"life is not whatnot"

A line from a movie I like, though I don't agree. Here's some of this past week's whatnot.

Last saturday we went to a small dinner party at an old friend's parent's house in the city. We all know his parents well and have been to this house several times before and we all know that there is nothing remotely childproofed or inexpensive about anything in it. So, intelligently, though kids were invited my other friends didn't bring theirs. One friend did bring his 2 year-old son. I was thrilled to see the little boy because I hadn't had the opportunity to meet his son before and, more importantly, if my girls broke something I now had someone else to blame for it.

The kids entertained themselves with a set of cardboard bricks the hosts brought out. It was great fun to take turns building up walls around each other and then join together in smashing them down.

Fortunately they didn't smash anything else, though they did do more than their share of decorating the floors and tablecloth with food. Regardless, my friend's parents thought they were just entirely adorable and sweet. Heh, heh, heh...yeah. We know better than that.

Here's a rare cute photo of Kate and Erin at the park this week. Both looking at the camera AND smiling? I didn't even bribe them or anything.

My cousin Joe from Chicago arrived yesterday for a week-long vacation out here. He arrived in the morning and suggested that we come over to his hotel to swim in the pool there and my new little fishes thought that was a great idea. No hesitation about the water at all this week. Everyone had a blast.



On sunday Joe took off on a multi-day site-seeing excursion up north. He plans to see grand old growth forests and majestic coastline and sample fine foods and wines along the way. Sure, that's all well and good for him, but we roll in grander style than that around here. We went to a birthday party, located at a small park & zoo that's been around since...well, actually, I don't know how long. I went there once or twice as a kid. Most of the attractions were in dire need of fresh paint and cobweb removal and general maintenance back then, and they still do. Erin made a new friend--a cute little girl her age named Ansley.



That's the birthday boy, Cameron, looking over his mom's cake artistry. The theme of the party was "pirates", and that's the croc from Peter Pan. Erin requested, and was served, a piece with some of the teeth. Ansley requested the eyes. I like that kid already.

Joe will be back on wednesday night so hopefully we'll find something adventurous to do together on thursday. Until then....

no habla espanol!

I took the girls to a playful spanish language class for kids 2-5 on tuesday. The topic was the sea and animals of the sea. After a very creative, fun hour, during which Erin had a blast and the twins looked consistently puzzled, they were given a sheet to color of the sea animals they'd learned about with the names in spanish underneath each one.

On the way home Erin was talking about some of the animals. She pointed to one and said, "cangrejo."
Kate: "That's a crab."
Me: "Right, but how do we say crab in spanish? Cangrejo."
Kate: "No, no, NO! That's a CRAB!!"
Erin: "And this is El Delfin."
Kate: "No, no, no, NO! That's a DOLPHIN!!!"
Erin: "No, Kate...del-fin."
Kate: "Dolphin, dolphin, DOLPHIN, DOLPHIN!!!!"

This is going to be money well-spent.

friday's escape

Before we get started, a technical note: you can always click on any photo to see it enlarged, then hit the "Back" button of your browser to return.


We've had no daycare this week so I've been home from work for several days. I wanted a change of scenery so I packed the girls up and headed a couple of hours away to see my friend Susan and family. Details of our last outing with them, to the beach.

Erin is a fan of Susan's daughters, "Those big girls who went to the beach with us, Leigh Ann and Lauren. They're nice, when are we going to see them at the beach again?"

Susan said to meet her at her mom's house so the kids could swim in the morning before it gets too hot. And hot around there is...HOT. So that was an excellent idea. The twins hadn't been in a regular "deep" pool in a year, not since we were in Hawaii last summer, and even then they really didn't enjoy it. They mostly cried and clung to John the whole time. So once they were suited up it was much of the same here although the heat kept them interested in the water. They sat on the pool steps for a long, long while, contemplating the danger and gathering their courage.


Erin, meanwhile, loved the pool right away. I asked Erin if she wanted me to throw her in and she did. Leigh Ann and Lauren and their cousins Mia and Kira (ages range from 6 - 11 and all great swimmers) were very encouraging. They reminded Erin to kick and paddle, and showed her the various prime locations for jumping in. The premier of these was "the diving rock", as Leigh Ann demonstrates below. They applauded Erin's every effort. Their title changed from merely lifeguard/babysitters to lifeguard/swim instructor/babysitter extraordinares.


About 45 minutes later, the twins agreed to venture off the steps--at first not so happily,


then a little more happily.


And finally they were having a blast and swimming all on their own (assisted only by every conceivable floatation device I could manage to fit on their tiny bodies). When we decided to get out because we'd been swimming for a couple of hours, it was now hotter than hot, and it was lunch time, Kate kept jumping back into the pool. Susan finally pretty much dragged her out.


Allison was happy on her own as long as she could keep the elephant floaty


What to do for lunch when it's 100F outside and you have seven kids to feed and entertain? Chuck E Cheese, of course! Susan and her mom and I planted ourselves in some booths in the center of the place where we had a vantage point to see pretty much everywhere and keep the invaluable token stash centralized. The big girls were, mostly, very good at making sure they kept tabs on the little girls. Leigh Ann and Lauren were particularly diligent, deciding with each other who was going to stay with whom to do what activity and when they would meet up to trade responsibilities. The one slip up (that I discovered) was when the pizza arrived and I headed over to the play structure where I'd seen several of the girls just a couple of minutes before. I found Allison alone and wandering around, looking slightly upset. After I brought her to our booth, served her some pizza and left her with Susan's mom I went back to get the others. Mia walked up to me just then, "Um, we can't find Allison anywhere. Sorry." with a little head tilt and shoulder shrug that implied, "you know how it is, well, at least you have others."

After all the cheesy excitement we could bear we dropped off the cousins and went back to Susan's mom's house. "Can we swim again?" the big girls asked. What a crazy idea! It cooled all the way down to, like, 90F by then.

While we were making dinner Kate and Allison kept busy with their second favorite activity of the day: shadowing and pestering poor Rusty the beagle. Beagles are known to have tremendous amounts of energy. Twin 2 year-olds have more. His only escape was through his doggy door, but K&A discovered that they are tiny enough to fit through it too (though I didn't capture that on video). When we arrived Rusty was very excited to see the girls but I think he soon got flashbacks of their last encounter.



After dinner the kids piled on the floor for a little movie-watching while Sean (second generation BBQ master) cooked some delicious ribs and chicken for us. Unfortunately, then it was time to get back home. What a full day and it was already past the girls' bedtime. We drove about a mile before all three kids were snoozing.

red, white, and blue

Girls. That's what we had on the 4th, more or less.

In the morning we went to the local community center for their patriotic extravaganza! We had a pancake breakfast, with digestion music compliments of some senior citizen orchestra. They weren't bad actually, and the pancakes and sausage were great.

Allison got her cheek painted and Erin chose her right hand. Kate declined on the weird cheery stranger invading her personal space experience.





After breakfast we gathered outside to listen to the city hall employee-woman with the microphone, who won't be winning American Idol anytime this century, go through the old favorites. Various school kids joined her (and how I wished they sang louder) and held up the various visual aids, shook boxes of macaroni during Yankee Doodle, and such.



Erin, without a lighter to hold up to show her emotion during the concert, substituted, appropriately, with a flag. And then it was getting pretty hot and my ears were definitely tired, so we went back home to prep for the BBQ we were hosting that afternoon. John's brother and family are out of town this week, but his parents and Brad came over to celebrate with us.


Our kiddie pool from last summer was torn so John came home with this monstrosity. Kiddie pools have changed a lot since I was little.


Everyone enjoyed cooling off with watermelon and fresh, ripe cherries. I was in charge of the sides, John was in charge of meat selection, which is like putting the kids in charge of buying the halloween candy. We had hamburgers, and BBQ chicken, and ribs. Not to be outdone, Dora made TWO desserts--a strawberry pie and a chocolate marble cake for my birthday. MMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

in the car a few days ago...

Me: "So, Erin, whatcha think?"
Erin: "About what?"
Me: "Just everything."
Erin: "Everything what?"
Me: "Everything in the world."
Erin: "Everything in the WHOLE world?"
Me: "Yes."
Erin: "Oh, well, I like the horses."

happy birthday, jake!

Happy Birthday to cousin Jacob--6 years old on monday. John's cousin Brian (Jake's dad) was a groomsman at our wedding and had a beeper on that day since his wife was already a couple of weeks overdue, and we heard about Jake's birth on our honeymoon. Sunday was his party in a park with a rented gigantic bounce house that everyone loved.

Here's the birthday boy and his brother Brayden, nearly 4 years old. It's great having cousins nearby who are close in age to the girls.

Tons of snacks were layed out on the picnic tables and Kate and Allison took advantage of this almost immediately. Allison claimed one table and started chowing down undisturbed while most of the kids were either in the bounce house, or playing soccer in the open space, or taking wagon rides. Kate claimed another table and did the same. I do feed these children. I even fed them that day, twice, by the time we arrived there at 10am. But rarely are they given free reign with bowls of tortilla chips and pretzels and goldfishy crackers, all of which I also buy but the frequency and amount of distribution is usually tightly regulated.

They ate so much that neither one of them had much of an appetite for lunch, but no way in the world were they too full for cake. Along with cousin Brayden, it took every ounce of their self control to keep from diving right in there with both hands, I think.

summer nights

"Summer sun, something's begun, but uh-ho, those summer nights!"

At least I know my buddy Trish will appreciate that reference.

I was supposed to post this right after the last entry, but I got side-tracked. Anyway, the evening after our excursion to the county fair we all went to last week's free summer concert in the park in town, featuring a classic rock/soul/funk band. We, along with Quinton's family, brought a picnic dinner and some blankets and set ourselves up on the lawn area above the bleachers in the park pavillion for a relaxing summer evening of music. And then we remembered that we have three kids.











Sometimes the kids stayed right with us, watching the band and dancing. Ninety percent of the time they were running around and wrestling and rolling on the lawn, bumping into other people, stopping to chat with strangers, and generally being as disruptive as they possibly could. So I spent a lot of time chasing, capturing, and returning the kids to our general area, and also apologizing for them. I didn't spend a lot of time actually watching the band because I usually had my head turned around to watch what the kids were getting into. At least they sounded pretty good.

Here's Allison and Erin when the music first started:


But here's Quinton showing the girls how it's really done. That is, until Ms. Graceful crashes into him and cramps his style:


Quinton's parents were encouraging us to attend Shakespeare in the park later in the summer with them, in this same location. I just don't know about that. I think we're still clearly in the "attention span suitable for a short puppet show" stage.