into it Kate started screaming, "I want to see the Palace." John and I think she believes the Tower of London is the Palace, Big Ben is the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace is merely a building with no name. As things really started to get interesting the crowd started pushing and shoving, all trying to maneuver for that money shot of the event. Well, this did not make the Dynamic Duo happy at all! "STOP PUSHING ME!" is all I heard from below...things went from bad to worse. Tears, crying, whining, "stop pushing me, stop pushing me, I can't see, you are hurting me..." So, a mere 15 minutes into the COG, we were outta there! On the walk back to the tube, Jack and Owen said almost in unison..."Mom that was so cool. Can we see that again sometime?" To which I responded, "Sure, Dad will take you next time."
Sunday we thought we would stay close to home. Owen suggested the Zoo. Perfect. It was a nice day - blue skies, the sun was shining. Today would be good. I even thought we could take the waterbus through Regents Canal to Little Venice just for something different and fun, yep...tried again.
Well, Just re-read the above paragraph and change COG to the Zoo. That is pretty much how the morning went. More tears, whining and complaints about how long the walk was taking, when they could have a snack and arguing about what animals to see next. Jack wanted to go to "Into Africa" but Owen wanted to go to see the Butterflies. Kate just kept roaring like a tiger and saying hello to the animals. Come to think of it, she was by far the most relaxed out of the group. The icing on the cake was when we walked into the rainforest exhibit and a marmoset was loose and meandering among the crowd. It crawled right between Kate's legs and was about 2 inches from her feet, which definitely freaked me out a little. This did not affect Kate in the least. Instead, she just kept saying, "oh, hi monkey..oooh oooh ahhh ahhh, hi monkey!" Jack, however, screamed like his arms were being ripped off and said, "it's gonna eat Kate!" Meanwhile the zookeepers were laughing at Kate and trying to corner it and return it to the safety of a tree branch. That's the odd thing about the London Zoo - not a lot of barriers between you and the animals. Anyway, we made our way to the waterbus dock and as we were waiting this enormous bumble bee came buzzing by. Jack, again, screamed as if he was being tortured..."I want to go home...I don't want to take the water bus...the bee is going to sting me....I miss Daddy!" You and me both Jack. So a very brisk walk home it was.
Meanwhile, John and the Getco posse were being the epitome of ugly Americans in Berlin with the help of several steins of beer they were seen wearing matching turtlenecks, using self-assigned German names and quoting some Mike Myers skit from SNL, something about Diter?? This is a few of the group at Checkpoint Charlie...
John's arrival home was the best thing for all of us...I survived my first weekend alone with the kids...with the help of Chardonnay mind you.
Cheers!
1 comment:
Colleen, very brave venturing out like that!
I guess I have a few more years of the whining to go.
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