Catching Up

Remind me, next time I go away for a week (if there ever is a next time, which I am seriously beginning to doubt), to take the day after I get back to just lie on the couch with a rice bag over my eyes, letting my kids crawl all over me so that they won't feel compelled to cling to me like famished deer ticks for the next two weeks (or more).

Thanks to the Patriots and the state budget crisis, I had another four-day weekend this week and was able to slowly creep back to where I was before I left. Saturday, after dropping M off at relatives for the weekend (with a possibly broken arm...more on that in a later "stellar parenting moments" installment), I was actually able to log a few minutes on the couch, with the rice bag, even dozing off for a bit while C took the boys to the mailbox (which, in my opinion, is not nearly far enough away), before embarking on an epic organization project, which took me right through until late Sunday night and which I'll tell you about in its own post later this week (I know how you love my organizing posts). Monday, I actually took a great deal of delight in dusting, vacuuming and cleaning bathrooms. I really don't know what's wrong with me--apparently I've been bitten by the spring cleaning bug. Fortunately, we had a date to spend all day in Belfast, visiting with friends and family and picking up M, otherwise I might have done something drastic, like wash windows or mop the floors.

I was able to sneak a bit of creativity in amidst the flurry of cleaning. When I was in Denver I went into a store that sold herbal body products and they had these mini prayer flags made with scraps of fabric and I realized it was the perfect project for our Easter egg dyed fabric straps. E and Z took turns putting a running stitch across the top of our little scraps and we hung it across the front door.

And Monday night, while the boys were in the tub, I finally made our spring book basket, resulting in the boys staying in the tub way too long and going to bed way too late (which I payed for dearly the next morning, believe me). I embroidered the words while watching our March Netflix selection (we're on the two movies a month plan and still cannot manage to get them both watched before the month is out!). Again with the crooked letters--apparently I have issues with actually measuring things.

Our spring books are mostly made up of bunny and bird books, with an Easter and a Passover book for good measure (if you don't already have it, you MUST get The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes--it's this amazingly populist, feminist story from 1939, where a little country bunny, mother of 21 children, becomes one of the five Easter bunnies).