On Tuesday, we had some very exciting outings with the babies. I went up to Katie’s first thing in the morning to help get the girls ready. Then we packed up the car and drove to one of our favorite places in town: the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
We met MJ there. It was her third visit to the place in a week. She chaperoned both Bean and Nanner’s classes there last week but that wasn’t enough for her because the little kids’ classes didn’t include the current exhibit there, featuring the work of Guillermo Del Toro. Even the entryway was too scary for little kids.
Boopity and Boop are too little to be traumatized by full scale models of the monsters from Pan’s Labyrinth or the paintings and drawings of the vampires from the Strain or any of the other creepy, scary and macabre things on display so they were great. In fact, they slept the entire time we were inside.
The logistics of getting two tiny babies from their warm carseats into a double stroller and into the warm building was the toughest part of the day. That’s why I went up to help Katie transport them. It was like the old riddle of using a two person boat to get a fox, a rabbit and a head of cabbage over a river in one piece. Katie parked the vehicle in the drop off circle, brought the stroller inside while I sat in the car with the girls. Then we ran the babies into the building in their carseats and tucked them into the stroller. I walked around the lobby with them while Katie went and parked the car. When she returned, she had MJ with her. The MiA is stroller friendly with ramps and elevators. We didn’t have all day to wander galleries so we went straight up to the exhibit we’d come to see.
It was fabulous! If you don’t like creepy things or scary movies, it isn’t the show for you but the three of us don’t have a problem with that stuff. For me, it was really cool to see the sort of work museums don’t usually give space to. There are walls of pencil drawings, pen and ink drawings, story boards etc. from movies and tv shows. There is an entire wall of comic book covers. There’s another wall with concept art from several inspirational sources, including Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. A lot of the art was purely beautiful, even if it had served as background for scary stories. We thoroughly enjoyed the display and spent over two hours inside.
MJ had to leave in time to pick her girls up from school. Katie and I had lunch on site but before we could feed ourselves, had to find a nice bench to give the babies their bottles. Again, the MiA is equipped for such contingencies. Most of the galleries have very comfy benches. People are as fascinated by identical twins as they are by art. Both girls ate their lunch without so much as a peep. They were the perfect art spectators.
After a repeat of musical baby apparatii, we took the girls along to the shop so I could drop off my orders and pick up my check while simultaneously showing off the babies I’d abandoned my career for. As usual, the girls slept through the visit. Little babies default mode for new conditions is to sleep right through them. It makes is so much easier to take them places than say, college students.
While at the shop, Ginny asked me if I could please finish one large order by Thursday. I told her I would do my best.
Katie and I got the babies home just in time to feed them first dinner. They ate like the champs they are, we played with them for a while, then I went home so Katie and Adam could enjoy their family without me always hanging around.
The next day I told Katie I was on my way up on time to help with giving the girls their lunch. She said “Have you finished that order? No seeing the girls till you finish your homework!”
Damn.
I work for myself because I hate deadlines.
But I finished the order.