Today is Lisa’s birthday, and to celebrate we went strawberry picking. Or, in Carrie’s case, strawberry eating. I really think I should have given them an extra couple of dollars for all the strawberries she ate! I wound up with something like six pounds of strawberries. Yummy!
We also picked some raspberries, which was much easier for Carrie to do – if they come off the bush easily they’re ripe. So she ate even more of those.
Is it any wonder she didn’t eat any lunch?
A few weeks ago I started the Couch to 5K running program. I wound up doing week 1 twice, because I was so out of shape that I couldn’t actually run all eight 60-second intervals for the first week. :P
But I did the first day of week 3 today, and…it didn’t kill me!
However, at the end of this program I won’t be anywhere near actually running 5 kilometers (or, for those of us who struggle with metric, 3 miles) in the alloted 30 minutes, because that would require me to run at 6 miles per hour. Um. I have to admit that I can’t even run at a full 4 miles per hour, I’m running at a really pathetic 3.7 miles per hour. I think turtles run faster than that. But at least I’m jogging, right?
Dear Carolyn,
I tried to tell you that you’re two and two-thirds now, but you insist that you are two-and-a-half! I guess you’re not quite ready for fractions.
Quite by accident, I discovered the other day that you can repeat rhythms. I can clap pretty much anything and you can repeat it. I have no idea if this is normal or if you’re going to be the youngest lead snare in the marching band. Along those lines, you’re completely obsessed with The Little Einsteins right now, which is all about music and using different musical ideas to complete a task – like listening for a certain melody to find something or singing loudly (fortissimo!) to make something happen.
In other news, you tried your first s’more this month. Ah, the joys of toasted marshmallows! The best part? You preferred the graham crackers alone. Well, with a side of chocolate, of course. And after all that work toasting you a perfect marshmallow!
When you were sick a couple of weeks ago, I let you watch Cinderella. It’s now your favorite movie – “Cinder-gerella!” I’ll probably regret this when you’re begging for every cheap plastic thing with princesses plastered all over it, but for now I think it’s adorable that you love my favorite childhood movie.
Oh! I almost forgot! You can put together a 24-piece puzzle! We have a Winnie the Pooh puzzle that your Aunt Jeannie gave you, and I had planned to put it away until you were at least three, since puzzles haven’t really been your strong suit. But you saw the box and begged to play with it, and you can put it together all on your own (with a little verbal coaching when you start trying to force a piece where it doesn’t quite belong).
Every month I’m even more amazed by all the things you’ve learned. You’re one pretty amazing kid!
Love, Mommy
I started my sock pal’s socks a few days ago.
It was a lovely, breezy 72 degrees this afternoon, so I took Carrie and the dogs out on the deck. Carrie and I sat for a bit on the swing while I knit and she ate animal crackers. She guessed I was knitting a glove (a reasonable guess, since it’s just the cuff of a sock so far) and then decided that it was a sock. Then Carrie played with her sand table, the dogs ran around and I knit for the better part of an hour. Oh, and Carrie and Murphy got in some serious cuddle time:
This past Saturday, my mom and I went to the spinning guild meeting. I have to confess, after all of the excitement of learning how to spin, discovering that the spinning guild meets in my town and being given a wheel of my own, spinning kind of fell off the map in terms of my hobbies.
I think I may have figured out why – well, aside from the fact that in the intervening years I’ve had a small person take up a lot of my time. I wasn’t spinning the right kind of stuff. Everyone says to start with Blue Face Leicester, because it has such a long staple length and it’s really easy to spin. I bought some (OK, a lot) and didn’t like spinning it.
I just wrote a check to drop in the mail to the seller so she could send me the second four ounce ball of this roving she had in her basket. I’m planning to ply them and knit something for Carrie – maybe a new hat and scarf for winter? Eight ounces of worsted-ish ought to be plenty for those and maybe an extra hat or two to donate, right?
I am just a zombie today. I went to bed at midnight, and then Carrie woke me up at 12:30 (she said she fell out of bed, but I didn’t hear a “thump”), 1:30 (her toe hurt), 3:30 (she needed a new bandaid, because the one I gave her at 1:30 had fallen off) and 4:30 (she wanted to snuggle). At which point I begged Denis to take over and he brought Carrie into bed with us. I don’t sleep very soundly when she’s in our bed, because I’m usually the one getting kicked, elbowed, poked, etc. Then when he tried to transfer her back to her bed at 7:00 she woke up screaming for me. It’s nice to be loved and all, but still…
At least I managed to talk her into sleeping for a bit longer so she’d have the energy to play all day, but then I couldn’t go back to sleep. Now it’s 4:00, and I’ve given up on trying to get her to take a nap – which means I didn’t get a nap either. I have no idea how we’re going to survive the birthday party we’re going to this evening.
Well, I guess technically it’s not summer yet, but we had our final concert of the season this evening. This is the one we always try to do in a local park, but usually it’s raining. Tonight, however, the weather was perfect. It was a great way to wrap up the season.
I’m a little sad, because the director – who’s been with the community band since the beginning seven years ago – is stepping down. I’ve only been with the band for four years, but he was also one of the band directors in my high school, so I’ve known him for a while. It will be very hard for someone to take his place!
We went out to dinner with Lisa & family tonight, and at one point the conversation turned to silly names. Denis said his name was “Slartibartfast“, and the three kids started laughing as though that was the funniest thing ever. I’m sure the rest of the restaurant didn’t really appreciate the giggling, but I certainly did.
What was even funnier was on the way home, Carrie decided that we had to sing the “Slartibartfast” song, where she just repeated the word over and over to a made up melody. Or, well, tried to. It’s a hard word to pronounce, after all…