Jumpstart.

A few weeks ago,  I called a moratorium on Life and pulled in the reins.  When I do this, I try to clear out our schedule as much possible - we do a few planned activities such as our usual Friday playdate and seeing family, but that is about it.  I focus on exercising, spending time with the kids, catching up on my books and cooking meals from scratch.  I love having free days that only need to be filled at our whim.  Today is our last such day for awhile.

Tomorrow, Team Chaos heads back to school and the schedule this time around is disjointed.  Essentially, Anjali will go to pre-school in the mornings on Mondays and Wednesdays, whereas Arun will go to pre-K in the afternoons on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. The overlap is just a scant hour and a half which will leave pretty much no free time now.  Previously, their schedules matched, so this will be an adjustment. Overall, I am okay with a bit of running around, we live close to the school and when you have two kids of differing ages, this is simply how it works.  I am a little curious to see how they react to being separated like this - previously, their classes interacted and they even played together at recess.  Now?  Two days a week, they will go the entire day without seeing each other.

Anyway!

We have had a few good weeks, sans the death of Sofia (and the sea monkeys.  Dude.  I flushed them down the toilet which was a mistake because oh my god, do not kill your vat of sea monkeys the same week your tarantula dies because three year old girls do not like it.  I repeat, three year old girls do not like it.)

So the past few weeks have been busy as we attempted to cram as much fun as possible before the drone of Everyday Life drowns out all of the whimsy and swoops down on us like Dementors.

What have we done these past few weeks??

We have nurtured our babies -- "Water" the pink elephant, "Charlie" the black cat and "Liberty-Labor Day" the white polar bear.  Yes, that is the polar bear's name.  Do not try to talk her out of it, either.  Trust me, Gentle Reader.  Yes, she has a cast of thousands in baby dolls collecting dust in her room.  No, she does not play with them and prefers her animals.

Human babies are for weaklings, yo.
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We went "hiking" at the Ernie Miller Nature Center.

I played Sherpa to their roles as Sir Edmund Hillary.

Later, we went digging for moles.

I doubt the moles were amused.

Taking a breather.  It is hard work supervising one's Sherpa. 
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We went to our neighborhood park and made new friends.  Even Lucy, in the form of a puppy named Sophie.  A 4 month old Labrador puppy who was already twice the size of Lucy.  These new friends told us how awesome the Heritage Park Dog Park was, so a few evenings later we checked it out.  And just happened to run into our new friends there as well.  Bonus! We had never been to a dog park and I have to say it was a complete riot - like a Mommy and Me Playdate except all of the children are allowed, nay, encouraged to bite and sniff each others' butts. 
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We went to the Deanna Rose Children's Farm.  We caught fish and this is where I should point out that not only was I hooking worms, I was sawing them in half with rocks. And then, the pièce de résistance of "recreational" fishing?  Pulling the hook out of the fish's mouth, then tossing it back into the water.  To be caught again. Gentle Reader, do I not deserve a medal of honor??  Or at least a margarita?

The best part of the day?  Arun made a new little friend and as they were happily playing together, Arun said "Hey, do you want to come over and meet my mama?"   The little boy agreed and Arun introduced me to his friend.  As in, Arun was PROUD to show me off.  

I may have gotten teary-eyed, but I'll cut you into ribbons if you tell anyone.

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We went to an ice cream party where seriously, there were 10 different kinds of homemade ice cream - the hosts spent weeks making ice cream for this shindig.  I am not crazy about ice cream and I have to confess that I did not try any of it.  However, from the looks of folks using their spoons to make sweet, passionate love to their bowls  while Barry White blared in the background, I suspect that ice cream was pretty damned good.  It was a great party, one where the kids ran crazy together and the adults sat and had actual conversations because the kids were too busy entertaining each other.  It reminded me of the parties from my childhood, where the kids were not supervised much and still  managed to figure it out for themselves.  

One thing I noticed, though.  I was adamant with Manoj that we had to take something to this party - a side dish of some sort and a bottle of wine.  As such, we took a tray of fresh fruit and a bottle of wine despite Manoj's insistence that we need not bring anything.  It turned out, we were the only guests who brought anything.  Huh. This is a new social group to me, so I was just following my usual norms.  My group usually brings a little something to a party and it never occurred to me that other social groups do not. Is this just me and my social group?   Just curious, that is all - I merely thought it was interesting.

Anyway - that is it, folks.  Back to the grind of Life.