We were digging through some boxes of memorabilia recently, looking for my high-school diploma (so I could mail a copy to our county school superintendent and prove that I’m qualified to homeschool my daughter). I had not looked through most of that stuff since I put it away in the boxes, probably seven or eight years ago. Do you ever do that, bring the boxes up from the basement or down from the closet shelf and go through them, just to see what you deemed worthy of storing carefully away? It’s a trip, man.

Among other things, I had stored a piano jewelry/music box that my grandparents gave me when I was about Annalie’s age and an old toy that belonged to me and my brother when we were little, a wind-up “radio” that plays Hickory-Dickory Dock. I pulled them out and gave them to Annalie to play with, and she carried them both around all day. At one point she took a snack and lemonade with her out to the deck and sat out there chilling to her tunes for about 20 minutes. I couldn’t help but laugh, because it was for that very reason that I kept all these things: so someday I could share them to my kids.

Some of the other stuff I had packed neatly away were the photo of my graduating class from Omaha North High; Minnie Mouse ears from Disneyland with my name embroidered on the back; old trophies from bowling leagues, summer music olympics, and spelling bees; an old blankie, soft with age; 45s that I used to play on my Fisher-Price record player—Neil Diamond, the theme from Greatest American Hero, and of course Billy Bob and the Rockafire Explosion (Showbiz Pizza’s animatronic band); the tooth fairy pillow my mom made for me when I started losing teeth; and an unopened bottle of Crystal Pepsi.

Yeah, I said Crystal Pepsi. Anyone remember that? Some of you reading were probably barely in kindergarten when it was around in the early 90s. I rather liked the stuff; as I recall it tasted vaguely cinnamon-y. I don’t know exactly why I saved a bottle of it. Maybe when they stopped making it I just thought it would be cool to keep one for posterity.

Probably the best thing I came across, though, was a stash of old notes from my friend Erin. This note starts out, “Dearest Bethany, I love this pen. This pen belongs to Eboni X. Carter. This pen is awesome as is Eboni…” That’s pretty typical of the notes Erin used to (and still does!) write me. I had fun reading all these old notes and cracking up at how goofy we were in high school, and how little we’ve changed since then.

All the pins in that photo used to live on my bedroom curtains, along with a dozen more that I didn’t deem worthy of keeping. The Russian pins at the top left and the bottom middle are from Russian students who did an exchange with our high school every year. My high school’s sister school was in Pskov, Russia, and students from our school would go to Pskov for a month and attend school with host students, and then later the Russian students would come to Omaha and attend our school. Too bad I didn’t start taking Russian till I was a junior, because only 3rd- and 4th-year students (like Katrina) got to do the exchange program. The Little Mermaid pin was a gift from Erin on my 16th birthday, because I was very into The Little Mermaid back then. The other pins are from old jobs (Children’s Museum and Library Page), my high school (V-Up, North Vikings!) and the Omaha zoo. The stripey rock is just a pretty rock I found by the Missouri River in Dodge Park one day. I gave that to Annalie, too, for her rock collection.

We never did find my high-school diploma. I guess I’ll have to call my high school and see if they can send me a copy. But I don’t really care, because we had fun looking for it!

Outside my window the sky is a weird orange color, thanks to the thunderstorms that have been moving through our area all afternoon and evening. It’s rather beautiful.

I am thinking about baby names, but not so obsessively any more. Troy and I have narrowed the list down to a handful of possibilities and we’ll roll those around in our minds for a while.

(Thank you, by the way, for all of you who commented with your favorite girls’ names. My goodness, we all certainly do like talking about names, don’t we? And I learned, from reading all your suggestions, that I have a complicated system of rules for naming my children that I wasn’t even aware of having. Which maybe explains why I was going so crazy for a while there.)

I am thankful for perspective, which makes my life so much less difficult than it otherwise might seem.

I am wearing a Gallifrey t-shirt and Wal-Mart maternity shorts that I purchased in 2004. (First person to know what Gallifrey is wins a crocheted coffee-cup cozy.)

I am remembering how uncomfortable all these baby kicks can be. I’m thankful that the baby is active and healthy, blah blah. But I can honestly say that once this kid is born I won’t miss all the internal pummeling one little bit.

I am going to California in 18 days! Yay!

I am currently reading an issue of Touchstone Magazine.

I am hoping that I can figure out this whole homeschooling-a-first-grader thing without going crazy or scarring me or Annalie for life. (Pretty confident I can. Just, y’know…fingers crossed.)

On my mind: the movie Inception, which I’ve heard praised to the skies from so many different quarters that I think it’s impossible I won’t be underwhelmed by it. I’m still avoiding spoilers, though.

Noticing that Annalie has probably been watching too much TV lately. But I like my midday naps, so for now I’ll let it slide.

In the kitchen there are a few cookies left. I’m trying to ignore their siren call.

Around the house is plenty of evidence in every single room that a 6-year-old girl lives here. My attempts to have her clean up after herself are failing to keep pace with her ability to spread her belongings about.

One of my favorite things is the color of the yarn I’m using to crochet this baby her own cuddle blanket—sort of a pale yellow-green.

From my photo archive: this photo of Annalie was taken in March 2007, when she was two months shy of her third birthday. I’m very interested to see if the baby will look as much like Annalie as I look like my brother.

Post inspired by Beck.

Yesterday we had a fun playdate with Carrie and her kids. I feel like I was neglecting an assignment and now I’ve finally gotten a good start on it! See, Brenda and Carrie are blog friends from way back. When Brenda and Bug were here helping us unpack last spring, Carrie and her son Erik came over for lunch one day, and we had a blast, kids and moms alike. Brenda ordered me and Carrie to become good friends and have lots of playdates so she could live vicariously through us. I had every intention of following her orders, because Carrie is smart and funny and interesting and I liked her very much, and also I don’t have very many local friends!

But you know how life goes. First, we were busy unpacking and settling in. Then, Carrie and her husband Mike had a baby girl, Elsa, and were deep in the newborn stage of just trying to keep their heads above water with no extra time for playdates. Then Annalie and I went to Omaha for a visit. Then it was Annalie’s birthday, and my mom was in town for a few weeks. And of course by then I was dealing with first-trimester exhaustion all the time, and then we went on another trip to Omaha.

But finally, all the stars aligned and we had simultaneous free afternoons! So Annalie and I went over to their house to play and eat Carrie’s yummy version of my spicy veggie stir-fry with peanut sauce, which I just realized I’ve never blogged despite it being one of those recipes that everyone always asks for when I make it. Then Annalie and Erik wandered downstairs to the playroom while Carrie and I gabbed away for more than an hour. We were so busy talking (mostly about cloth diapers—more on that in a bit) that we neglected to check on our kids even once. But it was okay, because they got along great! They prepared a delicious pretend vegetable soup garnished with maple syrup for us.

Then we changed into our swimsuits and went to the splash park! There is an awesome park in their town that is full of fun things to do, among them this excellent splash park next door to a miniature golf course. Annalie has been to a half-dozen different spraygrounds in her life, so they’re no big deal to her, but when we walked into this place her eyes widened and she exclaimed, “Oh, wow! This is so cool!” She barely stood in one place long enough for me to spray sunblock on her, she was so excited to go play. (Incidentally, I’d like to kiss whoever invented spray sunblock. I love that stuff.)

Annalie and Erik both took off as soon as they were sunblocked. I grabbed my camera and followed them, persuading them to pose for a quick photo before they ditched me to play. I followed Annalie around as she checked out the “big mushrooms” and the waterfall cave and took a moment to spin the wheel on a spray fountain. I grabbed her for a quick arm’s-length self-portrait by the water maze, forgetting that I’d zoomed in for the previous photo and the result was a surprisingly good close-up shot.

Annalie fell in love with this blue whale, whom she said was named Daisy. There was a bit of drama over the fact that other kids kept climbing onto the whale with her, which would make Annalie hop off and pout till they’d left. Then she would race back over and climb on the whale’s back again. I think we are providing her with a sibling (and hopefully some perspective) not a moment too soon. Erik, meanwhile, spent a few minutes perched on the frog’s back, encouraging it to hop. “C’mon, Frog, HOP!” He didn’t seem to mind that the frog ignored him.

Towards the end of the afternoon, I pointed my camera at Erik, who tried to thwart me by sticking his hands in front of his face. So I just raised the camera and pointed it down at his head. Ha! At least to a 4-year-old, I’m still tall.

Most of the time we were there, both kids were in the water maze. I spent some time in there myself, since Annalie wanted me to go in with her a couple of times—purely for fun, not because she was afraid. I actually spent a few minutes contemplating how great it was that she wasn’t the least bit afraid of the noisy jets of water; that she just charged right into their midst, laughing. I bet last summer she would have had to spend a while working up her courage, and then she would have only gone in if someone had been there holding her hand. I love watching my kid grow up. No crying on my baby’s first day of kindergarten for me, thank you!

Well, she’s home-schooled, so her first day of kindergarten was at home with me. But that’s beside the point. My point is that I genuinely delight in her growing confidence, knowledge, and skills. Did you know she can totally make her own microwave popcorn now, starting with getting the package out of the pantry and all the way to dumping it in a bowl and adding a sprinkle of salt? She can also get her own bowl of cereal, pour herself a glass of lemonade without spilling, and get herself out of the shower, dried off, and into her pajamas. I love age six!

I admit that when I think ahead to her being a college student I might sigh a little, but then Annalie tells me that she doesn’t want to live in a dorm when she is in college because she would be too sad to leave me and Troy and her little sister. I take that with a grain of salt of course, because she probably will change her tune over the next 12 years. But it wouldn’t surprise me if she doesn’t. She is just that kind of person. Hey, my younger brother lived with my parents for six or seven years in his late 20s, just because he liked living with them, and I am forever telling Annalie how much she reminds me of her Unky Ben! So we’ll see….

…but I digress! I was telling you about how the big water maze was the main attraction for both Annalie and Erik. Even Carrie (with Elsa asleep on her chest) and I enjoyed standing near it. The shallow water cooled our feet and the mist from the fountain sprayed our faces and arms and kept us from overheating while we chatted about how we wished we had waterproof cameras and kept an eye on the kids. Though it was actually perfect splash park weather yesterday, not horrifically hot like it was last week.

Eventually, we noticed that the kids were getting tired, and were just sort of hanging out near us. It was almost time for us to head home anyway, to give us a chance to beat the afternoon rush. So we casually mentioned the magic words “ice cream” and Annalie and Erik immediately announced that they were ready to leave and rushed over to dry themselves off and put their shoes on so they could go pick out their ice cream treats. Not a bad way to end an afternoon at the splash park and a summer playdate!

Thanks again for the fun afternoon, Carrie, Erik & Elsa! We’re already looking forward to next time.

Oh, remember how I mentioned up there that Carrie and I were talking about cloth diapers while our kids played? Yep, I think we’re gonna cloth diaper this time.

I’ve been really intrigued by cloth-diapering since right around the time Annalie was potty-trained. I’d been watching my friend Lynn use cloth on her daughters for a couple of years by then, and I’d had several conversations about the whole thing with OMSH, who is a staunch advocate of cloth diapers.

Then I moved to San Diego and became friends with Sonja in real life. She’s a cloth-diaperer who also works at a shop that sells natural, organic and earth-friendly products for parents and kids, including a wide range of cloth diapering, breastfeeding, and babywearing products. So she’s kind of an expert. My friend Madge also used cloth diapers on her kids. And now Carrie, too. Much like with homeschooling, the more I considered using cloth diapers on a theoretical second child, the more people I discovered around me who had been cloth diaperers. Troy and I talked it over, and we decided we’d give it a shot.

Which leads me to the above photo. Carrie’s daughter Elsa, at 3.5 months old, is ahead of the growth curve and has already outgrown a lot of her size small diapers. Carrie had mentioned that she was trying to sell them online, but that she was running into a lot of people who weren’t willing to pay her (more than fair) asking price. I offered to buy a few from her, thus getting me started on my stash, and preventing her from having to deal with crazy bargain-hunters and shipping hassles.

Which is why I left the playdate yesterday with ten size small cloth diapers (and a sample of Rockin’ Green detergent and a couple of little cubes used for making wipes solution that Carrie generously shared with me). When we arrived back home and I opened Annalie’s door so I could grab the shopping bag of diapers, Annalie hopped out with a grin on her face and her doll Greta clutched in one arm—and Greta was now wearing the blue and purple diaper that had been at the top of the bag. Even Annalie thinks cloth diapering is a good idea, apparently.