Fifth of July

Little bit of everything today. Both girls had extremely good nights of sleep (not so much long as high-quality), so they were in excellent moods almost all day.

The qualifier is used only because, at bedtime, Vivi had one of her usual fuss-and-delay episodes, which I inadvertently compounded by misinterpreting "baby bye" as a backwards way of saying "goodnight" when in fact it meant, "Please sing 'Rockabye Baby' again." Once I got that straightened out, she was happy and went right to sleep. What's a day as a parent without realizing that you're actually rather bad at figuring out your kids?

Over the thirteen hours till then, things went very well indeed. Julia had so much energy stored up that she basically talked nonstop from about 7:30 am until one. I was dazed by the sheer intensity of her commentary during a shopping trip to Target, which covered everything from what we were buying and what's up with this Hannah Montana person to detailed exchanges with Vivi about her need to walk this way and questions about fellow shoppers. Of a man in sweats and a tee, she commented, "Daddy, I think that man wore his pajamas to Target!" The college-aged guy turned and laughed and said, "Yes, I did, little girl! I was too lazy to get dressed this morning!" This quieted Julia down for a good thirty seconds - her longest stretch of silence all morning.

The girls took two good, long naps after lunch. I took advantage, going for a run in the summer's first really brutally hot weather and then turning Shannon and me into T-Mobile customers. We haven't had cell phones in years, and now I know why: the only thing more byzantine than the ridiculous plans are the deals on the phones. Supposedly, the phones we "bought" are worth $520, yet T-Mobile is giving us $75 back on each. This makes no sense.

After the naps and finishing off some great cheesecake left over from yesterday's party, the girls went with me to the bike shop to retrieve my bike tire, which turned out to have had a little sliver of glass in it. I'd missed this in changing the tube four times, and the bike shop guys had missed it the first time they "fixed" the tire a couple weeks ago. But they didn't change me for this second, hopefully-permanent fix. While I talked to the mechanics, Julia entertained herself by sitting on a "big kids bike" and asking me a million times about when she could get a bike like that one. Nonna and Boppa, save us!

Back at home, the girls helped me start to assemble our new bed, a task which quickly bored them - at which point they went off to the playroom to have a "dance party" which featured much shrieking and laughing that carried right through dinner all the way to bathtime.

After the girls went to bed, I finished putting together the new bed. The directions were less than helpful, I'll say that much. Before throwing out the insanely large quantity of packaging (including a triple-layer box around the bedframe), I had to take a picture of the box which the delivery guy handed to me, pointing to the word and saying portentously, "Knobs."

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Forecast: Significant blowing and drifting, with the possibility of heavy accumulation in rural areas.