While Daddy's Away, The Wee Ones Will Play!

Well, I have my first tan line of the season. I wasn’t even trying. Today was one of those busy days, but it was all fun busy versus running around nuts and freaking out about what you forgot to do and realizing you’re going to be late busy. I much prefer the former.

This morning, the kids slept in later than I did. The fact that my husband was at a poker tournament until late last night errrrr early this morning meant that he never put the cats in the basement, so I was awakened by their meowing outside the wee ones' doors around 7:30 – fortunately, before the wee ones were.

That gave me time to eat breakfast and get ready to go running with lots of extra time. Time enough, in fact, to make my scones. Mister Man was excited that we were going to have this treat, and Little Miss couldn’t wait to help me make them. She helped me put all the dry ingredients into the bowl. Then we got to the wet ingredients. An egg. Whoops. I always have eggs. I buy them at Costco and am never out. Except for today, when I realized that I’m out of about all my staples because I haven’t had time to restock when I ran out over the past few weeks and forget about them by the time I do get to the store.

Little Miss was very understanding, but Mister Man was just a touch more disappointed. By the time we got to Costco, all was forgiven, and he was my big helper. He was in charge of pushing and steering the cart. He had “good eyes” and spotted the items we were looking for. And he helped me unload the cart. Oh yeah, the best part of course was getting the smiley face on the receipt as we left.

For the first time, both wee ones rode their bikes/trikes all the way to and from the park. Ok, Little Miss only rode hers halfway home before I had to carry it – let’s just say she wasn’t the one I was expecting to poop out on me. I love picnics in the park, and this is the first one we’ve had this year. Plus, neighbors were out, so lots of people to see and talk to and play with at the park.

After nap time, we finally made our scones. Once again, there were eggs in the house. And fortunately, my assumption that I had butter without checking was a valid one. I do need to buy some more soon though. And we’re now out of chocolate chips. I had to augment them with dried cherries – newly purchased – but chocolate cherry scones are never a bad thing!

While they were baking, we headed back outside. The wee ones wanted to head back to the park, but getting there, playing and getting back just doesn’t happen in eleven minutes. Instead, we decided to play run around the house as fast as we can and try to “get” each other. Wheeee!

That’s about when I decided to go get some bubbles. Bubbles, if you didn’t know, fascinate all children from 3 months to 103 years. And most in between. They had a ball chasing the bubbles and trying to catch them or stomp them. That’s also when I discovered that Little Miss sort of knows how to blow bubbles herself. I say sort of because while she gets that she has to blow through the wand to make the bubbles appear, she doesn’t have the patience to wait for me to bring the wand to a position that doesn’t involve the bubbles being blown straight into my face.

Amazingly enough, when it was dinnertime, they both quite willingly came inside. Usually doing fun things means that there is whining and complaining and occasional full-blown refusals before we leave the fun thing. Tonight, not a whisper. They both took off their shoes and hats and put them away without a word from me. When we sat down to eat, I discovered why. Their sneaky little minds remembered the scones, and that was all they wanted for dinner. Really, that explains so much. Fortunately, they also know Mommy and know that they won’t get away with that, so we were fortunately able to negotiate an appropriate compromise.

After dinner, we even got Mister Man’s “homework” and piano practice done. Plus, my mole is just about complete (that’s mol-ay, not the rodent btw). It’s for dinner Tuesday, but it’s a pretty involved recipe and tastes much better the next day anyway. Trying to make it on Tuesday would have been really stressful. Now I just have to poach chicken and make rice, which is way easy. Of course, I'll probably still deliver it late for some reason, but it takes a lot of the worry out.

Days like this are what makes having kids – especially two as close in age as Mister Man and Little Miss – completely worthwhile. If I weren't going to the new office for the first time tomorrow, I'd be awfully tempted to play hooky with them!