Things coming, things going

1. O captain, my captain. What a sad news day this has been.

2. I found my ring! And happily, not in a diaper. I was changing Elliott for bed on Friday evening and used the last wipe. When I picked up the box to put in more, it rattled and lo, there was my ring stashed inside. Sweet relief!

3. I'm giving away a book, so leave a comment over here if you're interested.

4. I was invited to a grownup lady playdate to watch the first episode of Outlander on Starz. I read the book way back in high school and kind of loved it. The show so far is very good. I am not 100% sold on the casting of a very handsome but not very gigantic actor to play Jamie. I was initially also nonplussed by his non-flaming red hair (I'm a little biased on behalf of redheads, you know), but after squinting at his cast photo online a few times, I think once they're not in the dark / rain (which may never happen, because: Scotland), it's going to turn out to actually be red hair, albeit a little duller than what I always imagined on Jamie. After watching the show, I pulled out the book for a re-read yesterday and I think I'm going to enjoy it all over again. Suddenly I'm wishing I hadn't purged the second and third books in a book clear-out a few years ago, though honestly I don't know that I'll have time to wade through three giant novels.

5. We had what will likely be our last playdate of the summer this morning, and what also will be our last regular playdate with a group of friends we started building when Nico was a wee bitty baby. I met one of the other kids and her mom at our breastfeeding group and we've been getting the kids together for several years now, once a month on Mondays. It was so bittersweet to see them playing together so well after so long, knowing that by September three of the five kids will be in preschool on Monday mornings. We're hoping to meet up for some Monday afternoons instead, and I'm really hoping that works out.

Last Monday we had a last summer playdate with another friend of Nico's, a kids / mom family I really, really like and only met about a year ago through a mutual friend who has since moved away with her two kids exactly my kids' ages. This keeps happening to me! The still-local little boy is going to Kindergarten this year and will be in school all day from now on. I'm hoping we can meet up on some school holidays and that his mom and I can keep in touch and keep our toddlers playing together. It all feels very sunrise / sunset at the moment, though. To assuage my melancholy, here's a video of Elliott from this morning:



We were at a little garden with a fantastic constructed creek that the kids can wade in, a place I stumbled across less than a month ago and have taken the kids to twice already. Nico told me today he wants to go to the creek every day, so I think we have a winner on our hands. So far our summer has been gleefully wonderful and it probably deserves a post of its own but for now, I think it's bedtime.