This and That

We've taken to referring to the girls as "this one" and "that one," as in "this one needs a bath," or "that one needs her diaper changed." This is an excellent system because it is really based on proximity- whoever is closer to you is "this one" and whichever child is across the room or upstairs is "that one"- and takes the pressure off actually remembering the correct name for whoever it is you're talking about. I remember my mom talking about her own mother going through the list of all six names in search of the child she was after: "Molly-Terry-Jim-Eileen-Larry-Lael!" and how sometimes the pets or my granddad got thrown in for good measure. (And I can only imagine how things went in my dad's house, where there were close to a dozen kids to keep track of.) Granted, I only need to remember two names, but somehow even that is too much in certain moments.

Yesterday, in the blazing heat, we decided to take one little outing to see if we could get something, anything accomplished. Dave wanted to look at ceiling fans to replace the one in our living room, and I had been to a lighting superstore deep in Brooklyn some 8 or 9 years ago that, in my memory, had a huge selection of unique fans. So Dave tracked the place down and off we went to a lighting showroom. With two little kids.

Apparently, we're not the only idiots who have had this brilliant idea before. In one corner of the showroom (which was chock full of beautiful and surely fragile standing lamps and glass coffee and console tables laden with expensive table lamps), there was this fish tank with two little chairs.

This one was in heaven.

The other one just slept.