penny carnival

Tiny shoulders

Magpie had a hard time falling asleep tonight, so I cuddled up with her in her bed and let her talk herself to sleep.

She is one of those 4 year olds who says 100 things a day that leave you scrambling for a pencil and a scrap of paper. Tonight the subject was camping.

Over the weekend, we did a little spring preview of a state park where we've never camped before: Deception Pass, Wash.

This is J's spring ritual: load the family into the car, visit a campground within two hours of our house, dink around there with the kids while mom and dad jot down the best campsites (close to the bathroom but not too close ... flat roadway for good tricycle riding, etc.), and then somehow lose the paper where we took our notes before it's time to make the reservation.

The pace of work and school and life has been running us ragged lately, so I can't tell you how therapeutic it was to tromp around in the woods for a day. Here's Bo bonding with Mother Nature:

 

And Magpie on the world's best balance beam:

(Note J in the background in his phone. I know, I know, not exactly unplugged for the day, but I'm pretty sure he was either taking a picture or typing in another favorite campsite number. We finally wised up.)

So back to Magpie in bed tonight ... We were talking about how excited we are to go camping this summer, and I asked her, "What do you like about camping, anyway?" Her reply:

"You get to see things and hear different things."

Me: "You mean, things that are different than we see and hear at home?"

Magpie: "Yeah."

Me: "Like what?"

Magpie: "Like wind in the trees and raindrops on the tent."

Further proof that children were meant to run around willy nilly in the woods as often as possible.

As she drifted off to sleep tonight, curled up on her right side, I was struck by how small her shoulders are. How is it possible that this little miracle has only existed for four and a half years? How can so much happen in such a short amount of time? The wonder of childhood and motherhood and life was all wrapped up for me in those tiny shoulders.

Most of the Magpie quotes are more funny than enlightening. The other day she "read" this sign to J:

According to Magpie, that sign says: "No swimming, no diving and no trains."

Of course it does.

Easter here was good. I hope for you, too. Like I mentioned before, my sister threw a Hawaiian-themed party the night before Easter, complete with mai tais and muumuus, not to mention some yummy Easter grub.

The lady knows how to host a party, and, as one guest declared, "It was the best Easter Eve luau I've ever been to." 

The girls had been wanting me to sew them something lately, so I had Bo "design" Easter dresses. Here was her plan for me:

Here are the finished products, each complete with its own "ti" in back:

As always, there are some wonky parts if you look closely, but the girls were thrilled.

And I have to include this idyllic photo of Bo and her cousin taking part in an Easter egg hunt later that morning.

Kind of a perfect Easter image, right? Two sweet girls on a joyful search for treasures? I know there's a lot of criticism of blogs and Pinterest and whatnot for their glossy portrayal of day-to-day life, but let me assure you that one thing I will always be on this site is honest. So here goes ...

Within 10 seconds of snapping that shot, Bo was in a panic because she had only found two eggs. 15 seconds later she and her cousin got into a tug o' war over an egg they saw at the same time. 30 seconds after that (and after her cousin won the battle over the egg) Bo went ahead and just swiped it out of her cousin's basket and put it in her own. Who's got two eggs now?! Huh? Huh?

Ah, the spirit of Easter. We do much better finding God in the woods.

Happy gratitude

Remember how I left things last night ... all zen and whatnot? Well, I woke up to Miss Magpie in my bed with a tummy ache. And that led to morning cereal being upchucked on the rug about 30 minutes later.

Poor sweet thing.

I posted something about it on Facebook (because if you don't it might not have really happened) and was receiving a good dose of sympathy from my nice friends. And all of a sudden I thought, grrr ..., this is kind of a perfect follow-up to my garbage disposal spring break week, and now I'm mad again.

I started to post a little pitty party to myself in the comments. Something about a p.o.s. spring break. 

But, again, I'm watching Magpie, happy as a clam curled up on the couch with me, despite the morning's barforama. I say, "I'm sorry you're sick, Sweet Pea. It's no fun to throw up, is it?" 

And she says, because this is who she is, "Actually, it is kind of fun." Shrug of shoulders. A little more nausea later in the morning. And that was that.

Her little flu bug--and her sweet self--made me grateful today for so many things ...

...That my kids are healthy and even when they battle the yucks, at least it's not a chronic or serious illness.
...That we have a cozy home that shelters us from the rain--and all else.
...That I happened to be home from work on the day Magpie got sick so that it was me holding her hair back and not one of her preschool teachers (as wonderful and loving as they are).
... And, despite how much I was aching to be somewhere sunny and fun yesterday, that this didn't happen on the Matterhorn at Disneyland.

I see all sorts of quotes on Pinterest these days--some of which I like; some of which make me roll my eyes.

I'm not one to put a lot of quotes around the house, but this one caught my eye tonight from Money Saving Mom:

"It is not happy people who are thankful. It is thankful people who are happy."

Perfect.

And to top it all off, my wonderful friend Sarah stopped by unexpectedly with a candle and some heavenly bath salts for me after she heard Magpie was sick. You know how you sometimes think, oh, my friend is blue, I should do something nice for her. Or, I wonder if the neighbor would like a slice of the pie I just baked. She actually does that stuff. For real. And she is the best person to bounce your craziness off of, to help you get outside your head, to make you see through the foginess of life and get some sense out of it.

For many reasons, I wish I could parachute little Sarahs out of airplanes so that everyone could have a friend like her.

Come to think of it, we do have one big word message that always hangs on our walls. This is an old photo of our old house, but it still rings true:

Can you see it? Life is beautiful.

Sure is.

Back in the saddle

It is Day Three of Spring Break and I'm losing my mind. I think, perhaps, that it's difficult to live your life at mach speed and then come to a screeching halt.

I'm battling an inner panic: I've been working so hard in my classroom all winter and it's finally spring break. I want to have fun! Lots of fun! Fun, fun, fun. Oh good golly, the pressure to have fun. The clock is ticking. Only four days left now? Am I having fun yet? Um, sort of not!

And then there's this: I have a whole week to get my lessons ready for the rest of the school year. I could finally re-sort the classroom library by genre. I could create the homework packets for the next 11 weeks, making the rest of spring that much easier. I could grade the stacks of papers that are sitting on the dining room table.

But, oh no, what about the fun?!

So I'm paralyzed. J asked if we should drive to a lovely park nearby today and I said no. I want to do something BIGGER than that. I want to hop on a train or a plane or strap myself to the roof of an automobile and scream down I-5 all to way to frickin' Disneyland.

But, wait. I broke the garbage disposal last week when I poured Bo's first grade science fair project down the drain. You know, which liquid makes a penny the shiniest? Well, the glass of water with purple food coloring in it disguised the fact that there were still coins inside. Despite my attempts to retrieve the change, one stubborn nickel managed to jam the grinder (not the technical term. You know, the turny pointy choppy thing).

$368 later ...

Ugh.

So, since that money went (forgive me) down the drain, we won't be strapping ourselves to the roof of anything this week. The battle between gettin' work done and having fun rages on. Did we go to that lovely park today? No. We shuffled around the house grumbling a grouchy grumble sound and ate rocky road fudge. (And by "we" I mean "I," as you might have guessed.)

But that's just me. If you were to listen to our daughters right now, you'd think we were in Wonderland. For the past three days, this house has been giggle central. It usually goes something like this:

Bo: "OK, so pretend you're a horse and I'm a teenager."

Magpie: "Yeah ..."

Bo: "And I'm going to use this string and you have to gallop. OK?"

Magpie: "Yeah ..." (voice steadily rising with excitement over the plot.)

Bo: "And then I see Justin Beaver (sic) and he says, 'Hey, nice horse.'"

Magpie: "Yeah ... and we then we say poopy poopity poop. I haven't changed my underwear since yesterday night!!!"

Both: "Giggle giggle giggle OH! That's hilarious. Ah ha ha ha!!!"

(Roll around the floor doubled over with laughter.)

Bo: "Hey, let's do handstands now."

So, once again, it takes a 4 and a 6 year old to remind me just how good life is. But I do think next year I'll book a trip somewhere warm, and use a mesh drain cover in the sink from now on.

What else is happening in Penny Carnival land? Let's see ...

My sister's having a Hawaiian-themed Easter party Saturday night. Of course she is. What theme does your Easter Eve party have this year? Oh, wait, you mean you don't ... never mind.

Easter brunch follows the next day. My belly feels full just thinking about that.

I sewed a dress for myself yesterday. I pretty much just copied a drop-waist dress I have from the Gap and used some dark red jersey knit I've had stashed away. It's a bit too big right now, so I'm going to adjust it and will show a photo later.

Other fun from our corner of the world ...

This is what you get when you ask the kids to wrap a gift with whatever we have around the house (I loved it!):

My ballerinas:

 

And tap (not my rear end, but I would take it ... and the pink shoes):

 

Bo, in a scarf, getting all grown up on me:

 

Holy crud. I think my grumpies are gone. Maybe I just needed to write a blog post. What a novel concept ... maybe I'll do this more often.

;)  

Good to see y'all here again.