Mother's Day

It was a tough Mother's Day weekend with Sophie. Her fever finally subsided on Saturday afternoon. So, on Sunday, we threw caution to the wind (silly us) and decided to make a day of it. We went to church, where Sophie received a special medallion as one of the children baptized in the past year. After that, we decided to go into Boston for the Ducklings Day Parade, an annual event held by the Friends of the Garden. Named for the famous book, Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey, kids from all over the city dress up as their favorite character from the book (most are ducks, but we saw a few Officer Michaels out there) and parade around Beacon Hill, led by the Harvard Marching Band. The parade ends up in the Public Garden.

The weather was beautiful and we arrived just in time to register and get in "line" (I use that word loosely, as it was CHAOS!!!). While we were waiting to start, Sophie decided she didn't want to be in the stroller - that she wanted me to carry her. I figured it was a temporary thing...HA! She started crying as soon as we started moving...I'm not sure if she didn't like the crowd and the noise, or if she was upset that this was infringing on her naptime, but she was NOT a happy little duck.

Here we are in Louisburg Square (where Senator John Kerry lives):

She did manage a smile after the parade was over...the blossoms on the cherry tree made her happy:

Heck, we even bumped into Mayor Menino in the park:

As if we weren't already pushing our luck, we decided to walk a few blocks to Jacob Wirth's, a nice pub in the theatre district. She wailed for the first few minutes we were there, but then settled down and ate some yummy french fries. We, however, were too stressed at this point to enjoy a relaxing meal. After lunch, she cried in her stroller and insisted that I hold her hand walking alongside it. Luckily, she fell asleep in about two minutes and slept the whole way home!

She's still sick today - no fever, but so much coughing that we decided to keep her home and get her to the doctor, who pronounced it as something we couldn't do much about except continue to give her lots of fluid and rest. I'm exhausted and can't WAIT to go back to work tomorrow! She's going to school, whether she likes it or not!!!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that K and the girls bought me a beautiful 5-6 foot magnolia tree for the yard!!! We walked around the yard a bit last night to pick out a good planting spot, so I'll have to get the shovel out in the next few days. And EJ made me a beautiful bookmark at school. They made the paper themselves, and the wrote their own "I am..." poems on them. Hers brought me to tears. She's a deep one, that EJ!