Tree Top Siesta

Are they cute, or what?  

Divine wasn't sure she wanted to go back to school.  

In fact that's exactly what she tells me the night before, 

but she comes home with a smile on her face and a new friend made.

Olive can't wait to get to school.  
Everyone loves Olive, the girls say.  
She walks into school and gets swarmed and picked up and hugged.  
Our little social butterfly.

Ryan tells me that on the walk to school Pearl gives his hand two squeezes.  
He looks down at her, gives her two squeezes and a smile.  
She returns a weak smile, 
and a look in her eyes that discloses her trepidation, 
but tries to be brave, with her John Deere lunch box in hand.

The rest of us return home for an assessment of the morning: success.  Ryan is ours for the day, so we enjoy the rest of our quiet morning, and then make some homemade pizza with fresh mozzarella, asparagus, extremely red tomatoes and pesto.  Clover goes down for a nap and now we are three.  We climb up into the tree house with cold water and Boggle, barely fitting our big bodies in the child size opening.  We sit and I shake the letters in my hands because the lid has been lost.  I like to win and secretly think Ryan lets me.  Or else I'm just really good.  Yes.  I'm very good at Boggle.  Then [and this is the best part], Ryan suggests we take a nap and I declare I could never fall asleep.  We lay down anyway and Azure climbs up and down and up and down fetching an umbrella, pencils, and a cup while we sleep[!] so lovely.  

We awake just in time to retrieve the school girls.  

Smiles on their faces tell us everything, 

but of course the walk home is the perfect excuse to delight in the baby Dill minutia.