A Weekend in Words...and Pictures

Up until today this weekend has been beautiful. Sunny skies and cool breezes. Dogwood trees are blooming like crazy. Temperatures are so mild that you actually want to venture outside. Spring is definitely here. We tried to spend at least some of this gorgeous time outside. (Except right here when I was trying to get a not washed-out picture of a sleeping Livers.)


Thursday Livers and I spent time in the very small part of our yard you can play in getting it and the back porch cleaned up and lounge ready. While I swept, blew, and raked leaves and tidied up, she played with rocks in sticks: a true nature lover. It's actually been quite lovely going out in the yard with her. She is past the age (for the most part) where EVERYTHING goes into her mouth, and she is getting better at listening (with me at least) when I tell her to stay close or to do/not do something. Also, being a true Mama's girl she tends to stick close to me anyway, so I can actually go outside and do some mild yard work without fear of injury.

We've also started going out in the driveway and playing. We have close to an acre of land, but it is very sloped and covered with English ivy, so it's not very child-friendly. As a result the driveway is our main play space. I got her a tricycle and sidewalk chalk to use, but she just wanted to take her "big red car" that she's had for a long time and play with it instead. I showed her how to roll it up the hill and then push it until it crashed at the bottom of the driveway, and she loved that.


Saturday we went to the birthday party of a friend's child. It was a lot of fun, and it was good for us to get to speak to other adults and Livers to get a chance to interact with other kids. Being a stay-at-home mom, she doesn't get many opportunities to do this, but in spite of this she gets along really well with other kids and with adults, too. I think it's a testament to her general good-naturedness and the fact that though I stay at home we get out in public a lot, so she's learned some of her social forays.



I find it interesting observing other people's kids, because you can get a feel of how the kids will probably act when they grow up and how good of a job their parents are doing at raising them. It could be that I'm a little judgmental, but I could basically tell which kids were going to be pretty cool and well-mannered when they grow up and which ones were going to be the jerks. I got really angry at this one little kid (is it bad to have visions of suckerpunching an obnoxious 5-year-old), because she was being rude to Livers. They were playing with a Big Wheel, and all she was doing was opening the door. She wasn't trying to get in but was just investigating, and the boy kept yelling "No, stop it!" and trying to push her away. The Mama Hen in me got really angry. Another kid tried to take something away rudely from her, and I wasn't going to have it so I stepped in and gently but firmly took care of business. On the flip side there were awesome kids who you knew were being raised right. Livy was playing in the Big Wheel and a boy around 7 volunteered to drive her around. He was really sweet about it, and he even helped bring it around back to get recharged. His sisters were just as well-mannered and kind as he.


I got a bike this weekend. I'd wanted one for a long time, and I plan to get one of those child seats that attach so I can get exercise and drive Livers around, too. However, I have a horrible rash on my face right now. I'm pretty sure it's poison ivy that I either got doing yard work or from one of my dogs who probably roll in the stuff when their outside. (I've also read that you can get it from mangos, which we eat a lot of. The same toxin in poison ivy that gives you the rash is also found in mango rind. Who would've thought?) No matter where I got it from, I'm miserable and itchy and red, and I didn't want to make the trip to Wal-mart to get the necessities to make the bike Livers-friendly, so I'll have to wait till later in the week to get it ready. I'm super excited, because I HATE the gym but love walking and riding a bike, so this will be a nice way to get healthy and enjoy the beauty of spring (and the heat of summer).

I got to try and test out some camera functions this weekend, too. I mentioned earlier that the dogwood trees are blooming around here, and in my neighborhood there are literally hundreds (dozens in our tree-filled yard alone), and I enjoyed trying to take a few snapshots. I would love to one day get a D-SLR of some sort so I can take my photography hobby to the next level, but that will definitely be far in the future. I've still yet to take full advantage of Photoshop Elements in exploring digital scrapbooking. I need to hop on that.



Itching aside, this weekend was pretty good. Hope that everyone had a great one yourselves!