play by play

for those of you wondering what exactly we do all day, here's a day in the life:

07:00 - girls wake up just in time to see daddy off.  this is the early end of the spectrum for them.  they've been known to sleep in till 9 or even later.  one of my favorite moments:  waving and blowing kisses to daddy from the balcony.  i start some pizza dough for tonight.
08:00 - breakfast and obligatory 'amelia bedelia' reading are over, and i've caught up with last night's dishes.  the girls break into our new supply of foam stickers from the dollar store and commence various 'projects' (their favorite word).  i test out a new pinterest idea of making stamps from foam stickers on soda caps (works great)
08:45 - approximately 56 sticker backings cleaned up off the floor and wondering what to do before a 10:00 work call.  a gust of wind and a gift of a kite provides the answer.
09:00 - we head out to the small square on the next block, kite in hand.  it's almost too gusty, and the wind is too erratic to fly well, but it easily pops up and bobs around like a deranged bird before crashing back to earth.  c is delighted and can handle the kite herself.  l is more interested in collecting woodchips in a container she smuggled out with her.
10:00 - an hour and a half on the phone with my now former boss in a crash course on what i might need to know.  the girls do a fantastic job of entertaining themselves in their room, and later in ours.  when i go to tell them so, i'm told this is the 'hotel' and that i should go away (quickly transformed into a request to read all the books they've brought with them on this 'vacation')
11:30 - we pack up to run errands.  dry cleaning, vacuuming out the car, car wash, post office.  rounded out by a trip to the playground for a picnic lunch
1:45 - playground time curtailed by nature calling.  restrooms are locked, so we head across the street to the ice cream shop, which, as it turns out, has a half-price special on the 8th of every month.  a mango-pineapple and a lemon italian ice for $1.08.  score!
2:45 - back at home for another work call.  girls in their room, supposed to be resting, no such luck.
3:30 - leotards on, shoes packed
4:00 - cutest little dancers greet their little friends enthusiastically and take their places in class.  parents are banished to chat in the lobby.
4:45 - we reluctantly bypass the playground and head home.  l falls asleep in the car, and continues her missed nap on the couch.  i get some things ready for dinner.
5:45 - skype with our bestest buddies from cleveland.  yay for technology!
6:30 - daddy comes home, unexpectedly early.  i'm grumpily fixing the pizza dough with two helpers on the counter.  usually, i love their participation, but we're having an ant problem and the prospect of cleaning up flour from every nook and cranny was not exciting
7:30  - dinner is served.  the girls do a good (and relatively speedy) job on their dinner, having been denied after-nap snacks due to lousy performance last night.  they choose 7 jelly bellies apiece for dessert.
8:15 - an unusual evening bath, followed by the requisite cleaning up, mostly in the 'hotel' room tonight.  last night, i crawled into bed to find a bead bracelet under the covers.
8:45 - bedtime story followed by lambies, lions, coopers and pandas duly located and tucked in with their mistresses, prayers, hugs and kisses, indication of 'how i want the door closed'.  final exit just after 9pm.  that's about as early as i can seem to make it, but as you can see, i'm a night owl too ;-)

rinse, lather, repeat =)  this was a particularly eventful day, in the sense of reportable doings, but every day finds us busily occupied with our small goings ons.  i can't always tell you how exactly the time goes by, but you very rarely see the girls uninvolved in some private plan of their own, and even more rarely hear a complaint of boredom, so i'm satisfied that they are day by day growing and playing and learning to order their lives into useful pursuits (though the adult eye is often blind to the particular 'use' ;-) ).