New rule

If you insist on letting a 3 year old wait up till 8:30pm to have dessert (only because company is coming over) then you are also putting said 3 year old (now sugar high but also tired monster) to bed.
That's only fair.
Last night was not fair.

Life downtown

I enjoy living downtown. It's only been a few weeks, and summer is probably going to be the time of year I enjoy the least. It's not like we have Lake Coeur d'Alene outside our bedroom window, so to enjoy grass, parks and such... we have to travel a little. But another apartment complex probably wouldn't have been that different. And summers can be short.

It's good. It's ours. Not to own, but the contract is ours. We decide when we move out.

There's a lot of relief in that.

Last night after dinner I put Ellie in the umbrella stroller and let Lou ride her little bike to the main square where the city has put up a little portable pop-up playground. The sun was out and people too. Even though I'm a worn out mom of two with no other plans for the late evening than maybe Netflix unless I fall asleep first, it feels good to be among the city life for a bit. I think. I like it.

Fresh take on things

I just had lunch with my cousin. I have a lot of cousins and don't really hang out with many of them, much. As we're sitting there one of our other cousins actually walked by and stopped to chitchat for just a second. With the other cousin, that is. I don't even think she realized who I was. Anyway.

This cousin who does know who I am is such a great conversation partner. We have so many similarities with where we are in life, what we want, what we don't want. What we're willing to compromise.
Whenever I talk to her I feel refueled afterwards. Like she just made me take a step back and see that the spots I've been starring at are really just part of something bigger.
She is wise.
And I don't think I throw that word around too much.

Snow

We got at least 4 inches over night. Wet and heavy. I told Lou go look out the window and was like "so it's going to take us longer than usual to get to school today so we have to hurry"
She looked at our completely buried bikes and said "Mom, I don't think we should bike, let's walk to school"
Which would have maybe been the safest and smartest way to get there. But we would also have been lucky to get there by lunch time. So I complemented her for thinking about safety first, then assured her biking on unplowed roads was perfectly fine, and took off on my frozen bike. 

Bassinet booked, baby!

You've ever seen those little flower basket looking things that you can put your infant in on long flights? They're called carrier cots, or in-flight bassinets.
I just reserved one for Ellie.
Disco!
I'm so excited for me and my arms.
Also, person sitting next to us... you are welcome.

We're doing crafts dammit!

I just googled ideas for paper turkey crafts stuff... Since we're hosing Thanksgiving I'd like to decorate just a little, but since Thanksgiving is not a thing here (the pilgrims never went to Sweden) it's not like the kid who is officially old enough to bring home crappy crafts from preschool will contribute to this holiday.

So, we're on our own. After I pick her up from preschool in exactly 1,5 hours we are going to buy orange, brown and yellow paper, little eyes, a glue stick, and then it's on. I hope she'll be into it.

It's very obvious, and toddlers are like bloodhounds, when it comes to faking excitedness. Like if I tell her Hey! we're doing a fun project with thread and needles and yarn.... she's bored after two seconds, because I am. On the other hand she knows like five different yoga poses and can spontaneously drop down and do push-ups in the middle of dinner.

So crafts isn't exactly something we do regularly, kind of like eating fish.... I just tell myself she gets that taken care of at school. But today we're doing it, dammit! 

One month till departure

We leave for Idaho in one month. Dylan and I both feel pretty stressed out about it, considering what all we have to get done before we leave. Move, finish classes, work, etc.
Louisa on the other hand packs her bags for Idaho every morning and then cries about not being able to go today either.
Could be a long month.

Next Saturday we are doing Friendsgiving at our place, back by popular demand. Same crew as last year, mostly. Plus kids. Last year we got rid of them and had fun. This year there's just too many of them so we'll let them in on the festivities and it will be a different kind of fun.

We haven't found a turkey yet. Also our freezer is too small to hold one so we either have to get a real small one, like chicken size, or buy it like the day of.... I'll let Dylan worry about that. All I really care about is the green bean casserole.