Emily is now working at home on Mondays, so she can have Katherine all dressed and ready to go, and I don't have to show up until 8:30 instead of arriving at 8 and wrestling with two pony tails and two ever-changing outfits and shoes and lunches and backpacks. Nope. I arrived to find a cute little girl with flowers in her hair all ready to go. Now it just took mentioning to Graysen that we were going to the grocery store, and she was dressed in a minute. I heard Emily say, "You're wearing that dress again?"
Right now, we can kind of gloss over the fact that we're doing fun things while Katherine is at school, but soon she'll start to figure it out. We got her delivered to school where we found a whole bunch of new friends in her class, one of whom had the SAME OWL LUNCHBOX. Uh-oh. No problem though. She can take Graysen's butterfly one the rest of the summer. All is well - but she didn't like it one bit and was still talking about last night.
So Graysen and I headed to Safeway. She does love to go in there where there are such treasures!
She can now help me look for things and pick out what fruits she wants and their snacks for the week. She mentions things a lot but rarely asks for anything and never seems to mind if I say no. She understands, "Too much sugar." The only thing she asked for and got was dried banana chips, and they both love those. I was Googling that to see if that was what they were really called, and I learned that there is added sugar and stuff, so you're better off eating a fresh banana - and they love those too - but that's not half as much fun as the chips.
I also learned that you can dry you own in the oven if you have 3 hours to spare. We might try it just for fun one day.
The only negative about the day is that I started feeling so tired in the grocery store and then again around 4:00. It can't be the heat, because, although it's a big change, it only gets up to the low 80s.
So Graysen and I got those groceries up the stairs with the help of Aunt Cece, and I immediately made myself a cold glass of sparkling water and headed for the balcony. Graysen got a lemon popsicle, and that did a lot to refresh us. Look at that sky. It's about time!
We found that if we turned the window fan in the living room window on low, it caused a really nice cool breeze to blow across the balcony. Lovely. It's pretty much always shady, much to the dismay of my little tomato plant. I do have a couple of blooms though.
We started a really nice game of Go Fish and were enjoying that until the Fed-Ex truck rolled up. Maybe, just maybe, that was our package!
I've started doing a little transcription again, just when I want to and very little of it, but it does bring in some extra money. And I love it - such interesting topics- not medical usually but court cases or interviews or experimental drug trials and sometimes people just talking and wanting their conversations recorded.
Anyway, to let the children know to entertain themselves when I'm working, I told them that I was working and making money, and that's how we buy the thing we like. In spite of myself, I've given in to the Shopkins fad and gotten a few of those. Graysen has been wanting the Shoppies, little dolls, so I told her that when I worked enough to get them one, I would order them. So I did, and we knew they were supposed to come that day.
Such excitement. We dropped those Go Fish cards in a hurry and ran into the living room to wait for the doorbell. We saw he had several packages to deliver and had almost given up, when we heard it. Yay for us.
They lived up to the anticipation and were pretty neat to play with. I also got to hold forth on making do when Graysen mentioned that her girls didn't have a car or a plane or even a bed. "When Mimi was a little girl, we didn't even have dolls." I told her that I only had paper dolls and that my aunt showed me how to turn a tissue box over and cut out little slots for seats, and I had a car. And how a little shoe box and a few scraps of fabric would make a beautiful bed. Hey, it worked!
Those dolls are awful, just awful, but they are very detailed as to their accessories and things, so the girls love that. Graysen had a hard time getting over the fact that I didn't have dolls like this when I was a little girl, only one baby doll at Christmas and the paperdolls from the Sears catalog. I think she was proud of herself for making her little bed and car though.
Elise wanted to finally get her own library card and stop depending on me for books, so the three of us walked to the library. I found my free Seattle Sunday paper there - Mike would have been so proud of me - Elise got her card, Graysen found two princess books while she waited, and we all had a nice walk.
Then it was lunch, more playing, and maybe a nap in my chair before picking up Kate. She was having a good time putting together a puzzle when we got there and didn't see us at first.
She was playing nicely there, but when we got back home, she was not too impressed with the new dolls and wanted to blow bubbles and be a little ornery. Not too bad though, and she and Graysen finally worked out their territory and played sweetly the rest of the time.
I think it was pretty much a perfect day, and I'm so thankful for simple times like this.
After I took the girls home, I once again spent some time on the balcony working the NY Times crossword puzzle and manged to actually get some answers this time. Then I read and tried to make sense out of buying a new computer, which I have to do soon - and then went to bed - early.
Today is Tuesday, our "long day" and I'll have to be a little creative.
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