"Avrie, what can't you live without?"

Avrie turns 5 in less than two weeks. I know. How can that be? Yikes. I've had several people ask what she's into, what she likes, things she needs, etc. This stumps me. If you've asked and received my blank stare and shrug, I'm sorry! This photo is a perfect example of what Avrie does all day. Every day. Blankets and pillows and various things are hauled all around the house to various places to make "comfy spots." Favorites are: clothes baskets, behind the purple chair in the corner, under the dining table, under the coffee table, the middle of the kitchen floor, laundry room floor, under Dad's desk, the guest rooms. The "various things" can be anything, really. Polly Pocket clothes (rarely a doll), rocks, torn pieces of paper, crayons, a notebook or two, three, four, empty lunch box, stuffed animals, hair stuff, beads, etc. Seemingly no rhyme or reason but I guarantee she has a method to her madness. Just ask her! So, I asked her in the van today "Avrie? What can't you live without? What do you want for your birthday?" Here is my transcription:

• "Ummm, strawberry face gel. That sparkly kind that I had once but don't anymore.
• Confetti to dump on the ground to make the party pretty.
• Uh. A stuffed animal - a tiny cat this time.
• Hmm. Oh! An electric oven like the kind that Grandma Char wanted when she was a little girl but never got. Then when Klara comes over I can make her little cakes and stuff.
• A purse that is, like, sparkly.
• A real phone. So I can call people on it. Like, Trevin and Grayson. And call Daddy when he's at work.
• A princess scooter.
• My own notebook.
• Uh. Ah. Hmm. Oh! My own bubblegum because I was waiting for it and never got it. The tape kind of bubblegum.
• The Princess and the Frog dress. I don't have one of those.
• Hmm. I'm thinkin' of another thing.
• That kinda chapstick with a chain and Hello Kitty dangling on it.
• Um. Princess shoes.
• Clothes. Like, meeting clothes, play clothes. I don't have very many meeting shoes, so I'm gonna want meeting shoes.
• And. Let's see. Hmmm. (Snaps and furiously chomps her gum.)
• And an art easel, Mom! Dad, what's an art easel?
• A tape holder. I know!! Pretty duct tape that I can make stuff with.
• Books for me to read. Boring book, boring books for me to read. They're called boring books cuz boys don't like girl things. Like, a boring princess book.
• I want a baby duck - that one from Hub Hobby - well, uh, there's a little bottle it sucks on. It's soooooo cute. It's nice.
• A Rapunzel dress and Rapunzel hair that is TWO FEET TALL!!! I just LOVE it SOOOO much and I just wanted it RIGHT NOW!! You'd be the best Mommy in the whole world if you boughted it for me!
• Let me see if there's more. Okay, Mom. Let's see. A bag. For all my fancy things - like my chapstick, my boa made out of feathers, a laa-lalala.
• A stuffed animal with its own collar and you can pretend you're walking it. And it has batteries so you can turn it on and it walks. Well, Mary, our neighbor, has a dog with a little collar but it doesn't work anymore but you turn it on and it walks."

That's it ya'll.

"I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves."

I couldn't be more thrilled with Nolan's summer. He's plowing through the Magic Tree House series at an average of 2* books/day. Going to the Winona library in the summer is one of my happiest memories as a kid. I see that they've remodeled it a bit, but that library is awesome. Old, musty, glass floors upstairs, many nooks and crannies. I'd get a stack as big as I could carry and read them all in just a few days. The wait to go back was agonizing. The library is still one of my happy places. Occasionally, I'll feel like Nolan should be doing something more-enjoying the weather, being a kid, whatever. So, I kick him outside to the hammock. Problem solved.

Look at his legs. It seems that a giraffe has moved in.

*quote by Anna Quindlin

*Did I say 2? He's read two already this morning. AND we went to the park. Good grief.

She Shakes Her Head in Disbelief.

There was a stretch of time in my life when I couldn't sleep during the night. I'd wake 3-4 times an hour all night long. Interestingly enough, when my first baby was born I could finally sleep; I was exhausted. While it has significantly improved, I still don't sleep the night through unless I take drugs or ingest aged grapes. Last night was awful. The longest stretch of zzz's I got was 42 minutes. It gives a person lots of time to think when said person is too lazy to get up and be productive in the dead of the night and prefers to suffer in near agony. The night lasted f.o.r.e.v.e.r. And e.v.e.r. Yay.

You know what has gone by in an absolute blink of the eye? My first baby is SEVEN. In fact, he turned 7, um, over a month ago. June 4, exactly. Total blink. Which makes me think maybe I need to savor the never-ending nights. Use them to my advantage. Dwell on things that ground me, people I love. Instead of doing my hamster-wheel of "whens" and "whatifs" and "becauses" and "maybes" and "blabbity blab" and "on and on and on."

So my kid had this great birthday party. And it's been over a month and I've yet to document its happening. Stellar Mommy. Nolan is....Nolan. He's inquisitive and a titch cynical and 100% comfortable in who he is. He is all about experiments and how things work. Which is why a science party was completely up his alley. Lucky for us we have a friend down the street (for two more weeks) who volunteered (or didn't dare say no) to be the nerdy (didn't have to alter himself) party entertainer (who he is by nature.) So I focused on the cupcakes and that was [nearly] the extent of my party planning. There was a lung capacity thing, oobleck, suck-an-egg-into-a-bottle -which turned into blow-the-eggtop-off, unsuccessfully blow a cd bubble, boil water in a balloon directly over a flame, the infamous Coke and Mento geyser. I feel like something is missing. Probably because it's been over a month since the party. Seriously. I resolve to stop blinking. Or figure out how to do it mindfully.

Happy belated birthday tribute to my favorite first-born! Thanks be to the guests who made the party. Thanks be to C and his infinite geekdom! Here's me wishing the eighth year passes s.l.o.w.l.y.