Playful Rooted

Recently, I told Ben we needed a big table for the kids’ play/school space – something we can use for art projects, school lessons, jigsaw puzzles, etc. I had my eye on this little number, but Ben would only agree to a new table if it was hexagonal, so we could also use it for board games. (I married a real dweeb, gang.) We couldn’t find one that was anywhere within our budget, so Ben decided he’d bite the bullet and build one himself. While I supported this decision, I knew it would take a lot of time and energy and money – all things we don’t have a lot of to begin with.

Two days before he planned to start construction, I was taking Pria on one of our five-mile neighborhood strolls when what to my wondering eyes should appear but:

What!

A hexagonal table? For free?! In our neighborhood!? What were the odds?

Several hours and one awkward truck delivery later, we were the proud new owners of this big, heavy, outdated-looking table with heaps of potential. I love it when life works out.

I really want to strip the finish and paint this table pink, although I know it’s very unstylish to paint furniture in 2023. I just feel like she wants to be pink, you know? We’ll see if she says the same thing to Ben. 😉

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Our lucky duck trio got to spend all Saturday with Daddy going to Home Depot, Science City, and the KC Irish Fest, where Luca’s dream of doing an aerial backflip finally came true.

While they were gone, I spent the whole day cleaning, organizing, and putting a LOT of toys in the donation box. I had previously justified keeping a lot of toddler toys because Pria’s obviously still in that phase, and I thought she might want to play with those things. She does not. She wants to do only – and all of – what her brothers are doing. Toddler toys: gone. It is SO NICE to have a minimized toy collection in the living room now!

I also…. decorated for fall?? I feel very weird and kind of hate myself for decorating for fall when it’s not even Labor Day. I LOVE summer, I do not love fall, and so this is very out of character for me.

However, I thought to myself, “Self, when am I going to have another window of opportunity to get this done with no children present? Probably not until December. Let’s just do it now.”

So I did it. It’s weird, it’s done, it’s fine.

I actually don’t mind fall itself. I like soup and sweaters; I’m not a monster. But I always see fall as a harbinger of winter’s misery. I am a planner through-and-through, always looking ahead one to two months, so while fall is falling, I’m already living through the winter in my head. I have forever found it difficult to live in the moment, and as a mom of complicated kids, it’s especially tricky. I should probably work on this. Just add it to my list.

Speaking of complicated kids.

From the very beginning, Sawyer has been my healthiest, chunkiest, easiest, most low-maintenance baby. I never had to worry about his growth or feeding or food allergies or meeting developmental milestones or anything. Just a dream boat child in every way. Except, he has had this little lump on the side of his neck… for years. And for years, I’ve asked about it at every well check (I even took him in once specifically to get it looked at), and they’ve always said it’s fine, no big deal, probably just a swollen lymph node. Until his four-year-old appointment last week, when we saw a new provider who wasn’t…. necessarily concerned about it, but. Just interested, I guess. Each doctor we had seen before had just kind of brushed it off, but this new one spent quite a long time looking, feeling, investigating. Red flags popped up a bit when we looked at his growth, which has fallen by 20 percentile points. And then she asked if he had had any unexplained fevers…. which he has. Just the other night, he spiked a 102.3 for the whole night, and then in the morning he was back to normal. Combined with the other things, that’s not exactly ideal.

This is NOT to say that anything terrible is the matter. It could be absolutely nothing! It’s probably absolutely nothing! Just a fluke fever and a swollen lymph node and maybe he’s about to hit a growth spurt which will catch him back up on his growth chart. He doesn’t have any truly concerning symptoms, he hasn’t lost weight, he’s just dropped percentile points. And he’s healthy as a horse in every other way. Whip-smart and strong, funny and sweet and wonderful. The doctor told me to try not to worry, just to keep an eye on it. (Translation by my brain: Think of nothing else and worry every single day.)

Related: I found my first gray hair this week. 😩

Ending with some good things:

KC locals, if you haven’t checked out the 5star365 VIP programs, I am a huge fan. We have memberships to Martin City, Love Coffee, and Made in KC. All of them are well worth the monthly cost! I’m currently drinking a $9 coffee I got for FREE from the MKC cafe. Highly recommended.

It’s Luca’s and my turn to host kids’ book club this month, and we chose Greenwild, which has been such a joy to read. This is the first in a new fantasy series that’s been hailed as The Secret Garden meets A Wrinkle in Time. (Although I find it has a lot more parallels to Harry Potter, which is a bit distracting – my only criticism so far!)

I signed up for an American Sign Language class that starts in October, and I am so jazzed about it. I’ve wanted to learn ASL for many years, and I’ve halfheartedly tried to learn via YouTube, but I haven’t ever been able to stick with it. Signing up – and paying! – for an in-person class means I will have some skin in the game and will hopefully be a lot more motivated. I’m also really looking forward to having something each week that’s just for me.

Have you listened to Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s podcast, Wiser Than Me? I love it so much. She interviews older women who have lived these amazing lives and have so much knowledge to pass down. The Jane Fonda episode was my personal favorite, although they’re (almost) all great. (Fine, I’ll tell you: Fran Leibowitz is just not a nice person. I know people love her, but I can’t do it.) My brilliant friend Alissa also started a podcast, The English Homemaker, and it is such a delightful listen!

Ben actually has the day off for Labor Day tomorrow (!), and we have a day date planned, just us, to go paddleboarding and kayaking on the lake. The kayak was my “push present” with Pria, and the stand up paddle board was my big birthday present last year – neither of them has been used yet. Having three small kids really cramps your water sports style. I am very, very excited to get out on the water with my love — and without my other little loves. I need a break from this one in particular:

He starts his enrichment program next week, and I’m looking quite forward to a few quiet hours. 😉

Happy Labor Day weekend!

xo!