March has crept in as quietly as the lamb of spring, and we’re still waiting for winter’s lion. Today: 72. Tomorrow: as sunny and beautiful as the grins on the girls’ faces. Speaking of girls… Riona is talking in complete sentences now. She not only echoes everything her sisters say, she echoes all the wonderful and not-so-wonderful things we say, and then asks questions about them. “Oh crap!” I might yell out, and Riona persistently, repeatedly asks, “What’s oh crap, Mama?” until I respond with a reasonable answer. Mythili, our realist, explains everything to me in simple terms. On a recent walk around the neighborhood, Mythili and Riona rode in the stroller, following Isabella on her bike in the bike lane. In between the bike lane and the sidewalk is a parking lane. “What’s that, Mama?” Mythili asked. “A parking lane.” She curiously looked at the absence of cars (come on, we live in the suburbs, everyone has a garage), and replied, “Oh, OK. When one of the kids in these houses has a birthday party, the parking lane is filled with cars!” (Duh, that’s what it’s for, Mama…) Isabella is now a burgeoning mathematician. As we discovered only two months ago, Bruce and I are responsible for teaching her to read in English, since at school she is learning to read and write in Spanish. While I’ve tried to work on her reading, her true excitement is about math. “Guess what, Mama?” she asked on the ride home today. “Did you know that 5 tens makes fifty and that 10 tens makes 100?” She also has a rather large math book that she will gladly spend hours working on. But when I ask her to read, “Can I just read one sentence?” is about the answer I receive. Perhaps she will fulfill my parents’ dream for me, of becoming an engineer. 
We have relished the last two weekends, mostly work-free, though Bruce’s homework and my U. of Phoenix training have snuck into our lives daily. Last weekend we spent the night at Grandma and Granpa’s, then took the girls sledding in Rocky Mountain National Park. Though there wasn’t much snow, it was enough to entertain those younger than 6. We went out to lunch in Estes Park and, as usual, were disappointed by the lack of decent restaurants there. I think we’ve tried just about every one over the years! But we redeemed it with some delicious homemade candy from one of the endless sweet shops.
This past weekend, I took the girls on a ten-mile bike ride. Earlier in the week, when we discovered Bruce’s tire was still flat, I reluctantly piled all three of them into the trailer (which technically is for 2 kids and has a weight limit of 100 pounds, but who’s counting?) and rode them to the library, a 6-mile roundtrip. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as intolerable as it sounds, so on Saturday, another beautiful day, we rode along the Tollgate Creek Trail and stopped at the illustrious “blue” playground in Horseshoe Park. The girls were thrilled, and I felt satisfied that, pulling them which is at the least equal to my weight, 10 miles really equals 20. That afternoon, a former coworker of mine had a “recession” party. I think we all needed one, because that was about the best party I’ve been to in years! The next day, we relaxed, went to the library, and played games all afternoon.
Life is all about the weekends, sleeping in, filling the days with fun activities, and forgetting about why we have to go back to work… at least for a while. And with the beautiful weather we are so lucky to have, and the three glorious girls we are blessed with, it feels like the weekend every day.
