It’s officially the first day of summer holidays! I’ll be adding to this post throughout the day (scroll down for most recent posts).
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8:00 a.m.
Were you expecting good cheer and sunshine here at the Fishbowl?
Ha. So was I.
The day is still young. Very. Very. Young. And there have already been several slammed doors and hurt feelings and now there is someone sobbing upstairs.
Good lord. Please don’t let this be a foreshadowing of things to come.
Hopefully there will be cheerier news to report later today.
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8:15 a.m.
Sarah just came downstairs wearing a glum face. I could tell she had something to tell me.
“Emma said a very bad word,” she said.
“Oh really,” I said. “What was it?” (I really don’t know what I was expecting.)
“She said BE QUIET.” She looked like she was going to cry. The tears were welling up. “And it hurt my feelings.”
“Do you need a hug?”
“Yeah.” A smile sneaked back on her face, and we hugged.
9:09 a.m.
The girls tidied their bedrooms and are playing outside now. It took a couple of new “made-by-Nana” summer dresses and a big dollop of sunshine to turn things around for them. They dragged an old sleeping bag out (best.thing.ever!) and are doing who-knows-what with it. Old blankets made great playthings. Don’t you think?
A load of laundry is out on the line.
They’re calling for rain later. Perhaps a trip to the library is in order?
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9:44 a.m.
Are kids happier when happily occupied? They’re deadheading my hanging plant. Go teamwork!
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10:09 a.m.
They’re at the neighbors house watching some construction action (what is it with kids and trucks?) Emma came to ask permission before they went. I watched her cross the street and run towards the neighbor boy, her arms in the air, yelling “we can play we can play we can play!”
Ah, to be a kid.
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10:21 a.m.
Observation: If I’m going to be hanging the laundry out on the line I’m going to need (a) more clothes pegs and (b) to chop a few branches off a fast-growing tree.
Also: is it just me, or does it feel really good to put away those infernal lunch bags?
Deadline city. Enough laundry. The vacuum will have to wait. Back to work.
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11:31 a.m.
Lunch would be a lot easier if there were more groceries to choose from. I will scrape something together. After lunch, a quick trip to the beach (all in the name of research!)
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4:16 p.m.
Home from a great afternoon at the beach (that’s a whole seperate post) and the library, followed by a quickie trip to the grocery store. We’re in the midst of a thunderstorm and there’s wet laundry on the line. *sigh*
I can hear that Sarah is building herself a laptop out of cardboard and sticky tape. This should be interesting.
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5:00 p.m.
Mark is biking home from work. Salmon for dinner. There is a pile of laundry on the bed that’s so big that someone could get lost in it. And would ya tell me this? How is it that the books I ordered from Chapters arrive on the same day that I’m told that a book I requested MONTHS ago at the library is ready to be picked up? I just went from zero reading material to TOO MUCH reading material. (Although there really is no such thing, is there?)
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6:13 p.m.
Off for an after-dinner stroll to Clare Park. Rumour has it there’s a Northern Flicker nesting there. THEN we’ll deal with that laundry.
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7:16 p.m.
We’re back. No Flicker to be seen. The girls are putting away the laundry I sorted. Mark is helping Sarah, who has a tendency to make a mess of her closet.
I’m back to doing a bit of work here while I still have some energy left. Unfortunately (for me) I’m totally craving sugar.
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8:42 p.m.
The girls are getting ready for bed. Mark is taking a Wii fit break. I rock at competitive hula hooping. I bet you didn’t know that about me.
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9:01 p.m.
They’re in bed. Finally!
(BTW I’m reading “Last Child in the Woods – saving our children from nature-deficit disorder” by Richard Louv. I’ve read the first chapter. I predict this is going to be a good read. The library book I picked up today was “The Glass Castle: A Memoir” by Jeannette Walls.)
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10:20 p.m.
One bowl of cereal and a bit of Last Child and a LOT of Glass Castle (eek, what a great book) and I think I am going to move myself upstairs to continue reading. What a long day this has been. G’night.
