alien lifeforms

Yesterday Four and Two spent the night. They were so excited about the sleep over... the first thing we had to do was inflate the blow-up bed and lay out their sleeping bags, try out the pillows and get the favorite blankets and stuffed animals arranged. After that we went swimming. Four is turning into a brave swimmer who kicks and goes under to retrieve rings...Two is not so brave but showed me he can blow bubbles and stand on the bottom as long as I hold onto his hands... after swimming we went to swing for a few minutes and then home for macaroni and cheese ( Four told me he preferred the white kind, whoops!) after dinner we walked to Baskin Robbins for ice cream... it was a slow walk, there is so much to see - we had brought the field glasses)... golf balls and dead birds, broken pencils and sticks. Four asked me how much longer would it take to get there and I told him that if they continued to dawdle it might take an hour... He told me only Two dawdled (wrong)... but they both picked up the pace and we made it to Wild Berry sherbet cones... on the way home the dawdling continued, we found a great big dead bug the boys took turns carrying... they jumped off all the rocks three or four times and ran down all the hills... near the end of the walk we noticed a "star" in the sky and used the binoculars to see if we could get a better look... it was a planet!... everyone looked and we were so excited that we had to write ourselves a note when we got home so we would not forget.
After that they took a bubble bath and then ran around naked for a few minutes and played cars and blocks until I said PJ's on now and books... then we sat and read 11 books, one about tornadoes!, and suddenly Two was falling asleep so the last book was done and off to their comfy nest. Four asked what time it was and I said 10 (I lied a little, it was 9:35, but he had wanted to stay up until 10) Prayers, kisses and they were out.

Boys. They get so excited and interested in things... on the walk for ice cream I was reminded of hiking with B one day when he jumped off the trail, went into this squat and pretended his hiking stick was a rifle and mowed down hundreds of invisible bad guys before standing and resuming his nice adult walk... I wish I was like that, I wish I could just be 8 again... except I think at 8 I was already serious and task oriented... I think my intention for this year is to just do it for the fun of it... no serious thinking at all!

This morning we had pancakes and Four colored in the round circle of a planet I had drawn and then we called B and he told us we had seen Jupiter(we wrote "Jupiter" over the colored picture) and if we looked again closely we might see specks around it that are its moons... he was even good enough to talk directly to Four, who I know he does not understand...

Anyway, here I am, reminding myself that this is the first day of the rest of my life and if I want the centerpiece of my life to be "just have a lot of fun" it is completely okay. I'm going to color my hair today... always feels like risky business... and then go out to dinner with family later. Two more days until I go back to work... but think I might be looking forward to it.