“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.” - Thomas Merton

I've written about our Tuesday's here before. On Tuesday,E's dad has a weekly practice he attends (along with many of our friends) and I've been trying to make those Tuesday evenings a focus-time for E and I to have some time where we do something fun, just he and I.

For a few weeks (while the weather was still lousy here) I was taking him to Whole Foods, letting him select what he wants to try ( or what I think he'll eat) from the immense buffet of pre-made food and we've been having dinner together. However, there are a ton of distractions there (last week I think he fell in love with a much older girl -- she was easily 7 or 8 -- who was wearing a full ballet outfit, classical tutu and tiara included) and he tends to want to people watch and not eat. The people watching in and of itself isn't a problem, but considering how tight our budget is it was somewhat frustrating to me to spend ten or twelve dollars ($7.99/lb for the buffet) on dinner for him (with me eating the leftovers) and still have a hungry toddler at the end of the meal.

Last night, with the advent of better weather and longer days, we took a different approach. I loaded him in the car and bought him a huge treat -- a fast food kids meal from the burger joint drive-through -- then we went to watch daddy at practice (which was being held outside for the first time this season). He ate everything, watched practice with rapt attention (Dadda! Dadda!), then ran amok on the grass until it got dark and he was so tired he could barely put one foot in front of the other.

The running amok part I hope will always stay with me -- his warmest sweater, black, with his blond curls blowing in the breeze as he ran and ran and laughed and laughed and laughed.

For the first time since we've started, I felt like, at the end, his evening had been as special as mine had been.