One last week

This is my last week before I have to go back to work. There are two weeks of teacher preparation (Okay, truly there are about 2 days of classroom preparations and 8 days of meetings) before the kids arrive the day after Labor Day. Now it’s crunch time, and my goal is to reach page 200 by Sunday. I’m on page 167, in case you were wondering. So that’s 33 pages in 6-7 days. I can do this. If I stop surfing the Internet, watching television, and taking naps that is. That’s the one downside of pregnancy at this stage. I swear, if they had an Olympic event in napping, I could take home the gold. I’m also getting huge. I’m about 6 1/2 months along, and my little munchkin is kicking the stew out of me.

During this past summer, my five-year-old son has been staying home with me. It’s been fun. The other day, we were both writing–he in his little notebook, and me on the laptop. I have to tell you, it’s an absolute scream to see what a five-year-old writes about. I have come across the most random, stream-of-consciousness writing you’ve ever seen. I think my favorite was: Dead butterfly. I love my mom. Happy Birthday. I have no idea where the dead butterfly came from, but apparently this was a key plot point for him. Ooookay.

My youngest is trying to learn how to read. She knows most of her letter sounds, and we’re working on sounding out basic words. For the longest time, she wouldn’t let me read to her. SHE had to do it. Literally, she would wrestle the book out of my hands and demand to tell the story her way. The other day, I finally had a break-through. I agreed to take turns. I would read the page to her first, and then she would read it back to me. (And let me tell you, I have another budding fiction writer, based on the stories she made up from the pictures.)

Yesterday at church, she just cracked me up. The previous week, there were about six babies who were christened. My girl was fascinated by this and thought it was the most amazing event ever. So this Sunday when she saw a parent and infant, she demanded, “Mommy, are they going to appetize the babies today?”