Weekend chronicles

In my constant quest to be Out Doing Things on the weekends with the kids, the girls and I went hiking today. I took them to one of my favorite spots, Holliday park, off of the beautiful winding Spring mill road. This park has the most awesome setup for kids I have ever seen, with some serious playground equipment. They had a nature show at 1:30, which I saw advertised in Indy's child. This involved a nice lady laying out some animal skins and the kids petting them. After about 45 seconds of that, Lauren was officially over it and we moved on. Audrey noticed some markers for trails nearby, and we headed out.

Lauren does physical therapy twice a month, as she is a little delayed in her gross motor skills. Any chance I can have her out running around, climbing stairs or doing anything NOT in the house is a plus. Let me tell you, she was in her element and she LOVED being in nature today! She was Nature Punky! She was doing things I had never seen her do before: climbing stairs and rocks with a vengeance, going down hills and walking across bridges. She was awesome! She found herself a walking stick like her big sisters and she proceeded to poke and hit every rock, leaf and mound of dirt she could find.  I loved seeing her adventurous side today.

What I loved the most however, was that the girls and I had a very special day together which didn't involve cell phones, Nintendo DS, Webkins or movies. We were unplugged and outside on a beautiful, sunny, breezy spring day.

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I read the most amazing book last night. First, I have to preface this by saying that poor Ian and I were supposed to have a date night. But before that was supposed to occur, we had Audrey's birthday party from 2-7 and had watched 7 little girls for 5 hours. I was exhausted. I tried to flip over to "fun mom" mode, but it sooooo wasn't happening. I will be 31 in a week, and I know a few things for sure: me going out to a smoky bar and pretending to have fun when I would rather be curled up with a nice book is a recipe for disaster. I'm not exactly good at pretending to have fun when I am not, in fact, having any fun. So, fast forward to me staying in and reading this most wonderful treat of a book I am about to describe.

Oooh, she was a delight! Like a tall glass of water, I downed her like I hadn't drank in a week. Are you ready? Have I built the suspense to where you just can't STAND it any more???? Here it is: "Made for You and Me" by Caitlin Shetterly.  I stayed up until 3am until I had finished the last drop. Last call for me last night involved pages, not shots.

Memoirs are my favorite genre, and this book is a memoir of a young mother and her family that got hit HARD by the recession, after travelling across the country from Maine to Los Angeles, and back again. Everything that could go wrong, did. It went something like this: jobs and money dried up, unplanned pregnancy, lost all of their belongings to mold, pet died, came back home, into the arms of their family and friends. With a LOT more heartache in there than I am mentioning. I can relate to a lot of the things she writes about. She loves her new family and manages to find happiness, even though their situation is far from perfect. Because really, when is anything ever perfect? It also has a similar feel of the "Walk across America" books by Peter Jenkins, and she repeatedly refers to the Little House on the Prairie series as they travelled west. I'm not doing it justice here, but just scurry out and get yourself a copy, ok?

I loved it. Our generation has a new reality, unlike any other before us. We are faced with joblessness, inflation, war, a recession, insane costs of education and housing...the list goes on and on. It is what we deal with every single day. We try to do the best for ourselves and our little families. This book will make you feel like you are not alone; like we're all in it together.

♥ V :)