Not much to say, but need to talk. Be forewarned, this is mostly CIM at work. I'm afraid RIM has flown north for the winter.
This:
This week Ethan only had to go to school on Monday and Tuesday and so we had an outing yesterday, to Target, then to Sweetcakes (our secret lunch spot), then to the museum, the library (of course), and finally the grocery store. Ethan told me he wasn't bored the whole day.
We're at my favorite part of the Book of Mormon in family scripture study. Ether, chapter 2. Though I'm crazy about chapters 3 and 6 as well. After we had read the chapter, I tried to explain to the kids why I liked it so much. I said it was like a metaphor for our lives, and asked them if they knew what a metaphor was. Olivia raised her hand and said, "It doesn't use 'like' or 'as.'" Correct darling. (She's been doing metaphors and similes all week at school.) And then I explained the metaphor and bore my testimony. A pause for impact. And then Olivia raised her hand again. She asked, "Mom do you want to hear the simile I wrote? The koala is as fluffy as a pillow." I looked at David who was discretely grinning behind his book. This is because he finds it charming that I would try to explain my metaphor to the children, and he finds it even more charming that the whole time I was talking, Olivia was thinking about koala bears.
Olivia had an impromptu tea party with her friends yesterday. She dressed up, of course. Complete with a hat. But her bike had a flat. Miraculously, I had a tube on the shelf and offered to change it for her. She was skeptical, but agreed. Halfway through the project I sent her on Savannah's bike because I am not nearly as handy as I thought I was. An hour later (well-spent, no?) I had the tube changed and pumped up and Savannah took it on a test drive to the mailbox. I congratulated myself on my brilliance and proceeded to clean up the tools and popped tube. By the time I did that and went back to park Olivia's bike, could hear a soft hissing and found this:
Apparently I put a hole in the tube as I was putting the new one on her bike. Which is a real shame.
That:
Savannah came home from school yesterday and said, "Hi, Mom. You look pretty." That made my day.
And David came home at 6:30. That made me over the moon. How's that for a metaphor?
Last night was the final presidential debate. (Thank heavens.) I cannot bear another word from either candidate. David had it on while we were finishing dinner and I started answering the questions for the candidates. They would uncanniliy say the exact same thing a few moments later. Savannah's eyes got bigger and bigger. She asked me how I knew what they were going to say. That, my dear, is because I have heard it all too many times. I can recite their speeches for them. And that is why I cannot wait for election day.
An Appearance by CIM:
Last night there was nothing on TV (including the debate), and so David and I went to bed early and talked, which turned out not to be early after all and was, in fact, rather late once we finally went to sleep. I started the discussion by unleashing CIM from her carefully controlled enclosure and telling David that I was desperately failing at everything, and I was pretty sure I never choose "best" when given a choice between good, better, and best, and by the way I was going to shut down my blog as well. He tried to reasonably talk me through my crisis of confidence and eventually we ended up on safer ground talking about his life at the hospital. And eventually CIM settled down and went to sleep. And this is why I love that man.