Weather: Wish I could bottle it and save it! Warm, breezy, and at least 70 deg.

Cool astronomy fact o' the day: Tonight we will have a blue moon, which means it is the second full moon of the calendar month. March is the second month this year we've had a blue moon (we had one in January, too). The last year with two blue moons was 1961, the year I was born. The next year with two blue moons will be in 2018.

Like a Lamb

Last night when we picked up Tab he surprised us by asking if we wanted to go to Ground Round for dinner. GR offers a special on Tuesdays: kids "pay what they weigh." Since our boys are such featherweights, we end up paying only $1.00 total for three kids' meals. Back before the Ground Round on Route 1 closed we'd go there a couple times a month. Now we have to drive to the one in Bordentown, about ten miles out of our way, so we don't go as frequently.

Our trip to GR was made even longer by the fact that I had been heating up water on the range before I left to pick up Tab, and I forgot whether I had turned off the burner. I was 95 percent sure that I had...but I couldn't remember doing it. Tab was understandably annoyed. So we swung by the house first, and I ran in to check, and of course I had turned it off. It's so sad when senility begins to set in.

I feel sorry for adults without kids who unknowingly go to Ground Round for dinner on Tuesday nights. The place was crawling with rugrats. Most of them were fairly well-behaved, but there was one little terror who screamed at the top of his lungs for at least fifteen minutes before his father finally bought his silence with video games. He wasn't a baby, either, which would have at least been understandable. He looked at least four years old; he was definitely older than the twins. I leaned over toward our waitress and said sympathetically (and loudly, so she could hear me over the caterwauling), "You must have such a headache when you go home on Tuesday nights!" She rolled her eyes and nodded.

[Begin Rant] I've said this before, and I'll say it again: I can't stand it when parents let their kids misbehave in public places. If your kid starts yelling or running around and bugging people, remove him. Simple as that. Don't inflict your laissez faire attitude toward parenting on the rest of us. [End Rant]

11:35 a.m. Today is a lovely spring day. I'm sitting out on the front porch, typing this into my Zaurus and watching the twins playing out front. I unearthed their little ride-on cars from the shed; the twins call them their "bikes." They are having a grand time riding up and down the sidewalk's slight incline from the Ukrainians' house next door past our house down to Mr. Byron's, three houses down. They know they are not supposed to go any further than that. Stephen succumbed to temptation and rolled down past Mr. Byron's to the driveway of the Baptist church just beyond. When I went after him to bring him back, I found him on foot exploring the church's grassy lot. "I need to get a stone, Mama!" was his explanation. For his misbehavior, he had to sit in timeout on the porch for five minutes. I've just allowed him to rejoin Matthew.

Though we live in the city, our street is fairly quiet. I can hear the faint hum of traffic from some of the major highways not too far away, but it is soothing, like the white noise machine Tab uses to help him sleep.

Then I hear a throbbing noise high above. "Look, Mama! A helicopter!" shouts Matthew, pointing skyward. I look up and see the glint of metal against cloudless blue sky. It might be a traffic 'copter, though that's unlikely since it's not rush hour. Perhaps its one of the rescue helicopters that take critically injured patients to the hospital nearby. Soon it is out of sight.

The cement of the porch is cool enough that I can feel it through my jeans, but the late morning sun is warm on my face. I close my eyes and feel the spring breeze moving across my skin, lifted my hair back away from my face, playing with it like a lover. I want to stay here forever, but the boys are saying they're hungry so we're going in.

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