Early Birds

Why is it that from Monday through Friday I have to peel Bunny out of bed with her eyes closed as she clutches her blankets to her chest. Then, I carry her downstairs and tuck her into a groggy, grouchy, tired ball on our couch. Inevitably she'll walk out of the house without so much as a sip of water, completely ignoring the spread that I've laid out on our table. But, come Saturday, six thirty hits and she's like, "cockadoodledoo family. Rise and shine. What's for breakfast, Mama? I'm thinkin' pancakes and bacon and fresh fruit salad, thanks."

Here's what's on my plate today:

I need to clean my house and wash the bedding.

I need to make a chicken Parmesan that Jay can pop into the oven tomorrow evening while I'm at work.

I need to get the girls in their costumes to go to the Boo at the Zoo this afternoon. Jay is working until one and we're heading over at two. This only gives us a few hours there, but a few hours is better than no hours! It's safe to expect pictures later.

On the bright side:

We are almost 1 week post bed bug bite.

Bunny came home yesterday with 100% on her spelling test. Last week she got half of the words wrong. This came out of no where for me and I was really concerned. Her teacher sent me the words that she'd have on this weeks test and Bunny and I worked on them a lot throughout the week. What a parenting wake-up call.

Saturday

I should really be packing. Instead, I'm blogging while waiting for my pretzel dough to rise.

I've noticed that the content of this blog consists mostly of day-to-day mama life and food stuff. Recently I've become aware of just how important food is to me. Good quality is such a big deal and I just never, ever, ever, ever want to be in a situation where I am eating something that I don't feel good about again.

Today, at around 11, Jay suggested that we start walking down to the Magic Garden (we were scheduled for a noon tour). We decided to grab a quick bite to eat on South Street before our tour. South street has pretty much every kind of food that a person could want to eat. There's everything from fast food to fancy-date-night places. I thought that we'd just go to the Whole Foods salad bar or stop in at a pizzeria, but instead we happened upon this placed called the Loving Hut. I think that it would cost a family of four about $20 to eat at a place like McDonalds. For $20, we were able to get giant plates of organic vegan food. We got a quinoa salad, a humongous and incredible sushi roll and a monster sized plate of chow mien noodles. This food was so delicious, so nutritious and so cheap, that it occurred to me that we really don't ever have to eat crap so long as we're living in this city.

Last night we ate at the White Dog cafe, which is another organic restaurant. It was on the fancy and pricey side, but so yummy.

On my internal list of Philly-pros-and-cons, I add good, healthy, affordable and fancy food to the list of pros.

Our tour of the Magic Gardens was cut short because my girls Lila had no patience for the experience. I mean, she didn't have a tantrum or anything crazy, but she was miserable and wanted to leave. In her defense, she's newly five years old, it was all about fascinating history... but her interest in that was minimal and she is suffering from some miserable allergies. Jay, Bun and I were all hanging on every word of the tour guide, because the artist Isaiah Zagar is a completely awe-inspiring. I truly hope that I bump into him around town some time. He's just about finished his work on a huge warehouse and though it's closed to the public they're holding a fund-raiser there soon. I'm going to try to find information on it because I'd love to go to something like that. I have a feeling that it would be packed with interesting people and good conversation.

After we left the street tour, we returned to the gardens to wander around and take some pictures.

Here are a few photos from the day! Jay was with us, but he was the photographer. Isn't that the worst? You take all of the pictures and there's no photo evidence of your presence there!

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Another Difficult Morning... prelude to a peaceful weekend

Poor Bun, her days are getting easier but her mornings are still difficult. This morning she was particularly tearful and she stood at the gate begging not to go into school.

I wish that I knew what was wrong. I wish that I could give her just a teaspoon of Lila's confidence (god knows that there's enough to spare.) I worry that Lila is sometimes forgotten. It's always been this way. She's so confident and self-serving that she's often not given as much attention as Bunny is. This morning, I can't remember if I even said good-bye to Lila before she walked into school. I was so preoccupied with Bunny's tears and insecurity, that I forget to congratulate and support Lila. I'm a crappy mom.

I am regularly awed by how different my children are from each other.

We have some fun plans for the weekend, which I hope will make life a little better for the girls. Jay and I are going out for dinner at the White Dog Cafe tonight and trying out our new babysitter from sitter city. Then, tomorrow at noon we have reservations to tour the Magic Gardens in Philadelphia... which is a potential birthday party site for Bunny. We purchased our tickets via groupon. Groupon is the best thing that has happened to my day-to-day life in years. On Sunday we're making granola to share with Bunny's class and staying in. I will contact Lila's teacher next week about doing something for her class too. I don't know that I could possibly make enough granola for two classrooms of kids in one day without breaking the bank. We're going to have a restful day in preparation for the week of school and later nights (committee meeting and back to school night).

Since I'm totally content with my weight and done losing, I've been slowly adding a lot of food back to my diet. For the most part I'm keeping it gluten free, but where I was really avoiding carbohydrates, I'm including them in my meals more often now. Also, I've noticed that I'm hungrier than I normally am, which I attribute to the seasons. Today, I went to put on my skinny jeans from the GAP that were pretty skinny when I got them a few months ago and fit fine a week or so ago. They are so big that I can barely keep them up. I got on the scale and wasn't that surprised to see that I've lost a few more pounds. I guess it makes sense because I've been walking so much. I thought that the extra calories and carbohydrates would balance with the extra exercise so that I could perfectly maintain my weight... but I guess not. My thought is that if I'm not trying to lose weight, am eating what I want and being healthy, but still losing a bit... my body probably just hasn't' reached it's natural place yet. It's interesting.