A Saturday Afternoon

Yesterday was a lazy sort of day.  Kind of.

Patrick was in a sleepy happy baby mood for much of the day and napped and sat with his sister who repeatedly exclaimed:  "Mommy, look at Patrick!  He's sitting up like such a big boy!"

Mae Bae was in typical toddler form and spent some time playing upstairs in the girls' room while I moved pretty much everything out of the dining room so that there was nothing left to break.  In the past week our space heater had a leg snapped off, the kids table was broken, the tv stand was broken and she's run at the walls with a crayon in hand while I chase after her, throwing herself at the paint and scribbling until I can get hold of her hand, and I've begun to wander about the house muttering "This is why we can't have nice things!  We just can't!" and wondering if every single thing we own will be broken before she turns three.  Oh to be two!

So much adventurousness wrapped up into such a small little frame.  I guess it's a good thing that I'm fairly good at fixing things.  Otherwise... well I have visions of a bare living room and dining room.

After the dining room was cleared of pretty much everything other than a table, chairs and a now empty bookshelf, I let Mae explore the newly bare room while Sadie and I snuggled on the couch and watched Song of Bernadette.  Mae would join us for a few minutes of the time and would then get too wiggly to stay.  As we watched we talked about what was going on and I'd ask her questions and answer her questions.

As the movie went on I asked Sadie why she thought the police men and city magistrate wanted to stop Bernadette from going to see Our Lady.  She looked very serious for a few minutes (before that she kept asking, "are those bad guys?" every few seconds) and then finally said "Well, I guess they just don't have love in their hearts" which took me completely by surprise.  Then she looked down at my lap, where a magazine that had arrived a few moments earlier was open to a page about the Pope's abdication and asked:  "Mommy, what's going to happen to Benedict now?"

I had talked with her a little about what was happening on the day that the abdication was announced, but I wasn't really sure she was listening or even really understood who the Pope was.  Now she was saying his name like he was a long lost relative she would dearly miss.

I explained that he was going to go into a monastery to pray for the whole world and she asked a few more questions and then went back to watching the movie.

She's like a little sponge these days, surprising me at every turn as she asks me to read her poetry and asks loudly in the locker room at swim lessons:  "Mommy, can you please tell me the story about Adam and Eve now?"  And I'm grateful that I have to keep learning to keep up with her!

Of course the calm part of the day was followed by some full contact ballet while I was making dinner, that involved a toddler with a bloody nose and a bleeding lip and Sadie telling me solemnly that they probably shouldn't twirl and hold hands anymore, which I've been saying for... oh I don't know... over a year now.