The Story of a Day

Monday in Review:

In the morning, we see Daddy off, get breakfast, wash faces, get dressed and indulge in our daily dose of curly-headed-hair-combing torture.....Yay! Approximately 5000 questions are ventured in this process, including a few about all types of anatomy, if you follow me here. And a very important one about squirrels.
Then we put on a movie for the monkey while the ladybug gets put down for a nap. With the baby snoozing, I turn off the movie and Sue and I test the bouncing abilities of the new couches, read a few books, and make up a dance about "how do you do and shake hands". Our favorite part is when you march around in a circle.
When Zooby wakes up from naps she always gives me a long sweet hug. We call it the snuggle wakey and if I could put any lovely part of the joy she is on "instant re-live", I'd be tempted to choose that. We come out to the living room together where she promptly ditches me to climb in and out of a blue plastic chair 18 times, each time making sure to hoot in the seat with her arms high in the sky until her accomplishment is verbally acknowledged. And congratulated. I move on from this game to get the kitchen tidy and while I do that, Curly tells me all about "Castle in the Sky" while baking me all sorts of delicious culinary air and Louie studies our shoes with the earnest calm of a scientist on the brink of a revolutionary discovery. I love it.
Now lunch: Kraft mac 'n cheese and about half a watermelon. They wolf it down in their individual ways. There are two schools of thought about eating in this house, mine and Daddy's. He can make his food disappear like a well-practiced magician. I am slow as a snail. It's really a question of single-minded focus on the task at hand. Bugs is a committed eater. The monkey dawdles just like her mama. We chit chat and I learn all about Curly's philosophy about parties, monsters, and that Jesus is her friend, and son, and Santa is his daddy. Yes? No. Hmmm.....
Daddy calls, he's done for the day. We load up in Goldie and pick him up at the clinic. Then it's time for errands: Babies'rus, Sports Authority, Micheals, and KamMan market. A few hours and one near poopy diaper disaster later we make it home, goodies in hand. Daddy finally gets to hang his Father's Day/birthday gift ( a canvas tryptic the girls painted up for him entitled "Making Purple" that looks stellar on the wall) while I throw together some dinner. I pick yakisoba, beefed up with leftover steak and veggies. Yum.
Somewhere in there, we do magic stickers, write a note to Auntie Ne', and have a wild rumpus. It starts with the theme from Jaws: Duuuhnuh.....Duuuhnuh....Duhnuh, Duhnuh, duhnuhduhnuh....... The girls know this game well. It involves screaming, flailing, and general rosy-cheeked shiny-eyed rough housing. It goes until Daddy calls for calm and the girls get in their last rowdy contributions: Curly whispers the daintiest little "tickl, tickl, tickl" you ever will hear, Lou impersonates a smug squishy lion saying "whaaaaar". This new word has come along with "bobb-eye" and "ba" (ball). I believe she quite enjoys it.
Later, chopsticks cleared, jammies on, stories read, and songs sung, I go out for my run. I'm training for a half marathon. I head for the beach and enjoy my jog. I people watch as the sun sets: a couple of teenagers hopping on a bullet bike and blazing away, kids jabbering, using up the last of a sunsoaked day in every manner they know, runners, walkers, dogs dizzy with nasal joy, a construction worker, shoes off, toes in the sand. And a silver-haired couple, his arm around her shoulder, her head resting on his, quiet and content to just sit next to each other. I hope this last is a vision, a promise of a tomorrow far in the distance. I have a moment of gratitude for Kuni; we're a good team, even in the things we do "seperately".
More Jimmy Eat World, Tom Petty, The Killers, rhythmic footsteps, measured breathing. I'm on the return and it's dark now. The Yacht Club is all lit up, looking far more high brow than usual. A rogue firework bursts in the sky, raining violet white witchcraft on the skyline. The same skyline twinkles and winks goodnight. Then I go home, looking forward to tomorrow. Tired and happy and feeling young.

Sky Pie

When I was sixteenish my dad gave me a birthday card. And a gift, but the card is what I remember because of the good advice inside:

"Dear Jennie,

Always keep your head in the clouds and your feet on the ground.

Love, Dad"

I like it. 'Cause it's a perfect mantra for a practical idealist like me. I like big dreams and high goals. I'm about hitching my wagon to a star. I believe in faith and hope. But I know about work. It satisfies me. And I like the definitions and cooperation reality insists upon.
Back in the days of the blue kitchen and the pink bedroom my dad used to tell me about this dinosaur museum he was wishing into existence. A really amazing one, with the world's longest and tallest ossified mysteries standing proud in galleries bigger than air plane hangers. A museum that was truly about experiential learning, where kids could hear, and see, compare, touch, and play. A place that provided context and truly addressed an audience. A place that set the stage with a trip through a star tunnel. And a program called "Dino-snorz" that let you bring your sleeping bag and dream away under those majestic bones. Pie in the sky kinda stuff. Except one day, not too long after that sixteenish birthday, it came true.
On a recent trip home we visited the North American Museum of Ancient Life, a place where the dino-tales my Daddy told me became concrete; A piece of sky pie served up and tasting sweet. I watched my girls play, touch, learn, enjoy. We splashed and built and organized and fed bunches of beasts in the erosion table. We carefully uncovered dinos in a sand pit. We felt the texture of fossils under our finger tips: ancient plant life, giant lizards, mammoths, turtles the size of one-man submarines. We asked questions. My girls loved it. And I, for the umpteenth time, was proud of my dad. And inspired to eat my own pie in the sky, and teach the girls to do the same, with our feet on the ground and our heads in the clouds.