How has it been almost a week?

I have not posted for almost a week! I can't believe it.

Guess what? I've been busy. My mom and stepdad were here until Wednesday after the memorial, then bright and early Thursday morning I headed up to Maine for a training for work. The kids stayed overnight at daycare (or, as I grandiosely call it, school). I picked them up on Friday afternoon, then my best friend came over and spent the whole weekend at my house. Her husband was away with their son, and she very generously decided to spend that time hanging out with me and the kids. She and I had not gotten that much time together in ages, and it was great to have her company and help.

I have to engage in some shameless bragging about my kids, because they have just been incredibly fun lately. I feel like I'm getting rewarded for the hard times of a few weeks ago. Here are some highlights (I'll try to add pictures to go with some of these, although I've been so bad about taking pictures lately.)

• When I called on Friday morning to check on the twins after their overnight at school, their daycare provider (R.) put me on speakerphone. I said, "Hi, babies, it's Mama." They both said, "Mama! Mama!" and R. said that they were dancing around with excitement. For the rest of the day, when the phone rang, they would say, "Mama? Mama?"
• Riley eating McDonald's fries in his carseat. He was grinning from ear to ear. I've never seen a fourteen-month-old savor food before, but he would take a bite of fry, say, "Mmmmmm," and then slowly chew it while smiling the whole time. Meanwhile, he stashed extra fries next to him in the carseat for later. He was in a fantastic mood all day after those fries.
• Making the transition from two naps to one. So far, so good on that. I'd been stressing about it, but last week R. only gave them one nap at school, so I followed suit this weekend. They took relatively long naps both days (2-ish hours) and, to my surprise, seemed to be in better moods during the day with this schedule. They also slept better at night. Go, Maddie and Riley!
• Watching them splash around at at a local water park. It's one of those neighborhood places where sprays of water shoot up out of the ground. They were afraid of the jets of water, but liked to splash in the collected water on the ground. Maddie wanted to be everyone's friend, which was so cute to watch. Riley is more of a lone wolf.
• Cake and ice cream at a friend's three-year-old's b-day party. I was sitting on the lawn with the plate of cake, and the twins were playing with the other kids. They'd come toddling over every so often for a bite of cake, mouths wide open on the approach, baby bird-like. Mmmmm.

There's more, but I need to get to work. Work! Work. Bah. Now that the memorial is over and summer is drawing to a close, perhaps I'll be more regular about posting.