going going going....and a few pictures

Miss Charlotte Claire and me at the zoo....going with the first graders was too much fun.

Rainy day play....

Suri: cutest puppy ever.

Jon's backpack on the couch...a good pillow for a spoiled pup.



Okay. I want to quit my job and become a professional field trip chaperone. I don't know why the day was so pleasant. It could have been the 70 degree low humidity day, full of sunshine and gentle breezes. It could have been that I rode there with my sister-in-law Kim, we sipped our coffees and the ride there went by too fast. But most likely it was because first graders are just so innocent still. The little girls in my group loved me. Seriously. They both wanted to hold my hand, and they trusted me. One of the girls was afraid of part of the zoo, where it is dark and the reptiles and fish are. She stopped dead in her tracks and said she didn't want to go in there. So we didn't. Later, after we saw the ellie-phants and tigers and wolves and penguins, I suggested she wait with one of the other moms while I took the rest of the group in the dark part...she decided she would come with us. She gripped my hand and she was not kidding about being hesitant. I encouraged her each step of the way, and told her I would stay right with her....she did fine, and when we walked back out into the sunshine, I praised her to the skies for being so brave. She is a sweetheart. And guess what? Her daddy is in jail:(

Anyway. I had fun there. I picked some kids up early from school and took them for ice cream with Kim and some of her kids...

I was home for only a few hours when I had to leave again to volunteer at the baseball game concession stand. Let's just say it was also too much fun. It was a beautiful night for baseball! I didn't get to watch much of the game, but the customers were mostly cheerful, and the people I worked with are some of the best people on this earth, my daughter Emily and my nieces Susan, (and her husband Thomas), my niece Becky and my niece Audrey, and some other really good kids from our youth group at church. It isn't really like working, although my knees kill after standing on that cement floor for all those hours.

At ten-ish o'clock at night, the stand closed and we were free to go....I headed to the airport to pick up Paul. His flight was coming in at 11:30. I had a bit of time to kill, so I went to one of my favorite places, a grocery store. Cherries and plums and chicken, and some treats for the kids...I wandered up and down the aisles of the mostly empty store, just thinking and looking forward to seeing Paul. However, there was a mom there who would have been almost hilarious if it wasn't so sad, the way she was screeching at her two little girls. The little girls were skipping around and looking at things. They seemed to have a pattern. When the mom wanted them to come to her, she screamed that they better Come Here Right Now Or Else. Do You Want To Go Sit In The Car? You Ain't Coming With Me No More. Yous Can't Behave Yourselves. Now, the interesting thing was that these girls were smiling and skipping, they weren't in the least bit distressed about the way Mommy talked to them. Par for the course, I think. It was the way they worked. I found it fascinating.

Anyway...busy busy busy...