This post (mostly) gripe free! I'd guess it to be 97% free of complaints of any kind!

Lily and me at the powderhorn get together. Photos by Amy Wurdock...all rights reserved, or something like that.

Blanked! That's okay, my kiss-landing percentage is around 50%. With Abby it's higher, and sometimes peppered with tongue. Blech.

I've been warned that if I gripe about anything else in tonight's post, I will lose a reader. But I ask you this: how would she know what's going on with her kids if she stops reading?!? Ha! Empty threats, Jenner.

But let me just say one thing. I biked to my Dad's today, and there was construction on the LRT bike trail. Seriously, contruction has run rampant and it must be stopped. Okay, that's all.

What can I write about a Sunday so blissfully bereft of any pulse-pounding happenings. The girls and us parents went to a new playground today. We're expanding our horizons, dragging a toe in the waters of Minneapolis' public parks system. I think it would be a fun Saturday project to try and bring the kids to every single park/playground in the city. Maybe a Saturday and a Sunday. I can only imagine how easy it would be for the kids to be plopped into a swing, given two mighty pushes, then wrenched back out and into the car again. As it is, if we spend less than a solid hour at the playground, they make an earsplitting case for staying just a bit longer.

Sometime this week, I listened during my commute to an NPR story about Ricky Skaggs. It was a good piece; my interest was held far better than during their normal daily lap around the economy/health care pool. He spoke about his baptism into music-making, when his father slipped a mandolin into his bed while he was sleeping. When the young Ricky woke up, there was a mandolin next to him. I loved the spontaneity of that act. It reminded me of the random things my parents did for us. I recall a night in Duluth when they - possibly tipped off by the nightly news, I don't know - tore me out of bed so we could drive into the country (this was Duluth, so the country was really just a few minutes away) and watch a meteor shower that was peaking that night. Could have been the Perseids, maybe the Leonids.

One of my greatest fears as a parent (other than my kids turning invariably into jerks) is that I won't attain a happy level of spontaneous events in the girls' lives. I didn't fear this pre-kids; now, though, when I find myself thinking back on our daily lives and the schedules carved out of routine, it gives me pause. I need to remember to be ready at all times to whip the kids out of bed to show them something awesome.

Since they're too young to remember things, I think I have a couple years to prepare. I'll plan to master spontaneity in the meantime.

Day two hundred and sixteen.

Animal cracker goes in the hand. Hand goes in the mouth. Shark is in the mouth. Our shark.