in pursuit of wild things

January is here and we’ve yet to put in a single full productive week. That fact completely stressed me out the past couple of years. But not this year. I knew it would happen and worked the “not ready to let go of the Christmas Spirit” restlessness into the schedule. And this week was certainly no exception to our gradual buildup to a full-time work week. It was a good week and fun. Last week was good too even though I sounded kinda sad. I didn’t realize how much pain I was expressing as I typed. I love being a mother and I cherish watching my children grow…but it hurts a bit sometimes. One day we’ll close the last book together. One day my school room will be empty. But for now they are here with me and we have mountains of books yet to read together.

Saturday morning Sparkles and Daddy went out for a special morning together. He took her to a princess and superheroes breakfast. I fixed her hair, make-up and nails and she wore her Princess Anna dress and snowflake jewelry her brothers gave her for Christmas . Sparkles had a delightful time and one person even requested a picture with her! She was on cloud nine when they got home.

On Monday my husband’s eldest brother and his wife stopped by for a surprise visit. Always nice to have company over! We got a half day of school in on Tuesday and took the rest of the day off to celebrate the half way point of our academic year. The actual half-way mark was last Thursday but that was the day it snowed and I let Littlest play hooky from preschool. After we picked up Littlest from preschool on Tuesday we met up with one of the Aunts for lunch and had a wonderful time visiting.

We managed to get a full day of school in on Wednesday. Everyday since last Monday we have been faithfully checking on our bacteria cultures. Finally, on Wednesday the crew could finally draw something in their science journal. The crew was delighted! Our other two dishes are showing no signs of life as of yet…but hopefully soon (yuck!). I’m ready to just throw those away. Today I pulled something out of the refrigerator that turned out to be a bit blue and fuzzy on the edges. Immediately, the crew ran off with the unintentional science experiment for closer scrutiny with the microscope. I really need to get some blank slides for the microscope…too bad those cannot be found at the local big box store.

Today, I ended up behind a vehicle covered in stickers. One of the stickers said “I love Winston Churchill”. I thought that was odd for a sticker but “to each his own” as the saying goes. When we got to the light and had to stop I realized the sticker actually said “I love Wisconsin Cheese”. I start laughing at myself and the kids are trying to figure out what is so funny. So I tell them I am going blind and clearly may need to go to the eye doctor sooner than I would like. At that Oldest said he would help me watch the road. He was so serious and quite alarmed. Naturally, I laughed until tears poured down my face and I could barely breathe. A bit later, after I had quit laughing (still not too sure why I perceived the incident so hilariously) the song “The Mississippi Squirrel Revival” by Ray Stevens came on the radio. I tell the kids they’ll love the funny song and turn it up for them to hear. Oldest rolled his eyes at me…I supposed he no longer had much faith in what I considered to be funny. But, true to my word, they were all laughing at the antics of the crazed squirrel. Middle Boy laughed so hard I thought he might hurt himself. They begged me to find the video on YouTube when we got home. So we did.

I hope you found the opportunity for a good laugh today too.