Day 1

It's amazing how love works. I expected to be utterly exhausted tonight, ready to pawn the kids off on Tim for the bedtime routine after our day of play. Instead, I enjoyed tucking them in, and even doubled our typical book time for a few extra minutes together. Don't get me wrong...I am exhausted, but I'm also saturated in love for my precious kiddos. They're such a gift, and seeing how they soaked up my attention today reminded me of what an awesome responsibility I have in caring for them every day.

We started off our week by sitting down to make a wish list. I asked them to take turns telling me what they want to do this week (making it clear that it wouldn't all get done), and these are some of their responses:

Annabell: "I want to do Webkinz and watch movies on the computer."

Liam: "I want to eat, and I might need to play, and I want to eat cake, 'cause I love cake."

Annabell: "I want to pretend the green things outside are vegetables and the brown things are chocolate, and put them in big buckets and pretend to sell them at our store."

Liam: "I want to watch a tornado chasing a train on the computer."

Annabell: "I want to learn how to draw stuff and draw words."

Liam: "I want to learn how to draw tornadoes."

The list filled a page, but it didn't really shape much of our day. We started out combining our Thomas train set with Tim's homemade building blocks and had a blast making caves and tunnels for the trains. It got pretty tense when the McDonald's Happy Meal dragons showed up and caused confusion and delay, but Sir Topham Hat and Mr. Percival soon set things aright.

At lunchtime I bypassed our typical routine (the kids eating at the island while I check email in the recliner) and set us up to eat together at the dining room table. While we ate, I read a couple of pages out of Annabell's children's Bible, and asked the kids to think about what the story told us about God. This was a spur-of-the-moment idea, sparked from yesterday's sermon, in which we were challenged to spend more time gazing at the character of God. We're going to do this each day this week, and keep a list. Today, through the story of Noah's Ark, we discovered that God...

• doesn't like sin - it makes Him sad.
• cares about animals.
• does what He says He's going to do.
• takes care of His people.

The afternoon was blissful. I'm still in shock that Liam not only asked for a nap, but actually slept for almost 3 hours! This from a child who hasn't napped since September. And even more amazing - I took a nap, too! And a bath. What luxury!

We had time for a brief walk before dinner, but between the thunderclouds closing in and Annabell's bike being pathetically small for her suddenly long legs, it didn't last long. I did enjoy strolling hand-in-hand with my son, though.

Back at the house, we watched a few clips of Scrat the Prehistoric Squirrel pursuing the elusive acorn in the Ice Age movies. I thought Annabell was going to pee her pants, she laughed so hard. I'd forgotten how good it feels to laugh hysterically out of pure enjoyment over watching someone else's hysterical laughter.

Before bed we read Stellaluna, Awesome Animals, Catch Me Catch Me, and The Berenstain Bears Moving Day. Now my babies are tucked in, happy and relatively healthy, apart from a little sniffle. And Tim and I are getting ready to watch the series finale of LOST on Hulu.

It was a good day.