A more than usually random collection of thoughts

I feel like I need to post to keep the momentum going, but I'm more than usually blank this evening. I've had a great weekend filled with actual human contact and ventures from the house, so I'm less in my own head than usual. Most of my thinking seems to be happening during the catnaps that pass for my sleep at night - most recently, I dreamed that I was sitting next to Brad Pitt at some sort of very unpolished performance. I asked him about his kids and he started sobbing that he just couldn't find a way to relate to Angelina's daughter. I comforted him and related my own step-parenting experience, encouraging him to hang in there. Wouldn't you think, if I were to dream of Brad Pitt, the dream would be a little more...exciting? Apparently even my subconscious is fat, exhausted, and libido-less.

The twins are a month old now, and I'm starting to rejoin real life. I realized this evening that my eldest son starts kindergarten in three short weeks. I feel like time has been suspended since the beginning of July - it's hard to realize that summer's almost over. Now I'm stepping up my mental anguish about what to do with my almost-3-year-old this year. Preschool or random enrichment programs or nothing but my scintillating company? Perhaps this week I will progress from mental anguish to actual research into programs. One of the things no one tells you about when you have kids is how tiring the logistics of it all can be, especially when you have more than one. Classes and lessons and school and blah blah blah - especially when they're little and have few expressed interests of their own. Doesn't it seem presumptuous to choose their activities for them? For example, I asked my #2 son (in age, not affection, I assure you) what kind of party he wants for his birthday, and he answered "I want a purple party." Well then. That's clarifying.

Hmm, all this thinking about what needs to be done reminds me - I need to dig up two fines we recently received for, respectively, "weeds on property" and "trash bag on property." Apparently the Baltimore PD is stepping in as neighborhood association for the borderline ghetto in which we reside. Nice of them. Lucrative, too, as the fines total $110 and I just paid another "weeds" fine for $60. Quite the racket they have going. We're planning on contesting the latest ones, though (seriously, a trash bag on the property? In the middle of the day? Maybe we were working on the weeds, Mister Po-po). I think since the crack dealers moved out of the rowhouse across the street the police have had altogether too much time on their hands.

Okay, that's enough randomness for one post. Off to find the fines, research preschools, and try to convince/bribe/smother the boys to sleep, as it is 10pm and they seem to be having a kegger in their room.