About a week ago at dinner, Wyatt said to me, "Mom. I have a great idea! On the next Momma Day, let's visit Andy at Rainbow and make that special smoothie we like, but let's have it in the morning so that I'm not so full at dinner. And then when it's quiet time, we can get lawn chairs and blankets and lots of books and have quiet time outside. And when quiet time is over, let's just keep reading! For snack, we can have bagels and cream cheese, and stay outside until it is time for dinner." I agreed that this sounded like an excellent plan, but suggested that we could have the smoothie for lunch--can you imagine? drinking your lunch?--instead of in the morning. Wyatt agreed with a satisfied grin, and he asked me to put the entire plan in the calendar.

Every day or so, for the next week, he asked if the Special Momma Day was in the calendar and if the plan was still on. It was. And then finally, Special Momma Day, otherwise known as Thursday, July 30th, was upon us.

As things turned out, Special Momma Day was made even more special (and slightly more complicated) by the delivery of Wyatt's big boy bed. We got going early so that we could head to Rainbow Coop to visit with Andy, sample some cheese, and get our shopping done. We headed home just in time to meet our bed delivery guy, Jeremy.

Jeremy was so gracious. He had an attentive audience while he assembled every single peg, screw, board and wheel to the new bed, and it seemed not to bother him at all. When something didn't go exactly as he had originally planned, he went out of his way to explain how he would move forward and how the minor change he was about to make would cause no problems whatsoever, and might even improve things. In spite of (or perhaps because of) his thinking out loud, I felt self-conscious "supervising" the assembly. For a moment, I considered leaving Wyatt so he could watch the process on his own. But then I realized that if I left, it would be worse, because I would be that lady who expected the delivery guy to watch her kid while he assembled furniture. So I matched my mental discomfort with physical discomfort, smushed myself next to Wyatt in his toddler bed, and settled in to watch.

Wyatt reveled in and marveled at the entire hour-long process, but he particularly loved tightening the last bolt and drilling in the final screw. As for me, my self-consciousness lifted somewhat after lending Jeremy an Allen key, and it disappeared once I had given him a tip.

Because of the bed delivery, smoothie lunch was an hour late. And because there were no gluten-free bagels at either of the grocery stores I had visited during the week, we opted for pretzel sticks with cream cheese-as-dip for snack. These adjustments did nothing to disrupt a perfectly planned and executed afternoon of smoothies, lawn chairs, books, snacks, a game of catch, and butterfly, bird and plane watching in the garden.

It would have never occurred to me that such a "boring" afternoon could be so anticipated and so special. We didn't go anywhere, we did nothing new, and everything we did was within the normal rhythm of our day. Minor tweaks and changes elevated things from normal to utterly amazing.

As you might guess, it was challenging to transition from such an epic afternoon to dinnertime: "NOOOOOOOOO! I WANT TO PLAY FOR A HUNDRED AND EIGHTY MORE MINUTES! NOT FIVE!" But my suggestion that we go inside to make a minty melon salad for dinner that we could eat with cottage cheese was just bizarre enough of a dinner suggestion to be an easy sell. A bonus for me was getting to use the three melons that had somehow managed to accumulate in our refrigerator.

Smoothie Recipe:

Lite Bite on Union Street in San Francisco makes the most amazing Omega Smoothie. Even though I am a regular customer, they won't give me the recipe. Fair enough. But it hasn't stopped me from attempting to recreate it on my own. I'm getting very close. Here's what I put in the blender yesterday, and it made two smoothies.

About 12 oz of unsweetened cashew milk, frozen in ice cube trays
8 pitted Medjool dates
1 tablespoon chia seeds
2 tablespoons of almond butter
1 small banana
a splash of vanilla extract
About a 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
About 1/8 teaspoon allspice
2-3 tablespoons cacao nibs