F-D, F-F-D, F-F-D-G-F-F-D

I must say, I'm settling into this not-having-a-schedule-in-the-morning thing quite nicely.  Really, this is the first time in a long, long time that all my kids have been somewhat capable of taking care of themselves in the morning: I snooze, they come in and check on me and then, mutually reassured, I snooze just a little more.

I have these memories when I was a kid of doing the same thing with my mom.  I suspect they date from just before or just after my brother Billy was born: poor mom must have been exhausted.  Anyway, I remember how I used to wake up in the morning and turn on Sesame Street.  And then, when the episode number flashed on the screen, I would scramble upstairs and give my mom a little tap.  "Mom," I'd half whisper, "Today is episode 5431!"  Mom would always murmur "Mmm hmm," and then I'd rush back downstairs.  I have no idea why I believed it was so important for my Mom to know which episode number I was seeing that morning. Kid logic, I guess.

But I know that I believed it was important, vitally so. I also remember, quite clearly, one morning when I was distracted when the episode number flashed on screen.  I remember the sinking feeling in my stomach when I realized I was going to have to tell Mom that I didn't know the episode number, and then my relief when she whispered that it was all right.  My Mom is so very kind and forgiving.

And, obviously, very patient.

This morning I awoke to Joey's heavy breathing in my ear, and then three little giggles surrounding me, and then Ella's whisper: "Come on, guys! Let's go get dressed up like ninjas!"  Excellent!  Kids practicing stealth means more sleep for me, and I didn't even have to worry about getting Joey dressed this morning: Ella and Alex took care of that for me.  They apparently even changed his diaper: I say apparently, because when I went to change it later today, I found that it was sealed closed with scotch tape.

Later this morning, my kids in their ninja costumes, doing their best ninja moves: I don't really buy my kids black clothes, so they made do.  Joey's the preppiest ninja I ever did see.

I decided I'd better haul myself out of bed a little later, when I heard the sounds of Ella's little glockenspiel, and then her admonishment: "No! That is unacceptable! Now sit down and listen!" I figured I'd better go and rescue the captive audience.

We sort of eased into through the morning. I was under the impression that it was supposed to be sunny and warmer today, so I'd planned to take the kids to a sandy beach right after lunch. To pass a little time, I had the kids go and clean their rooms.

All Alex ever really has to do is scoop the books back on his shelf: he keeps things pretty neat, and I tend to help him out because he's living with a two-year-old tornado.  But Ella...oh, Ella.  She has an entirely different concept of neatness. She likes to live surrounded by her art (especially her boxes), and her concept of tidy is things pulled into little piles.  For example, among the flotsam on her dresser were some there loose playing cards: she cleaned them by stacking them in a tidy pile and placing the pile on the floor next to her wall: also lined up on the edge of the wall was a jump rope, a bottle of nail polish, a little cup of amethysts, about fifteen books in three different piles, and on and on.  Poor girl, I made her try again. So now there are many tidy little piles on every shelf of her bookcase. I'll take it.

Unfortunately, just as the kids finished their cleaning and I started to make lunch, the temperature dropped and it started to rain, quite hard.  Not that the kids really minded: Joey allowed me to tuck him in for a nap. Ella had me write out a few more songs for her to learn and then hid herself away to practice.  And that left me with Alex, who played games with me and helped me make my Mom's blueberry buckle recipe, substituting in some Brombeeren (blackberries, which grow like weeds here, just as they did at home in Seattle).  Yum!

He-Man, riding off on his mighty battle frog.

The rain finally let up at dinner time, and the kids, who had been so quiet and still all day, clearly needed to go outside. (Read: they were bouncing off the walls.)  So I sent them outside to play, and then Dennis and I walked them down to the community center playgrounds and sat on a bench, watching them act out the Great Rebellion...sort of.

I know was that Joey was He-Man. He told me so at least two dozen times.  Ella, apparently, was supposed to be some sort of sorceress. That, I also gleaned from Joey: he kept calling to Ella, "No chase me, sorceress!" And then he'd wiggle his little bottom at her, giggling, clearly egging her on. I don't remember He-Man ever using that particular move, specifically, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was in an episode, somewhere.

Ella wasn't quite sure what her role was, either, but she humored Joey by tickling him whenever he came close to her.  Alex seemed to be in charge of the game, urging Joey on, calling out to him to beware of "The evil horses of Hordak!" Almost right.

Just a little black rain cloud...

We let the kids play until the 7:00 bells started ringing across Zürich and many more, and bigger, black rain clouds started cluttering the sky.  Here's hoping this is the last of it: I'd like some summer weather to go with my summer vacation.