day four. yes, of pledge week.

Pledge week (no spending, no TV, no video games) is getting a tad bit trickier. Like today we had this cute boy over we've never babysat before. Maia and I were both worried about what we would do with him. There is no ice-breaker like TV, right? Well, instead they got out a game and we played it (or some Maia-inspired version of it) all morning. It consisted of Maia and Andrew taking turns running across the room to show me a "whoonu" card; I read it to them, they discussed whether it was something they both liked, and then put it in one of 4 piles: Maia likes, Andrew likes, they both like, or "the grandma pile." The grandma pile held such things as "knitting," "journal writing," and "poodles." Maia's held such things as "dancing" and "glitter." They apparently share an interest in "political figures," "fishing" and "hot tubs." They got to know each other, that's for sure. After going through the whole entire box.

Now they are playing with a dusty old box of lincoln logs with friend #3. Not bad little architects. Not a bad day.

Back to the psychoanalysis. Bridget says we stay busy to avoid falling into the stay-at-home mom trap. I'm with her 100% on that. I think we all work very hard to avoid becoming frumpy, under-stimulated, and dull. Plus, we all feel genuinely better when we are contributing to the family and community. So it's valid to want to avoid "the trap." But it still hits me that there are many other traps to navigate around. Overeating, overspending, overcomitting, vanity, insecurity...despair. It seems like we should have the ability to stand still and face ourselves--and like what we see. Not just physically. But to really be content, and not want any of the trappings to complete us.

Oh, which reminds me. I spent money yesterday. Driving the kids to dance class I realized I was out of gas. Drove to the gas station. Realized in the nick of time that I didn't have any money. Pretty funny, eh? I made it home, dug out the debit card, and went back for gas. I thought about brining my jar of change instead--I haven't counted out coinage to buy gas in many years and thought it would kind of funny. But then I thought about how the men at the gas station have always been so nice to me... When Mike walked in the door Maia was quick to tell on me, as if I had really done something wrong. That gave us all a good laugh. Another good laugh was when I ran out of eggs this morning. Oh wait, that wasn't funny at all. I guess I'm going to use my $4 to buy eggs.