Clean Air Day

Yesterday was Clean Air Day, and so the city was offering free public transit. So rather than driving them as she usually does when they go on an excursion, Cindy decided to take the kids on the city bus to get to Kingston Park. From the reports I have heard, Liam was thrilled. He simply adores buses, both school buses and the public transit buses we see when we are out and about. I had always planned to take him on a bus ride on a rainy day for something fun to do, and it just got away from me – Cindy beat me to the punch. I am so glad that Liam got a chance to experience it, though I’m still a little sad that I didn’t get to do it myself.I have a lot of housekeeping to do on this site in the near future – updating links, removing sidebar items (I read Bloodletting last YEAR, for crying out loud), maybe time for a new banner, etc. I dipped my toe in the housekeeping waters a couple of weeks ago, when I updated some of my blog links. At that time I took off a link to the Dalai Mama’s blog, not being able to remember the last time I read it, and surely to goodness what happens? – I stumble across her latest entry yesterday, and it simply takes my breath away. I love the things she writes about, and I love the way she writes, period; it’s like poetry. I think I have read this little piece about ten times since I found it yesterday. She is so inside my head, the kind of writer I read in a full-body way, continuously either nodding or laughing along. Here's an excerpt from it to whet your appetite:

It's not that I take my maternal duties lightly. I am not one of those parents who birthed a cluster of kids and then was all "What the...?" when they turned out to require my care and attention (okay, occasionally I am like, "What the...?"). They're not trying to irritate us, the children, what with their incessant hunger and colds and fecal emergencies — they are simply incapable of taking care of themselves, and I understand this. I love caring for them, overall. I enjoy waking up with them and lathering their fragrant hair and teaching them how to fill a dumpling wrapper and the bird feeder and putting them to sleep with a kiss. I think, in fact, that I am in love with caring for them. Or maybe I'm just in love with them. Either way, it's hard to explain these very occasional moments where I am suddenly pricked all over with the Scroogey prongs of miserly resentment. Like when Birdy spies me grabbing a quick bite of, say, peanut butter spread on a cracker — I mean, she could be pumping her legs on a swing two counties away and her internal "Mama's eating her own private snack" siren would blare — and she beetles over to ask politely, "Oooh, can I have a taste of that?" And of course she can, but I might hold it out towards her with a small, grudging sigh that means, "I daily prepare and feed you twenty trillion meals and still you need a bite of my one cracker the size of a poker chip?"

Priceless, I tell you – that is SO me. I also love that she named her daughter Birdy, in a that's-so-cute-for-you-but-I-could-never-do-it-myself sort of way. I am pretty sure I would not have been able to get that one past Chad.

Finally, here are a few up-to-date build pics, since I was asked for something more recent. Don’t you be worrying; I will keep you up to speed with what’s going on. (Case in point: the insulation looked like it was just about finished yesterday, and the drywall was delivered, so I see some walls in the near future.)