A Morning to Remember

Today was a wonderful morning filled with slow children's museum moments - really it is possible. Not those moments of stress, wondering how long before your toddler loses it. But one of those mornings of taking things at a preschool pace, stopping and smelling all the flowers along the way. Don't you love those kind of mornings? No agenda or schedule pressings. Just life. One. Step. At. A. Time.

Due to going to the Children's Museum with Ellen and "the cousins", Rachael had a play group, Abi had someone to carefully study, and I had a reliable source of eyes to leave Rachael with when 19 months was done waiting.

This is the only picture I captured while the crew 

(5 total, age 4yr down to 19months - Abi's the youngest) 

checked out some meerkats in the animal exhibit.

Abi was in such a sweet mood this morning. Her mellow little nature of exploring and satisfaction with taking things slow were so sweet to watch. She was a little shy in some moments, finding reassurance in Mommy's leg-holding. But that little one listened so well today and was so easy going. Such a breath of fresh air was she.

Rachael was her normal curious self, finding delight in trying to figure out how things worked and what happened if you tried this... or that. And Ms. Social Butterfly spent a good portion of the morning repeating others' phrases. I think Bekah (Ellen's oldest) enjoys having her own echo sometimes. =) And Rachael seemed to enjoy being the echo as well. It reminded me of how we must first learn to follow before we learn how to lead. And some good, clean preschool copy-cat is always amusing to watch. When Rachael is on her own her imagination has taken flight involving story lines in her play. Oh what a wonderful age of enjoyment of stories, characters, and role playing. On the way to the museum Rachael "found" a baby chick and carefully cared for her baby chick, whom she cupped and sheltered in her hands, while in the car. She was sure to reassure the "scared thing" and nurture that little imaginary friend.

Rachael and her "chick".

Daddy had a meeting with Grandpa today at the house from 11a-1p. Since I was not sure of whether they would eat lunch at our house or not and if the distraction would be welcome, I thought it a great day to have a special lunch date with the girls.

I'm not one to promote the Golden Arches restaurant. But there are occasions in which we choose to partake in the grease. When you don't eat out too frequently it surely is a joyful event in the life of little kids. We had such fellowship and joy over chicken nuggets, french fries, apple slices and chocolate milk. Oh and then sharing an ice cream brought such over-the-top dancing joys.


It was one of those "mark that down" pleasant mornings with no hiccups. I love those "every day" memories that turn into such great joys in the world of three years and nineteen months. We can be a busy crew indeed, but the overwhelming excitements of "typical" things and discoveries, even if I can't catch them on film because we're still very Mommy-dependent, sure leave pictures upon pictures that I hope I never forget.

- so thankful.