Madge Monday and Coco Tuesday

Nothing strange or unusual going on with the kids right now and things are finally seeming more normal, with nobody sick and nobody visiting.
Last night Madge’s school had an ice-skating party for the second- and third-graders and their families. Lots of fun. This time we took the bus to get there (a school bus), which was fun, but involved waiting, something in which Madge has, as they say in business-spin-talk, opportunities.
“Where’s the bus?” “When is the bus coming?” “Is there another bus?” “Did we miss the bus?” “When is the bus coming?” et c. (Notice the old-school division of that abbrev.? I’m oh-so-crafty.)
Poor Madge has two smart-heinies as parents, so the questions only frustrate everyone. They are, after all, lose-lose questions. Nobody knows the answer and, as exacting as she is, any wrong answer is a mark against us on an ever-growing tally. I’m surprised I don’t have a black spot on the palm of my hand by now.
So we answer truthfully, which irritates her even more. “The bus is somewhere between the school and here.” “It’ll be here shortly after we see it turn the corner.” And so on.
When the questions continue, we say, “No idea, maybe they stopped at a drive-through.” “Oh, no, we’ll have to sleep in the park.” (The skating rink is in Prospect Park, the crown jewel in Olmsted and Vaux’s blahblahblah.)
While we were waiting some kid was playing with a stick and Madge was well on her way to talking him into giving it to her against his will – she was using some kind of womanly mind-meld – when I interceded and told her to look for her own. Coco had already found his own a while ago. But it was fascinating to see her working on that kid. She already had the kid’s dad on her side, working on the guy. But, as you might have noticed, we were in a park. Sticks were abundant. No need to work on the imperius curse or whatever she was doing.
Skating itself was loads of fun and the kids dropped into bed exhausted when we got home.
My lower back hurts, though, because Coco doesn’t skate on his own and prefers to have both hands held as the kids did when learning to walk.
Ow.