I know I’m late to the game on this, but can I just say how much I love Parks and Recreation! Keith and I are in the middle of season 4, and each episode is even funnier and more tightly written than the next. We tried watching it when it originally aired, but thought it was too close to The Office to watch. We were wrong. Duh. I think it’s so much better. 

I love the characters, and want to be Leslie Knope’s BFF (not just because we share a name but because she is an amazingly optimistic feminist). Or Ron Swanson’s, just because I know he would be a good person to have on my team in case of a zombie apocalypse. I also love how it reminds me of my time in local government – the situations and the personalities are eerily similar. “Literally.”

Apparently, today is World Turtle Day, which I didn’t know existed until Facebook friends posted super cute turtle pictures this morning. Its purpose is to bring attention to, and increase knowledge and respect for, turtles and tortoises, as well as encourage human action to help them survive and thrive. As Floridians, we see turtles nesting on our beaches, and the direct adverse affect of humans on the turtles’ abilities to nest.

In our area, the McGough Nature Park is home to a huge turtle population, so we decided to spend our morning hanging out with them. The nature center provides food for a small fee, and Henry loves to feed the turtles. I think he’s pretty good about dropping the food close to the dock and also scattering it farther away. In addition to turtles, we saw ducklings, red-tailed hawks, owls, reddish egrets, tortoises, snakes, and fish. We hiked along its awesome boardwalk through saw palmetto and alongside mangroves to the intracoastal and watched the drawbridge let a sailboat through. It was a pretty fantastic morning for a two-year old. 

This evening, we attended our first ever Pentecost Vigil at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Clearwater. Henry loved the procession of fire and the red banners waving above the congregation. He may have loved playing with the drinking fountain even more (who am I kidding, the drinking fountain was his fav). 

Lead me, guide me, along the way,

For if you lead me I cannot stray.

Lord let me walk each day with Thee:

Lead me, oh Lord lead me.

Even while typing out the chorus, I’m singing the song in my head and smiling. Some songs just do that. 

Hey! I am a Florida native (Jacksonville, born and raised; now a Tampa Bay resident) former government employee (yo, Philly, I miss you!), a pastor’s wife (with Lutheran flair), and stay at home mama to Henry (my two year old bundle of energy and adorableness, a sometimes deadly combination). Those are a lot of identities, and I’m always discovering more things I’d like to do. Like writing more, starting with this blog. Notice how I didn’t say “writing better”. My husband, Keith, keeps telling me if I want to become a better writer, I need to write more often and establish a daily writing practice. So here it goes. My hopes include documentation of my family’s weekly adventures, to help other families discover the exciting and mundane in Pinellas county as well as record our happenings, my interests (mostly the arts, movies, books, working on my fitness, and travel), and my life. I hope you like it!

On Wednesdays we wear pink.   

I’ve never done “a day in the life” kind of post before, but I thought it would be fun to try to do them monthly since Henry is developing a personality and is actually doing interesting things. I picked Tuesday (June 16th) because most Tuesdays follow the same routine that doesn’t necessarily exist on other days. 

Today, Henry woke up around 8:30 am, which is later than he has been getting up since he stopped waking up to eat in the middle of the night. He nursed, got a diaper change, and then was ready to play like it’s his job or something. One of the first things he does is find a book, or to be more accurate, several books, and then alternate between reading them himself (sometimes he makes random noises which is what I’m sure I sound like reading to him) or asking me to read. He usually gets tired of a book after a few pages, but it’s so nice to have him ask me (in his gibberish) and then plop down into my lap for a story. He’s usually drinking a cup of milk during this time. 

He plays on his own while I make our breakfasts; I eat mine first then he gets his because I need time for my coffee to kick in. He eats around 9:30, then goes into his “Hen Pen” to play while I get us ready to go for the day and clean up the house for the appraiser to assess it (long story short – the place we are renting is under contract for sale and we move July 1 to another temporary place). 

We make it out the door around 11 (it takes forever for us to get moving, I know) and head over to the library for the chaos that is story/play time. It’s actually a great (free) class where Henry (and 40 or so 1 to 2 year olds and their parents) play, sing songs, and read together until 12:30. We’re both usually wiped afterwards. Henry fell asleep in the car on the way home, and napped for 1 hour and 45 minutes (on the shorter side of his naps). He mostly naps in our bed with me next to him because I NEED my naps, too. 

After nap, he nurses, we eat lunch, play for a bit, then head to the gym to work out. Henry plays in the gym area near me while I lift weights. It’s not actually a gym, just a workout room in the back of a friend’s business where they are nice enough to let Henry cause chaos while I get my workout in. After we finished at the gym (around 4:30), we ran errands.

While Henry danced to his muppet jams (new fav move: stamping his foot), I made dinner for the two of us at 6:30 (mac and cheese and steamed green beans) since Keith had to work late, and we took our 3-mile usual walk with a stop at the playground for Henry to play. He pretty much stuck to the swing tonight, but did play in the sand enough to get dirty. The last few minutes of our walk he fell asleep (of course), and since he had a full diaper I couldn’t just put him in his crib so I changed him, put on his pj’s, nursed him, and tried to get him to sleep. FAIL. The catnap killed all hope of him going to sleep at his normal bedtime. On a typical night he takes a bath around 8:30, gets ready for bed, reads a story, nurses, then is asleep by 9 to 9:30. Tonight he fought against all of that; maybe because I skipped bath because he was too tired, maybe because he didn’t feel like going to sleep until 10 – I don’t know. But I let him play for a little while, nursed him again, and then he finally fell asleep. Only to be woken up by a power outage at 12:15 am. Sometimes that’s just how it goes. Living the Hen life.