A regular Tuesday

Grace appears to be having the time of her life in Florida. See the flying noodle above. The more I look at this picture the more I see a little witch flying on her broomstick, but I’m trying not to focus on that image.
While Grace plays hard, I had one of those empty days that suddenly gets filled by life details. I had NOTHING on the calendar other than lunch with Natalie. That is just the more fabulous thing in my book: an empty day. I lingered at nursery school dropping off my little man, then came home to a quiet, empty house. I filled two trash bags of stuff in Grace’s room and threw them out. I also swapped out some fall and spring clothes in my own closet, and put some old children’s toys on the sidewalk (my easier-to-execute version of freecycle.org). All gone by lunch! Then I went to Cambridgeside to return a couple of things and to do a couple of quick errands. Lunch was delightful, then afternoon was gobbled up by getting one car cleaned, the other inspected, by framing two pieces of Grace’s art for grandparents, by paying bills and writing thank you notes, by printing photos and putting them into my photo album, and by cleaning out Grace’s closet and baking a batch of cookies. Phew. Now wrapping presents for upcoming childrens’ birthday parties and scheduling the next few weeks of work. An empty day is such a gift. As mundane as this minutiae is, I get a tremendous charge out of completing things that have hovered over my head for weeks.

Grace has arrived in Florida. She flew on Sunday morning (above, going through security, following her grandfather). Matt took her and John to Logan on Sunday very early, and I woke up at 7:30 with a start: we forgot to pack the bears. Now of course this had double humor for me given the recent blog post about Whit’s monkeys. Matt pulled in at home, I threw a pajama-clad Whit into the backseat, and leapt into the car in my own pajamas, teeth unbrushed, clutching brown bear and yellow bear. We raced to Logan and I ran through the terminal like a crazy woman towards security. Grace and John came back through security (which was, inexplicably, a zoo at 8am on a Sunday morning), took possession of the bears, and calmly returned to their gate. It was a close call, I’m told, with boarding, but I think it was worth it. Grace was totally composed and brave waving goodbye to me; it was I who stood and watched her little form walk down the hall and followed her as she was swallowed up into the crush of travelers.
I miss her already. John is terrific about sending daily reports and photographs, and it appears that everyone’s having a total blast so far.

The same boring question

What shall I be when I grow up?

You can vote among these options:

1. a headhunter (use that useless MBA)
2. a midwife (use that enormous passion for birth, and my own two experiences)
3. a clothing store owner (use that insatiable appetite for all things superficial and fashiony)
4. a writer (please provide details of what I will write and who will read it)
5. other (please explain)

hereditary insomnia

Her mother’s daughter. Grace can’t sleep for anticipation of tomorrow. So she’s in her bed reading books (“reading”). We’ll see how late she stays up!

out of sorts

This photo was taken last Sunday morning as Christina and I drove out of the city. It’s sunrise over the East River, but somehow the contrast seems high to me for sunrise, and there is something vaguely evening-ish about the photograph.
It’s one of those days for me: confusion about which end is up, which way is forward, and which corner of my head will provide solace. I’ve written and taken down a couple of blog posts; despite concerted efforts, I can’t find my center today. The children have been arguing and I’m just feeling a bit out of sorts.
We had a lovely visit this morning with Kara, Jason, and baby Will – that was a respite from myself, and certainly the highlight of the day. Grace and Whit both really enjoyed holding Will and seeing them behaving gently, responsibly, playing the role of Big Kid made me simultaneously proud and sad. I ask and expect them to behave so much like full-blown children, and yet it was just yesterday that they were as small and helpless as baby Will. Hurry hurry hurry up, grown up, behave older than you are, wait wait wait, come here, let me hold you, why is time moving so fast?
Welcome to my world.