Boots

Tried to pack for a business trip but someone was wearing the boots I wanted to take.

Reader

In the last few months, Ella's reading skills have really taken off. She is now devouring The Magic Treehouse series of books which are chapter books for the early elementary school set. She has a few of her own and we always check more out of the library, and she reads them all through without any help, and then reads them over and over and over. At night after we tuck her in, she almost always turns back on her lamp and pulls out a Magic Treehouse adventure to read. She also calls down to keep us updated on her progress: "I'm on Chapter 2! I just finished Chapter 5! One chapter left! I finished Dinosaurs at Dawn for the 6th time!" There are something like 50 books in the series, and my compulsive side is somewhat bothered by her reading them all out of order, but she doesn't seem to mind so I'm trying not to push.

Mud pie

My friend S had a birthday party for herself tonight, and she invited 5 other families to come for a late afternoon playdate and casual dinner. I don't know if it was the perfect combination of families, or her rambling house with great indoor and outdoor spaces, or the lovely spring evening, or just having a fun social event on a Monday (or, hello, clearly the combo of all of the above!), but it was just a super wonderful evening. The gaggle of a dozen kids, ranging in age from 1 to 7, had a ball together, and as we all sat on S's front patio enjoying the spring air and the homemade cupcakes (my gift to S) and the kids going in and out, all being looked after by each other and the other parents, I was struck by how the whole evening just felt affirming of why we live in this town, in this community, and how lucky in this life. The evening ended with many of the kids digging with great purpose and gusto in the mud in the backyard. I took it as a sign of a really great time that my kids were so covered in muck and mud by the time we finally got home that they had to be stripped down on the front porch and carried directly to the bathtub.

Santa brang it

Dash loves to show people his train table and tell people that "Santa brang it!" Since we don't have a playroom, it lives in his room which is all fine and good now while he's still in a crib.  All bets are off once he moves into a bed he can get out of.  I predict we'll be hearing "Choo choo!"s emanating from his room at all hours of the night...

Ponytail and skinny jeans

Dash rocked quite the eclectic look this morning. He had the bottom half of a hipster in his skinny jeans and slip-on shoes. His torso went lumberjack chic in a plaid shirt and L.L.Bean fleece vest. And then there was the hairstyle which was inspired by his sister's ponytail so can fairly be described as a small bit of cross-dressing. I love this dude and his hilarious style.

Backyard play

When we bought our house nearly five years ago, we had neither pets nor mobile kids, so we had no idea what an advantage our fenced-in backyard would turn out to be.  Five years later, that yard gets heavy activity for all sorts of outdoor play.  

Dash's current obsession is the rain barrel.  He can fill up a tiny cup of water, carry it across the yard, dump it into another container, and go back for more for approximately forever.  He usually ends up soaked but it's a small price to pay for free, happy, outdoor fun.

Careful water transport

Ella uses the backyard as her own personal gym these days.  She practices cartwheels in the grass and does all sorts of dangerous leaps from the small plastic slide set.  She also continues her love of making 'cakes' from sand, dirt, and other detritus she finds in the yard.  They always sound tasty (chocolate peanut butter blueberry cake!) but I have thus far avoided having to actually eat them despite her pleas that I do so.

I used to be scared of her climbing onto the platform of this 

little slide.  Silly me, I should have saved my worry for the day 

(that has now come) when she insists on balancing on top of 

the side rails and then leaping off.

Working mother fail

Last week, I had to travel for 3 days for work.  Before I had kids, I used to love work travel. It was fun to get out of my routine and to see and do new things.  As soon as I had kids, work travel ceased to be much fun at all.  If I'm going to be away from my kids, I'd much rather it be for a vacation.  And the logistics related to work travel with young kids is exhausting for me.  We have to arrange additional childcare during the week, make changes to our carefully orchestrated routine of school and activity pick-ups and drop-offs, and then of course there is the simple fact that I miss the kids and they miss me when I am gone.  I used to think that leaving a little baby was much harder than leaving a bigger kid.  All that lugging of breast pump parts and arguing with TSA agents about the coolers full of milk and ice.  But I've come to learn that that was the easy phase of working mother travel.  Now, I have two people who are big enough to really miss me, and they are not shy about articulating their feelings of sadness in ways that make me feel horribly guilty.  Last week, I planned my travel so carefully to be home for bedtime on Friday night.  My flight was supposed to arrive at 7 pm, I didn't check my luggage so I could avoid baggage claim, and I even bought the seat upgrade so I could sit at the front of the plane and shoot out of there as soon as we landed.  On a good day, my flight can land at RDU and I can be in my house 35 minutes later.  But you know what they say about the best-laid plans, right?  I arrived home at 12:40 a.m., 5 hours later than planned.  Needless to say, I missed bedtime.