Hiding Outside

My baby is happiest outside, so in the evenings when the sun is setting we love to hang out back on our patio. The night we spontaneously splurged on Pottery Barn patio furniture a few years ago turned out to be a really expensive date with my man...(we are lousy window shoppers) but we get a lot of mileage out of it and have never looked back.

With Cayman's new found mobility, his "hanging" is better described as rolling, so I sit beside him to keep him from turbo-ing right off the cushions. That's where I am now, and that's why I have time to post a blog entry. It's always nice when motherhood duties (keep child alive) collide with personal indulgences (blogging about it) to create the kind of multitasking that is enjoyable and inspiring rather than the usual feats of multitasking madness (applying mascara with one hand, clipping child's fingernails with the other, all while driving with the knee). You think I'm joking.

My older kids went shoe shopping with dad and my two year old is out here taking pictures with my phone--now that he has finished playing drums on the metal mesh laundry hamper he insisted I wear upside down on my head for him to pound on. Yeah, I'm a sucker for agreeing to it, but had you seen that look in his eyes you would have done the same.

It is cool enough outside to wear my traveling SIB sweatshirt (more on that later) and nobody expects dinner on soccer practice nights, sooooo, it's just me, a cool breeze, a laptop, and two of the world's finest creations--if I do say so myself--with nothing but time to enjoy the moment.

Now here's my dirty little secret: When I walk back inside this post will become null and void as I am hit with a wall of awaiting responsibility. I'm not even half way through my stack of Propostion 8 phone calls. I haven't finished (or started) a teacher letter due tomorrow. I have laundry accumulating in the garage, and my daughter's thank you letters are in the same 'waiting for stamps' pile they've been in for a week. Not to mention my house could double as an obstacle course for all the random things that need picking up.

So if you should peek over my back fence tonight and find a sleeping mound of mama glued to the patio furniture, you'll know I wasn't woman enough to face the inside duties just yet. But maybe you'll be kind enough to praise my economical tactics (getting my money's worth out of this patio furniture), and I will be respectable once again.