The Weekend | Sunday

But then you have days like today.  It wasn't devoid of tantrums and tears, but nor was it devoid of those moments when you think your heart just might burst because how can it hold all the love?

Julie and the bambini had play date plans, so Ted made plans to play golf.  But the play date plans fell through, and though it wasn't raining, it was still chilly, and besides, after the scene at the library, Julie wasn't keen on going anywhere where she'd have to run zone defense for an extended period of time.

Luckily, there is always laundry to be done and the basement has been an absolute disaster for weeks now.  So, after the usual big weekend breakfast, Julie and the bambini trooped downstairs.  We Raleigh House Ekkers do not wear shoes in the house, save when in the basement, and then, we usually wear Crocs (Joe makes a distinction between shoes and Crocs, being hazy on this whole proper noun bit) which the bambini love so right off the bat, this day was starting off better than yesterday.  Julie and the bambini pattered around in the basement for a good long while.  Julie finished one load of laundry, did another from start to finish, and began a third.  She bundled cardboard for recycling.  She appropriated another plastic bin for holiday decorations and accoutrements and put away all the Easter baskets and eggs.  She quietly took out the cardboard, the trash, and the other recyclables.  The bambini tore into all the toys down there and redecorated by moving around their little chairs, and the step stool that used to be by Joe's bed.

After a snack of pistachios, the trio braved Whole Foods where everyone comported themselves with aplomb save Clara's angst at not being able to pitch things from upper basket height into the lower, grocery cart level (the Whole Foods list tends to include things like zucchini and salmon that can't tolerate plunges like that), and Joe's angst at not being permitted to put a bag of some sort of puffed item with a panda bear on front into the cart.  Julie was thinking, "Y'all this is nothing.  Y'all need to crank it up to library levels if you think I am going to even begin to be fazed."  This whole outting also went off so well no doubt because it was as Julie and the bambini were leaving the house that Joe woke up to the fact that he was still in his pajamas, and that it was, yes, a pajama day!  Julie had decided this before first entering their room this morning, because very day is better when you're in your pajamas.

And then there was this: at lunch, Julie reached over and ran her hand down the back of Clara's head, resting her cupped palm at its base for a moment, which is when Clara reached over and took Julie's other hand, and brought it up to her cheek, and leaned her face over to touch Julie's.  Oh, Brigade.  She may be a shrieker, but what a love.  What a love.

Ted was home by then and he and Joe snuggled in bed with some of the pre-readers, the iPad, and the paper, while Julie headed out to do a few errands and meet a friend for a snack.  By the time she got home, they'd been to the grocery store for what remained in order to make Clara's birthday cake Thursday and made meatballs for dinner.  The bambini were playing in their room while Ted finished making dinner.

Joe pitched a fit when clean-up didn't go down just how he wanted it to, and then, both bambini got bonks before their bath because they were being silly in the bathroom, and then Julie stopped reading books because Joe was silly, which made Clara be silly, and even though Joe stopped, Clara is too little to know how to stop on a dime when her mother looks like she wants to yell in the library, which is how it came to be that Julie picked up Clara and marched out the door with her on a twilight pajama walk.

Pajama walks are nice and Julie intends to increase their frequency as soon as the weather gets warmer. Julie and Clara found and discussed some (yellow) daffodils, and some (red) tulips, and the (white) house on the corner with the (blue) door and shutters (that already sold!), and the house across form it which is situated just perfectly on the lot in Julie's opinion, but also in desperate need of some paint on the trim and some landscaping help, also in Julie's opinion.  They also saw a (gray) car.  Birdie is big into cars right now.  Birdie chattered back and Julie the whole time.  So it was that they were in perfect agreement that perhaps they'd not read books all together for a while as it seemed too often, story time was halted for silliness.

And then when they got home (and found Joe perched at the front door, peering through on of the lowermost panes), Julie put Clara right down in her crib, where Birdie promptly and soundly fell asleep, as did Joe, about 20 minutes later when he was put to bed for the night, too.