L.'s last day of second grade is today. They've had "last days" all week, really. Monday was a holiday, and then Tuesday was "game day" and the kids got to sit around most of the day and play their favorite games with each other. I was especially jealous of "bring a book and read" day on Wednesday. I had just gone to the library and checked out some good books for myself to read for a change, and the thought of being given a whole entire school day to lounge around in my pajamas with a pillow and some good books made me drool. L. [more]

* Let me preface this by saying that we do not live in squalor, but in the South, and it's summer and buggy. Enough said.

I snuck upstairs this morning to get my shoes right before heading off to work. T. was, supposedly, still sleeping. When I crept into our bedroom, though, I found her wide awake, lying on her back in our bed and staring at the wall in rapt concentration--like someone studying something very detailed and absorbing.

"Mama," T. whispered to me in hushed tones. "There was a happy spider on the ceiling, and now he's on the wall!" [more]

On Friday we loaded up the kids, the dog, our suitcases, and every stuffed animal L. and T. own, and we pointed the van north and headed out of town for the weekend. We stayed the weekend with my parents, so we could go to a wedding about an hour away from where they live. The trip to their house is always frustrating; it’s one of those car trips that should take a lot less time than it actually does take. [more]

It's that time of year again--the time for endings and beginnings; for saying good-bye to classrooms and teachers and the old ways of an old school-year. I look at the second-graders at L.'s school and they seem suddenly all arms and legs and missing front teeth. They carry around Harry Potter books and beloved webkinz, and talk about big kid stuff like THIRD grade. At T.'s school the kids are coming into their own, suddenly, dividing themselves up by boys and girls; T. comes home with gossipy-like tales of who did what to her, and why. [more]

This past weekend was a little out of the ordinary for us in two ways: 1) we did a lot socially and 2) we slept in. The sleeping-in part is a little unusual, although one of the perks of having older children is that they do sleep more as they get older – even difficult, hands-on sleepers like ours. So don't despair, if you do have early-risers like we once had; even a year ago, I never thought I'd see the day when I'd wake, peer at the clock, and find it reading "8:15" and, better yet, discover that although L. [more]