Lovelihood

Yan Yan, piled high with chocolate cream, is one of those cutely packaged Japanese treats I grew up with, that can now be found in such exotic like the ethnic aisle of our neighborhood grocery and Target.

That school supply list called for a dozen glue sticks. The ones we found came in sets of eight. So we sent the requisite number to school and tossed the remainder into a drawer for our rainy day adhesive needs. Turns out occupying a toddler with a glue stick and a bag of shredded fabric scraps is a pretty easy thing.

All of my crafty spare time has been spent sweltering under a quilt while I stitch its layers together. So it was nice to sit at a coffee shop with a latte, donut and a managable swatch of sashiko, small enough to tuck into my purse. Gray thread on gray fabric. Going for more of a tonal, textural effect this time.

The seven-block walk from school offers up countless route possibilities, some more direct than others, all with sights heretofore undiscovered by us. Backyard chickens. All manner of grown edibles. Dahlias in the deepest burgundy shades. A Buddhist meditation center. Today's find was a toy soldier fire hydrant. Also spotted today on my solo walk out for some lunch was some Bill Gates-themed graffiti.

The Boy's been pretty calm and nerve-free about this Kindergarten thing. And we convinced ourselves that bringing the camera and making a huge deal out of the first day (even if it is legitimately a huge deal) might jinx the whole deal and send him into a leg-clinging stupor. So we settled with a few poorly timed camera-phone shots and spent the rest of the day regretting not having the camera. But at the end of the day The Boy uncrumpled from his backpack a self portrait. With yellow hair. The caption, pre-printed at the bottom in Comic Sans: This is me on the first day of Kindergarten!

The Boy's school supply list was, at once, so small and so specific as to make the business of supply shopping, what should be a most holy, joyous occasion, to be kind of a bummer. Two erasers, a dozen glue sticks, the most basic of pencils, standard-issue markers, a ream of paper. Not exactly much to spark first-day-of-school excitement. Still, as I was packing up The Boy's bag this night, the last of his pre-school life, the smell of #2 Dixon Ticonderogas was an undeniable reminder that school is about to happen.

Last month we were in attendance at an Angry Birds themed birthday party, that, to this day, The Boy refers to as the best party ever. And the Angry Birds kick, which predates the party, has only intensified since then, culminating in his desire for actual little angry birds to hurl at smug little piggies. So we pulled out our homemade playdough and rolled out some piggies. In all honesty, though, they haven't survived the oven curing process, inards pooling out from weak points in the architecture. So, next time, we'll make a greater effort to find the stuff you're actually supposed to stick in the oven. But at least there was this picture.