Washington DC is lovely right now. Flowers are blooming, traffic is flowing, birds are singing and shitting on my car. Granted I haven't made it too far from my sister's house, where I'm staying and taking care of my niece and nephew while the regular baby sitter takes a vacation and gets her driver's license. This week will be a full week of 8-6ish child care and right now, as my nephew is sleeping, I have a little time to read and write and continue the work I started at Purdue to be ready for the Fall semester. He's squawking and squeaking right now and soon I will have to pick him up out of his crib and make some lunch.

Yesterday we spent the morning playing "garbage truck/man" putting pieces of torn up newspaper into a toy garbage truck, napped, made lunch and hung out at the house until 3, where we went and picked his sister up from day care and (oop. i just picked him up, started making lunch, ran around the house with an accordion.etc.(six hours later...)). Okay. Today was a long day. Had an afternoon with James drawing pictures and changing diapers then picked up Beatrix from school, had a snack, and took her to ballet. Meanwhile James and I hung out at the toy store and played with a toy garbage truck. Got Beatrix from the ballet and then went to Chipotle and fed both of them dinner. This was not fun. They would not sit down and kept flopping all over the bench and Beatrix kept getting up to get things and meanwhile I kept trying to feed James who kept laying down on the bench. After we left they both started crying, Beatrix crying over a mermaid doll that she wanted me to buy for her and I don't know why James was crying, but we made it home eventually and had a tea party / birthday party for "elephant" and waited for her mother and father to come home but both were late. It really wasn't that bad but I saw how things could turn south quickly. I made a mental note to meditate tomorrow because tonight I'm drinking beer. Overall though, it was a good day.  

Originally I was going to sit down and write an insightful and sensitive post about my first year of graduate school but I guess that will have to wait. Viva la summer!