Our coloful house

Donnie has pink eye.

Bug has a gold belt (congrats, little man)!

And I'm seeing red. I stepped on my glasses the other day at Bug's Tae Kwon Do class and can't find my old pair.

the eyes have it

Pink eye, that is.

I--not Bug (so far anyway)--had pink eye this week. It complemented my allergies nicely. The upside: I had a doctor's note forcing me to stay home from work because I was contagious. The downside: our computer crashed while I was home.

Just because Easter is coming I didn't need to look like this...

P.S. I love that when I hit spellcheck "work" came up as incorrect...the option given was: "woe." Seems about right.

Happy Easter...

the talk

Well, not THAT talk but more adoption talk with Bug. For awhile now we've used children's books as an introduction to the subject but Bug hasn't seemed interested in relating the words or scenes on the pages to the events in his life even with our relating the words and scenes to his life. He seems too young to comprehend it but even before Bug was in our lives, the agency stressed the importance of talking with children early about adoption...whether they really understood it or not so that there wasn't a surprise BIG TALK later on.

Yesterday Bug and I were in the car and saw a woman pushing a stroller. It prompted a chat about Bug as a baby. I told him I always enjoyed putting him in his stroller and going for a walk together. We talked about what a happy little guy he was and how he loved his bottle, his toes and Winnie-the-Pooh. I told him how sometimes he would fall asleep and Vera would hear the lullaby and end up napping next to him so I had two sleeping little ones (yes, she sleeps with her eyes open).

He asked where he was born and I reminded him he was born in Virginia (or as Bug says, "REginia"). He asked if that's where we met him and I said yes (thinking that part of our previous chats may have actually sunk in and stuck with him).

Realizing that his questions were going backwards in time, I geared up for a little deeper conversation and possibly a question that went a step prior to our meeting him and was ready to follow his lead.

And then he said...and when you met me was I already in a stroller ready to go for a walk?

Play Toy Date

Yesterday morning--at 6am--Bug asked when he would see Mat again. I was thrilled...Mat's mom is MY friend so it's the whole two birds/one stone thing. He gets to see his pal and I get to see mine--the best kind of play date. Bug doesn't have many play dates--aside from time with his buddy next door--and doesn't really seem interested in them at this point. Other than to say hi and exchange small talk with the parents/nannies of his classmates, I don't know any of them and anticipate play dates being a bit awkward (for me).

Often when I pick up Bug at school we'll go to the playground and see children from his class or our next door neighbor may show up if it's the day of the week that he doesn't have one or two after school activities.

Typically, Bug may go down the slide a couple of times with his friends but then he's happy to dig and create roads in the sand by himself as opposed to playing with the other kids. THIS is a huge improvement from the fall when he would simply dig his fingers into my leg at the playground and hide behind me, demanding wanting to play only with me.

So I was happy that Bug initiated wanting to see Mat.

Until last night...

I had been at an adoption meeting (not for a second child or anything interesting--just a volunteer meeting) and Donnie told me about this conversation with Bug:

Bug: I can't wait to see Mat.
Donnie: Yeah, that will be fun to play with Mat.
Bug: No, I don't want to play with Mat...I want to play with Mat's toys.

When I heard that, I could almost see the autumn leaves and feel a clawing deep in my thigh as if I were back at the playground.

WW/The French Connection

I've got nothing to add...I just like this photo of our sweet little Frenchie.

lions and tigers and bears...

We live close to National Zoo. Not close enough that our house smells like a circus after the elephant act but close enough that visiting the zoo is an easy day out. We hadn't been in awhile and decided to go. Bonus: there's no admission to get in the zoo--a FREE Saturday adventure! We saw:

Lions

Tigers

Bears

And what did Bug talk about for days after our visit? The prairie dogs. Oh my...