Un-Spring Break

Today Rachel woke up bright and early and it was all my fault. I had mentioned last night, you see, that our neighbour's rabbit had had some babies a couple of weeks ago and they had invited us to see them...in a couple of weeks...which would be now...so maybe that was something that we should do "in the morning." I should never mention that we'll be doing anything exciting/different "in the morning." Or ever, for that matter. Rachel wakes up early excited to do things that won't happen until after dinner.

So, using one of Miriam's favourite phrases I said, "What the hiccup are you doing up?"

Too excited to eat breakfast, she headed off to the office to draw some pictures of rabbits. Only after she'd gone through several sheets of paper was she able to settle down long enough to eat breakfast.

Then we got all packed up for the day, including packing a picnic lunch to take to the park, and headed down the street to see if the neighbours were home. They weren't. It's spring break so it's possible they're out of town for a while. Who knows?

We headed to the park instead, and stopping by Naanii and Bumpa's house on the way so that we could pick up the sticks in their backyard. They have a couple of trees and trees do annoying things like drop branches and things over the course of winter. Rachel was a big helper and gathered up several sticks—she wanted to make wands out of all of them.

Then we played at the park for a number of hours. It was 80 degrees today and was as lovely as could be! The girls played with some of their friends who'd met us at the park and we all enjoyed a picnic lunch together. My friend Tracy noticed that Rachel was with us and said, "Oh—did you know that preschool's still in session?"

"It is?!" I said. "I asked Miss Elise about spring break at the end of March because I knew the dates on the school calendar were wrong! She said it wasn't the first week of April but that it would start on April 9th, which was yesterday. So I didn't send Rachel to school today. Obviously."

"Well, I guess they decided to change it to next week. I just found out about it from Michelle this weekend."

So nice of them to inform me.

Rachel's preschool, which was so amazing last year, is under new management and is having some serious issues. For example, there has been no school-initiated communication since...the second week of school. No newsletters. No notes home. No emails. No list of students to make Valentines for. And a serious dearth of any paper or project other than alphabet worksheets. We haven't been as happy with the program this year but the year is almost through and...at least they offer make-up days.

I'll be sending Rachel to school on Thursday...and Friday? Maybe. If she'll go.

So, it's not spring break after all, but we decided to continue treating today like it was.

By the time we got home I was exhausted (and sadly, besides walking to and from the park and picking up branches in my mom's yard and pushing Miriam on the swing and helping Rachel on the monkey bars, all I did was sit on the blanket—I can't figure why I was so tired) so Rachel got to watch a movie while Miriam and I took a nap.

Andrew surprised me by coming home in the middle of the day. He had class but gets out of class at 2:00. This is something I hadn't ever realized about Tuesdays because he usually stays on campus working and doing homework and then has a team meeting in the evenings. It's the last Tuesday of the semester though so there was no homework to do and no meeting to attend.

He let Miriam and me sleep for a little longer and then woke us up because Miss Rachel had decided that it was definitely warm enough for the sprinkler—she'd been asking about going in the sprinkler all day! Andrew helped the girls into their swimsuits and set the sprinkler up while I willed my body to get out of bed (and then helped Miriam get into her swimsuit again because Daddy doesn't know how to work all those pesky straps and got Miriam severely tangled in her swimsuit).



The girls had a blast in the sprinklers!

Rachel was so brave—she was putting her face in the sprinkler and jumping over the sprinkler and picking the sprinkler up. Miriam was not-so-brave but much braver than last year when all she'd do was stand on the steps and cry—she even got her swimsuit a little bit wet!

Eventually Miriam got brave enough to run right through the sprinkler, all the way to the other side. Unfortunately this meant she was stuck—the sprinkler was on so high that it was hitting the house on one side and the fence on the other, creating an impenetrable barrier of water (if you're two and have a slight fear of sprinklers).

"Come back, Miriam!" we urged.

"I can't!" she wailed.

"Sure you can!" we insisted.

"No! It is cold! Not I can't do it! I am stuck!"

Rachel went to her rescue—she ran straight into the sprinkler, picked it up, and angled it away from the house so that Miriam could run by. What a kind older sister!

It was still a bit of a struggle for Miriam to brave the pass, but she did it!

Here she is, safe at last, on her warm towel (where she stayed for most of the rest of the time):

Rachel joined her for a bit...

But in the end the call of the sprinkler was too much to ignore.

Rachel drew a picture of their adventure in the sprinkler:

Miriam is on the left, wearing the Nemo swimsuit (and in case you wondered, she's 2) and Rachel is on the right in the flowered swimsuit (and she's 4). The sprinkler's in the middle and both the girls are opening their mouths to catch the water.

Miriam was so in love with her swimsuit that she kept trying to put it back on after I'd forced her to change into dry clothes—she loved the "pretties" on the sides of her legs and probably would've gone to bed wearing her swimsuit if we'd have let her (but we wouldn't—Uncle Patrick though once wore his Speedo for a ridiculous amount of time...something like three weeks...without ever taking it off and no one knew until we were at the park one day and his pants started falling down. My mom was like, "No wonder I haven't been seeing any underwear of yours!" He was pretty little (like six, maybe seven) but it was still pretty funny).

We had dinner outside on the patio—our third day in a row of eating outside (welcome, spring). Andrew helped make dinner. In fact, it would probably be fair to say that Andrew did the majority of making dinner (and I helped). And then, when dinner was over, I got the best surprise of all.

Instead of clearing his plate and disappearing into the office to start working again he cleared the table and did the dishes! It so rarely happens I hardly knew what to do. I could get used to not having my husband be quite so busy. I really could.

The girls were a mess of sand, sweat and sunscreen, as well as dirt, grass, and food so we decided they should probably bathe before getting into bed.

Miriam showed off how she can lie in the water on her back all by herself.

She's always been a little more timid about water than Rachel so it's taken her a little while longer to be comfortable with this. Andrew says she does it for him all the time. She'll never do it for me unless I help her but today she was all about showing off, I guess.

Rachel finally figured out how to use the water gun (which she got last year). In her defense the button is a little hard to press...

So, then we got into our jammies, put away the rest of the clean laundry, read stories, had scripture and prayer and put the girls to bed on time because—guess what!—it's not spring break. (But it sure was a nice taste of spring break...hopefully next week is just as nice.)