Alone time with a book

I am still trying to figure out how to use this fancy schmacy camera. I would probably have a better handle on it if I could actually sit down and read my For Dummies book for more than 73 seconds at a time.

I can't read it during the day because my daughter has two new endless attributes: Imagination and Energy. These two new attributes have me endlessly playing with bubbles, sipping *tea*, changing babydoll diapers, making puzzles work, pushing swings, building sand castles, blah blah blah.

Don't get me wrong, I love it.

She has so many ideas and is so excited for so many little things. She wants her baby dolls tucked in a certain way, her tea is sipped out of only particular vessels, she knows her front porch bubbles don't smell as good as her back patio bubbles. She plays in her kitchen, slaving away over turkey potpies and margaritas. She wants to spin in circles, swing higher, run at mach speed through the yard. She pulls her stool over to the sink to *help* with dinner, with dishes, with washing the counter. She wants to help me make the bed and to buckle herself into her car seat. She waters our flowers and picks me clovers. She endlessly asks for Maggie, Elise, Jackson and Rylan. She NEVER stops. Ever.

(As I attempt to write this, she is rolling herself off the couch, shrieking uncontrollably and terrorizing the cat. Endlessly and loudly.)

But all this independence and imagination and energy, mean that I can't sit quietly under the patio umbrella reading and sipping suntea (hey, a girl can dream) and by the time I make it to bed, I pretty much pass out.

So, I still don't have this camera figured out ~ not that that stops me from playing with it. And now when Addie sees it pointed at her she practices her smiles...these are some of her best.