The Saturday Before Vacation

Today was a good Saturday... the kind of Saturday that makes you bone tired at the end of it because of fully living within it. We are in pre-vacation mode which means laundry, cleaning, shopping for snacks, shopping for a few summer wardrobe necessities (going to Texas after all), paying bills, finding a temporary home for Rosie our bad dog, washing and vacuuming the van, getting the oil changed, mowing the lawn, etc. We did get a good bit of that accomplished already which is nice. My sister and Baby Lucy will be coming in tomorrow night to caravan with us to Texas while Darin is there on business; I can't wait!

Dance recital went beautifully. The theme was heaven, and Emma's ballet class danced to the song Wish You Were Here by Mark Harris. It was a tear-jerker, actually. I did a fine job backstage, no nervous breakdown, I even had to open the curtain once (which was a terrifying surprise, but I did it!). I'm still a little fuzzy on which is upstage and which is downstage, but I've got stage left down pat.

Abby made it through having her TAD put in by her orthodontist. This stands for temporary anchoring device, but Abby has affectionately dubbed it the "torture afflicting device." It was put right into her gum to help anchor her braces between the roots of her teeth. Once the sensitivity subsided, Abby is fully appreciating the response she gets from showing it to people; it looks pretty wicked.

I just had to pay our local library $30 for the VHS version of Anne of Green Gables. That's the movie we watched way back when we all had pink eye. I know I took it back, but I just can't remember where. That part is the problem; it seems that libraries want you to actually return what you check out to them. Bummer. Maybe they can get the DVD now.

Back to our lovely Saturday... Greg and I went for a run this morning and then sat out back on the porch swing. I had to share my view from the swing, I love it!

We had homemade oatmeal cream pies today, because I was needing them (turns out we all were):

And, our baby robins grew up already. They're gone. I'm feeling rather nostalgic and a little sad about the whole thing. I felt a kinship with this Mama robin. She was so faithful to her role to protect and care for those little helpless babies. On Mother's Day, I woke up, walked out to our big window, and told her Happy Mother's Day!

We all shared in the experience of watching her feed those little ones. In no time at all, we were amazed at how big the babies were getting - they barely fit in the nest, and we waited in anticipation of watching them learn to fly. The next morning when we checked on them, only one was left. She had three babies, and two of them were gone. We missed it; all three were there the day before.

Throughout day the mama came back to this one remaining baby bird, bringing her worms until Abby looked out and said, "Mom, the robins are gone."

And sure enough, I looked at the nest, and it was empty... completely abandoned. All I could think was, "They weren't ready! How can they be gone already? They never learned to fly; we never saw it." Obviously they were ready, perfectly prepared, the whole thing went off without a hitch.

I just wasn't ready. I miss them.