The Tea Party

Despite our happy afternoon at the zoo yesterday, both Stomper and Bitty have been feeling a bit under the weather lately. The zoo really helped, I think, but everyone was pretty cranky today. Cranky and touchy. I know that something that really helps the kids is when they get some special attention from me. No *&!@, Sherlock, I know. I just forget sometimes when I'm getting through a day with my little to do list and I'm racing around accomplishing things. Really important things like making additional lists (and dividing them into sub-categories) (I'm mostly kidding) and cleaning the kitchen for the 11th time that day. Then suddenly both kids are weeping at the slightest provocation, and provoking each other, thus continuing the weeping/provoking cycle. They both have colds, they both seem to delight in vexing one another, and Stomper had a rare bout of anxiety as I tried to drop him off at school today. I decided we needed a little something special this afternoon. I know, the zoo was special yesterday, but something a little quieter and personal. So, we went out to tea! I had been thinking of having a tea party at home, but I also thought about the toys already evenly sprinkled across the living room floor and the dishes already piled up in the sink, and I knew that it would be challenging for me to focus on the kids and the kids alone instead of how messy the house was. Then I remembered this charming little tea house down town called the Beehive Tea Room - they have, for like $2.50 or something, a "child's tea party." The child gets a silver tray, all to themselves, with a silver urn full of hot chocolate simply heaped with whipped cream, a little creamer with milk and three wafer cookies. Plus a small (and sturdy!) tea cup and saucer. Talk about heaven for little kids. I enjoyed a delicious cup of tangerine ginger herbal tea - man, that was yum. So yum that both the kids liked my tea better than their hot chocolate. It was really fun. Of course, the kids did insist on fiddling with everything in sight, from the beaded lampshade to the decorative books on the shelf behind our heads, and they did decide to play a game of pretend in which their hot chocolate urns played the main characters, using their lids for mouths. It made me a little tense - a spill was inevitable of course - but really, doesn't that just add to the charm?