3rd & 4th rundown

Last night I went with some friends to American Players' Theatre, one of my favorite things. I think I've gone every year but one since 1990 but nearly wrote off this year, foregoing my typical large order of early-bird (heavily discounted) tickets. I learned they had seats for the 3rd & 4th of July at half off, so I sent out a request for babysitting. A & C, two simply wonderful college girls and Elias' favorite sitters, kindly stayed with him from 6:30 until after midnight, even though they only got to play with him til 7:15, when he went to bed. Having a night out was such a rare treat for me. I was all excited for about 2 days beforehand. Unfortunately, I'd gotten so little sleep this week, and then ran around like crazy all of yesterday (getting stuff done since I had the day off work with Elias at daycare), I was really really tired when the time actually came. Still, it was psychologically refreshing.

Elias blessedly slept in an "extra" hour this morning, giving me 5 hours of sleep. Oh, to double that! Well, partly to keep myself awake, I decided to take Elias to a neighborhood festival. Friends D&S suggested we meet there at 11 or 11:30, but I was really banking a lot on our 12:00 nap so we went early without them. It was really neat: a true hometown 4th of July. There was an unlikely-looking band all dressed up, balloons, face painting, a rented blow-up bouncing structure, and games like beanbag tosses and a cakewalk. I bought a few 50-cent tickets for Elias to win some candy (the consolation prize for all the games) and just hung out and watched all the people. He likes caramel. As it approached noon, though, he was getting pretty tired so we left. He fell asleep about a mile from home so hard that he barely awoke when I extracted him from the carseat, took off his shoes and put him to bed. Then I eagerly went to bed too, and slept deeply until he woke me up 3 hours later. Really nice, but still not long enough!

Elias of course woke up hungry. He's recovered most of his appetite after last week, but still retains a little of the pickiness. It wasn't much of an issue, though, when he got turkey, green beans, broccoli, and blueberries for snack. He sent me back for more blueberries ("more bwu-bu?").

We then read some books and went outside to let out the chickens. We played a bit in the back yard, on the mini play structure D&S gave him and wrestling on the grass, then got yesterday's remaining laundry off the line. Elias immediately emptied the basket of clean clothes, mixing in lots of dried lawn clippings for the organic touch. We went back in, me to collapse on the couch, him to play with various basement toys. Then he asked for "Wa-wa?" so we went back upstairs for a drink and more books. I tried to elicit his help to clean up the livingroom and his room, but ended up doing it all myself while he flipped though books he couldn't bear putting away. When I asked where the balls were for his hammer-and-ball set, he immediately ran to his crib and laid on his belly to look underneath, and sure enough, there they were. He can fish them out with a hanger most of the time, but they were beyond his reach in the far corner. He had great fun hammering them through the holes in the bench, then hitting the balls together, then hitting wall--which I immediately stopped with a "No"--then hitting them against his playchest which made nearly the same amount of noise (and which I allowed--'choose your battles,' you know). He drifted from that to more book-gazing to playing music on his "Baby Tad" frog toy on his own, allowing me some time to finish the laundry and other housekeeping.

Then it was back outside. I tried to plant some of my new & pricey prairie plants that've been sitting in my driveway for a week now and actually succeeded in planting 5, despite Elias' extraordinary--although unintentional--efforts to block any progress. He was continuously trying to climb on me, falling & stepping on the plants, begging to wear my gloves, "helping" shovel, filling the holes back in with dirt, and insisting to "sit!" on me and hear a song. I kept thinking there was no way he could be so good-naturedly disruptive even if he had a staff of interns working for him to plot out and direct his sabotage. I also had to keep an eye out for my rooster Verdi, who at times gets mean, yet fascinates Elias, who calls him by name, along with the hens Emily (aka "Elmo"), Cinnamon, and D3. Cinnamon, too, apparently was in on the stop-the-planting conspiracy, eating the plants and crowding me while Elias kept excitedly calling my attention to his touching her back or head ("Eye! Eye!").

After a big dinner and bathtime, Elias had a whole sippycup of milk and gladly went to bed by 7:30. I went back outside to feed the chickens, get a couple more plants in, add some lawn clipping for the garden, and do some pretty heavy tree-trimming and brush removal before it got too dark and the mosquitoes decided to break through my Off armour. I spent some time in the basement getting ready for tomorrow's BBQ then went to bed early...only to pick up my laptop for a quick blog. Ack! How in the heck did it get to be tomorrow already!?!