A long day's journey into night

This has been a long, hard, busy week. Not only was it the week of Daylight's Saving (which, by the way, I detest), which meant that the kids sleeping schedules were all off, but Dan was gone the better part of this week. I don't mean to complain too much--I know lots of women (especially single mothers) have it much harder than I do. I suppose it's more that I fail to realize how much I depend on Dan until he isn't here, and everything--particularly bedtime--seems to take so much longer to do solo. I suppose I could have called in the cavalry (my parents were within calling distance most of the time), but I was trying to hold off on that until I absolutely had to. (I have this absurd characteristic--can't imagine who I inherited it from!--that makes me try to do everything myself. Silly? Masochistic? Yes, but it's hard to unlearn.) On top of all this, since we were coming off a conference last weekend, I was behind in my grading and class prep. All of which is to say, Dan is home, I've finally caught up (until next week, anyway) on my grading, and I'm glad this week is over!

It wasn't without it's moments. Andrew continues to be as active and as independent as ever. He had one confrontation with his grandma this week that was particularly memorable (well, honesty compels me to admit that Andrew had confrontations with *everyone* this week, but this one stood out). My mom, who was watching Andrew at the time, told him "Andrew, when I say 'no,' I mean 'no,' and you will NOT do this!" Andrew, in typical Andrew fashion, responded, "When I say 'yes,' I mean 'yes,' and I WILL do this!" Thus speaks my willful little boy. I wish someone could tell me if this is normal three-year-old behavior, because Andrew sometimes seems awfully articulate and strong-willed for his age. I'm hoping that maturity (and better coping skills on the parts of his parents!) will improve his disposition.

Still, he does make us laugh on occasion! My mom showed him a beautiful Belle dress she made for his cousin Eli, and asked if he wanted to try it on. He said no--but not because it was too girly, for those of you who were hoping he'd outgrow his princess fascination. He said no because he didn't have hair you could "tickle," like his dolly (seen here as a damsel in distress, in all her bedraggled glory.)

We held an information meeting for Writing Fellows on Thursday, as part of our efforts to recruit new fellows for next year. My staff got just a little goofy (they did the same thing last semester--I'm not sure what it is, except perhaps that they really do like the program so much), but we had a lot of fun talking to a bunch of smart students. I have to confess that the whole thing made me a little sad, however--much as I'm looking forward to having our own house and meeting new people (okay, this last part isn't really true), a part of me is going to be really sorry to leave these students I work with.

Dan came home Friday night after the kids were in bed, and seemed nearly as relieved to be home as we were to have him. He said his stay was probably a full day longer than it needed to be, but his presentation went well, and he did have the enviable opportunity of having dinner with our good friends the Paxtons, who are now living outside Chicago.

Saturday was, as always, a busy day. I had plans to meet my friend Karin to go to a consignment sale in American Fork. Dan came with us to play with Andrew at a local park, and generously offered to watch Karin's son Ezra as well. Andrew and Ezra had a lot of fun playing with each other. So did their moms. We didn't find lots of stuff at the consignment sale (I found a few things, but they didn't have much for little boys), but we had fun hanging out. Our shopping was cut short just a little by a phone call from Dan: Ezra is in the middle of potty-training and just as Dan was starting to scope out their bathroom options, he realized it was too late for Ezra. Luckily, Karin came prepared, so we went back to the park, took care of kids (Ezra got changed and Evelyn got fed) and went to lunch at a local bakery.

After all the excitement, the kids came home and napped and the rest of the day was pretty leisurely by comparison. This morning, we hung out, reading books with Andrew and playing with Evelyn until it was time for church. Although I'm not a huge fan of the afternoon schedule (it wrecks havoc with naps, for one thing), it *is* nice to have that slow time in the morning. If nothing else, it gives me time to finish up my lesson prep and take pictures of my cute kids.


I love the way Evelyn slips further and further down in Andrew's energetic grip.



I don't know what Andrew was doing or thinking in this picture, but he looks uncannily similar to Ben Stiller's Derek Zoolander. Or maybe it just seems that way because Dan watched part of Zoolander on TV last night. At any rate, this picture cracks me up.

My favorite shot of the morning: Miss Evelyn, looking pretty.

I've been trying all week to catch Evelyn in motion on video. She isn't quite crawling, but she's mastered the bum scoot in hilarious ways. It really is incredible to see how far up on her ankles she can go when she's motivated to move. Here she and Andrew are rocking out with some pans and spoons--watch her scoot in to join the action.

Finally, a video of our budding maestro. Andrew *loves* anything to do with music: listening to it, making up his own songs (vocal and otherwise), pounding on drums, playing the piano, dancing, watching dancing. . . . Here he is playing one of his own compositions (obviously). At the end, you can see him stand up. If you can't catch what he's saying, he's telling me he wants to listen to a CD. This is when I realized that he had crammed more than one CD in his daddy's CD player and abruptly shut off the camera. When I finally got them all out, there were four CDs in my hand. . . .