love letters

Dear Em,

" If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to ask for a glass of milk."

- If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff

I loved that book when I was younger, & how fun is it now that there is a whole If You Give series? Today we travel to NC for a whole week of family filled adventures. Last night, I kind of felt like my life was part of a new book from the If You Give series, except mine is more of a If You Need To series. Hmmm, maybe I will write a new story for the series.

I will title it: If You Need to Pack a Suitcase (& get a whole lot of work done, but you're exhausted because you just returned from another trip the night before at 9:30pm) by Julie McGovern.

So, here we go...

If you need to pack a suitcase,

Chances are, you'll start a painting project instead. Because, you know, that's the important thing to be doing right now. Maybe it's because you started the project a month ago & never finished it & you wanted to give it to someone as a gift before Thanksgiving...& you know, you're leaving on a week long trip that includes Thanksgiving. Who knows what was going through your mind at that moment.

You'll probably want to involve your almost 3 year old to make sure things really get nice & messy. So, you'll put a smock on her & hand her some paint brushes. You'll probably also be talking to your mom on the phone, because almost three year old children don't need to be watched closely while doing such things as painting.

It's possible that your almost 3 year old will get really excited about using multiple colors & always washing her paint brush in a bowl of water between each use of the multiple colors. In the midst of all of the excitement, she will dump the bowl of water all over the projects you are painting, yourself, herself, the table, & the floor. You'll grab rolls of paper towels to clean it up while she cries because her socks are wet.

She will get so excited about painting, your daughter will want to paint the whole house. Rather than let her smather the painting project with another layer of paint, you hand her random things to paint. Because, you know, you have lots of time & are not at all worried about the mess.

Your husband will give you a look that says, "you have a million things to do, but you're letting her paint now?" You will ignore it, because you're starting to think the same thing. With the level of stress you're feeling & the number of things to do, your husband will probably feel sick & look like he's dying. He will help clean up the paint water mess & feed your almost 3 year old dinner even though he has the chills & is shivering uncontrolably because you're probably starting to look a little scary at this point.

During this time, you may find yourself in an argument with your mother over how many raincoats an almost 3 year old needs.

When you finally get to the packing part of the evening, you will pat yourself on the back for doing the bulk of the packing a few days ago so there is not as much to pack now. Almost at the same time, you will want to kick yourself for not making a list of anything you already packed. You probably have no idea what you packed already & what still needs to be packed. Let's face it, your brain is not functioning properly at this point. In an act of desperation, you decide to throw a pile of shoes & underwear into the suitcase, thinking it's better to have too many shoes & underwear than none at all. You sigh & hope for the best.

You spend the rest of the night working on your expense report & wondering why you waited until the last minute to do it. You also start to wonder if you want to go on a week long trip at all. This may be when you start to feel your head throb.

By the next morning things are actually done (for the most part), & you are excited to be leaving for your trip after work. Plus, you have just enough time to drop off the painting project gift.

Can you tell which one we let you choose the colors for? We got the wooden figures super cheap from Michaels. Such a fun project with kids.

And chances are if you drop off the painting project...well, I'm not really sure. Clearly this sequel is still a little rough around the edges & will need some more work before it's ready to be printed as a children's book. But hopefully, it all means we have a great trip!

I love you so,

Mommy