Many small things

I got to go rollerskating with my kids yesterday. It was as much fun this time as it was last time. I was just feeling warmed up and enjoying myself as it was time to go. The kids didn’t want to leave so soon, but Kiki had to get ready for an overnight edventure at the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center. Rasinfish was along for the rollerskating and she got a tour of the space center as well. She agrees with me that it is an incredibly cool thing to have available for kids. Patches went with us and delighted in crawling into all the bunk spaces and up ladders and down stairs. This morning I left Patches behind when I retrieved Kiki. He realized what I’d done and was very sad that he didn’t get to go play in the space ships some more.

Yesterday for lunch I got to visit with my friend Julie of Mental Tesserae. We’ve known each other for years, but we don’t get together often. We’ve been much better about keeping in touch since we discovered that we both have blogs. It was fun to sit down with her and talk about the experience of blogging. As a side note, I have decided that I’m going to have to use the word tesserae in a story sometime. It is too interesting a word to leave lying around unused.

I have flowers blooming in my house. Several of the grape hyacinth bulbs I planted have begun to bloom. None of the daffodils are blooming yet. But my african violet has decided to send up a lone little bloom. I think the violet needs to be repotted. I also have a poinsetta in full bloom. Poinsettas tend to be tricky plants. I can never keep them alive, so I never buy them. But as I was walking out of a garden center on January 2nd an employee handed me the pot and said “here, it’s free.” So now I have a poinsetta with two stalks of beautiful red blooms and a third stalk which has withered away. I expect the other two stalks to join the first soon, but for now I have bright red flowers.

Patches came up to me today with a little grin on his face. “Mom, why did to boy throw the butter out the window?” Thinking that this was one of his odd, but serious questions I answered that I had no idea. He replied “Because he wanted to see a butterfly.” Patches told me a joke. He’s not even 4 yet and he already successfully pulled off a joke. He was so pleased with himself that he immediately started on a second one. “Why did the boy throw the bread out the window?” I answered that I didn’t know. “Because he wanted to see…wait.” Patches’ brow crinkled as he realized that applying the same formula to the new word was not going to have the same effect. He sighed. “I don’t know.” But then we found something else to laugh about so it was all okay.

Next weekend I get to escape town altogether and go visit my brother’s family in Pocatello. Yay!