If you're happy and you know it...

Some of you have already heard this quote, but I need to share it here for posterity. Max has been biting Sparky and Daisy lately, leaving full sets of teeth marks. Yes, he is 4, and yes, it's awful. Yesterday morning, he bit Sparky, and afterwords, we had the following exchange: "Max, you may never, never, NEVER bite anyone." Max answered, deeply distressed and with great feeling, "But then my teeth won't be sharp and fast enough for lunch!"

******

Greg found a house for us in the Austin area, and has nailed down other details about our new life there as well. Back here in Germany, however, I've been feeling figity and anxious. I feel like there's so much left to be done, yet I have no energy or drive to do it alone. I also can't help but feel slightly put out that I'm the one that has to stay behind with the children, while Greg has this adventure off by himself. Of course, this is a completely unreasonable feeling -- there's no way we could have traded places; neither of us would have been very successful if we'd swapped jobs -- but the feeling's still there all the same. Thankfully, he'll be back in three days. Three days and counting. Every day, Max asks "but when will Daddy be coming home?!"

To add to my own personal complications, I've been attempting to knit the Tree Of Life shawl and it doesn't seem to agree with me; I've had to fix errors in it so many times now that I'm ready to throw it out the window. I won't though, because I like the yarn. I'll try not to throw anything else. (Please note: I cannot tell if it's the pattern that is in error or me -- it has been knit by a few other successfully, so I suspect I am the problem here.  This seems to be beyond my current focus-ability.)



Overall, however, home life here has been running along smoothly, and I've managed to keep things interesting and fun for the children so that the time goes by quickly.

Yesterday we walked to the Sandbox Playground (my children have so named it).  The trail we take is lined thickly with blackberry bushes, so I brought along a little crate so that we could pick berries along the way to take home. We managed to fill it all the way to the top.





There were also plums, I think, growing along with the blackberries at some point.





Can anyone verify that a plum is, indeed, what this is? (I don't feel like poisoning anyone.)





All of the little cowboys and cowgirl had a good time at the playground.













Daisy rode on this bouncy horse with Sparky:




Then Max thought that it would be fun to do that too:



Daisy felt that it was a little bit too exciting.

We blew Dandelion seeds to repopulate the earth with everyone's favorite weed (I know, I know, the gardeners out there are wincing):




(Max insisted on taking this picture of me)




Billy sat and watched everyone, feeling superior now that he can sit up All By Himself.




When we got home, we all ate Blackberry Fools and snickered at the name.




Whipped cream and a little bit of vanilla sugar boosted these tart berries into a rather lovely little treat.




Yummy.

Well, maybe this week hasn't so bad after all. Maybe it was just the knitting that was bad. Screw that shawl. I'm going to go knit a sock now.  (I've downloaded the rental "He's Just Not That Into You".  I fully intend to bliss out on empty brain food and mindless knitting.)

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