I love the late hours.  When the family is all in bed; goodnight kisses and brushing Brianna’s hair out of her face as she sleeps.  What a beautiful child.  Cameron was snoring – loudly!  So I plumped up his pillow and moved him up further.  What a funny boy.  It seems like he uses up every ounce of energy and when he is done for the day, he becomes heavy – hard to move – like the forces of gravity are different in his presence.  Courtney sleeps so peacefully.  She smiles in her sleep.  Pure contentment.

They have had such fun these past few days.  First playdates on Friday, on which we had no school for a development day; and knowing that this is a nightmare for most working parents, I had 7 kids total over here for the day.  Never has a day gone by so quickly.  No fussing.  No fighting.  Not a single bandaid distributed.  Wow.

Saturday was more quiet; Neil and I both had a few things to get done.  I was playing e-mal tag with a cranky swap hostess who has a tendency to be rather emotional.  While I know you cannot accurately gauge emotion in writing; lots of exclamation points and CAPITAL LETTERS just generally give me a headache.  So while waiting for a clear answer from her, I set about changing all our Spring Break reservations in advance of a supposed Nor’easter.  Somewhere Neil had heard 20" of snow in the Poconos.  So we are leavng a day later than we planned.  As I was driving out that evening, I stopped by the mailbox to find a complimentary issue of The Rubber Stamper.  Woo Hoo!  One of my ATCs made it into the May/June 2007 issue.  That’s the first time I’ve had something published in that magazine.  Yay!  So I took that along with me.  And that evening I took the kids to the craft store, where we found wonderful six for $1.00 wood pieces to paint and sequin ‘bling’ names, and a few mini mat stacks.  Not too painful a visit; and I bought the latest Memory Makers mag.  Then off to Chuck E. Cheese.  They have such fun.  I find the whole place sheer bewilderment.  But like I said, they had fun.  Horrid pizza.  On the way home I picked up takeout at a Thai restaurant for Neil and I.  He was still home doing taxes.  Yuck.  But for some reason I stayed up really late last night.  Reaaaaaaaaaally late.

And today – on a torrentially RAINY Sunday, oh yes, I regretted that!  Because you know that rain requires a lot more creativity with three small children than I had in me with lack of sleep.  Dumb.  Why did I stay up so late?  I took the kids to church and contemplated ducking out to get a soda after the children’s sermon.  Just for a moment, I thought about making the mad dash.  But the sermon was a goooooood one today.  I’m glad I didn’t miss it.  Our pastor is an amazing orator.  He really makes you think.  I haven’t been so personally challenged by a sermon in quite some time.  But still I was WEARY from staying up so late last night.  I think I was further drained when a local crafting group postponed their meeting due to the weather.  The former-Floridian part of me was annoyed.  But I am quite familiar with how badly OTHERS drive in the rain up here in Connecticut — so probably a wise move on their part.  It was about a year ago that I wasn’t so lucky and had quite a konk on the head to prove it.

So with no creative rescue for my day; and not willing to be in the dumps about it I decided to try something new while the kids were occupied.  Sarah Hodsdon wrote a cool technique article in the May/June issue of Rubber Stamper – and oh yes, I had to play.  So I set that off to dry and then implored Neil for a bit of naptime.  Thank you!!!!   And then I was recharged and set about helping the kids get started doing all the crafts that we had purchased the day before.

And now the day is done.  I’m downstairs and ready to have some of my own playtime.  But I know better.  I am going to go to bed soon.  But I did make one card using the piece that I created earlier in the day – the heart on this card.

I made it using some wonderful papers from Rouge de Garance.

And then I started to listen to this song on XM/Tivo and Googled the lyrics.  It’s a fitting cap to my day and completely captures how I am feeling about my creative life.  Enjoy.

"Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield.

I am unwritten, can’t read my mind, I’m undefined
I’m just beginning, the pen’s in my hand, ending unplanned

Good night.