MVP of the day: Handy Manny

It was a bloodbath today. Actually, there WAS blood, after Spence took a mean tumble from the swings at Brackett Park, but that was after I had pleaded with Kristy to come home at 3. The toughest parts came earlier, and were not as dramatic: antsy kids climbing the walls as I scramble to assemble Spencer snacks, change diapers, find weather-appropriate clothes, warm up bottles of milk and little jars of prune-oatmeal mush, and banish the sinister, negative voice in my head (remember the solitary confinement scene with Denzel Washington in "Hurricane"?)...

Things came to a head at 11am. We had not yet left the house because I let Nora take her morning nap in the comfort of home, rather than between carseats and baby bjorns and various unsavory carpeted floors. So Spence had the short straw. Yes, neighbors, that was the Team Snyder car careening back and forth today (let's go to the museum! "NOOO!" let's go to the cafe! "NOOOOO!" The car is thirsty, let's go get gas and make faces in the windows! "NOOOOOO"...) Finally... "do you want to go run around Target and we can get you Handy Manny tools? (pause) "Yes!"

My friend Larry (a veteran stay at home papa and butt-kicking tenants' rights attorney) told me our kids are unlikely to be ruined by something we do on a Tuesday. But he said nothing about several months, or more, of successive Mondays and Fridays.

Highlight: discovered new nose-to-nose rubbing move with baby Nora, to her delight. And she is absolutely, no holds barred, in the last few days, a crawler.

God help us...