Changing Seasons

These weeks are all about changes; changes in school, changes in location (i.e. trips), changes in childcare, changes in the weather. Fortunately, after we got back from Michigan, aside from the first day, the first week presented glorious weather but we are going back to lower temps with some chances of rain for the next week. As we cherish these last few weeks with one of us on parental leave, we’ve tried our best to take advantage of that time and freedom and flexibility that we have. Walking to and from school has been one of the highlights and although Reese’s new school is a full 1.5 miles from our house, we’ve managed to walk there and back most every day this week. It’s a peaceful and pleasant walk through one of the nicest neighborhoods in Seattle and we’ve stopped to play at Miller Park or elsewhere after school quite often, when the weather allows.

Reese has handled the transition to her new school really well. She has still asked about her “old school”, or “regular school”, or the “school with one Reese”, a fair amount of times and I know that she misses her old friends, but she has her friend Lily at Interlaken which has helped a lot and we’ve tried to sneak in play dates with her friends from Mother’s Place as often as we can. We met up with Mika and her mom and sister for a park play date on Monday night and then invited Georgie and her family over for burgers on the grill on Tuesday night. Reese has been overjoyed to play with them both and the social outings have been beneficial for Bryan and I as well.

We had a lot of Lottie time this past weekend! Lottie came over on Friday night for her first sleepover and first time away from her mom ever. We had a good night, scootering home from her house, having dinner of Korean fried chicken and tots, taking a bath and then watching Encanto with bowls of ice cream. Bedtime was a little less smooth and after several “I want my mom” requests from Lottie, we managed to get both girls asleep in Reese’s bed at 10 pm. Lottie woke up at midnight with the same requests and I pulled Lottie into our bed with me and Brooke and Bryan finished the night with Reese. The next morning the girls were a little less compliant with one another and we were relieved when Sarah was there to pick her up. And fortunately we were able to relax and unwind after the toddler tantrums at our first winery party at Januik-Novelty Hill in two years. This time around they had a time slot for the party that was catered to families and there were so many kids there, a full and delicious breakfast buffet, an ice cream bar, a craft station for the kids complete with kids snacks, and of course some wine tasting for the adults. It was a great time and a necessity after our first sleepover.

Lottie came back over for a brief time on Sunday morning and then we did our usual weekly dinner with Sarah and Lottie Sunday night for more takeout, this time of dumplings from Dumpling the Noodle for our third fix of Seattle Restaurant Week. Lottie is now out of town until we leave for Hawaii so it will be a few weeks before the girls see each other again. But we haven’t skipped a beat.

Last week we also made a big purchase, buying a new scooter for the household. We got a great condition used Honda PCX that is super fun to ride and sleek to look at. We need the weather to warm up to get some more good scooter rides in but Bryan and I did take it out for our first solo date night last Wednesday, thanks to our neighbors for coming over. We dined at Barrio in Capitol Hill which had an excellent deal for Restaurant Week of three courses plus a drink for $35. We had interesting lackluster service but the night was still fantastic and I was so relieved that Brooke never woke up while we were gone and Reese did great as well.

I have started a spring cleaning list of sorts and have been trying to get rid of some items but the bulk of the work will probably come after Hawaii. We have a few more friends coming over this weekend and Reese has the day off of school today for parent teacher conferences. Bryan has still been doing so fantastic watching Brooke and is even taking both girls to the park as we speak. He’s finally ready to get back to his day job though. It will be here before we know it and Maui is so close I can almost taste it!

Chelsea