Daddy Makes the Weekend Wonderful

What a weekend! Daddy was not on call and we had a blast having him all to ourselves. He was even able to get home by 4 pm Friday (which is truly unheard of) so we made the most of our time together with an impromptu picnic at the park, followed by a free concert downtown. P, fueled by a chocolate brownie sugar-high, invented a new dance "the tiger" that he performed for anyone who would watch. As I have explained, P is our laid back child, so to see him performing so enthusiastically was especially funny. As he was dancing in the aisle of the concert, we noticed that he was blocking the way of a heavily pierced, tattoo-covered, shaved head skateboarder. As Daddy & I reached out to move P over, the skater-dude said, "No, man, let the little dude dance. It's cool." I have giggled about that encounter all weekend.

(P, re-enacting the tiger dance while dressed as a pirate.)

Saturday morning, we attended a Pirate Party for one of our best buddies, Bennett. The children had a wonderful time...and we have been playing pirates ever since. As a first time Mom, who never grew up with boys in the house, I have been very hesitant to introduce weapon-type play...but they sure have enjoyed their swords this weekend! Tonight before bed, R wanted to thank God, "for sword fights and pi-wates and eye patches and sayin', 'Hi, Mateys."My Mom & Dad came in town for a visit after the party. The kiddos had a ball chasing and capturing Poppy. Meanwhile, K spent her time stealing kisses from BeeBee.K is a fun, joyful little girl. That crazy hair suits her wild personality...but what a sweetheart she is! Today, she decided to skip her nap. When I went to check on her after an hour of singing pirate songs instead of sleeping she said, "Mommy, I don't want to sleep." I explained that she could come read quietly downstairs while I got some work done around the house and she replied, "Mommy, you know I'm a GOOD helper." She is indeed! And one of my favorite moments of the weekend was yesterday morning, when I overheard P on the back steps talking to our chocolate lab, Haley, and the neighbors' little shih tzu, Scrubby. "Ha-wee, you are my best brown dog. I wuv you, sweet gurl. Scwub-bee, you are my fave-wate white dog. I wuv you, too."