I'm not 5 minutes late

Turns out, I was 6 days 23 hours and 55 minutes early for the meeting. And had just made the 30 minutes trip into town. Well, ok, the 35 minutes trip, which I keep rounding off to 30 minutes, which is why I keep being late.

Late, then early, then without my wallet which means I couldn't fit in some 2nd hand baby clothes shopping of grocery store stop to try and salvage my trip. Because, of course, time cannot be wasted. Which is the true point of an iPhone. You can be productive, or at least active (I'm rarely that productive unless I'm using the Hipstamatic app) at all times. If you have your phone with you, and today I did have at least that.

So let's just ay that the pupper got to practice relaxing in her crate for an hour, I got to window shop and put some shoes and pants on hold for A, and then I scanned the comments on a friend's Facebook request for books to read. Just so happens, I also had my Kindle with me, so I used some 5 minutes downloading samples of books that people recommended to her.

Whew. Thank goodness I had all my technology with me, or I might have been a rotting, smelly, worthless drain on all that is important about humanity.

Now I'm home, I've fielded a work call, and I've taken off my boots and socks to let my toes drink in the gloriously warm, sunny day that our balcony finally has access to. Our sun shade was stuck in the open position for the last 2 months, and when the motor was finally replaced last week, you could almost hear the plants screaming "Gah!! What IS that?! I thought we lived in Seatlle?!" The zucchini plant seemed to shudder and realize that it might just have to overproduce some squash for us after all.

Whiny voices are on my mind this morning. A is a bit sick, which meant she was restless last night and that M and I got less sleep than we could have used. And this morning I, being the master of appropriate timing, thought I should stop responding to her whiny reactions. While she's sick. M gently mentioned it might not be the best time. I gently, inwardly, agreed and proceeded to keep asking A what she wanted, to tell me in words. Time to go digging in the child rearing books again for some suggestions on how to do this consistently and nicely. I have to say, that after letting A cry a bit when I didn't try guessing what blue thing (that was not in sight) she wanted, holding her, telling her I'd like to know what she wanted, letting her have some space, not letting her hit me, though,....she finally piped up in her tiny voice...."nuggi." Pacifier.

I jumped to my feet, A in arms, smiling, and said "You bet! Let's go find it. I'd love to find it. I really just wanted to know what you wanted!" and we went in search. So, she can do it. And when I have patience, I can encourage her to do it. And it may take 5 minutes of tantrum, but if it leads to a verbal request, I am so there for her.

Now if I can just get her to wear a bib and sit a bit longer at the table......