Those Crazy Summer Nights

Let me paint a picture for you of a moment I enjoyed earlier this evening. I am sitting in a very comfortable deck chair on a lovely June evening in my neighbors' back yard. Their yard is much preferable to ours in every way, especially for our children, because our neighbors have recently acquired a small flock of chickens. It is these chickens I am watching, as I sit comfortably in the chair. They seem to be running for their lives because my children are ecstatically chasing them all over the yard, and rushing to me in delight every time they pet one. "Mom!!! I petted Henny Penny!" Both of my children are filthy. Chocolately chins, scraped knees, muddy hands, crusty hair, and sparkling eyes. Bitty has gone so far in the day as to be dressed in nothing but a diaper, which, by the way, is not empty, if you know what I mean. But neither was it especially...uh...full, and she was having so much fun, it was hard to stop her from romping around. The air was warm and gentle, the neighbors have a beautiful garden, dripping in enough floral scent to mask even the scent of my daughter. A great summery moment, which of course ended in major tears due to an over exhausted Bitty. Man, she knows how to throw a tantrum. I'll have to leave the details of it to my husband, who accompanied her to sleep away from the rest of the family.

Well, I feel like I've been absent from the blogosphere for a while, mostly due to lack of sleep, though I must confess that I am sitting here typing at near midnight. I just have a few events and moments that I have to record. First, the other night (it may have been more than a week ago, who knows) I had just gotten Bitty to fall asleep. I went in my room to peek at her and snap off the light. This of course woke her. Her eyes popped open and she smiled, threw back the covers and said, "I had a good night's sleep!" Nooooooooo! Luckily I did convince her that the night wasn't quite over yet and to close her eyes again.

We also got to attend the Butler Elementary School Spring Carnival with The Becky and her family. Stomper is getting big enough to kind of run around on his own at those things, as long as he is with Becky's kids. At first Bitty wouldn't go on any of the...what do you call those big blow up things? Not rides, really, I don't know. The big bouncy things you climb on and slide down. She wouldn't go near them. So I initially thought we had payed 10 bucks for her to play on the playground, but by the end she caught on to them and three days later was still begging, tearfully, to slide down the shark again. My favorite was an American Gladiators type deal where two kids at a time climbed up on a big mat with two pedestal things on top. The kids get on the pedestals and try to beat each other off with giant q-tips. Stomper took on Becky's oldest child, and it was nothing short of hilarious. He had a hard time wielding his q-tip.



Another big event for Stomper this week was 'graduating' from preschool. When we went to pick him up from school today we went a little early. All the kids were sitting, lined up, and wearing these great graduation caps the teacher made. Fabulous, except that I couldn't get Stomper to keep a straight face for a picture. They sang a couple of songs for us and got a packet of their work for the year. It was fun. I'll be very sorry to leave Bennion Elementary - we've had a good experience there. Miss Trista and Miss Valle were awesome!