Neko packed her own lunch today. The highlight was this personalized banana.
Category: Neko
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Gathered
I found these on the table. Carefully gathered and tied with simple twine. So very lovely. Only thing is, I didn’t do it and Tom had been at work all day.
Martha Stewart, you’ve got some six-year-old competition.
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Pots and pans band
It’s Election Day! Did you vote?
There was also no school and I was waiting on a phone call from the printer, so we were pretty bound to the house for the day.
So we cracked out the pots and pans. Much music was made.
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Breakfast
As the kids piled into our bed at an ungodly early hour, we joked with Neko, “What are you making us for breakfast?” After bustling around the kitchen for a bit, our question was answered: cereal, cheese sticks, and milk.
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Last day of soccer
We have survived the season. That last photo really summarizes it all, Neko standing on the sidelines, seeing how high in the air she can get that blue blanket to fly in the wind.
And when I asked her if she’d like to play soccer again? The answer was yes.
God help me.
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To the Big City
It’s been a miserable week.
While everyone is finally healthy, work has crashed down on me. I have been at war with a printer. Not the small, desktop kind, but the big professional corporate kind.
I don’t even want to go into it, but it involves a whole of me screaming and yelling at people over the phone. And they’re people who don’t really deserve to be yelled at, but they are my representatives to The Organization. Young children, who were likely in diapers when I learned to use Photoshop. Yet, they’re attempting to school me in it.
And somewhere in between there was me doing a really crappy job at everything else in my life, including motherhood, Halloween preparation, parades, and field trips.
I came out of the week knowing that I ache for people whose lives are that stressful all the time, and I understand why they keel over prematurely from a massive heart attack. I can’t take that kind of stress on a daily basis.
I also know that I need more of the good stuff. Much more.
Friday was one of our last glorious days, and I was facing it solo. So I made plans to pick up Neko from school and head to the Big City. Mary Beth and her mom, Nancy, jumped in as an unexpected bonus. We traveled down to the purple bridge. Hiked across. Played. Laughed. Hiked back. We tried to get a table at the pizza place, but the wait was too long. So we took our order to go, and ate outside, listening to a live musician.
Not much pizza was eaten. Neko and Mary Beth ran and swung around in a way I remember so clearly from my youth. The decibels were a little much for Shep, who planted himself firmly in my lap. But Ellery? She danced her can off, the whole night, without a break for pizza.
In the future? Less yelling at 24-year-old printing reps. More of this kind of goodness.
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Our new friend
I found this baby garter snake in the driveway yesterday, and tucked it in a container for Neko to see when she arrived home.
And I’m not sure how we are going to convince her to get rid of it.
She adores this little thing. When I took the photo, she was still wearing a glove during handling, but by evening, she had tossed aside the glove and had it wrapped around her hand as she sat on the couch watching television.
This little snake has been the champ of all nature finds. Not one attempt at biting. Happily being handled by all the kids. I have to confess it’s going to be a little tough for me to let it go, too.
But then I remember that right now this baby snake eats worms, but in a few months it will eat whole mice. So, you know, yep, it’ll have to go soon.
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All seven-month-olds belong in cardboard boxes, right?
On Mondays, we watch my nephew Joe while Bonnie goes to work.
He might be a first child, but once a week he gets to live life as a fourth. (And as a third over at Susie’s house on Wednesdays.) Having to wait a bit longer to be tended to. Sometimes getting stepped over or toys stolen. And sometimes a six-year-old drags you into a cardboard box to hang out for a while.
I should also mention that the striped pants and shirt combo was my fault. They're plain blue on the other side, and somehow I flipped them inside out during a diaper change. I spent the whole afternoon thinking I needed to teach Bonnie how to match clothes. When she picked him up, her first words were, “Why are his pants inside out?”
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Yahtzee!
Yahtzee has been big around here lately. Neko has been playing at school, as it teaches counting, addition, and the beginnings of probability. She's got crazy good luck, and crushed me the other night with two Yahtzees and a complete lower section of her score card. Meanwhile, I was crossing out categories as I failed to perform.
I know this is a terrible photo, but I thought that especially Anne
would appreciate this moment. Having mastered the game, Neko has decided to teach Ellery and Shep how to play.
