A quiet house?

I came home Friday afternoon to find only one kid around... Bella has gone on a long weekend trip with her friend Jenny to Milwaukee, and we're ships passing in the night: I will not see her before I head back out to Philly later today!

In Philly, my hotel is a block from Chinatown, and I had a great bowl of Pho the other night, and went next door to the "Shanghai Bazaar" - yes, those chinatown classic stores are everywhere, but this one was actually pretty nice and frankly more than half of the merchandise seemed tuned to an actual chinese customer - books, calligraphy supplies, formal clothing... no boxes with digital chirping crickets. Anyway, one of Bella's favorite outfits from ages 3-4 was a silk pajama set from a previous chinatown trip, so I upgraded her to a biggirl set this trip, and it'll be waiting for her return. I also got a nice laquered fan for her.

So we've been a 3 person family this weekend again - and it has been fun to focus on Isaac: Yesterday, he just climbed into my lap, curled in, and said "I love you Daddy - you're the best". Isaac is being pretty nice and mushy. We took a lot of walks and read a lot of books. We also got him a haircut up at the Sports Barbershop around the corner. He got a "sporty boy" cut - short on the sides and back, with a little more on top "just like you, Daddy!". Of course, the haircut added 6 months to his age.... and I think he thought he was looking pretty darn good.

Last week, when I was calling home, I was hearing talk of "Bella's Pet Rock". Pamela had worked with Bella to make a sleeping bag for the pet rock. Pamela had sewed a set of pajamas for the pet rock. I was having trouble visualizing this, because most rocks Bella has brought home have been <2 inches in diameter: Not sure how to sew an outfit for a tiny rock. Well, I finally saw the pet rock: an 8 inch square chunk of concrete. This is what Bella lugged into the house to declare as "her pet". And so the sleeping bag and pajamas suddenly made sense.

I should mention right now, that I love this insanity.

I have a busy but compressed week coming up: I leave tonight, and work M-T-W in Philly, with a half day trip out to Jersey on Tuesday for some meetings (Finally get to see how this Zipcar thing works), then home. On Thursday we hit the road for the annual Reunion out near Madison, to see all of the cousins and chill out by the lake. I'm really looking forward to it!

Sounds like the house is starting to wake up, and there's a lot to get done today - Carpet steaming, Ikea run, Mowing... all before I take off. And that's the way it is!