Peonies

It was hot, hot, hot and humid at our house today.  The temperature has been 93 degrees for the past three days in a row.  I have not been properly prepared for this, nor have the children.  The girls woke from their naps hot, sticky, and grumpy.  We all had a snack and then swimsuits were found in the back recesses of our dresser drawers.  The girls wore these ballerina swim suits last year, I had hoped to squeeze their wee tushes into them for one more swim season, but today will be the last my girls will don these cute suits.  They looked like stuffed sausages and the straps left red marks on their shoulders when I peeled the suits off their bodies. 

Hugo could not wait for me to hose him down.  He ran circles around me, pleading with me to not spray him and then complaining that I wasn't paying attention to the game.  I arched the spray of water above the girls heads so as to feel like a gentle rain falling upon their heads, they cried and ran for the sandbox.  Marlo acted as though it were pure torture I had just subjected her to.  I stuck a foot out to test the temperature of the water, our village water is quite cold... oops.  I myself was content to sit upon the grass and spray my feet to cool myself.  Hugo tried his best to turn the hose on me, somehow I convinced him to not go there.  Marlo and I have a lot in common.

The girls dug the plastic lawn mowers out of the bin and before I knew it, they were both down the lane.  I abandoned Hugo and the hose to make sure they didn't continue on down to the road.  The girls pulled their lawn mowers into the island garden before I reached them.  Out my camera came.  I couldn't resist giving Marlo and Sabine each a peony from the island garden.  They sniffed and sniffed and passed their flower under their sisters nose and onto me for further sniffing and acknowledgment of the wonderful smell.  Lots of, "Hmmmm, yesss, that smells nice!" was said by me.  I know I took a million photos of this peony sniffing process, but the sniffing went on and on and on and so naturally, so did the photos.  When we finally caught up with Hugo, he was sad that I had not picked a flower for him, my sensitive, sweet boy.  So off he went to the island garden to pick one for himself and then an entirely new round of sniffing and "Hmmmm, yesss, that smells nice!" began.

P.S.  Sabine now says baby and wow.