ponder

Why is the thing with a thousand choking-hazard-make-a-mess pieces...




...the very thing they want to play with?

good for something

Do you know that first day of summer weather in the spring?

Do you know what that day is good for?


It's good for a picnic at the park



and hanging out.



It's good for showing off how awesome your hair looks blowing in the breeze



and eating soft pretzels.



It's good for discovering how mulch feels



and discovering how mulch tastes.



It's good for showing off



and cooling off.



It's good for making new friends



and finding friendly creatures.



It's good for climbing the highest



and showing that you can do it too.


(and for showing off that awesome cloth diaper rear)


It's a good day to just be a child.



And it's a good day



to take way too many pictures



of some piggy-tails.

"it wasn't me"

better together

A couple weeks ago Adam had a day outing with Joey, so Katie and I had some special "Mommy-Katie" time. In the morning, my mom watched the girls while I kept a commitment at church. Grandmom does much better braids than I do.



After we got home and I put Lizzie to bed, Katie wanted to do crafts together. Katie and Joey do crafts all the time, but they usually do them on their own. We have an abundance of easily accessible supplies at their disposal, so when the mood strikes, they just get out the tape, or glue, or scissors, or beads, or string, or pom-poms, or yarn, or paper, or play-doh, or ribbon and make a mess create beautiful masterpieces.



But for our special "Mommy-Katie" time, Katie wanted me to sit there and do crafty things with her. I love doing crafty things, and I love being with Katie, but I have to admit that it was really hard for me to sit there and focus on our craft, when my brain was thinking about all the laundry and all the picking up and all the dishes I could have been doing while the baby was sleeping and Katie was happily crafting at the kitchen table.



It was hard to stop my never-ending list of things to do in my brain from removing me from the precious girl sitting beside me.



Do you experience this too? Are you thinking of what you could be doing when you have something wonderful to do right in front of you?



Katie needs me for lots of things. But sometimes all she needs is for me to just sit still.



And if I hadn't sat still and done crafts with her, I would never have discovered that I really have some awesome bean-gluing skills.



And you never know when bean-gluing skills are going to come in handy.

fever and dots

Lizzie had a fever Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and today she has spots--

Can you name that illness?

Ding! Ding! Ding!

If you said "Roseola" you are correct!

So that is what I have been doing this week: tending to a fussy girl, helping a fussy girl with high-spiking fevers get back to bed a few times each night, bringing the fussy girl into bed with me so I could get some rest, taking the fussy girl to the doctor yesterday to be sure it wasn't ear infections, and holding a fussy girl who feels much better today but has grown quite fond of the arrangement where I hold her all day.

I'm a little tired. But all the rest of us are healthy, we managed to do schoolwork each day, and at least it is roseola and not leprosy, which is what the kids keep calling it.

There is always something (well, lots of things) to smile about.

(& feel free to share some of your reasons to smile)