swings

This is what happens when our family goes to the playground.

(It is super funny when Daddy chews on your toes.)

The sun is shining at our house today. Hopefully, it's shining at yours, too!

best-laid plans

On the first Thursday of every month, admission to the Seattle Art Museum is free, which is exactly the right price for us these days. I marked the date on the calendar a few weeks ago, just so I wouldn't forget. I was eager to see this new exhibit and looking for a little inspiration. I figured if I timed things just right, M would sleep through the quiet parts of our date and be awake for all the exciting stuff. 

Silly Mama.

Of course, it was raining. This almost never changes our plans. This is Seattle. If we stayed home every time it threatened to sprinkle, M and I would never leave the house. Which would get very ugly, very fast.

We rode the bus downtown. The bus is always interesting. M tends to alternate between gazing out the window and staring intently at strangers until they smile at her, at which point, she moves on to a new victim. On this particular bus ride, she chose to stare at all of the especially creepy looking passengers.

When we got to SAM, I stuck with my plan and headed straight for the cafe. We ate the lunch that I had packed, instead of the fancy food at the restaurant next door, which bugged me a little bit and M not at all. She chowed down on peas and cheese, mostly ignoring the scenery around us.

Then, after twenty minutes in the kids' play area where M flirted with other people's grandmothers and harassed big kids into giving up their toys, it was time for M's nap. I gave her a bottle, then bundled her back into the carrier and rode the escalators up the galleries.

She did not fall asleep on the escalators.

Or in the first gallery.

Or in any of the other galleries. Eventually, she started yanking off her hood--which I'd put up to encourage sleepytime--and yelling around her bink. Shrieking, actually. And growling, which is now part of her regular vocabulary. After a few too many minutes of terrorizing the other museum patrons, I finally packed it in and we left. I forgot to look for the new exhibit on our way out.

To make myself feel better, I may have stopped for a cupcake on our walk back to the bus stop.

I may have also given the baby a few tastes of said consolation cupcake. Because it would have been rude to just eat in front of her.

It turns out she likes cupcakes.

At first it seemed like our bus ride home was going to be a repeat of the morning trip with more looking out the window and a few more staring contests with the other riders.

Until someone finally fell asleep. And took the longest nap of the week. Go figure. I think the cupcake excitement may have pushed her over the edge...

spring

Oh, thank goodness! It's finally spring. The furnace is occasionally not running. We can leave the house without three extra layers. And M, who has just started using her walking feet, is spending time on the ground, outside, for the very first time. We love watching her discover the world that has been waiting for her.

She love-love-loves flowers. I think it's adorable and am also hoping that it bodes well for my plan to make her a master gardener before she hits kindergarten. Her key interests right now seem to be shredding and eating flowers, but I think I can work with that.

We are lucky to have an amazing playground a short walk from our place. (We also have a sketchy, dingy playground a short walk in the other direction. We will not be playing there often.) When we're not competing for space with the twenty billion kids from the Montessori school down the hill, M has a blast on the swings. Personally, I'm ready to move onto the sandbox and jungle gym, but I think M's going to make me wait a few more months...

A few days ago, M and I took a walk down our block to watch the neighborhood kids tear around. The big kids were all sweet to M, saying hello to her and bringing her dandelions and lemon balm. It's so strange to think that in a few seasons, she'll be racing around, too, running up and down the street, riding a bike, and practicing being away from us. Frankly, the idea paralyzes my brain.

Fortunately for me, that time is still another spring or two away...

eggs and baskets

Little M had already logged several hours of egg hunting before we even made it to Easter Sunday. We got started on Saturday at the zoo's annual Bunny Bounce. The "real" egg hunts were full of excited, sugarhappy big kids, but the toddler hunt--which mostly consisted of piles of plastic eggs all over the ground--was just about our speed. M grasped the finding and collecting concepts immediately.

The weather was bright and sunny, but cool enough in the shade for M to rock her fancy Peter Rabbit sweater from dear Auntie Laura...

She was very interested in what all of the other kids were doing and mostly wanted eggs that other people had already "found."

The whole thing was exhilarating and ultimately exhausting and led to a long, long nap in the Ergo on the walk home.

We got some more egg/basket practice in that afternoon, though. Lots of eggs in and out of the basket. Over and over. And over.

Of course, the cats love anything light enough to be batted across the living room floor, so they were totally into the eggs, too. And sometimes the basket.

Bunny ears? Nope, just the photobombing Rody.

By Easter morning, M probably thought she had this whole basket thing figured out.

Until she, Finch, and Eleanor discovered the thing called Easter grass. Which this mama will never, ever again put in a basket of any kind. Ever.

Fortunately, we used paper "grass." Recycled, recyclable, and--arguably--entirely edible.

After the initial grass excitement, M displayed only passing interest in the actual contents of her basket. Which is fine. Because Mama was going to eat that chocolate bar anyway. M did spend a couple minutes looking at one of her new books...

And then we discovered another basket on our back porch with little M's name on it. This one was apparently more interesting...

...to everyone.

Mama and Daddy were especially amused by the tin of sardines. That bunny sure knows our kid.

All dolled up, we went to Grandma and Grandpa L's for the afternoon.

Cousin Jonah displayed his mad bubble-blowing skills.
M was impressed.

The highlight of the day for M was yet another egg hunt. She had some trouble actually finding the eggs but there were plenty of big people around to help her. 

Clearly, this was some serious business.

Sort of.

And of course, at the end of it all, there was another big, fat nap. Because that's how we roll.