Weekendy Goodness

First of all, I have to give a little shout-out to my brother. The photographs I use in my blog header are all courtesy of Aaron Griffith, who was kind enough to give me a CD full of them. Most of them feature the Montana Hi-Line and capture the essence of everything I love and miss about my homestate.

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Yesterday was good, in a perfect Saturdayish kind of way. Usually we stay in bed on Saturday mornings until our daughter pushes open our bedroom door, climbs over me, and snuggles down between us. She even announces that she wants to snuggle, actually, but I don't think she really understands the concept of snuggling in bed, because she wiggles and kicks and giggles and plays with my hair and kicks some more and shouts things like, "I TICKLE MAMA!"

It's wonderful. It's especially wonderful because lately it has worked to keep her up just a little later on Friday nights so that she will sleep a little later on Saturday mornings -- yesterday she made her appearance sometime after eight o'clock. (A year ago, this wouldn't have worked; if we kept her up too late, she slept horribly. And actually, reading my entries from a year ago, when Suzannah was still cutting teeth and often up all night long, I'm a little amazed we survived. How easily we forget the desperation that accompanies such sleep deprivation.)

I spent the morning reading with Suzannah -- I think we did eight books in a row -- and playing underneath a fort Matt constructed out of blankets and chairs in the family room. Then Matt took over lunch duties and I headed down to the boardwalk for a three-mile jog in the cool sunshine. I haven't gone for a run in probably three months, but because I don't know how to ease back into things I was determined to do three miles anyway. And I did, and I felt awesome, but today I can hardly move. Later, we all drove to Discovery Park and hiked around there for awhile. Suzannah has once again consented to riding in the backpack; she refused it starting in about August, I think just because she's such an independent little tyke that she likes to walk herself. But "hiking" with a two-year-old isn't really hiking if they're walking themselves. And that's fine, I'm all about letting her poke around trails and things, but we don't actually get very far. We finally sold her on it by asking her if she wanted to ride on Daddy, and she's always good for rides.

The day was so early-spring, so sunny and cool and damp and full of wet earth smells. Every year I'm amazed at how early this happens here, when my parents are still plowing their driveway and battling subzero temperatures. I love winter, real winter, but there's a lot to love about this, too -- the early return to sunshine and growth, the earth waking up and pushing through once more.

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In other news, people tell me that something called the SuperBowl is today. Apparently it involves football, and people have parties with lots of snacks. The snacks part intrigues me, so we're all heading over to Aaron and Morgan's place to experience this Very Important Event.

You can tell I'm quite passionate about football.