Saturday morning, I met my friend Susie for coffee. Then Russell and I took the boys to Barnes and Noble for story time. It turned out that after story time, there was a bonus, a lady leading music time with instruments. What we didn't realize, though, was that while we were enjoying music time, the frowning older lady who dutifully but unenthusiastically read the book (clearly she had been coerced into doing story time and would have been happier rearranging cook books) went ahead and put out the craft stuff and the snack. Even though everyone was busy singing and playing the "chiquitas" the cheery music lady had brought. Then, when music time was over and the kids began asking, "Monmy, can I have a cookie? Can I draw with these markers?" Her Grumpiness had already taken away the cookies and milk and had begun stonily putting away the markers and paper and glue! I hurriedly told Henry to draw something with the markers (trying to make the missed cookies up to him), even as the Barnes and Noble lady's hands snatched up 
markers and glue sticks. One little girl asked, "What are the glue sticks for?" and received a scoffing reply: "Ha! Well they WERE for gluing crafts, but craft time is OVER." Then suddenly she stopped. "WHERE is the lid to this glue stick?" she demanded. Aha! I had her. I knew that my Charlie had wandered off to the train table minutes before with the glue stick lid clutched in his hand. This bought Henry enough time to finish his drawing, then I went over, retrieved the lid, and took it to the meany, where she was still searching for it. She didn't ask where I'd found it, and I didn't volunteer that information. When we left the book store, we 
noticed bounce houses and ponies across the street at the farmers' market, so we went over there for a while. Henry had his first pony ride, on a pony named Ginger, and both boys enjoyed the bounce houses. Charlie also ran around in the fountains and got soaked, which is exactly what Henry used to do at his age.On Sunday, Russell's parents came to visit, as Sam had a doctor's appointment in Nashville early Monday morning. We picked up lunch from the Star Cafe in Goodlettsville and took it to Moss Wright park to eat under the pavilion. We were glad for the pavilion, because it was pouring. After lunch I pushed Henry on the swings in the rain, which he thought was hilarious, and the boys enjoyed running around and getting soaked and playing with Mamaw's giant umbrella. Sunday night after naps, we met Sam and Sharon for dinner at P.F. Chang's. On Monday Sam got his temporary prosthesis, which means he will be able to start learning to walk again.Yesterday morning, the boys and I drove into Nashville to buy that bike for Henry we found on Craigslist - apparently over the weekend, the guy selling it had a change of heart. It's a sweet bike, blue with training wheels and just Henry's size. The guy selling it threw in a bike helmet, and before I could explain that we are a family of gigantic heads and that no child-size bike helmet in existence would fit on even a newborn member of our family, he was attempting to strap it onto Henry's large noggin. It didn't fit, not even close. "Well," he said, "take it anyway, in case you have a friend [with a normal size head] over to play." (The part between brackets was implied.) After driving all the way from Hendersonville, I figured we should try to find something fun to do in Nashville. Then I remembered we were near Phillips Toy Mart, a legendary toy store we'd always wanted to visit but never had.
The toy store was incredible! They had every toy imaginable. However, the minute we walkedthrough the door and began looking around at toys, a grouchy old lady who worked there (what's the deal with grouchy old ladies working in children's establishments, anyway? I suppressed the urge to ask her if she had a sister who works at Barnes and Noble) began sniping at Henry (age 3) and Charlie (age 1): "Be sure to put those toys BACK when you're done looking at them!" We ignored her and picked up a kite to purchase. I smiled inwardly, thinking, "We are
going to have some FUN with this lady...she has no idea about Charlie's pick-up-a-different-item-every-30-seconds ways." We moved on to a section of the store with trikes, scooters, and ride-on toys. Signs were posted there: "Do not touch!" (to our minds, a challenge, a veritable invitation to try out and manipulate and ride on). At this point, I came to the unsettling realization that the older lady's attitude was representative of the toy store's somewhat incongruous philosophy: toys are for looking at, not for playing with. So Henry selected a scooter, Charlie a plasma car, and both got to rolling around. The older lady appeared immediately: "Can I HELP you?" she asked. "No, just sort of looking around," I said. She gave us a disapproving look, then stalked off. "Come on, boys, this is not the kind of toy store you can PLAY in," I said loudly, putting back the plasma car and the scooter. We continued browsing through the store, the old lady straightening and rearranging in our wake all the while. To be fair, there is a section of the store with a couple of train tables where kids are allowed to play unaccosted, but by the time we had reached that area of the store, we were too nervous to play at our ease. When we found the Lego section and an aisle with some Playmobil figures that we'd never seen before, Henry began clamoring for me to buy him "some guys." I turned to see what he was talking about, and when I did, my enormous, embarrassingly full diaper bag struck a bin of toys, knocking it to the ground with a loud crash. Oh no! The grumpy old lady would certainly throw us out for such an egregious offense! I knelt to return the items to the bin, when I realized my clumsiness had been serendipitous: I had knocked over a bin full of Wow! Toys figures, Henry's favorite guys, all marked down to $.50 each! (These are made by a British company, and they are a little pricey, and they are ALL Henry wanted for Christmas last year.) We began celebrating our good luck and discussing which ones to buy, when you-know-who appeared. She frowned and shook her head as I apologized and helped her pick up, trying to simultaneously keep my eye on Charlie, who kept disappearing to different aisles and shouting "Ba! Ba!" at every ball he saw, and Henry, who was just beside himself about the Wow! toys. We made it out of the store shortly after, but not before Charlie spotted and formed an unbreakable attachment to a squeaky rubber chicken, which we also purchased.
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