Where My Blogging Time Has Gone. . .

Well, I'm trying to think of it less as a mistake and more as a fun way to make extra money, but for the past month I've been spending most of my free time and energy and lunch breaks babysitting. It has taken quite a toll. And although I have had a lot of fun, and learned quite a bit about the inner workings and juggling involved in having young children, I've also learned that 1: I need a lunch break, and 2: Juggling this much babysitting around a job is just too tricky. As far as learning about having young children, I've learn to appreciate things I've hardly even noticed before such as the family changing room at the YMCA swimming pool, and the magician that comes around to kids' tables at Chic-fil-a. His name is Nugget, and I had certainly never noticed him before.

On the fun side, I have gotten to spend many hours making up games on the spot like "Pizzeria" and "Pony City" and then playing them with Peanut Butter Kitty and her slightly older brother. I've also spent hours playing games that they've made up on the spot like, "Rip Eachother's Heads Off," and "Triple Ripple." Triple Ripple is a game that involves all three of us and the trampoline, and I have to give them credit because it has been the source of some very happy afternoons. The best part has been that they also Love to read and be read to and so we've maxed out my library card many times and have spent hours curled up on the oversized green chair in their house, reading books like, Lizzete's Green Sock and Stink: Tales of the Astonishing, Shrinking Boy.



One of the DREAMS donors called on Tuesday of this past week and said that if I could round up enough of our ballet students by the next day, he could donate a limousine to pick them up and take them to watch the Carolina Ballet Company practice and arrange a luncheon for them to eat with some of the ballerinas. Making the calls to the students was one of the best parts of my job so far. One of the kids even called back to make sure that she wasn't dreaming when I had called. "Miss Emily, did you just call and ask if I could go have lunch with ballerinas?" Here is a picture of them in the limo; try to pick out the one who thought she was dreaming.

These days. . .

Elisha came to visit this past week and we had lots of fun doing things like: getting summer haircuts, eating summer desserts (like chocolate sushi) and making wishes with sparklers. Here are a few pictures of our mini-vacation in Wilmington:


Here we are in front of the mural made by DREAMS students this summer.




And here we're carefully navigating our way through the rocky beach.




And here we are post-hair cuts. We found the salon in the yellow pages and were mildly disappointed to find out that the man with whom we had appointments laughed like a wild boar and boasted about things like riding his motorcycle down the busy sidewalks on the fourth of July. He explained that this was an OK thing to do because there are no posted signs telling him not to.