Having Too Much Fun

I have no excuse for the sporadic posting lately. We've just been so busy. Cate from Alaska came Friday and brought her beautiful girls. Iris is the happiest baby I've ever met. We've spent between 10 and 12 hours together, now, and I've heard the child cry exactly once.

Esther and Mary Grace are becoming the best of friends. Mary Grace has even told me that she wants to go to Alaska. When I told her that it's really far, and we'd have to drive for days and days, she said, "Well, we'll just have to fly in an airplane instead."

She has it all figured out.

As you might remember, Cate and I were best friends in middle school, then we grew apart a bit in high school, and then we found each other again on Facebook. It's amazing how similar we are, and how similar our choices are - particularly with our kids - even though we haven't really seen each other in 15 or 20 years. I mean, we never talked about natural childbirth or breastfeeding when we were twelve. How is it that our choices are so similar? It makes me think that there's a lot more to those early childhood friendships than we give credit for. Who we hang out with really forms who we become, in ways that I could never have predicted.

I've been astonished by how easily we've just picked up so many old friendships where they left off. I really love Facebook for bringing so many wonderful friends back into my life.

So that was Friday. On Saturday we were supposed to go to the zoo with a huge group of friends, but it was raining, so we went to the Children's Museum instead. I think we had about 20 people in our group, so it was impossible to stay together. We did manage to keep mostly together for the dinosaur exhibit, though.

It's funny how I have the same four pictures of my kids at the museum, at a dozen different ages, and with different friends. I know I've seen this one before:

They've opened the new King Tut exhibit, but you have to pay extra to see it. I didn't think MG and C would get much out of it, being only 2 and 3 years old, so we skipped it. They have opened the new Egypt exhibit though, and that was very cool (and didn't cost extra).

My kids are funny. They very rarely play with the pretend food at home, but at the museum they have pretend food in several of the exhibits, and I know this because my kids run to it like it's magnetic and they're metal every single time we're there. Maybe it's because the museum stuff is the size of real food, and our plastic food is in miniature. I don't know, but it's weird. Maybe the museum will tell me where they get their plastic food, so I can ditch the mini stuff (that, frankly, really hurts when you step on it!) and get some full-sized plastic food.

So, we played with the food. I ran into a guy I dated in college in the new Egypt exhibit. That was random. He lives in Indianapolis now, and has a daughter about MG's age.

Sunday I let my friend Casey talk me into trying her "PiYo" (Pilates/Yoga) class with her. I have just one thing to say about PiYo:

OUCH.

If yoga's so great for you, why was Yogi Bear so pudgy? I'm just sayin'...

Where was I? Oh, Monday... Monday we met Cate and her kids and my mom at the dairy and had a very mooooooving experience!

We got to see twin calves being born! Unfortunately, my camera died after we'd been there just a little while, so I don't have many pictures. We did get this cute one on a cow. Don't worry, PETA, it's not a real cow.

That's what we've been up to. Today I'm getting a haircut, and trying to catch up on all the things I've been neglecting at home. Like the bathrooms. Eek.

I am also trying to get ready for BlogHer. I can't believe it's only 9 days away. I've got my business cards, and my clothes. I am thinking about finding a new laptop bag. I have one that's really thin and light, but it doesn't have pockets or a shoulder strap. The one with pockets and a shoulder strap is really heavy. Plus, it's just plain black, so it'll look like every other laptop bag in the joint. I need to find something that'll stand out in the crowd - if nothing else so that I don't end up taking off with someone else's bag. Grocery shopping today, too. And the post office.

Hey, they can't all be super-fun outing days, right?