At the Park

I took Elizabeth to the park this afternoon. She was a little irritable from only taking a 20 minute nap, so I decided she needed an outing. This is what she looked like before the park:

On the walk to the park, I sang her favorite song - I don't even know what it's called, but it's the one from Fantasia that accompanies the broomsticks marching. There's one part of it that I sing in an obnoxiously loud, throaty voice, and it makes her laugh every time. It can even make her stop crying when we're driving in the car. So I tried that. No laugh, but at least it got a smile. And it got me a sore throat. There were several other kids at the park when we got there, and she had a great time walking around holding onto my hands, following them wherever they went. Here are some pictures of her playing:

I couldn't get any of her smiling while she played, but trust me - she had a great time. I spent at least half my time brushing mulch and leaves out of her hands so that she couldn't eat them. She did get one handful in her mouth though, and that led to quite a coughing fit and me trying to finger-sweep the debris out of her mouth. It wasn't pretty.

While she was walking me around the playground, I heard a couple little girls talking to each other - they introduced themselves, asked how old the other was, and then started playing together. It was so sweet and innocent. I'm looking forward to Elizabeth being able to make friends on the playground. She's already standing, cruising, waving, and babbling at people - it won't be too long now :)

We finally had to head home after 45 minutes for dinner. Elizabeth was all smiles when I got her into the stroller, and even waved bye to her new friends. I really enjoyed being a mom today.

Why am I doing this?

I've thought about creating a blog for a while. Actually, Ryan suggested it about a year ago and I dismissed it. But more and more, I've found myself composing really long FaceBook posts (and then not posting them, because who really wants to read that much on FaceBook) and I figured I might as well go for it.

I'm not sure yet how much I'll be sharing with the world - will this be about just our family, about my work, about all the conflicting emotions that go along with being a working mom - I don't know yet. But I thought I'd give it a shot. So here's my blog, and I thought the title summed up my life right now: Crazy, Busy, Awesome Life.