A Girls' Weekend

Chris took John to Buffalo, NY, for a family wedding--which, on that side of the family, means a family reunion of sorts and a whole weekend of fun get-togethers! We knew it wasn't a good time for me to travel, although a few days before he left I wondered aloud if maybe I could pull it together to go with him. Chris said (joking, but not so much), "Sure, you can come, but John and I are riding in our own car. We don't want to ride with a nauseated pregnant lady and two screaming little girls for 12 hours!" I've got to admit that I wouldn't want to ride with me either.

They were gone for five days and I tried within my limited energy to build up the fun of a Mary-Margaret-Mama Weekend, as it was dubbed.

On Saturday morning, I took the girls to a bakery for breakfast. Mary chose a cupcake, then ate off only the frosting and that was her breakfast: I forgot that she likes only frosting on baked goods. She probably would have liked it better if I took her to a regular breakfast restaurant so she could order some meat! Afterward I was already fatigued by our little outing so I "stretched" the so-called fun by driving around a small town to enjoy the scenery because it was easier for me to sit still and drive than go home where the girls would be running this way and that. "See, girls, we're having fun! Isn't this fun?" "Mama, when are we going to drive home?"

Then I got ahead of myself and took the girls out for a second time in one day. This is my first trimester, so that was kind of a ridiculous aspiration. We went to Wal-Mart where we bought Celosia flowers for the window box: I think a great deal for $7.50 total. I always take a photo when the annuals are newly planted and small looking, then forget to take a picture a couple of months later in their glory. When we got home, I was just about collapsed and got to be reminded how deceptive it is to feel pretty good because I've done a good job of limiting my activities, not because I actually have my energy back! A few more weeks . . .

Over the weekend, we baked cookies and we tried to bake bread but, after my yeast rose beautifully in the liquid, the bread dough itself never rose. We also cooked some of our favorite dinners. See, in our family, we have widely varying tastes, which makes dinner a tough balancing act for me. Basically, I know that each night one or two family members will be happy with the food and the rest won't, so I try to rotate who is particularly enjoying dinner. While Mary shares her love of meat with Daddy, she shares her love of complex flavors and ethnic foods with me. (And that's not entirely accurate because Chris likes certain ethnic foods that I dislike, and I like others that he dislikes.) Mary and I cooked creamy chickpea curry, vegetarian white chili, pasta e fagiole soup, and barley with mushrooms and spinach (the latter being such a favorite that she screams with delight and runs in circles when she finds out I'm making it).

Mary and I finished assembling the All About Reading and All About Spelling programs. The kits comes with two sets of flash cards and one set of letter tiles, so we spent several sessions at the dining table breaking apart the perforated flash cards and the perforated letter tiles, then attaching the letter tiles to magnets. Mary was delighted to be doing "teamwork with Mama!" "We're a team, Mama!" Above is white board Mary helped me mount with the letter tiles affixed.

We managed one or two walks, early in the morning because it is so hot and humid these days.

While the baby napped, we built a castle with a road, a parking garage, and a paddock for animals. Mary really glowed under having Mama's undivided attention to just lay on the carpet and build a castle.

I thought this artwork using the Cuisenaire math rods was interesting: Mary made a farm that is simultaneously from a standard view and a bird's eye view. The green bottom is the grass, the blue top is the sky. There is a brown tree on the right. But then, using a bird's eye view, the four other objects on the tray are various feed troughs for farm animals.

Turns out that Margaret (15 months) is really learning how to climb. This is the age when a mother thinks, "And now I say goodbye to sitting peacefully on a bench while my children play for about the next year."

The weekend was much quieter than I'd hoped. I even arranged two girls' only play dates for Mary--how she would have shrieked with delight!--but had to cancel both due to a yucky contagious illness Margaret came down with. Still, I think Mary greatly enjoyed the attention. She's been a real Grade A Stinker the last few weeks (Chris and the babysitter also noticing it): I even wrote a lengthy blog post about my frustration with her ridiculous number of purposeful, destructive behaviors each day, but decided not to publish it once I calmed down. But after the first day of having my sole attention, she began to get sweeter and sweeter and her behavior became docile, pleasing, charming, and loving. Everything is "Yes, Mama!" and "Okay, Mama!" and doing surprise chores for me. So, the weekend has been a good opportunity to strengthen our relationship.