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1/24/1999 Playland12:35 p.m. Matthew woke us up this morning with his hollering. I asked him what was wrong, and he said that Stephen had pinched his back. Stephen looked abashed and murmured, "Sorry, Mama," when I scolded at him. I told him he was apologizing to the wrong person. Later, at breakfast, I asked Matthew, "Do you love Stephen?" He crinkled his nose up, shook his head, and answered, "Nah, not so much." I had to laugh, both at the expression on his face and at the way he's picked up the "not so much" expression from Tab. It's been raining hard all day. I'm at our favorite McDonald's playland, typing this on my Zaurus. I brought the kids here to give them the opportunity to run around and exercise. It's a bit of a drive to get here, but the boys love the maze and the ball room, and it's a whole lot cheaper than Discovery Zone or Romp Around, particularly since I told the boys ahead of time that we would not be buying any food or drinks. There's a water fountain here so when the twins get thirsty (approximately every fifteen minutes), they ask me to lift them up for a drink. Daniel can reach it himself. Next to the water fountain is a kid-friendly restroom. It is one large room that contains both a grown-up sized toilet and wash basin and a kid-sized version of both. The twins love this bathroom because they can manage everything by themselves in here. This place is a zoo today. One whole seating section, amounting to at least one third of all the tables in the playland, has been roped off with a sign saying, "Reserved for Birthday Party." We've been here for nearly an hour and a half, and there is no sign of a birthday party yet. The rest of the space has become overcrowded. The remaining tables have all been claimed by glassy-eyed parents with winter coats piled up on the chairs next to them, who sit and pick at the leavings of their kids' Happy Meals. Other parents are sitting on the benches lining the walls. No one is reading. No one ever is. I shouldn't be surprised (but I always am) to see people just sitting, doing nothing. I can never go anywhere without something to read. At regular intervals one of the twins appears to report incidents of mistreatment by other children. "Mama! Mama! That blue kid hit me in the head with a ball!" says Stephen, pointing to a red mark on his cheek. (The twins identify unknown people by the color of their clothes.) "Well, stay away from him, then." "OK," he replies and rushes back to the ball room and the blue kid. "Mama!" yelps Matthew. "That green kid push me down. I say, `Stop it, pain-in-the-neck!' to him." "What did he say when you said that?" I ask, trying not to laugh. "Nothing."
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