this moment

My mother-in-law and I took the boys to Sea World this week. It was a wonderful, low key day, and we all had a great time. Above is my favorite picture from the trip. When I look at it, I know that it is a good picture of who Charlie is right now. He loves animals and is content to watch them for long periods of time. In this picture, he's looking at the "yions" (sea lions).

We didn't see much of what Sea World has to offer, and that was just fine with me. We let Charlie tell us what he wanted to do, and that's what we did. (We got the educational discount rate so the amount of admission was not an issue.) I've been feeling so rushed and overscheduled and overwhelmed that now, all I hear from my body and mind is "slow down." Our weekends into June have somehow filled up, but now I'm thinking of bowing out of some things in favor of some R&R.

For Mother's Day weekend our original plan was to go camping as a family in the mountains. Then we became a little concerned about the cold, so I said I wanted to spend Mother's Day out at the Mission San Juan Capistrano. But I got a killer sunburn at Sea World, and plus I'm just beat. So all I really want for Mother's Day is a nice, long, uninterrupted nap and perhaps a pedicure. I want to spend the day just relaxing. I really have no desire to go anywhere.

It's time for me to get back to the basics. Inside it feels like chaos and everything around me reflects that. So I'm taking a page from the Book of Charlie. I'm going to stop and watch the sea lions. Or, as the case may be, stop and watch the flowers bloom.