Ebb and Flow

What a good day.  I'm not going to make this a long post because it's 9:30 pm and the chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven aren't going to eat themselves.  The day didn't present itself to be such a special one.  We were up several times in the night due to teething. Boo. So at 6 am we were up and at 'em.  The baby was grouchy, Lola was being obnoxious and I was counting down the hours until bed time. But after 8:30 am nappies Oliver woke up refreshed and in an excellent mood.  We met Greta and Josephine for a playdate where we worked on our driving skills.

You can't see it but Greta is perfectly at 10 and 2, Oliver likes to roll a bit dangerously by just using one hand.

After the playdate we went and ate some excellent Thai food where Oliver and Greta enjoyed some Pad See Aiew and about a pound of cantaloupe. With yummy food fresh in their bellies Oliver and Greta parted ways to go take their afternoon naps.  After his nap we had a little sensory fun in the driveway.  I filled some tupperware with flour, uncooked oatmeal and uncooked rotini pasta.  It was great fun and occupied Oliver for over 30 minutes.  He loved stirring and transferring ingredients from one dish to the other.  I like to think he was practicing for all of the cooking he will someday do for me.

The fun was topped off by dumping the flour over his head.  Always a good idea.  Good thing we were outside or daddy would have had a aneurysm.

The rest of the evening flowed from dinner to a walk down our trail in our new backyard. Something Corey has been begging me to do for weeks but I have been dodging due to the fact that there are snakes and ticks in the woods and I want nothing to do with either.  But I can't avoid it forever so I finally succumbed to his requests and dressed quite appropriately in jeans, long sleeves, a hat, and my Ugg boots (I think a pair of Hunter rain boots are a necessity now that we live in the woods, hint hint my love, Mother's Day is Sunday). I dressed the baby the same, minus the Ugg boots, slathered on the all-natural bug repellent and off we went.  Lola led the way and despite my constant look out for slithery creatures I have to say it was so lovely.  We walked quietly through the forest, I half expected Bella and Edward to come running through the trees Twilight vampire style but we didn't see them or any other large creatures thankfully.  We just walked and talked and the only thing we left behind us were our footprints in the soft mud and the faint smell of citronella and cedar oil.  Towards the end of our walk it started to rain a bit but we were sheltered by the canopy of trees so the only evidence we had of it was the soft sound of the drops hitting the leaves overhead.

After our walk we made a quick trip to the grocery and then had a little bit of play time in Oliver's room before bedtime.  I love days like these. Where one activity flows effortlessly and spontaneously into the next.  I'm a planner by nature and I'm constantly trying to plan fun family days and force moments of greatness but these are the great moments. The ones that aren't planned. The ones where you bypass your debilitating fear of serpents and decide that bath time can be skipped and bedtime can be pushed back an hour.