Last Monday's schoolwork delaying tactics:

Sharpening her pencil to the Platonic ideal of a sharpened point.

Writing secret notes.

"I need a break!" After a whole five minutes of work.

Wearing her coat as pants.

"You know who's my friend Mom? You!"

Aw, that's sweet honey. Now get back to work.

******

A week ago Friday, I worked at the library, and worked another four hours that night. Saturday, I was alone with the children while B worked. Then I worked at the library Sunday before starting the weekly grind over again on Monday.

It used to be I felt quite put upon by weekends like this, because of how tiring they were and how long I had to go to look forward to any time off again. Now, however, Saturday was positively relaxing because instead of K going to the babysitter with her brother friday, she stayed home with B and they did schoolwork. So we don't have to do any schoolwork Saturday.

I suppose it just goes to show, if you're feeling tired and overworked, take on another huge obligation and you'll feel so much better when you just don't have to do that.

*****

K found a pair of Elmo slippers in a closet last week, a pair my mother gave her when she was two that are now long outgrown. They fit her brother just fine though. We put them on him this afternoon and he walked around with them, utterly pleased and intrigued by the sudden appearance of fuzzy red monsters on his feet. He would take a couple steps and then pause to look at them with a pleased little smile on his face. Step, step, lift foot carefully for inspection, grin.

Before we put them on him, he was carrying them around lovingly in a big armful along with his stuffed Big Bird. I'm very pleased about the Big Bird. For the longest time, his only interest in stuffed animals was in how far he could fling them. But once he hit 18 months, he made a huge leap forward in imaginative play and began playing with them along with dolls in fairly typical baby care-type play. So when he started lavishing a lot of attention on the stuffed Big Bird at daycare, I went out and bought him one and it's definitely been a big hit.

I've been hoping to get him attached to a lovey, in hopes that it will help in the process of getting him to be able to get himself back to sleep. And a stuffed Big Bird is ideal, because they're all over the place and easy to replace (particularly when you live ten miles away from Sesame Place). K decided to imprint on a stuffed rabbit that had been mine as a child, so it was basically irreplaceable. As an added bonus, it's a mother and baby bunny, so in addition to the danger of losing the mother rabbit, there's a much greater danger of losing the baby, which happened for six months at one point. Part of the joy I get when I see Alec asleep with Big Bird clutched in his arms is how frigging cute it is. But another part of it is knowing that there are a thousand replacements available if anything happens to it.