Musings on a Lovely Little Weekend

So much is still going on, I don't know why I ever thought they might slow down. Crazy, I guess. This past weekend was really quite nice. On Saturday, Ken took Kieran to the Carrie Murray Nature Center. This is where Kieran will be having his birthday party this year and, instead of presents, he's asking people to donate to the Center instead. We've got a gofundme page set up for him, so he can give them a check at his party. We're up to $235 already.

Kieran does not know it yet, but Ken and I have gotten him tickets for the Wild Kratts Live event in Pennsylvania in February. Going to be VERY hard to keep this one quiet until his birthday - but I am doing my best.

Anyway - the event on Saturday was for people to come and take photos of the birds they have (owls, raptors, a turkey and turkey vulture). At the bottom of this post are some of the pictures that Ken took, Kieran's will be posted soon as well.

After that, Mia had her first haircut. Of course, we took no photos of that. She LOVED it and told me this morning that she liked her haircut from Ms. Annie. After her haircut we had lunch, she napped and then we all went down to the inner harbor to watch Santa's arrival. Mia freaked out and I had to take her home before Santa got there, but just barely.

Sunday I took Mia swimming (Kieran was not feeling well) and then I ran out while the kids stayed home with Ken. Shopping by myself is usually a pleasure but it was packed at the stores on Saturday. People (like me) were probably freaking out about how close to Hanukkah it is. I managed to grab a few small gifts for the kids and sneak them into the house for Wednesday night's festivities.

But the real fun came after I got home. Ken was sitting on the floor and the kids kept piling on top of him and giggling. Mia would jump on him, then jump off and declare "Kieran's turn!" and Kieran would immediately jump on Ken and then step back so Mia could have another turn. They did this off and on for an hour. Afterwards, we're on the sofa snuggling and Kieran invites Mia to come over and snuggle with him. She does and the two of them lay quietly together for all of 2 minutes while watching a movie. It was so sweet. I know our time is limited with this type of connectedness, but I relish it while it lasts.

And Another Two Weeks Have Gone By

In which I haven't blogged. I thought things were slowing down and they are, somewhat. I still have a lot of little things to do, but nothing like before.

Kids are good, though Amelia has a cold and continues to wake up at night a lot. I spoke with one of my co-workers who has a daughter Mia's age. He said his daughter also is waking up a lot - because she's starting to make connections about being alone, having dreams, shadows bothering her. His daughter, however, shares a room with her older sister and so wakes up her parents less. Though Kieran sleeps like I do (that is to say, like a rock most of the time) I would not want him to have to share a room with his sister.

So, for now, we suffer. I know in the future I'll look back on these times with fondness (or wonder - as in "I wonder how I remained awake after sitting with her for 3 hours in the dead of night?") because right now - they need us. It's nice to be needed.

Kieran and I have tomorrow off and we're going to visit the place we want to hold his birthday party. If all goes well, we'll get his fundraising site posted tomorrow as well. Looking forward to just some me-and-Kieran time.

OK gotta get back to it. Love to all, will try and blog again soon.