What moseying looks like.

Sweetpea is home from school with the dreaded pink-eye. I started off the day filled with resentment at the violation of my free day, but eventually found myself grateful for some extra time with my girl. Sort of.

And by "free", I don't intend to imply that my child-free days involve floating around the house as a lady of leisure (wouldn't that be nice). My days are filled with the usual excitement of laundry, working, and chores that being a work-at-home mum entail. Although I do admit to the occasional lunch on the couch watching a Top Chef or ER re-run.

I was also supposed to be getting my thrice-a-year haircut today, and THAT was a bitter blow. However, my stylist called and told me to bring my contagion-ridden child along, so I did. It wasn't the usual relaxing shampoo and trim, but Sweetpea settled down to watch Kung Fu Panda on my laptop and let me gossip with Carol, and we even managed enough time for a few highlights.

Then we headed off for a smoothie (for Sweetpea) and a latté (for me), and practised our moseying technique.

It took about 20 minutes to get from one end of this walkway to the other. Usual walking time, about 15 seconds.

Speaking of laundry (were we?), why do all the pillowcases always get tangled in the fitted sheet, which loops itself into a prison-worthy escape rope, and everything comes out all wrinkled and damp after 40 minutes in the dryer?

Sweetpea is now in the bath while I compose this compelling piece of writing, when I should really be making dinner, another example of my excellent parenting skills. Hmmm. Has she had Annie's Mac'n'Cheese recently? Score.

We did practice some writing today, as she is very interested in learning to read right now so I'm trying to jump on it. I made the attempt to steer her toward the usual - "CAT, SAT, BAT, MAT, HAT" but that's not her style.

So she wrote "SCAT CAT DOG BEACH ICE CREAM" and then drew a picture of a hand shooing a cat on the beach with a chocolate ice cream cone. And then we talked about how many people are in the world, in the U.S., and in San Francisco. If you're interested, world population varies depending on where you Google it, but wikipedia puts it at 6.76 billion.

All in all, not a bad day even though I got no work done, didn't exercise (the cardio benefits of walking 100 feet in 20 minutes are apparently minimal) and the laundry is still drying as we speak well after the dinner hour. But I know the days are numbered when Sweetpea will be content to hang with her mother for the day, and so I'll count my blessings.