Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Bein' Cultured

On Saturday morning we were trying to figure out what to do with three kids who were bouncing off the walls. Naturally, Joe came up with the idea of taking them to the Art Museum. I have to confess that it has been many years since I had been there so my memories were quite distant and slightly off-track.

For some reason, I had it in my head that the Columbus Museum of Art was really small and really boring. Color me surprised! The first floor is mainly interactive stuff for kids. The girls had a great time!!

Here is Mary trying to put together a four-sided George Bellows puzzle:












And here is Sarah trying to draw a figure in the George Bellows style:



Of course, once Mary and Leah found out that they could also draw something, they had to be in on the action. I wouldn't say that any of them had a George Bellows reproduction on their hands, but they all did pretty well. My girls all really enjoy drawing and creating some art so this part of the exhibit was right up their alley. When we were finished with George, we moved on to the Elijah Pierce exhibit which was also very interactive. Mary really had a great time playing with the magnet replicas of his scuptures. For some reason, Satan was her favorite. She called him "the guy with the tail". I suppose I should be happy that she is so innocent, huh? Here she is with her favorite magnet. Some people would say that her Hannah Montana T-shirt actually depicts satan! LOL!!

After we were finished with Elijah, Leah suddenly had an attack of being a Terrible Three and we had to go through the rest of the museum at break-neck speed. By the time we hit the Egyptian exhibit, I had a security guy following me giving me the evil eye. It was definitely time to go!

All-in-all, it was a nice activity for the girls and who knows? Maybe they might have absorbed a touch of culture while they were there. HA!

Monday, February 9, 2009

Guilt, guilt and more guilt

Every once in a while (like a couple times per year), I have to travel for work. Generally it is one of those deals where you get up at the butt crack of dawn, fly out and then return later in the evening. The last couple of trips have been slightly longer than that though. I had to go to Jackson MS in December for a couple of days and I'm here again right now for some follow-up work for a full week.

Well, a couple days of being gone really isn't such a big deal, but an entire week? Geesh! So now I'm wallowing in guilt after being gone for about 36 hours. It all started Saturday night when Sarah was slightly weepy that I wouldn't be able to tuck her in for the whole week. Then Leah chose Sunday (when I was flying out) to throw up everywhere. Just in time for me to walk out the door and leave Joe with that mess.

And then today. I call home and I'm informed that Mary had an extremely rough day at daycare today. She was reprimanded 5 + times for not being able to keep her body to herself. Not-so-coincidentally, the last time she had these troubles at daycare was when I was in Jackson in December. Now I truly feel like crap because she obviously isn't happy that I'm gone. In some ways, it would be a lot easier if she just reacted like Sarah and vocalized her feelings about being Mommy-free for a week.

I would think that they would be excited to be free of me for a while! I have a few more rules than Joe. Joe will make them very kid-friendly meals while I'm away. Why wouldn't they be thrilled to be free of me for a little bit? I just don't get it.

Ah, and then there is the guilt of leaving Joe with ALL the work for the week. Once again, a couple days is no biggie but it starts to really be a pain in the bahookie after that.

I guess I will just have to get over it and just convince my colleagues to work a bit harder so we can go home sooner.

A little bit of guilt is healthy, right?