Rhi, thanks for asking me to paint you a dotty serving plate, thus motivating me to finally get my butt back in a studio. It’s so good to be painting again. The plate’s in my etsy shop waiting for you. I look forward to delivering it!

When I was in college, my roommate Erin used to get letters from her friend Aspen in handmade envelopes. Aspen created them from magazine pages, and Erin and I thought it was so cool we started making them ourselves…

If you like, you can read the rest over at Secret Agent Josephine where I am guest-posting while my friend Brenda takes a blog vacation.

(Psst, Erin! Is that really how we learned to make these? :-) I am about 97% sure that’s where we got it. If I am wrong, feel free to correct me in the comments.)

Part 1: Merry-go-round

Annalie loves going to the Green* Mall by our house because it’s kind of like a park, what with the fountains and the grassy areas and trees and flowers. She loves it so much I had to bribe her to go to a different mall with me. I wanted to go see how the Pink* Mall has changed since we lived here back in the 20th century (ha!) and I happened to know that there is a merry-go-round there.

That was all it took to get her on board with visiting a different mall. She was so excited she was running and skipping ahead of me the whole way. “C’mon, mom! Where’s the merry-go-round? Can I ride a horse? Does it have two levels? Can I ride on the top part? Come ON, hurry!”

We bought our tokens and stood in line. The attendant let us through the gate when it was our turn and Annalie ran up the carousel’s stairs to the second level, laughing her funny I’m-so-excited laugh. She chose a zebra, clambered up, and buckled herself in (just a safety strap, similiar to those on restaurant high chairs). Then she started looking around and realized we were up really high. She clung to the pole and whimpered that she had changed her mind.

I tried distracting her. I pointed out the lights and mirrors, exclaimed over a little kid doing something funny down in the mall, took an arm’s-length self-portrait of us. But she was still apprehensive. I suggested that maybe she wanted to switch to the seahorse behind us, and for some reason she thought that was a good idea. I quickly whipped her off the zebra and onto the seahorse, clicking the buckle just as the music started and the carousel began to move.

Of course it only took about three seconds for Annalie to relax and enjoy herself. And every single day since then, she’s asked me at least once a day, “Can we go back to the mall and ride the merry-go-round?”

Part 2: Painting pottery

There is a pottery-painting studio at the Green Mall, less than a mile from our house. That’s a big change from Maryland, where it was a 45-minute drive from our house to Paint ‘N Pottery!

Even though it was so close, I wasn’t in a hurry to go there. We almost always painted with friends in Maryland, and I was afraid it would be too sad to go by ourselves. I wanted to wait until we could go with friends. So yesterday we met Elaine and her daughters Lily and Anya at Paint & Fire.*

I was also a little worried that painting at a new studio just wouldn’t be as much fun, because I am accustomed to the lovely, helpful people and laid-back attitude at Paint ‘N Pottery. I was afraid I had been ruined for all other pottery studios.

Silly me, of course my worries were for nothing! Paint ‘N Pottery will always be the gold standard of pottery-painting studios to me, but Paint & Fire is pretty good too. You can paint pottery or make mosaics or clay handprints there. They even have a special 1-year membership that you can purchase which gives you 20% off all pottery. Of course I bought the membership because I plan to go back again and again. Yesterday I finished a dotty serving plate that Rhi commissioned me to paint, and next I’ll be painting something for Aileen. Whee! It’s good to be painting again.

Part 3: Playing in the fountain

Once we finished painting, it was lunchtime and we were all hungry. We went to the food court where the moms ate Greek food and the kids ate Hawaiian pizza. After lunch it was inevitable that we would make our way out to the courtyard next door, because there is a cool fountain (AKA “kid magnet”) there.

Elaine and I sat at a table in the shade and relaxed while our kids played. Wait, no we didn’t. We mostly took photos of our kids being cute, and when we weren’t doing that we were telling them they couldn’t stick their feet in the fountain or asking them to lie on their tummies on the low, broad wall instead of crouching unsteadily on top of it.

Lily busted out her camera and did a photoshoot with Annalie and Anya as willing models. It cracks me up how I can barely get Annalie to look at me when I’m holding a camera most days, but if an older child with a camera tells her how to pose she’s totally happy to comply.

I’m glad we had the chance to get together before school starts, since Lily will be in kindergarten this year! But I am sure we’ll get together once in a while anyway, because we all have a great time together.

*I totally made those names up.