It was oddly quiet at my house last weekend. My husband did a marvelous thing for me. He took the three girls out of town (to MY parents house in Atlanta) so I could have some “me time.” It was the first time my toddler spent the night away from me, ever! And the first time I had the house to myself for more than a few hours, since I became a mom. Pause, think again. Yes it is true!
What did I do? I did whole lot of nothing. I did little things. I went to bed early. I slept in until 11. I enjoyed coffee and read the newspaper in quiet (minus the dog barking who barks at a feather falling on the floor). And I shopped. Or well, I went to stores that I love, where I looked for hours. And I did so without anyone at home wondering when I would return or what they were going to eat for dinner. I had a friend stop over for an impromptu salad and glass of wine. I read my favorite magazines. I didn’t take a single photo or read a single blog, minus browsing for design ideas for when our upstairs is finished.
Presently, there is no drywall upstairs. But I bought new bath towels to wrap up the girls when they get out of their new bathtub. Because thinking about those little details help me see the light while living through a summertime renovation, with all the kids home – usually.
I did some sewing one evening. I made two children’s aprons from this pattern at Sew Liberated. They were for my two youngest daughters, serving as an experimental project for a bigger project I’ve committed to doing. Which is sewing 18 of these aprons for the 3-6 age students at my daughter’s Montessori school before school starts. Getting this started was the small step I needed to lift the job from my to-do pile, into the work-in-progress pile. And that little step felt very good.
I asked my toddler to pose while wearing her apron so I could put it on my blog. This is what she did. Just as I asked her to do.
After being separated from her for two days I think I could eat her little cheeks right up.
My middle girl stayed back in Atlanta for some special grandparent time. It feels very odd with her gone. I could not sleep Sunday night, feeling the void of her absence. Then my toddler snuggled up with me, and I went right to sleep. Her little warm body has a tremendous calming affect on me, just as a mother does to a baby. It really does work both ways!
Taking advantage of my middle girl being gone and having their room to herself, my oldest daughter had a very long play date. They enteretained themselves all day and into the night. Doing simple things around the house, like playing in the basement doll space, in a baby pool in the backyard (because we are never too old for that), and making mud pies in the Mud Pie Cafe. They are getting to be such BIG kids. They are definitely not interested in posing for pictures for my blog.
Meanwhile I enjoyed the company of my toddler. Doing little things together like picking blueberries in the backyard berry patch, watching bees, cutting flowers, and taking fresh picked tomatoes from our backdoor garden to the neighbor’s next door.
I love seeing these little hands doing big things. Even while we work on the lesson that we only pick the blue berries, not the green berries. Or that the vase was for the flowers, not for multitasking. Oh well!
Notice the brown crunchy looking grass? It’s true. We’ve hardly any rain in a month and the temperatures have hovered around a record breaking 105 degrees outside the last few days. We are lucky we got outside at all! But every little bit counts. And after being away from this little girl for two days, I must say I missed her BIG TIME.
I’ll be happy on Wednesday, when all the Simmons girls plus Daddy are under the same roof again.
