Thursday, October 12, 2006

Fall-ing in love

I. love. today.

The weather is perfect. Bright and sunny but finally not sweltering, just enough of a breeze to scatter the fallen leaves across the yard... perfect, perfect, perfect. J and I spent the whole morning outside and she's upstairs sleeping it off right now. Thursday is our only free morning - no preschool, no Kindermusik, and today no plans other than meeting the carpet cleaner at 11. She loves all of those activities, but sometimes I feel like she doesn't get enough time to just hang out and play, a feeling reinforced recently by the fact that anytime there's a break in the action she asks to watch TV. I don't let her everytime, of course, but I've been thinking lately that maybe she isn't so good at entertaining herself because we're rarely here long enough to afford many opportunities to learn how.

We slept in, hung out, and then went to the park for a brief sojourn on J's beloved playground. She chanted "playground time" all the way to the park and when she caught sight of it from the parking lot she took it down to a reverent whisper. It's time like those that I just want to pull the car over, climb in the back seat, and eat her up. I love seeing her so genuinely full of joy, especially over something so simple as a morning spent running and climbing and swinging and sliding. Her school puts a big emphasis on playground time, which I love... if it's not raining they spend at least a few minutes of each day just playing outside. They also have organized PE once a week (for two-year-olds, who knew?), which I think is fantastic.

When we got home we headed straight for the back yard - a few minutes of play-doh on the porch while Mommy dealt with the carpet cleaner (I don't know when we entered the "I can happily entertain myself without begging to 'watch'" phase, but I must say I'm digging it, and also realizing it's entirely possible I just got lucky this morning) and then it was out into the yard for more running, ball kicking, acorn collecting, and clambering up and sliding down the brightly colored plastic monstrosity MOMD abhors but that our neighbors were nice enough to offer us the use of for a season until their youngest daughter is old enough for it.

After that we walked down to our favorite neighbor's house (three boys ages 8 to 14 who shower J with attention, which, of course, she hates) so J could bounce on their "jumpoline(!)" for a few minutes. What a happy girl! On the way home the leaves were blowing all around the cul de sac and she had a great time chasing them. Made me wish I had my camera and a smidge of talent for photography to capture how much we both enjoyed our morning.

And in other "When Did We Get Here?" news, J played outside by herself while I made lunch. I remember last fall - our first one in this house - thinking what a great back yard we had - enclosed by a fence and highly visible from the kitchen window - but not being able to imagine letting her play out there by herself. Of course, this time last year she was only 14 months old, but even a month ago I wouldn't have done it, or maybe it's that she wouldn't have done it. I kept my eagle eye on her the whole time, of course, but it gave me such a contented feeling to watch her happily playing on her own.

After lunch I was rewarded with that favorite melody of mothers of toddlers everywhere, "{heavy sigh} I tired." We read a little Shel Silverstein, which she surprisingly loves even though I'm pretty sure most of it she doesn't even remotely get (I bought it when she was a baby but more to recapture my own fond eighth-grade drama class memories than because I thought she was going to be into oddball poetry anytime soon), and she was asleep within 15 minutes of my leaving the room. I don't know why, but I get such a sense of satisfaction from putting her to bed when she's truly worn out - I guess it's because I feel like I've done my job well when she is worn out.

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About Me

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Southeastern, United States
34-year-old freelance writer/mommy of one, married to S who loves his work but is gone too much