A quick update

• We've started our summertime Wednesday AM playgroups with Maia's future classmates at her preschool. This morning we had a lovely time in the hot sun at Lillie Park with a lot of three- and four-year-olds. Maia struggled a bit with some of the social dynamics of playing in a bigger group (about 15 kids) of children around her age, but after some initial misunderstandings, all was well. I can tell for sure that with all of the talking and negotiating that was going on, Maia's bound to have some hurt feelings along the way as she learns to navigate real friendships on a daily basis (rather than the imaginary label "friends" that we put onto babies and toddlers who aren't really interacting with each other in that way--it's out-of-bounds developmentally). She's going to learn so much from this experience.
• Maia has her "Becoming Brothers and Sisters" class tonight at the U of M Hospital. It's a class offered by my employer (the Lamaze Family Center), and I used to teach it over at U of M. She is so very, very excited--she's going to be bummed to wait a few hours after her naptime ends before we gather up and head over to the hospital. I'll definitely bring my camera for this one. :)
• Our CSA share starts this weekend, finally! This, to me, is the true start of summer.
• Maia's swimming class ended on Monday, and her last soccer game is coming up on Saturday. We're definitely in a big transitional period right now as a family, checking things off our to-do list for the year in a way that seems to follow the academic year's calendar, still, even though neither Brian nor I works in an academic setting.
• Labor preparation has begun: I've made a playlist of lots of my favorite music on my iPhone, I've bought clothes to wear during labor (no hospital gowns this time), and one of these days I'm going to go buy my labor snacks at REI: PowerBars and electrolyte gummies and all of that stuff. I'm completing my 34th week of pregnancy this week.
• Brian continues to ride his bike to work nearly every day (I think he's driven twice since the beginning of May). We're doing a great job working as a one-car family right now. :) We're saving a ton of money on gas, which has been lovely, and with both of our cars paid-off and several years old at this point (purchased in 2003 and 2004), it's nice not to be putting additional wear-and-tear on one of them. My car gets average mileage in the mid to upper twenties, and while there's no question we could be doing A LOT better in terms of our carbon footprint, I think we're managing O.K. as a family in the 'burbs.

Happy Bloomsday everyone! (I'm a nerd.)