mother bear does Monday

"aw faw down"
(at the close of a dramatic round of her favorite game recently renamed, "ashers, ashers" with her inappropriate playmate that she continues to find and dismantle over and over and over again)

Instead of risking sounding like a scratched compact disc, I prudently refrained from reporting live from yesterday's events which were a lot like a lot of other days around here: all sunshine, smiles, order, and enunciated multisyllabics. Yes, I held back and I held back some more until I stopped holding back and started typing ... this.

Fortunately, I'm good at enabling my momnesia when necessary but I wasn't able to successfully block out a little tiny mishap on our morning walk/run. As usual, I had perfectly timed one of my one minute runs (sandwiched by two minute walks) down a long and steep hill. This has taken quite some time to perfect and I'm pretty sure a lazy fairy gets her wings every time I successfully time the incline to be walked and the decline to be run. I got to the bottom of the crazy elephant hill only to realize that Grandpa Sebastian was fighting his morning catnap ... empty handed. He had been gnawing the bleep out of the hooves of Sophie (or "Sophia" as Simon calls her) the stupid 18 dollar giraffe but she was now nowhere to be found. How on God's green earth she escaped his fist and tooth death grip will forever be one of my life's great conundrums.

I slowly and emphatically rolled my eyes, roused Sebastian and begged him not to sleep and ruin his blessed afternoon hibernation, turned and looked up the ninety degree slope of hell to see Sophie standing upright on all fours and taunting me from the tippity ippity top. Despite a techno version of Country Roads blaring in my ears, despondency met her maker as I adjusted my hat (that much like an old tight fraternity shirt on a pot-bellied middle aged man screams, "respect what I used to be, not what you see here!")  and trudged up the mountain to rescue the ridiculous toy whose purchase was made possible with the help of a generous Amazon coupon found in a parenting magazine in a doctor's office: a little trick I learned from Janssen.

lesson learned: leashes aren't just for dogs and kids anymore

The rest of the day followed a similar pattern and it's (thankfully) a little fuzzy now but I'm pretty sure a cafeteria lunch date with Simon turned into a parking garage melt of all melts that left him unsure if he should continue to cautiously nod with feigned understanding and pat my kneecap or run for (more fun!) cover in the clinic of waiting well woman exams. 

Luckily for woe-is-me, Julia has gleaned a true gem from all of her parental eavesdropping and is absolutely convinced that she has, "ah-jeez" that require quite a bit of Benadryl that has magically turned her afternoon nap into an afternoon-evening nap that allows me to devour edifying literature and no-cal banana bread and has been known to magically transform Mondays into something resembling something manageable. The saving grace that is saving Grace that is simultaneously making bad puns.




(and this is why I need to post every day or every hour -- too many empty words build up -- apologies or 'ap-jeez' to you sophisticated toddler readers)