The good memories

Every time a weekend approaches these days, this carpe diem kind of feeling starts to take over my heart and my brain. It shouts at me.

This is one of the last ones!

Make it count! Make good memories! Celebrate this time of just the three of us!

It reminds me that school is right around the corner and our little man right around the next. The desire to make these moments count is all consuming.

So, I drag myself out of bed on Saturday morning (because, let’s face it, this baby ain’t getting any lighter and dragging is about all I can manage) and I gear up to take on two days of ‘just us’ in the simplest, most beautiful, we-are-family kind of way possible.

But, you know, I’ve been approaching our days this way for a while now. Months, in fact. Anticipating the change long before it was right around the corner. And even I can’t keep that high-energy obsession up forever.

So this weekend? I fizzled a bit.

Which is not to say I didn’t try.

Of course, I still tried.

And this is not to say we didn’t make good memories. Or enjoy our time of just the three of us.

It’s just to say it was a bit harder. Like walking through mud rather than gliding along on ice.

And you know? I think that just means we’re ready. Ready to be out of this limbo, awaiting big change. Ready to embrace it all and be the family-of-four-with-a-big-girl-in-school.

We’re ready.

But, in the meantime, we’ll keep on keeping on and we’ll still make the good memories. Like…

Family board game time

I’ve been sort of dreaming of the day when she’d be old enough. When we’d all sit, curled up on a couch, around a table with a board, passing around some game pieces and dice. Through every snowstorm, rainy weekend, hurricane, can’t-leave-the-house kind of day over the past three years, I’d pine for the day when we’d spend them like this:

We did a lot of rolling and moving this weekend. M humbly took on his role as The Little Mermaid in the princess game. Which, of course, is a sign of a good Daddy.

Pajamas in the park

Let’s face it, memories are often made while wearing pajamas. So why force a three year old into shorts or a dress on a Sunday morning?

Someday, about 10 years from now, she’ll look back on these photos and ask how I could have let her out of the house wearing pajamas with a mess of sleep-tangled hair on top of her head. And I’ll just smile.

Sunday morning coffee

They started this tradition on their own last week. This week, I joined them. Coffee, muffin, Where the Wild Things Are, and a steady, soft breeze. It doesn’t get much better.

Nesting

On Sunday, I walked into the wonderland that is Buy Buy Baby for the first time during this pregnancy. I’ve been feeling like we have everything we need, all of the things we saved from our last tour through the newborn days. But, of course, two minutes in the store and our cart was full of things we hadn’t even thought about. Like the play mat. Elmo tested it out and gave his approval so now, I think we’re good to go.

Happy Monday to you. Hope it’s been an easy one, paving the way for you to coast into the holiday weekend.