Playgroup: Entropy Wins Again

   Today, when we pulled up to the curb outside playgroup, Clara was wearing only her diaper. She'd slept a little longer than I expected, throwing off my timeline. I'd grabbed her from her crib when she'd finally awoken, changed her diaper like an origami expert on crack, and shoved a high-nutrition cookie into her hand on the way out the door.  I put her in a sundress and sandals on the sidewalk outside the playgroup host's house.
      Finally, we made it inside. Mommy craziness is one thing. Playgroup, I've found, is a whole other kind of schizophrenia.
      While I was in the sitting room, trying to engage in grown-up chatter, Miles and Clara got into a tussle over the Kozy Coupe. Miles' mom was in the kitchen, putting together some snacks. Miles tried to wrench open the Coupe's door while Clara was sitting inside. She grabbed it from him, shrieking, "Miiinnnne!"
     "Now, Clara, let's share with Miles," I said.  Clara blue eyes bored into me, the edges of her irises burning with betrayal.  I sighed. "Okay, guys, let's do the timer.  Clara, you can have it for two minutes and then it's Miles' turn."
     They both looked at me blankly and then simultaneously abandoned the car.
     A moment later, Clara ran past me, shouting, "'Nack, 'nack,'nack, 'nack, 'nack!"
     Evelyn, resplendent in colorful bloomers, was eating a cookie.
     "Kiki! Kiki!" Clara said plaintively.  I gave her half a cookie and she took a bite and abandoned the rest on the coffee table.  Evelyn finished her cookie and began to play with a plastic carton of eggs next to Clara.  Clara reached for the plastic eggs, and Evelyn reached for the rest of Clara's cookie.
     "Evelyn, that's Clara's cookie," Evelyn's mom said.
     Evelyn seemed to hesitate, her sweet, milky-complected face looking out the window.  Then she turned to me and gave the cookie back.
     "Here you go," she said softly.
     Meanwhile, Miles' mom patiently took him upstairs for a chat about throwing things.  He'd started winging his toys across the room.
     Alma swooped in on the abandoned Kozy Coupe.  She wore a homemade pinafore dress with blue pinstripes and fringed brown moccasins.  She smiled, revealing her two bottom teeth, and cheerfully waved at everyone from the Coupe.
    "Bye-bye! Bye-bye!" she said.  After awhile she got out and Miles, who had come back downstairs by then, took a turn in the Coupe.  Alma suddenly wanted back in.  She seemed overwhelmed by the need to be in the Coupe.  She turned fragile, her big eyes welling up with crocodile tears.  She snuggled her face into the crook of her mom's neck and curled her legs up under her so her bottom stuck out like a stinkbug's.
     At that moment, Clara, having finished with the egg carton, took a header from a rubber bouncy horse into the side of the Coupe.  Her wails mingled with Alma's, and she ran to me to nuzzle her sweaty, salty-teared face into my neck.  Miles stood in the middle of the room and looked from Alma to Clara with his trademark crooked smile.  Then he made his mouth go squarish and tried to approximate the sound of their crying.
     After Clara felt better, and I'd kissed the place where she'd hit the Coupe, I sat on the couch to hold Madeleine.  At five months or so, Madeleine is simply scrumptious.  She has delectable little cheeks and rolls of fat on her thighs.
     Clara grabbed my hand and tried to pull me to the floor to play with her.
    "Clara, I am holding the baby.  Do you want to play with the baby, too?"
     She did not.  She wanted me to hug her with my free arm.  Then she wanted to sit next to me and play with the plastic carton of eggs.  Alright, her posture seemed to say as she leaned against me.  She guessed she could be nice to the baby for a little bit. After a minute, though, growing increasingly incensed by my preoccupation with Madeleine's cute little hands and feet, she muscled her way onto my lap.  I was forced to give Madeleine back to her mom.
   I brought Clara into the kitchen for more snacks and came back out in time to see Miles chuck a wooden mallet across the room with a triumphant shout.  The mallet flew end-over-end, like an ax thrown by a Viking.  It whacked into the wall next to the TV.  I choked back a snort of laughter. The kid has an arm.