Busy Saturday

Drew was at the gym Friday night and I stayed up waaayyy too late watching the "Godfather" movies, so we woke up quite late on Saturday. While Drew went to run errands, Rachel and I worked on her book project -- a diorama depicting pyramids and a camel to go with the book about pyramids that she read and will report on in the next couple of days -- and of course I will attend the presentation.

I helped her glue sandpaper to the bottom (to represent sand) and shape the clay into pyramids. We took toothpicks to scrape lines in the clay to make them look like bricks, and then we colored them in with black marker, and painted a blue sky and sun. She directed; I just helped. When I suggested music, she put in her Taylor Swift CD. ("1989," the year Ms. Swift was born.)

At one point Rachel said, "This is the best Saturday ever."
"Why is that?" I asked.
"Working on my diorama with you and blasting Taylor Swift in the background," she said.

I couldn't have agreed more.

Afterward, despite her dramatic grumbling, we went upstairs to declutter her room. We filled up a huge trash bag's worth of papers and other junk from her desk, and emptied out her bookcases of books she doesn't read anymore -- meaning there are now NO MORE LIBRARY BOOKS ON THE FLOOR OR DOUBLE-STACKED BOOKS. So I'm not upset every time I walk into her room.

Then, after Drew got home, he mowed the lawn -- bless his heart -- and then we all settled in to eat pizza and sushi and watch "Les Miserables." Rachel liked it, although toward the end she got as overwrought as the movie. In retrospect, she was probably a bit too young to watch it, which I apologized to her for. I ended up having to sing and cuddle her to sleep, and left my fleece next to her so she'd smell it and think of Mommy. Hope that helps.