Mother's Day

I got what I wanted for Mother's Day: a soft-edged, light-filled easy day with my family. I got to wake up at 7:30, remember that it was Mother's Day and mosey at my ease while Jon made breakfast and entertained the kids. I came to breakfast when I was good and ready, after Miles came to hug me and wish me happy Mother's Day. There were pancakes, there was coffee, and cards signed by my family. My cup runneth over.

Oh, and daycare and pre-school between them gave me a stack of beautiful crafts from both kids (one favorite: pic of Adele with puzzle pieces forming a frame, reads: "I luv U to pieces!"), and a veritable garden of houseplants. I'm a gardener now. Wish me luck! I don't have the best gardening record...

We needed a family shot as we didn't get one on cold, rainy Easter. An obliging friend at church helped us:

Yes, we're in the same place that we were for our Christmas card. What of it? :-)

I got brunch at Boudreaux's downtown, complete with Mother's Day mimosa. Snapped this of Miss Adele while there:

At home, Miles occupied the in-between time having quiet time and drawing my portrait.

Remarkable likeness, don't you think?

The early evening found us at the public library, as it so often does.

My kids LOVE that gazebo out front.

Miles with his favorite from this week's library haul.

My mother was a silent presence today. I miss her every day, and often painfully. But today her memory only seemed to fill the corners of the day with contentment and sense of grateful joy. She is here, in a sense. Miles has a clear vision of her in her house in heaven. According to him, she has a garden, and her house is yellow.

I could wish that everyone who has ever known a painful Mother's Day, for any reason, would live to experience ten such Mother's Days as this was. I am a wealthy woman.

Heights

We have been seeing growth around here! Not only in the indoor garden Miles and I planted a couple of weeks back, which has just started to sprout tiny leafed shoots. But we have some kids who prove themselves more capable of more things all the time.

This girl goes down slides by herself now, and has taken to shouting "I color!!" when she sees crayons.

This boy has even taken to attempting some ball sports. I mean, he still doesn't catch well, but the throwing is really coming along. And catching has seen some improvements too. 

His preferred pursuits tend to involve his imagination and his enormous vocabulary.

We took the kids to the park a couple of weeks ago to fly a kite. It went fairly well! At one point it stayed in the air for like 8 minutes!

Miles and Adele laughed at the jolly sight of the colorful kite they picked out dancing in the wind.

Miles points to his friend, the kite.

Every night there are read stories and told stories. Told stories have a cast of repeat characters, such as Snandy the dog, a family of bears with Young whose names are Patrick, Matrick, and Jorbain, and lately, a donkey named Roebucks who helps Miles get places we aren't able to drive him to. Each story is told twice: once to Miles, and once between his parents, over dishes and laughter.

These are sweet days.

Jurassic Tech

For weeks, after seeing this poster, I have been telling Miles, "The Dinos. Are coming." The first time, he looked concerned and said, "But I don't like dinos when they bite me..." But upon being reassured that these dinos would not be allowed to bite, he's been looking forward delightedly to Dino Day, which was what we called the Dinosaur Petting Zoo traveling exhibit.

While we were observing Naptime, the other children in Blacksburg (and I'm pretty sure every one of them came) did a scavenger hunt and dig. But we arrived in time for the Dinosaur Petting Zoo portion. Basically, giant puppets, but the puppeteering was so effective you really could forget the puppet aspect and completely buy that this really was a traveling dinosaur show.

There were several varieties. We got photos of a couple:

These guys are from Victoria, Australia, which at the time they were alive was inside the Antarctic circle. So their big eyes are supposedly due to the white, snowy environment.

Check out T-Rex!

This is supposed to be a juvenile.

She roared terrifyingly, but not as often as Adele. Adele just sat on my shoulders and shouted "ROAR! ROAAAAR!" with sheer glee.

Miles did not cry like the boy behind him. But his eyes did get very, very big...

Not only was the puppeteering effective, but the acting by the emcee character was excellent. He really seemed alarmed when she charged the kids!

Miles got to pet a few afterwards...

Afterward: frolic on the lawn!

Adele is also wearing dinosaur babylegs, as well as her first pigtails.

Note Miles' dino sweater. They were pretty pumped about this.

What does Blacksburg have in store for us next??

Children at Play

Our kids have been very busily playing and growing in the past weeks. In no particular order, here are a few of their escapades:

First, the fan tent! Jon found on Buzzfeed, which for him functions like Pinterest, the idea to make a tent using a fitted sheet (we used a duvet cover) and a box fan. Fold the edges around the fan, turn it on, and instant airy igloo! This was brilliant for the very warm weather we were having at the time:

It was quite spacious!

Someday he will be reading with a flashlight in here.

Adele quickly found the courage to enjoy the tent experience too.

Speaking of Adele being courageous....

We barely took our hands off her for a second!, but she is able to hang unassisted. Seems to like it, too!

Adele says "Rock rock rock!" when she sees one of these:

Miles seems to prefer balancing to dangling.

Miles is also becoming quite the chalk artist! Below is a drawing he did of a kid named Patrick who is sad because he has no Mum and Papa (!!).

But cheer up, everyone. Miles informs us that Patrick is going to be adopted into our family someday. So he can look forward to that, I suppose.

a "Present"

Miles drew Patrick a fully stocked house to try to make him happy in the meantime.

We've made a couple of weekend trips to the library and enjoy walking around the library once we've picked out our books. They've taken to walking hand in hand:

What he was telling her was this: "We have to hold hands in the road, Adele, because if you don't the cars will not see you and they will  hit you and break your arm, Adele!"

 

She's got a lot of eyes and hands looking after her.

Prospera Pascha sit!

At long last, here is an Easter post, otherwise known as, a series of adorable pictures of Adele.
She is my queen of hearts lately; I can't stop staring at her little face. I think it's the age, or the fact she's the baby of the family, or her capacity to wear the heck out of her adorable spring dresses. Case in point: Easter!

But M. continues charming and savant as always. This morning I said to Adele, "Adele! Why are you so beautiful?" And Miles put in, "Mum, why are YOU so beautiful?" You can't not kiss that boy.

I would really love to have a bunch of still life pictures of the church service, perhaps of the sunrise, an early daffodil, and some meditations on the resurrection. But I am tired, today, and with small children, life is rarely still.

We attended the 6am service, as has become customary. Although, I was completely certain that it started at 6:30 until about 5:40 when we checked the website again... The kids have never been dressed so quickly nor so thoroughly against their will. Fortunately, I thought to buy some donuts to use as breakfast bribes rewards. We got to church only a few minutes late and, more amazingly still, no one was crying.

We missed the outside dawn fire portion of the service, but as it was drizzling pretty thickly, I'm fairly sure that's for the best, this year. We did get more cooperation out of Miles in the children's pageant, though. Our dawn service includes a play put on by the children and youth that presents a tableau of redemption-themed stories from the Old Testament, done by candlelight, before sunup when we proclaim the risen Christ. It's pretty amazing. Anyway, this year Miles brought the stuffed Walrus to be created in the Creation Story and to be saved from the flood in the Noah story, and there was absolutely no crying or falling limp to the ground like last year. Progress.

We enjoyed a fabulous brunch at church after the service, and were home by about 9:30. That's right, at 9:30, we were home from church on Easter Sunday. More hours for celebration! which we did in our home, since it was pleased to RAIN all day.

The good news was, the kids got to give their full attention to their baskets and eat more candy than they might have done had we been less sluggish and lazy :-)

Baskets were pretty simple, but the kids thought they had riches. Among the wealth was M.'s first jump rope, a new hat for Adele, who loves hats, and some of those eggs are sidewalk chalk.

The windup toys were a big hit!

Easter gave us lots of quality time with family. Michaela and Marshall joined Grandma and Grandpa and we had a happy, festive and crowded living room for Easter :-)

Miles got a new audience for his stories.

Adele got more Adoring Tall People to read to her!

Miles got to harmonica for far longer than usual before being asked to stop.

Adele got to be the Beloved Happy Sprite of the room... actually, that's the normal state of things.

Often when you hold a child, you do so in hope that some of their beauty will rub off on you. Whether this means they actually make you look better, or whether it means some Ineffable Glow will get into your bloodstream and make your heart lighter, I'm not sure if we know. I just know I can't stop marveling these days.

Even as I reach for another cup of coffee, because she's still not sleeping through the night (by a long shot). I'm in a bittersweet place, where I know that on the one hand, someday, we will sleep! and do things in the evenings! but also, someday, she won't be 16 months old and wearing tiny sundresses, and someday, he won't want me to look at and hear all about his 27th drawing of a rocket going to space.. Someday can wait. On balance.