Half & Half

Today was a day off from work, but with my faithful sidekick home from school the chances of acccomplishing more than doing laundry and clearing the debris field he makes were pretty slim. So I decided to just enjoy the day rather than mentally inventory all the things around the house that I should be doing.

First we took Thea to school and stayed there for about an hour. Thea's English teacher is expecting a baby in May and, thanks to knowing a quilt-making genius who took my idea for a quilt with all the students' names and expanded on it (and made it both better and easier) who made 70 or so squares of fabric that were somehow stuck onto freezer paper and had an shape traced onto them for the signatures, we are now in the process of getting all the students and all the teachers to sign a block. The mission this morning was to get the upper grades and the kindergarteners out of the way. The preschoolers and pre-Ks at the other campus did there part earlier in the week, so now we're left with getting teachers and the few part-time children finished off before next weekend. I was really surprised at how neatly most of the children wrote - and Thea had to add her own spin on hers, using her full name instead of just a first name or first name and Chinese name.

Then Micah and I went into Princeton to the jeweler's. A pair of earrings my parents gave me the year my father died has a pearl that had somehow lost its nacre, so I wanted to see how much to replace it. Unfortunately today was the jeweler's day off so I just had to leave them there. Now I feel like part of my ears are missing, those earrings are just always on (which is probably how the pearl got worn in the first place.)

At the jeweler's we had one of those "can I ask you a question?" moments, after another customer waiting had stared at Micah's head for a good five minutes or more. Not my day for feeling like the goodwill ambassador for microtia and atresia.

So the inquisitive lady got what is now becoming my standardized schtick, on fast forward. Bone conduction hearing aids. Not deaf. No ear canals. Surgery at a later date, if possible. On fast forward because Micah had emptied half of the store's candy dish into his hands and onto the floor, so it was time to beat a hasty retreat to Panera's for a snack. And since Micah selected a table near where a psychology graduate student was working, we got to go through the whole routine again.

By then our 48 minutes of parking meter time (right in front of the jewelry store and one of my best parallel parking attempts in ages, one move and in it went, I must brag) was up so we took off for Marquand Park for some playtime in the sand pit.

Once were were home from our excursions, I made lunch and got Micah down for a nap. And instead of just hanging out or joining him for the hap, I decided to take on the linen closet. This storage space hasn't been overhauled since some time prior to Thea's adoption - easily five years of steady neglect and accumulation.

Post-purge we still have towels, wash cloths and linens beyond our needs. And it will probably be another five years before I feel inspired enough to do that again. Next, either Micah's closet or the cabinets below the bathroom sinks.

So the day was half productive, half fun - and better than I'd hoped for.