The Days of our lives

I read a little while back about the importance of playing with your kids.  It seems with Madeline that it's hard to find time to play when she's at school at day and has chores in the morning.  As an effort to invite play, both Ryan and I spend a lot of time on the floor in the living room whenever there a break in the action.  In the morning before school, after Ella gets home from K, after or before dinner, before bedtime.  Sitting on the floor without fail invites our kids to think of some way to tackle or scare us.  

Sometimes we lay on the floor for a few minutes of reprieve from shear exhaustion, and sometimes we get big hugs.

I"m amazed at how much time we spend in that little room:  practicing violin, reading books, playing dinosaurs or animals, having Family Fun Time or Family Lessons.  It's a radical change from the days of hurry scurry.  It's because we spend so much time in this room that it's so much fun to dream about going to Sarajevo, Bosnia, or Costa Rica, Italy.

I"ll miss that scowl someday.  It's only cute on babies, so hopefully it will be gone in a couple of years.

Max is pawing the ground, getting ready to charge.  We're playing dinosaurs- his favorite.  

It's nice that everyone still wants to be in the same room with us, though I have been told lately that I"m not a good mother at all, and that I don't ever do anything nice for my children.  As a matter of soothing any hurt feelings, it was amended that I do know how to be a good mother, but I just don't do it very often.  Apparently a good mother let's her children do whatever they want.

Now that we got binoculars and bird books from the Easter Bunny, we'll hopefully be spending even more time in this room, watching out the big window for the red-tailed hawks and bald eagles that fly around outside.  We have to defog them from Max's usage first.