Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig

It's obvious lately that the BusyBs are obsessed with the coming of spring. The past 2 days have been just gorgeous here. The kind of days that you walk outside at 10am, and bask in the lovely sunshine. Then remember that you sent your hot natured child to school in a turtleneck! Ugh! Oh well...Homey promptly shed her layers when she got home and put a bathing suit on. With a tu-tu type shenanigan on top...all this in her efforts to be a Mermaid Superhero. That's how we roll. If you don't have a super power, turn on back around. Come back when you've earned a cape.

Anyway...as I'm waiting for the forsythia and dogwood to bloom, ushering in Sister Spring, I realized that it has been eons since I have not been toiling away at work or school in the spring time. It's been many, many moons, and those moons have added up without my realizing it! But, finally, for now, I'm home. So I'm sitting in my nest, adjusting a twig here and a string there, hanging out with Homey. She is a surly beast at times, but very often we make a good team. We have been cooking together like there's no tomorrow. This is thrilling to me (once I got the hang of it). I'm not used to cooking with her. When I worked "out in the world", I cooked ahead, froze meals, and had it all worked out so that we could at least eat before 7. Surely that's enough time for a 4 year old that has to be in bed by 8.

Now, we can cook together. Which means that she is taking a moment to go get her stool or a kitchen chair so she can be part of the action. Also she is touching each individual ingredient. Is that weird? I thought so...for about 2.5 seconds until I realized that she is really interested and actually learning about what goes into our food. If she wants to see what flour feels like...go for it, Homey! If she wants to smell the vanilla every single time...great! And she's learning math...we read the recipe and she scoops out the required amount of [insert ingredient]. She's also learned to respect the kitchen. Her newest line is "When I'm a mommy, I can drink coffee, use a knife, and put my hands in the oven". Yes, Homey. Except it's questionable whether or not I should be even allowed to put my hands in the oven. I'm a little challenged with overall movement sometimes. A trait Homey seems to have inherited.

We are working together on so many other things too...we paint, we clean, we play, we imagine. She has her moments of being bossy and cross but there's no other place I'd rather be than in our nest with my surly hatchling.