Happy 5-month Birthday, or How to Enjoy a Lunch in Early March

1. Walk a mile with 3 kids plus one beautiful and outgoing puppy.
2. Order soup from Blackbird Bakery and eat it outside in the pedestrian zone.
(The tomato-artichoke soup with a GF herb roll is especially nice.)
3. Meet 20+ people who love Corgis and chatting.
4. Meet a family visiting Bainbridge for the day who get their beautiful 3-year-old Corgi out of their car to meet your puppy.
5. Meet a delightful and talented artist whose work is currently showing at the Director’s Gallery.
6. Meet a man who lived for a winter in Tasha Tudor’s house.
7. Take your dishes back into Blackbird, encourage the kids to view the sweets as an inspiration display for making their own treats later.
8. Walk a mile home in the crisp air and bright sunshine.

Hodgepodge night in shades of green

A: (Running into my bedroom to tell me what the barfing sounds downstairs are all about) We found stuffing left over from Thanksgiving!

Me: That’s what you get when Mama’s in school.

A: (Wide-eyed) You get moss on your food.

So this is what it’s like to have a responsible child

Earlier this morning:
Ashley to 6-yr-old A: So, your birthday’s coming up. Do you want to go on a birthday trip or have a birthday party with friends?
A: Definitely a party with friends. Here’s the deal: I make the decorations with a liiitle bit of help from S, and you make the treats. You can either buy cupcakes or make them if you have time, Mama.
B: Who do you want to invite?
A: Let me get the list. (A. runs out of the bedroom and comes back with his class list, which has several names circled. Drawings of birthday presents in the margins are his version of notes.)

Autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The three needs of adolescence show up early and stay late.

Signs and semiotics

This sign is posted outside a motel in rural Oregon. With a little punctuation, it could spell out a number of different things.

Please do not back in, manager! (Apparently, the manager has a bad habit and possibly a history of poor depth perception.)

Please do! Not back in, manager. (The latest in a passive-aggressive campaign against the employees with sticky fingers and an open cash till?)

Please do not [spit loogies onto the sidewalk outside your room. Although that would be slightly better than the carpet, come to think of it. Try the sink?] Back in [5 minutes, the time it will take me to hose the sidewalks down.] –[The only slightly put-out] Manager. (This wouldn’t all fit on the sign, and in trying to pare it down, the manager was taken with a fit of over-zealous editing.)

Please do not back in. –Manager. (Oh, alright.)

Easily fixed

During cuddle time last night, A. looks at me with tears in his eyes: Mama, I don’t want Papa to go to Haiti. I’m scared.

Me: Oh, sweetheart, don’t worry. He’ll be fine. He’ll be safe.

I stroke his hair.

A: I’m also crying because Papa gets Power Bars and I don’t.

Remains of the day, remains of the garden

Yesterday evening, I took the camera out to the backyard to try to capture the strange and beautiful pearlescent light that’s been hovering lately. While my eyes saw things as bathed with silvery light, it was just too dark for shooting without a tripod. These couple of shots are the least blurry of the bunch–the first is looking over the backyard to the west, and the second is of my asparagus berries. Pretty, huh?

I’m just waiting for the first killing frost–so far, the nasturtiums and the artichoke act like it’s still high summer, but wowsa–is it ever cold this morning! 36 degrees while I stood out with the kiddos for their morning bus a few minutes ago.

As we trudged up the hill toward the east, A. said, “Look at the fogwork! It’s beautiful.” The clouds were cresting and curling in that same amazing light as our teeth chattered and we kissed goodbye for the day.

Little sponges

On the way to the airport, 5-year-old A. says to me:

“I know a good way to get money for a Wii, Mama. There’s a thing called My Gold Envelope where you send gold jewelry, gold watches, or any gold you have lying around. The gold goes to a refinery, and they pay you by turning it into cash. A small amount can be enough for a down payment for a car or a flat screen t.v.”

Oh, really?

“Uh huh. And there’s also a thing called Bump-Its and they last all day long. They bump up your hair and they’re super-secure so they won’t fall out! That would be good for you, Mama.”

Uhh, no. No, no no no no no. And no more Qubo!

They don’t call history his story for nothing

S., trying to choose a historical figure to depict for a school project, and frustrated by the ideas K. and I have been pitching to her:

“I don’t want to dress up as a boy and I don’t want to be a dead wife!”

I’d rather not

…get a tetanus booster in the arm again, though I will in 10 years’ time. Maybe writing it down will lodge it in the old memory bank–I got a tetanus booster in August of 2009!

Next time, when the nurse says, “Hmm–we don’t have a record of you getting a tetanus booster. Has it been more than ten years?” I won’t blithely answer, “I’m sure it has. Let’s do it today, can we?” And then realize two days later, when my arm is swollen and cranky and ouchy, and my in-house doctor says, “Oh, yeah, that can happen when you get tetanus boosters closer than two years apart.”

Oh. Wait.

New game/old game

7:15 pm last night:

K. and S. are playing checkers on the ferry from Friday Harbor to Anacortes. The boat is lurching more than usual, and S. looks up from the board.

“Ugh. K, are you gonna insult me if I say I’m a little seasick?”

“No, of course not…weirdo.”

S. laughs, and I think what a good sport she is, how they’re bantering without fighting, and a warm motherly glow spreads through me until I realize S. is cackling with glee at finally jumping two of K’s guys in a row.