One day Lola was drawing monsters. This is a favorite pastime of hers. She drew this particularly interesting monster.
Together, we turned it into this:
Lola loves her monster, and it really wasn't that hard to do. If you have a creative kiddo, some stuffing, some felt, and a sewing machine, or even some glue, you too can make your very own monster.
Easter came and went with the usual level of excitement. One thing we just didn't do this year is color eggs. I know, I know. Mother of the year award, blah blah blah. To make matters worse, I had to work the Saturday before Easter, which is the day of the big Easter Egg Hunt in town. I worked right up until the last minute, drove home, dressed the kids in their cute Easter clothes, and we hustled into town. Wil and I each picked up a child and ran with them from our parking spot several blocks away from the park. Despite heroic efforts, we were 30 seconds too late, and everyone knows 30 seconds is all it takes for 50 screaming children to find 300 plastic eggs in the grass. Our kids were devastated, standing there, eggless, when some friends came over and shared their eggs with Rowan and Lola. They were instantly happy, running off to play. Despite that, I still felt like a big loser.
To make up for the egg hunt disaster, I bought and filled 50 eggs with stickers, jelly beans and other fun goodies, and hid them around the yard. When the kids got up from their nap they were so excited to have their own private egg hunt. The day was saved!
Lola enjoyed her dance class this year. Sadly, I rarely get to see her dance lessons as they are on a day that I work. A friend is nice enough to pick her up from daycare and take her to dance every week. One week, I happened to have that day off, so Rowan and I got to take her to dance. Rowan decided that he wanted to join in. Another Billy Elliot in the making, perhaps?
Wil and I ran Bloomsday together this year. It was very fun! Of course I trained dilligently for months to run the 7.4 mile course, while Wil ran two or three times in preparation, with no problems. We ran the race in 1 hour and 12 minutes. Not bad! My cousin says that you should drink chocolate milk after a long run. We looked and looked for the chocolate milk garden, but all we found was this lousy beer!
Far more important than Bloomsday, was completion of the "Canine Canter," a grueling 5K course in which you run with your dog. OK, it was so not grueling, especially since some friends and I took my three chihuahuas. I'd say it was downright leisurely. Very fun, and the dogs walked the whole way, even though I brought a backpack just in case.
Finally, I have to introduce my new horse, Miller. (So named because he is smooth enough to never spill my Miller Light on a ride.) I love Rio, but I've come to realize that he is just too much horse for me. Sadly, I started searching for a new horse, and was lucky enough to find Miller. He's amazing!
OK, so we are almost up to date. I'll try to be less of a slacker, but I'm not making any promises. Oh, and I started a new blog to keep track of my running, but I see it morphing into a place where I can write about stuff that doesn't really have to do with deciding to have kids. Should be fun. Check it out at http://caffeinatedhummingbird.blogspot.com
