you can lead a horse to water but you can't make her dance.

Yesterday I thought I'd go rogue and abandon rest time and keep an extra little boy. Ingrid had napped late in the morning and we had ballet at 3, so the playdate seemed reasonable. As we loaded up to take the friend home, I realized that not only was my extra carseat not installed, but we had taken the actual seat out as well. So, first I installed my 5 year old, my friend's 3 year old and my cranky baby into the van. Then I lugged the seat and carseat to the driveway and attempted to install both, while Mister ran wild (no idea why I chose to leave HIM unstrapped). The backseat buddies made various helpful suggestions. You should put the carseat in, Mom. I smacked myself in the face with the seat. I refrained from swearing. I called Nate and he talked me through seat installation. Done. We were on the road.

We drove the friend home and then headed to ballet. This was a new class for the girlie and kind of a big deal. It is smack in the middle of naptime, but she has a friend in the class and she really really wanted to try it out. So we went. Her very tired brother was a champ, watching patiently from the hall. Ingrid charmed the other parents as we waited. As we're heading home, I asked Claire what she thought of the class. Her response: I think I want to go back to doing nothing.

Looks like next week we'll skip ballet and go back to doing nothing.