Working Out

Who needs a gym if you have a child around?

I braved the heat to pick up Sweetpea yesterday afternoon and we went straight to the new bakery in Helotes for her after-school snack and a glass of tea for me.  Then we came home and Kate and I watched the boys and Elena play in the sprinkler for at least an hour.  Kate brought me a glass of wine and we visited in the heat while the kids sprayed each other and squealed with pure glee.  That's what I call Happy Hour!

Then Elena watched something while I made dinner, then she decided she wanted to sew--which required getting out the ironing board and finding needles and thread and designing a skirt out of some monkey fabric she found in the drawer.  We sewed for about ten inches before she decided she wanted to look at the negatives on the light box where she saw pictures of Aunt Day as a little girl that "look like me."

I advised her that she needed patience and persistence to finish a skirt, but she was onto the next thing--gathering marbles that had fallen to the floor in the back of a closet, then playing a game.  Patience and persistence are not highly valued in a child's mind; doing a lot of different things is much more fun.

By the time she left, the house was topsy-turvy in every single room, and I spent another hour putting things back.  This is the Grandmother Workout routine.