Utopia

So, the pic is not great.. not even good. I think its funny to start this "blog a day" project in the middle of winter when our activities are low, our outdoor time is limited and our sickness is high because it makes for lots of poorly lit, poorly planned pics of our messy house with messy kids in mismatched pajamas (and in this case part of a knight's costume). I also think that is sort of the point of the blog, to catch what our time is actually like in the day-to-day, in between the amazing adventures.

The reason I chose this poor photo is that it allows me to tell you about the BEST part of our lives these days. The kids are doing the most amazing thing. Incredible. Unimaginable. They are playing. TOGETHER. A game of their own creation, with their own set of rules, that has nothing to do with us. It is a great thing about having the basement, because this cooperation is only possible when the kids are not on the same floor of the house as us.

The game pictured is "Little Paws" in which DaVinci is a prospective dog owner who adopts, bring home and trains her new dog "Little Paws," played by D. Much of the game involves her throwing pieces of dry cereal and D runs after them on all fours and eats them. Gross, but also awesome. DaVinci is always the owner in Little Paws, but lately they have also been playing Robot and I am pretty sure they take turns in the roles of robot and commander. The reason I don't KNOW how the game works is that the kids playing cooperatively together is like Santa or the Tooth Fairy. They only get along when you seem to be ignoring them.

This whole "ignoring kids in the basement" has not been an easy concept for Z. He is an AMAZING father, and considers every minute that he is home and that the kids are awake as the his time to do the kids' bidding. For many years of their lives, this was exactly what they needed. Now as they are getting older, time alone or with each other is maybe equally as important as directed play time with us. My friend Sarah calls it benign neglect, and I think there is something to it. And it also means Z and I get to do crazy things during the day like write blogs and read books!