Watching: Freaks and Geeks. I admire this show for not taking the easy way out. Lindsay, the lead character, is a bright girl in search of her place in the world. She is attracted to the freaks, the school's outcasts. The tried and true TV cliché would be that the freaks all have hearts of gold; instead, at least one of them was depicted as an emotional manipulator in tonight's episode.

Weather: Lovely. Sunny and clear skies with temps. in the low 70s. I wish all of November could be like this.

Happy Medium

The boys still have not adjusted to last week's time change. This morning the twins woke up around 6:30. After a trip to the bathroom and with some coaxing, the boys went back to bed for a little while. They never went back to sleep, of course, and their talking and laughing kept Tab and me from falling back asleep as well.

"Don't worry, Tab. We'll get even one day. Just wait until they are teenagers and want to sleep all the time."

"Yeah, I'll be mowing the lawn every Saturday morning at 8 o'clock right under their window. Better yet, I'll get them up to mow the lawn."

Tab had to work late last night, so as a treat I took the boys to a McDonalds playland in South Brunswick. I had another panic attack while driving up Route 1, but I made it there safely. Yeah me.

At the playland, my boys started running around with a little boy in a Pokémon T-shirt. He was there with his mother, who was sitting at the other end of the playroom from me. Without saying anything to her son, the woman suddenly got up, left the playroom, and got in line at the counter. A few minutes later her son fell and hurt himself and ran over to his mother's table. He stopped in surprise to find it empty, and started crying in earnest. I went over, calmed him down, and told him that his mother would be back soon.

This is the second time this week I found myself watching other people's children. A few days ago the twins and I were at a playground, and a woman who was there with her two grandchildren asked me if I'd watch them for a few minutes while she ran into her house, which bordered the playground. Of course, I said yes, and she was only gone a few minutes as she had said. Still, I can't imagine leaving my kids in the care of a stranger, even one so obviously a mom. Or worse yet, leaving them alone completely as the McDonalds woman did.

Look at me: just a week ago I was criticizing over protective parents and now I'm castigating the heedless ones. Perhaps I am kidding myself, but I want to think there is a happy medium between the two extremes and that I have found it.

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