Summer play

I should be working more on the house right now but I realize I've let the blog slip.

It was super hot last week. While my neighbors did fun things like go to the beach, we went the easy way out and filled the kiddie pool with a couple inches of cold hose water. When it got really hot we went to the grocery store to cool off in the ridiculously cold AC. The girls were irritable with each other at home but once we got to the store and I gave in to Molly's request to ride in a "cart with cars," they might as well have been at an amusement park. They rode side by side in the plastic car thing in the front of the cart and were the best of friends. Kate gave Molly big baby kisses all the way down the dairy aisle. They got a piece of ham at the deli and bits of banana bread in the bakery. They had so much fun. A woman stopped me to say how delightful these girls are. Rather than mention how Kate bites lately and Molly has a tantrum at least once a day, I just nodded and agreed.

Here they are in a sweet moment in our tiny, weed-filled garden.

We got water balloons during the heat wave but didn't get a chance to use them until Tuesday when Lex and Eve were here and it was barely shorts weather. That didn't stop the kids from having a good time with water.

And a good time playing inside ...

and outside!

OK, back to the "to do" list.

Scenes from life

Where to begin ...

We just had Kate's follow-up doctor appointment to figure out what's going on with her and we don't know anything yet. The doctor wanted to give her three months to see what would happen, both with her congested breathing and with her slow weight gain. Well, it's 3 months later and she's still a noisy breather and still hovering just above 19 pounds. We ended up having another blood draw (the woman was amazing, Kate watched the whole process and never made a sound) and are going to bring in another stool sample. He's mostly worried about her weight. At least she's growing taller, that's a good sign.

We're still in limbo with plans for the future, so I think I'll wait to go into that until we know more.

In the meantime, here's what we've been up to while I've been not blogging.

We took a Saturday morning trip to Drumlin Farm to see the animals the weekend before last. We went on a hay ride, saw the chickens and sheep and goats. Kate's favorite part was the barn cat. I liked the enormous mother pig who rolled over for just a few minutes to let the piglets nurse then got sick of it and, despite the squealing and mayhem, rolled back and closed up the milk shop.

We just got back from a weekend in Rochester. The girls may have been sick of their car seats after all that driving, but they can't resist when the car seats are in Grandma's garage. :)

Molly is now in her last week of summer camp. We missed the first half of last week because she had a fever. I think she was just burned out emotionally, too, from the previous week -- going to school every morning, playing with the neighbor kids every afternoon, a birthday party on Saturday. It was good for her to rest a little. Now she's back into it, though. When I picked her up yesterday the teacher apologized because Molly's hands were dyed red -- they were painting silks to make butterfly wings. I wish I could go to camp!

Other scenes from the week ...

Kate's favorite toys lately are objects from the recycle bin, particularly containers with screw tops. I think Molly put the backpack on her and that's a bagel chunk in her mouth.

The girls and Teddy.

Molly eating plain yogurt. Our little goat ate Kiwi skin the other day ... just because. She also is into picking weeds out of the lawn where ever we are and nibbling them, something she learned in school apparently.

Silly Kate. How is she not gaining weight? She eats peanut butter by the fistful!

Last day of school

Today was Molly's last day in Balsams (that's her classroom name). The kids had a normal first half of the morning, then parents and siblings were invited in for a puppet show put on by the teachers. It was amazing to see how much all of the children have grown!

We all went out side to the play yard afterward for a picnic lunch. Sarah, Molly's teacher, made a book for each child with photos of the child at school.

I think I'm taking the last day much harder than Molly. The school has only 25 students, many of whom are siblings or teachers' children, so it's a small community. One of the nicest things about Waldorf schools (which makes up for a lot of the fairy stuff and paper with rounded corners) is that they have lots of programs for parents and whole families.

I'm realizing that I've come to think of the school building as a clubhouse. There's always somebody there hanging around, often with a toddler, looking for somebody to talk to. Once a week there was a drop-in program for parents and young kids. Parent coffee once a month. For a while we had weekly doll-making sessions every week. Now it's over. Sniff.

Kinda. They're doing a summer program starting next week and I signed Molly up for all three weeks. I hope that wasn't a bad decision. It's the same hours as school, so it's kind of like a continuation, just with a different teacher and more watermelon. I think she'll have a good time. We'll see...

Memorial Day weekend

We had a great weekend but you'd never know it looking at the pictures. We went to VT for Lex's 7th birthday!! I even remembered my camera. Did I get a single picture of the birthday boy? NO! I got a lot of pictures like this ...

This was a safety day at the local high school. Molly was glued to Eve. They held hands. They made buttons, painted art projects, got fingerprinted, watched a dog demonstration. It was fun. The girls were so cute. I guess I was too busy watching and not snapping.

On the way home from their house Molly was almost asleep when she said, "Mommy, I want to live in New Hampshire." I asked her why. She said, "Because I love Eve so much."

(She meant Vermont. It was a long day.)

The pictures get worse from there. As in, we only have two pictures from the rest of the weekend. Do they capture the perfect weather? The hours that Jim played with Molly outside yesterday, carrying her around and making her giggle like a baby? The "flower gardens" that Molly has been making around the yard where she picks flowers and "plants" them in the dirt, all arranged like a garden? Kate being at perhaps the cutest age a human being ever goes through in their entire life?

Nope.

It's this.

Had to get out of the house Sunday so we could pretend we had a conflict with our next door neighbors' annual picnic, to which we were invited but didn't want to attend. This trip to Target just COULDN'T wait, right?

And this.

Back at the car after a mini hike at a nearby trail we'd never tried before.

That's right. Feel the excitement. Good times, great memories.


OK, maybe there was just one keeper in this photo collection. :)

Kate and her new best friend.

The 4-year-old mind

We're driving to school this morning and I'm thinking about the ordinary stuff -- did I remember extra socks for Molly's cubby, etc. -- and only half paying attention to Molly telling me that actually, for real, people in California are awake while we sleep. Somehow this leads to such questions as "Mommy, how does the sun move?" Then, "How does the moon move? How do the stars move? How does the Earth move? Can airplanes fly over water? How? What if there was an airport in the water?" Fortunately when I mentioned aircraft carriers that sent her off thinking out loud about how boats would bring the planes to a dock and people would walk off onto land. Phew!! It's not easy to keep up with a conversation with a 4-year-old.

Molly has had a lot of questions lately about where things come from. In the car the other day she wanted to know where all the trees came from and how there got to be so many. Another time she wanted to know where sheep come from. When we told her they came from other sheep she asked, but where did the first sheep come from? During snack yesterday she asked, detective-like, "When Daddy built the work bench in the basement, what did he build the work bench on?"

It's especially funny when one of these deep questions pops out because a good portion of the words coming out of Molly's mouth lately are gibberish and random phrases. The other day we were looking out the window at a woodpecker in our yard and Molly shouted, "Sweet mango!!!! Goober peas!!!" and on and on. I wish I remembered more of them.

Anywho....

My mom came out to visit, oh, two weeks ago? (stale blog news, sorry). We went to Boston just to walk around. And walk we did! We walked all the way from the aquarium to the public garden, stopping along the way for lunch, ice cream, water fountains, a playground, police horses and nesting swans. Then, like magic, the subway whisked us back to where we started (thank goodness, because none of us had any energy left!)

Molly visits the harbor seals outside the aquarium.

The swans are making a nest in the background of this photo. Molly didn't notice or care.

Neither did Kate. She was just glad to be out of the stroller.

Molly and Grandma watching the swan boats.

Back at the aquarium, looking at the boats. What a beautiful day!

Molly has a new best friend in the neighborhood, the little girl across the street who is only two months older. It's funny because they were in playgroup together and have know each other since they were toddlers but just noticed each other about three weeks ago. Most days after school now they arrange their own play dates (long, involved conversations with many trips into their respective houses to check with Mom about details) and either ride bikes and scooters on the sidewalk or play inside at either house.

Then at 3:20 Molly runs after Teddy's dad as he walks to the bus stop to get Teddy. Molly has been going with him (whenever we're home and she remembers) for many months. And for quite a while Teddy has refused to play with her. He (understandably) just wants to go inside and relax after school, especially now that he's into video games.

His dad has recently taken pity on Molly and tried very hard to get Teddy to play. No luck. We did lure him over a few times when made a balance beam out of a board and two buckets, but even that only goes so far with a kindergartener -- especially when Molly's bossy about who can set it up and what can be done on it.

Usually the closest she gets to playing with Teddy is at the house across the street. Her new friend has an older brother exactly Teddy's age. All four kids run around the front yard. A few days ago the mailman stopped to hand-deliver each child the mail and then gave them lollipops. I saw them out the window like this, sitting down to eat.

I love how kids these days are always wearing helmets, even when they're not on bikes. It's just too much trouble to take them off, I guess, when you're not riding.

Any Given Sunday

May Day, walking baby

Not much going on here, just routine.

Molly's school had a May Day celebration Tuesday on what was possibly the first gray, rainy day of the year. They moved most of the festivities indoors, including crafts.

We made a flower crown, which stayed on the children's heads for about 10 minutes. They were all really cute, though.

The only part they did outside was the May Pole -- the teachers sing pretty spring songs while the children walk in a circle and the ribbons wrap around a pole. A lot of spring frolicking, wouldn't you say?

Kate is a lot of fun lately.

She's growing more teeth. Until now she had just the top and bottom left front teeth. Now she's getting the right ones, top and bottom at the same time. Needless to say, she can bite now. Ouch!

Getting sick right after her birthday set her back on walking. Now she's back at it, though. Just in the past few days it seems she is walking around more instead of crawling. And having a good time, too.