Dineraunt

Today was rainy and gloomy, but we had to trudge through it to work and school, and then this afternoon, to the clinic for E's speech therapy appointment. E is making great strides with his articulation and seems to really enjoy the weekly sessions with Rebecca (what's not to like? Essentially, they play BINGO and Go Fish for an hour.)

A, on the other hand, is not a fan of being dragged along to speech - mostly because I am an exceedingly practical/mean (take your pick) mom who thinks this hour of mandatory sit-and-be-quiet-in-the-clinic-room time is ideal for homework. I only ask that she complete one page of homework (she typically has 3 pages a week, and each page takes ~10 minutes if she focuses). For whatever reason, she drags her feet enough during speech that it often takes nearly the entire hour to complete that single page, which is frustrating for both of us.

Suffice it to say, by 5:00pm today, trudging back through the rain to the parking lot, we were all worn out and sort of grumpy. A was also disappointed that her scheduled softball practice had been cancelled due to the weather. As I steered the car toward home, it came to me: we needed a change of scenery. All of us.

So we headed downtown and with some effort, found a parking spot near Ben's building, and surprised him. The kids were thrilled to visit his office and say hi to his coworkers - and then we walked down the street to the "dineraunt" (diner restaurant, I suppose?) for dinner.

It was an evening redeemed! The dineraunt had one entire wall of windows looking out onto the bus mall, so E kept tally of the number of buxes, MAX trains, and cars that drove by, marking lines on his paper placemat. A colored a picture, we all chatted about our days, and everyone ate every single bite of their food. I really liked the wall covered with studded leather paneling, so I used it as my backdrop for this blip. I didn't notice until later, but I also really like that A's smile is showing off the gap where she lost her most recent tooth about a week ago (that's #3)!

When we walked back to our car, the rain had stopped and the air smelled like damp, spring earth. It felt like an appropriate metaphor.