Painting Wicker

Tonight is beautiful. The kind of night where I loved to pop on a headset and go for long walks when I lived in a more walkable area. After a few exceptionally hot and humid days, the ground still has that several-days-of-warmth-baked-into-it feel but the air has finally cooled and softened. I remember, back in those walkable days, passing parking lots and feeling the breeze turn toasty, and then blow cool again over grass.

Tonight I popped on my headset and, in lieu of walking, painted some wicker. Listening to my favorite band, I couldn't help but dance. Bopping around the chair with my paint brush in hand, I laughed as I was struck by the Mr. Blonde of it all. (It was probably the hack job of painting I was doing to the chair.) To remedy the vibe, I kicked off my shoes and danced barefoot. 'Cause Mr. Blonde never would have gone barefoot.

dance sweetpea

It was before dinner and Brett and Charlotte and I were all chilling out in the living room, enjoying the evening. Charlotte and I were dancing to one of the dreamy instrumental parts of Yes's "Awaken". While the song was still playing, it is a long one after all, I left Brett and Charlotte in the living room to go fix dinner in the kitchen. A few moments later, Charlotte follwed me in:

"Mama?"

"Yes, babygirl?"

"Dance, sweetpea!"

How could I turn down such a request? I didn't. We finished out the song and then fixed dinner.

Earlier that same day, another sublime parenting moment of a completely different sort: I was letting Charlotte have a bit of nudie time to run around upstairs. She found the tube of butt cream and, knowing it's not something she's allowed to have, she scurried off to the bathroom with it and closed the door. I followed right behind, and as I opened the door she looked at the floor and said, "Make a pee pee." Yup, a few yellow puddles on the floor. I walked over to the roll of tp and then back to the puddles to start mopping. Charlotte walked over to the tp roll, then back again to the half-mopped pee pee. A kid can't resist walking through any kind of puddle, even the yellow kind. But she cautioned herself as she walked through, "Swipperwee... swipperwee" just before she slipped in the swipperwee pee-pee and fell, nudie self and all, in the half-mopped puddle. So as I came back with more tp, I mopped up the rest of the floor, and my pee-pee sticky daughter.

life of pi

I adore the escape of an excellent book. I finished reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel over a month ago and keep looking back on it as a favorite journey. It's one of those books to heartily recommend and say nothing further.