(no subject)

This is the first day I have really not wanted to do school with Mari. I was sort of hoping that would never happen. I'm just being lazy though. It is, thankfully, nothing deeper than that. Long, fairly busy weekend and lack of sleep (Luci was up with leg pains last night, I was stuck sitting beside her bed massaging her legs for what felt like an hour, but was probably more like 20 minutes). I think she is going through a growth spurt. I also think this child is going to be tall. Her birthfather is 6'2". Though her birthmother was only 5'6", she obviously has the genes. It will be very funny someday when this tall, blonde, bombshell (she has the genes for the bombshell part too!) stands next to her short daddy. Brad and I both think Mari is the only one that will not end up taller than us. We shall see...

Okay...'nuff stalling. I'm going to go "do school" now. It is cold, but bright and sunny outside. Maybe we'll go for a nature walk this afternoon and see how things have changed since all the leaves fell off the trees. I need to start a nature journal for Maria and Zoe both. I'll have to do some research on that. It would be fun to start one either in the dead of winter and go all the way to fall again, or start it in the spring and go through the winter. The first really appeals to my poetic side...

All right! I'm going. I'm going...

A gift...

I'm easily thrilled.

I happen to love to color. With really sharp colored pencils or fine tip markers. I haven't had much time to sit around and do it in the last four years, but the longing never goes away. Before we had kids I'd print geometric coloring pages from online and sit and color them while Brad watched football or the news. It kept me in the same room with him, but I wasn't bored. In my life before children, if I was in a meeting or class or somewhere I had to sit and listen for awhile, I ended up always doodling in the margin of my notes. Always geometric patterns. My dad does this too, only his are much more beautiful and detailed than mine.

I saw some geometric pattern coloring books in one of the toy catalogues I got recently and mentioned them to Brad, saying I'd be thrilled to find something like that under the tree for me *hint hint*. I don't remember mentioning them to my sister Kristin, but I must have told her about seeing them and wanting them, not intending to hint to her, since I'd hinted to Brad already. I think I was just saying that I seem to have a little more leisure time on my hands, and sometimes I'm just tired of reading. I can't really get into computer/video games. I've tried. Just not me, I guess. Anyway, I think that was how the conversation with my sister went. Anyway, today in the mail I got a present from my sister, just out of the blue. It made me tear up. She said she was out shopping and saw a coloring book and thought of me and it made her smile. :) So she sent it to me. It is all designs by Koichi Sato and so pretty. I had to get started right away and as a result all the girls settled down at the table to color with me in their own books. That was just 45 minutes of seriously satisfying fun. Kristin will probably never know how much pleasure she just gave me, not only with the coloring, and the time spent with my girls, but by spontaneously thinking of me like that. I don't usually speak the love language of gifts, but for some reason this gift said a lot. It said somebody was listening to me, it said somebody was thinking about me in a random moment, it says somebody went out of their way to communicate that to me. Is it selfish that that gave me such a thrill? I remember feeling that as a kid...but I haven't felt it in so long, I forgot what if feels like. Thank you, Kristin. I promise to try and pay that forward, since I know that is what would please you most.