the late days of may....

Well, Mercury is on his way back apparently from where he came. Travelling for a couple more weeks. Heading back from his month-long stay in retrograde I'm figuring. Whether it Mercury on the go again or the fact that I had a really wonderful talk with my now six year old girl, my mama cosmic system feels more aligned than the week past. I am thankful for having the mind space to stop and check in with my girl and celebrate her growing in a sweet way just she and I, connecting through conversation. Thankful too for time in my garden. Hands in the soil always nourishing. Quiet meditation while digging. Grounding.

We capped off my gir's birthday week with her friends party this last Saturday. Usually, we've had her parties at home which has always been a lot of fun but this year we headed to one of our great local parks and celebrated there. There's a playground at this park so for nearly two hours kids were moving, running, jumping, swinging with time outs for snacks and stories. My dear friend who is like an Auntie to my girl treated the kids to a story while they snacked. We made an art table in the picnic shelter so kids could draw, color, paint. And I'd packed some face paints and thanks to a dear friend of mine, every one of these sweet children who wanted their face painted left shining with a lovely design of their choice.

This Mama likes to keep things simple when it comes to birthday parties. And that said, as simple as I always aim there's much to do to prepare. All fun though. the baking, snack planning and set up. We made gift bags from lunch bags and tried to keep them useful and fun. We nixed baloons and instead gave everyone a flower.  We opted for no gifts this year for the second year in a row though this year we tagged on a community giving project. We asked our friends to bring books for a kids book drive. This was my girls idea. I'm all for showering her with gifts and she gets plenty from her Papa and me and her grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends-like-family so we thought why not spread the love way outside of home. We collected a bin full of wonderful books thanks to the kind hearts of our many friends. I'm looking forward to taking our box full of books to one of our local agencies next week with my girl.

The rest of the weekend  lots of playtime with our dear neighbor friends. The kids jumped on the trampoline and sat in the kiddie pool and face painted themselves way way outside their faces. I so love watching their free spirits fly. On Sunday, we spent our morning into early afternoon at another local park yesterday where the kids biked round and round. My girl and I met our neighbors there and us mamas got to visit while the kids played. This kind of day, my favorite. organic as it unfolds, slow and free-flowing. Easy.

We played in the garden and added new starts to our raised bed vegetable garden, my girl's favorite: edamame and one of mine, cucumber. We are loving all the new blooms in our garden. Loving the new bursts of color and the magic that marks the near start of summer.

So farewell dear May 2009. Thank you for another beautiful year watching my girl grow. And thank you  for this taste of summer as the sun shines down. On we go, moving foward as we say hello to June.

Comments

[Mary Smith]

That sounds like a wonderful party! How generous of your daughter to give away books instead of getting presents! Your garden looks like it's in full bloom! How beautiful!