Not so fond of Mondays

I just really don't care for Mondays. Before John and I had kids, I always dreaded Monday mornings. We'd spend the whole weekend together, then have to enter our separate worlds of work and school during the week. I hated the feeling of separateness (is that even a word?). After our children started arriving, I dreaded Mondays even more, probably because I lost my helper! I love it when all of us are together, and Monday mornings just seem to pull us all apart. Now Abbey and I dread Mondays together. John usually goes to REI, and Sarah and Will go off to school. She usually spends the first hour after they all leave whining and crying. And many times I want to do the same. It just feels right when we're all together at home! Another reason I'm ready for summer.

Speaking of summer...we're not experiencing much of that today. We spent a good part of the weekend outside in the beautiful springtime weather. Yesterday, we didn't go outside without wearing shorts, sunglasses, and sunscreen. Today, the kids left for school wearing coats, hats, and gloves. That's because it was snowing. Yep, you heard me correctly. Snow. It's still snowing right now. Not a lot, but those are definitely snowflakes. Weird, huh? I think I mentioned before that April is our snowiest month. Not true this year though. We are WAY behind on snowfall and things here are so dry. That means we have higher risk of forest fires. Colorado has already seen more fires than last year, and we're barely into the fire season. Scary! So today's snow is very welcome.

Yesterday Abbey found a darkling beetle outside and she put it in a container because she wanted it to be her "pet". She screams and comes running inside if she sees an ant within 6 feet of her, but she's taken a liking to beetles. Go figure. Will and Sarah informed her that hers is a darkling beetle, and Will told her that it is harmless, so she walks around telling me that it's only a harmless beetle. Kinda funny. Well, she's been keeping the container in her room and she goes to check on it about every 10 minutes. Last night before bed, the beetle escaped. I think it was because she tried to transfer it to a plastic easter egg. She cried and cried because we made her go to bed without finding it. By the way, this beetle is about 2cm long. I kinda figured we'd come across a dead beetle sometime this week, but when I was making up her bed this morning, guess what I found on her pillowcase? The harmless beetle. It kinda grossed me out--but she was elated that we found it, and has been playing with it all morning. I'm actually surprised it has survived as long as it has the way she's been handling it.