Unchained

When I'm not painting, I'm either at my real job, or busy being a mom-chauffeur-housekeeper-cook. My kids don't differentiate weekdays and weekends, rather - school days, mommy days and family days. Always working, always busy, always, always, always. Saturday was a rare day when we were all at home, all day. We decided to use the annual pass that will expire in June that we've never used, and go to the zoo. I had marked on my calendar some time ago that there was a Disney Princess & The Frog party at the zoo...so H wanted to wear one of her princess dresses and a tiara. Turns out, I marked the wrong day on the calendar and we were a day early. H was unfazed. Then again, it is never outside the realm of possibility for her to wear a princess dress, gloves and tiara out in public, so no big deal. It was nice to get out and get inspiration from a new place. We haven't been to the zoo in maybe two years, so there were lots of new exhibits and it was great to watch both kids discovering things and being all cute and delightful. The Boy always does well on excursion where we can keep moving (he's got a lot of energy) and H was a real trooper skipping through the zoo in pink tulle. I was happy to see that the kids were just as interested in the art and architecture of the zoo, as in the animals. We were eating lunch in one of the restaurants and I mentioned it was my favorite because it is in Arts & Crafts style. Six-year-old H said, "of course, because of all the squares" and my heart melted. We all spent some time looking at the Salvador Dali sketches in the elephant museum. The Boy borrowed my camera and took some great shots from interesting perspectives. Even though I had three or four paintings in progress at home, it was nice to just take a day off - a real day off - and have some fun with no agenda whatsoever.