What was I thinking?!

Owen had been asking to go to the planetarium for a couple of months now. We tried to go yesterday, and I should have taken it as a sign when we rushed up to the door just to find out that the museum is closed on Mondays. Today we tried again, arrived on time (barely), and I pushed the double decker stroller right up next to the star projector just as the 45 minute show began.

Before I go any further, let me explain. You may have already predicted my impending disaster and are wondering to yourself, "Yes, what WAS she thinking? She's taking a 4 year old and two 10 month olds into a planetarium? With other people around? Why would anyone ever do such a thing?" I'll tell you why. I don't want Owen to be lost in the fray of baby-ville. He is so interested in space and science, and I want to encourage that. That boy was so excited about going this morning that he put on one of his space themed shirts without me telling him to get dressed. When the babies woke up from nap, he did a decent job of cleaning up all of his play-doh without being asked so that we would be ready to leave. He got a toy for each of the babies to take with them in case they got fussy. Seriously, how could I NOT take him? My apologies to all other planetarium-goers this afternoon (maybe 10 other people).

We started out fine - great even. Owen was sitting all giddy on my right. Blake and Sadie were eating some Cheerios in their stroller on my left. At first, everyone's eyes lit up looking at the show on the ceiling, and I thought we were going to be fine. We were fine for all of three minutes. Remember how I wrote about the squawking at the library? Well it continues and is now accompanied by screeching. Blake can screech so loudly that I promise some days my ears must be bleeding. Those screeches make Owen go from happy to meltdown in seconds.

To make the screeching and squawking stop, I start shoving more Cheerios into their mouths. It's a successful technique for a while. Then Blake swallows wrong or something and starts to gag. He's fine, but I feel pretty guilty about it so I unbuckle him and put him on my lap for hugs. Those of you who have multiples know that this was a bad idea. At 10 months, they are already so jealous of each other in these kind of situations. Through the darkness of the fake night sky, I see Sadie starting to cry as she grabs at my leg and practically Houdini's out of her buckle. At this point we're maybe 10 minutes into the show, and I have 2 babies on my lap and Owen telling me that I need to pay attention to the ceiling and calling out "It's Jupiter! Oh man, do you see that satellite?"

Blake and Sadie are not calm snugglers. Owen calls them so squiggly wiggly and squirmy wormies. And since we are recently very interested in the texture of each other's hair and how loud we can make our sibling scream when we pull that hair, two babies on the lap lasted oh...I don't know...10 seconds? I am stuck playing the perpetual game of up and down, bounce on the knee, turn around, and take your finger out of my eye socket. Sometime during this 15 minute juggling act, Sadie ended up standing between my knees. Blake was reaching for more Cheerios off of the stroller tray, so I leaned over and buckled him back in. While I was distracted, Sadie had dropped to all fours and...here it is...crawled away! In the nearly black room, my little girl was...? In my mind she had crawled to the back of the room, and I was a horrible mother for not catching her sooner. In reality, her little booty was poking out from under a couple of seats to my right. At this point I was so embarrassed by my own stupidity for attempting this, feeling guilty for interrupting everyone else's trip to the planetarium, and exhausted from baby wrangling. I gave up, told Owen we had to leave, and asked to be let out at about minute 40 of a 45 minute show. Cheers to Owen for not throwing a fit about it.

A few minutes after the show let out, the guy who ran it bumped into us in the elevator. I apologized and told him why we came in the first place. He was very nice and told me to check out the (drawing a blank here) Astronomical Society to see about open nights at the observatory in Lynnville. We'll be checking that out for sure.

As if that adventure wasn't enough for me for the day, I also took the kids to Sam's Club, Target, and the recycling center. To wrap up the night, we went to Owen's swim lesson. It began at 6:00. At 6:10, the sky let loose, drenching the babies and me. (Owen was already wet, so that doesn't count.) I was so worn out, so needing a break, and feeling so unprepared as a mother, all I could do was laugh at the situation. I used the only towel we had to play peek-a-boo during the downpour. Sadie cracked up at her cute little self. Blake chuckled. Owen swam like a fish. I took a deep breath and somehow made it through dinner, bath, and bedtime on my own just in time for Tim to walk through the door and tell me what a stressful day he had.