3-Day Weekend, kind of

I am back at work slogging through a burgeoning inbox after a Monday spent cavorting around Austin with Landon and my mom. My mom is a high school biology teacher also pursuing her master's degree in the spare 5 minutes she's not grading AP labs. She makes me look like I have loads of free time so we don't see her much, but it's her Spring Break and my dad is in Europe for work so she drove over for a 20-hour visit (she's now off to San Antonio to visit her parents and then back home to catch up in graduate work).

If you know my mom, you know that any visit, no matter how short, must involve shoe shopping (some day I envision a blog dedicated entirely to a post a day of her shoes, they are amazing and occasionally ridiculous, and only she could pull them off), so we headed to DSW with a Landon who was utterly delighted by the angled mirrors, low benches to bang on, and long aisles to race across. I think it's now second to PetSmart as his favorite erranding destination. Due to a big sale and my mom's bad influence I came home with four pairs of shoes- but they were badly needed, my mom swore that if I wore my stained white flip flops one more time she'd refuse to acknowledge me in public. Now I have some cute, comfy summer shoes and a pair of brown heels so I can finally wear my $7 brown pants. The brown heels were their own bargain- originally over $100, marked down to $40, and 50% off, so practically free, and because they allow me to wear a skirt and pants that had previously been sitting unworn and worthless in my closet, I think I somehow just made money. We also went to the park, watched Landon run around in our front yard, and drank wine on the back deck while Landon stacked and unstacked the dogs' food bowls. It was really nice to see her and spend a day relaxing with her and Landon. Generally we see only my family around holidays and it's just more busy and stressful when you're the only one with a young child- a one-day vacation in our own house was perfect.

I had to spend Sunday working to get Monday off (we're right in the middle of depositions on this case and very, very busy, I was thankful the partner in charge was agreeable and almost adamant that I spend the whole day with my mom) and we had the Indians over for darts and a veggie and chicken patty cookout. It was the first time work has truly conflicted with my social plans- I had to keep running back inside to my laptop to do some project or assignment when my blackberry buzzed. (I'd volunteered to be "on call" as things came up while two partners were writing a brief- I probably would have been asked these questions anyway and I was still very grateful for everyone being so nice about Monday.) Luckily the Indians all love Landon, darts, and the combination of a soccer ball and our cul-de-sac, so everyone had lots of fun even as I intermittently toiled away in the study. One of my favorite moments was hearing Vijay read Landon "Brown Bear Brown Bear." His English is excellent, but his accent is very heavy and he just naturally puts inflection on different words than I do- the story sounded so different! Landon was entranced and brought him several more books and listened with wide eyes as though he'd never heard them before. His reading of "Is Your Mama a Llama" also made me crack up, we're really going to miss them when they go back to India after graduation.

There's a green St. Patrick's Day krispy kreme sitting on my desk, so I need to attend to that immediately and then get started on my growing to-do list. It's a gorgeous day and I plan to be home in time to watch Landon jump up and down (new trick, requires much concentration) and mow the cement on the side walk. Swimming along, indeed.