a lovely day

so, yes, the wide tent has been largely neglected lately. sigh. life is so rich and full, and finding a balance that includes writing here on any sort of regular basis is proving elusive. ah well, it's not such a bad dilemma to have.

today was a lovely day in philadelphia. i love this city, all the time, but especially in springtime. the temperatures have been mild, the sunlight on the river just sparkles, and the trees and bushes are a riot of pink and white blossoms. and being the mom of a highly spirited, temperamentally challenging pre-schooler is soooo much easier when regular physical activity is as easy as stepping outdoors any time of the ever-lengthening day. these days i'm realizing that much of the challenge that is micah is mostly about me, about my ability to cope. winter is just so hard for me. spring is feeling like a honeymoon. a honeymoon with the honeyman, as he has recently dubbed himself: "i'm the honeyman!"

so this morning micah and i met some friends at smith memorial playhouse, an indoor playhouse located in one of the mansions of fairmount park, along with a brand-spankin' new playground. all totally free and a ten minute drive from my house, along the blossoming and sparkling kelly drive, which follows the schuylkill river through northwest philadelphia. this stretch of the river is one of my favorite places in philadelphia, especially in the springtime, and i've run many many miles along the jogging path there.

we had a lovely time at the playhouse, and then headed to trixie's school which got out at one o'clock for the teachers' professional development. i'll have to tell more about this remarkable school another time; it's also one of my favorite places in philadelphia. i had a posse of girls -- trixie, the two neighbor girls i take care of before and after school, and another friend's daughter, and we (along with a very tired and napless micah) headed to the philadelphia museum of art to gaze upon princess grace's wedding gown. she was a philadelphia girl, and lived less than a mile from me (in a very tony neighborhood which starts, in classic philadelphia fashion, just a block from my quite-gritty-quite-urban-feeling-not-quite-but-almost-a-ghetto neighborhood). indeed, kelly drive is named after her brother, who was a city council member. it was fun to drive home from the museum along kelly drive, and just blocks from our house point out to the girls the church where grace worshiped (and where philadelphians hoped against hope that the wedding would take place), and to the block where her house was. i haven't figured out exactly which house was hers, but i jog past there all the time too.

when julie got home i left the kids with her and headed to a meeting at the school about next year's administrative structure and how to deal creatively with a serious budget crunch (i sit on the board there and will be board president next year). i came home to an empty house (bliss!) as julie had the kids at the ymca (micah's playing tee-ball!) and pulled together a lovely meal of lentil stew, steamed broccoli and caesar salad, completely out of thin air, as i haven't shopped in over a week. we ate on the patio out back (well, "out back" is precisely the size of a very small patio; we live in a rowhouse and have a patio of a back yard and a postage stamp of a fr0nt yard) and then spent some time as a family cleaning up. (my new motto is "i don't care if you made the mess -- i'm always cleaning other people's messes. we're a family, and if the house needs to be cleaned, we just all have to pitch in and clean it!") and while i've been typing this, micah fell asleep all on his own (that *never* happens, i always have to sit with him). so the house is cleanish (okay, it's not clean at all, but it's not the total pig sty it had become by the end of a week of total neglect on my part), my kids are asleep, and it's only nine o'clock.

life is good at the wide tent. hope it's as good wherever you find yourself.