Ordinary

Besides a fun morning playtime with Gina, Andrea, and their cute, cute kids, we mostly did ordinary things today: played outside, did "letter hopscotch," walked to the grocery store in the sunshine to buy roast chicken and stuffing for dinner, made some art projects with glitter glue, ate donut holes, and tried to keep the house going with laundry, dishes, etc. We collected more pretty leaves on our walk home from the store, and I felt lucky to be taking a quiet walk with my girls on such an ordinary fall afternoon. The sunshine made all the difference, and I was grateful for it while at the same time realizing how dim and dark the days ahead will be. Oh, winter, how I dread you.

After baths tonight, I let each girl pick a book and bring it into our bed so we could all read together, since Jason wasn't going to be home until much later. They grabbed books, climbed up, clutched their blankets, and snuggled back against the pillows to listen. Of course, it was my favorite moment of the day. Annie has lately been obsessed with the Madeleine books and shocked me one day last week by reciting the entire story, word for word, after we'd only had it from the library for a week or so. So tonight, we read Madeleine Goes to London, which she has not yet fully memorized. Jemma chose Curious George and the Bunny, and while she doesn't nearly recite the whole story, she follows along carefully and often says a word or two on each page: "shot," "all gone!," "sad," "string," etc. She also does this thing where she cups her hand as though she's holding the baby bunny during the part of the story that goes, "It was fun to hold a baby bunny!" It's so lovely to end the day all cozy, surrounded by my girls and their books.