Back on schedule

For the last two weeks Drew has worked Thursdays/Fridays in Seattle; this week we're back to the normal Monday/Tuesday schedule which is good because I want us all home on Shabbat so we can have a nice family dinner together. (Yes, Mom and Dad, I am endeavoring to recreate Shabbat dinners that we had in Hackensack, except that Mom is a far better cook than I am and sets a nicer table. However, the sprit is there in Portland).

After I picked up Rachel we went to Lloyd Center, a mall within biking distance of our house (as I pointed out to Rachel, someday she can take her bike there and I won't be stuck giving her rides back and forth, at least in nice weather. Yay!!). I wanted to get frames for some lovely watercolor pictures of ballerinas we bought for $10 at the garage sale of our crazy neighbor Ralph that I wrote about earlier in January. Rachel chose the frames, white ones, not my first choice but she's 4 1/2 and I want her to start making her own decisions about esthetics. "There's so much here!" she said as we walked through the mall, which made sense because I rarely go to malls and thus she isn't exposed much to them. Actually, I don't do much non-essential shopping these days. We spent some time watching the ice skaters -- Lloyd Center has a skating rink -- and Rachel said she'd like to try skating. "I can take lessons after school," she said, so I'll have to look into that.

Then we came home and she curled up in front of the heater while I re-heated some quesadillas we had gotten at a restaurant a few weeks ago on our way back from Seattle; the food was still good and we are making a conscious effort to eat leftovers before they go bad. Rachel was so sweet during dinner; she kept saying, "Mommy, I love you. Mommy, I love you SO much," and I kept thanking her and telling her I loved her, too. It must be a trend; last night at dinner she told Drew and me, "You're the BEST parents!" Too bad that sentiment is unlikely to last...

***

Apropos of nothing tonight:

"Do you know the more sleep I get the more energy I get in my body?" Rachel asked at dinner tonight.
"How do you know that?" I asked.
"Because!" Rachel said. "That's how it works!"

***

"I hid my animals," Rachel announced this morning, "because I don't want them to get to the cake and the brownies."

The only animals Rachel has are stuffed. Go figure...

I am trying to get Rachel down to sleep as early as possible, but sometimes it's difficult. Like last week at 11 p.m. when I heard her rummaging around her closet because she was looking for pony stickers she had promised to bring to school for Tessa. I told her very firmly that she was crazy to be doing that at this hour and to GET BACK TO BED. Similarly, tonight she decided she didn't want to sleep in her sleeping back after all because her animals were crowding her, so she moved everything to her bed...at 10:20. We should be sued for depriving our kid of sleep!