Saturn and Pigtails

Yesterday was quite a day for all of us at the Daily Okie. Long-time readers will recall that last year I ran in the OKC Memorial Marathon, and actually finished the whole thing. Well, this year, I decided not to run in the big one, mostly because between work and umpiring and family stuff, I knew I wouldn't have time to train properly. As a compromise, I decided to run a short leg of the marathon relay (all this running the past couple of years has taught me one thing...I can still run three miles at a stretch pretty easily). I was up at 6:00 so I could get downtown to catch a shuttle out to Stars and Stripes Park, where my leg began. Basically, I did it in decent time...but spent about five times as long standing around waiting as I did actually running. I was up at 6:00 and left the house about 6:30...and did not get home until after noon. Then, after I got home, I still had lawn mowing and weed-eating to do, so I rested for about 20 minutes then got all that done. That took me until about 3:30. So by the time that was done, I was pretty much done for the day.

Heidi also had a rough day, as she was not feeling very well and slept quite a bit. She's been pushing pretty hard to finish her daycare licensing stuff and to keep everything under control at the house, and I think it might be catching up to her a little bit.

What does all this have to do with Saturn and pigtails, you ask? Well, that's the other part of our big day. First, Julianna had her pigtails going, for the first time. She hasn't had much hair since she was born, but she is slowly growing it out. Here she is with her pigtails...aren't they beautiful?


(Doubly funny was the little "wings" she had left, once we took the little bands and clip-bows off.)

Then came the coolest thing...one of those moments that really justifies to you why being a parent is the most awesome thing in the universe. Owen has a book called Planets, and he LOVES it. We read it to him nearly every night, at his behest. He really knows the planets now, too...we can ask him which is the red one, or which has rings, or which is the smallest, and he will tell us. He can recite them in order, too. (I loved space when I was a kid, too, so this is especially cool to me.) So imagine our surprise and delight when, completely unprompted in any way, he brought us this and said "Mommy, look! I made Saturn!"


What an incredible example of his abstract thinking abilities! Simply awesome.