living it up

i have to go back to work (outside-the-home work) in five days. thoughts of lesson plan ideas are started to infiltrate my brain and are keeping me up a little at night, so already my mind is back at work. i won't complain about this too much-- i really do consider it an utter privilege to be able to have 2 full months off with my kid and still receive a paycheck in the mail. it should be this way for everyone if that's their fancy. i feel very fortunate for our long and exuberant days.

some of them have been grief-filled, because we are sincerely feeling the loss of a grandma, but i have also felt a strong and genuine excitement about waking up with the little one and seeing where the wind takes us. it's been a summer full of fruit picking and preserving-- strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, marionberries, blackberries, corn, plums, pears-- the order in which they arrived. we have lots of jam for sweet breakfasts in winter, lots o' berries for smoothies and pies, and enough corn to help us remember how delicious summer tastes for a couple hundred days when it's cold.

we've also spent lots of time at parks, the pool, in sprinklers, and in puddles. if it doesn't rain, we make them. we've been riding our bikes to the library to fill baskets up with books, baking up a storm, visiting the amusement park, the zoo, and the science museum. we've also been having some lazy days of doodling, cuddling, and watching some charlie and lola with a big bowl of popcorn. luscious i tell you.

adah accomplished her goals of learning to climb trees, and everywhere we go she's on the lookout for one that's her size. she can also ride her tricycle all...by...herself... all the way to prescott and back. she has also been busy playing out her anxieties and anticipations about school, which she starts a week after i go back to work. she plays school constantly, wants to know exactly how many friends she's going to make, and what we're going to pack in her lunch. she still likes to eat. like a lot. mothers' daughter, i guess.