Quiet Day

On Saturday, after a busy week, Emma asked me if we could, please Mommy, just have a day to watch movies? I slowed the pace on Saturday, and Sunday too, and today has been quite glacial. We had a slow breakfast, cleaned the house and stayed in our pajamas 'til nearly 2. On Sunday we had been strawberry picking with Dad but the berries are not great so Emma and I have laid them on wax paper on a cookie sheet for freezing, for something we will come up with later. She played a while upstairs with her doll house before she declared it filthy. I set her up at the kitchen sink with soap and water and a towel and she has been occupied washing all the doll house goodies for 45 minutes now. She is wet through, the counter, the floor and parts of the ceiling are wet, but she is happy as a pig in mud and so am I!

Picnic

Yesterday we tried to go creeking. I don't think I have ever done this, unless A-level Biology and Geography fieldwork counts? I imagine it to mean that you wade up and down a creek and find fascinating stones, creatures and other creek stuff. Unfortunately, it had rained, well, more than a little bit. The creek that we chose is on a floodplain. In usual circumstances one crosses a lovely green field, take a short walk in a cool woods and end up on a stony beach. This time we trekked though a mud paddy, and then halted when we saw the woods were essentially a swamp. We were with friends, one of whom is a nearly four year old boy. He said, "there's crocodiles in there" and we abandoned. We piled back in the car with our very wet shoes, studiously ignoring the fisherman putting on waders and gumboots, and headed off to a playground. It's actually an excellent playground with lots of different things for the kids to do and a good flat (dry) bit to put your picnic blanket under a tree. We all had a blissful three hours outside, swinging, jumping, eating, climbing and chatting. Then we came home to put our sneakers in the wash and agreed that when it was hot and dry we would try the creek again!

First summer playdate

We went out to friends who have a house with a lovely garden where they grow actual vegetables, have two ponies and chickens! Emma played for four hours straight and I chatted for four hours straight and we both had an awesome time. One of the highlights for me was Em's little friend taking her out to the garden and them eating handfuls of snap peas straight off the vines and then collecting the eggs out of the coop. On the way home she crashed so hard that she couldn't be woken up, even with the move from the car to the house.

Dear Emma, 12 June 2013

Dear Emma, You only have two concepts of time. Five minutes and forty five hours. The first means a short time and the second means a long time. You mean the long time to actually be longer than forty five hours but just how long is variable. When we leave a fun place and get in the car you sit there for a few minutes while we drive away and then you realise that we are actually leaving. From the backseat you pipe up loudly and complainingly; But Mommy! I wanted to stay there for FORTY FIVE HOOOUUUURRRRRRS! Today you were conversing with Cousin Travis about how you could both become statues and stay frozen for a long time. You told him very seriously that you could stay statues for forty five hours. I have tried to explain how forty five hours includes night-times as well as day-times but you won't be swayed from using it to measure how fun something was. Or how long it is taking me to finish this blog post. Hugs, Your Mom.

Summer Holidays, Age 3

Emma is on summer holidays. Her last day of school was Friday and I am determined that we are going to do something fun every day to celebrate this wonderful area that we live in. We are going to the theater, to parks, to playgrounds, to farms, to the zoo, bowling, creeking, hiking and swimming. And that's just this week! Hah! It's so easy to not get out of your pajamas, lie around all day in the house and get bored with each other. Emma chose a colour pen and we wrote on the calendar. One activity for each day this week. Yesterday was the library (amongst other errands) and today we are going strawberry picking. Of course it rained on our first day out but we broke out the Gumboots! Today we started the day with craisin-beet muffins which are scenting the house in a marvellous way as I type.