Inching Along

Last week, my little monkey said "TaDa!" when her last gymnastics class came along.
She took a break from going bananas long enough to pose on the beam.
Once she had collected her lizard green participation ribbon (which is now housed in her 'pecial drawer), off we went to collect big brother at school.

After school, we joined our neighbors for some cookie decorating. Pictured below: Caed diligently decorating and Dani furiously shoveling in her second cookie in a matter of 30 seconds.
This past week Dani also began attending "school" one day a week. She was beyond excited. It took me no less than 15 minutes to get her dressed because she insisted on doing a new special song for me about how much she loved school, one for each article of clothing added. One sock? A NEW special song. Two socks? Another NEW special song. A shirt? Pants? MORE NEW special songs.

Incidentally, all the special songs went as follows:
I loooouuuuuvvvve to go to 'coooooool. I go to 'cooooooll TOOOODAAAAY!! Lalalala I am so happy por my 'coooooolll!

On our way to school that morning, Caed burst out randomly, "Oh Mom, I'm so happy for you!"

"Why, Hon?"

"Well, you know, since Dani is going to be in school today too, you will get to have time to yourself with no kids bothering you. I mean, after you get your work done, you can just take a nap or have some peace or do whatever you want. I think you're gonna like that."

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This morning (Monday) starts a new week chock full of a 3 year birthday, a 14 year anniversary and as much holiday scrambling as one can do in between. The kids are perched at their breakfast post, happily chatting and trading crazies. Milk spilled this morning, and I didn't fall into the normal rage that usually appears when gravity trumps dairy.

Now the kids are pretending to go on camping trips, using the mudroom and bathroom as their sleeping areas. It's a little bit gross considering neither have been cleaned within an appropriate time frame, but they are happy campers. And happy overrules gross for the moment.

These are the inches we travel on Mondays that add up to miles over months and years. As my good friend and colleague Louise used to say to me, shaking her watch, "You've got one shot, Joey. Just one December 14, 2009, just one 7 a.m., one chance at it. Whatcha gonna do to make it count?"

I'll tell you what I'm gonna do, Louise. I'm gonna go all in. Because when I wake up and my almost 3 year old is almost 30, and my bathrooms are finally spotless, but without a camper in sight, I'm gonna be glad. I'm gonna be glad that I made these moments mine.

So what's on tap for your week? What are YOU gonna do with your one shot at December 14, 2009?