In the mountains

We spent today up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We were going to hike, but time was limited so we stopped at several lookouts on Skyline Drive and had a picnic lunch. It was about 40 degrees up there and quite windy – very cold! Jake loved it and Mike took many pix so they’ll be posted soon. Mike was tired and cranky the whole way up but seemed to calm down after lunch.

The view was mostly clear and it was very sunny and warm directly in the sun –and Jake loved watching the hawks circling overhead.

At one point he kept circling me with one hand brushing me as he went around singing “ee-eye-ee-eye-oh” in his halting soprano. So cute!

We made it home by 2 in time for Jake to have a 2 hour nap – a good day for everyone! Jake and I went grocery shopping when he awoke, and we saw two Mommy friends there. Dinner was garlic and parsley angel hair pasta with pesto sauce from Mona Lisa for us, and palak paneer, sweet potato fries and hot dog chunks with cheese sauce for Jake, finished with his favorite dessert: "blue ice," which is blue colored frozen ice in a clear plastic tube.

His ghost now has a name: Boo. Boo chased us all around after dinner and scared Mom and Dad terribly. When we turned it around and used Boo to scare Jake he shrieked and wiggled in horror just as we had done. What a good mimic.

At bedtime he fixed cars in his garage, collected ice drippings in small bowls he placed under Boo (who has a surface that looks a lot like ice), spoke to Daddy on several pretend phone calls to his garage customers, and told us he was putting his "money in the bank," when placing coins in his frog bank. It's like a switch turned on somewhere and the brain was just on overdrive.

I had one interesting work call today. With Camilla S. who is also a mommy working from home, now in NJ. She is consulting to large financial firms about environmental and social responsibility issues. She is completely impressive and it was interesting also to talk about her attempts to try to work full time with two small kids, and why she decided to give up the work. She kept saying she simply never saw her daughter, her second child, didn't know her, and decided to give up the high-powered corporate job to not miss her daughter's childhood. They moved out to the burbs from a 2 bedroom apt in Brooklyn when the daughter was born. She misses the city but the space and draw of a house forced them to move and they love being in a house with offices and bedrooms for all and a real guestroom. The town she lives in is very pricey so her husband must be high-powered as well. Always interesting to see more signs of the balancing act we all face!