Washington Trip
Letting the Boy Lead
Dog Park
We took Clover to a dog park for the first time today. It was quite a change for her: she wasn't quite terrified, but close to it. She's used to be the dominant dog among the small circle of friends she has, but today, she got a taste of what the cats go through here.
Eleventh Time
The Girl's birthday, falling in mid-December, is during a most inopportune season: there's Christmas, school concerts, church obligations, another friend's birthday (in early December). There's just no time to have a party, so once again, we put it off. Last year, we turned it into a New Year's Eve party with two of her closest friends; this year, we waited until today.
The girls started with a little slime-making -- it's an obsession L has had for some time now, and we've gone through countless bottles of glue over the last year.
The interesting thing, for me, was that only one of the two girls from last year was present this year. The other has had a falling-out with L. L explains that it's a complicated social situation, and while I thought such dilemmas would not be appearing in elementary school, I guess it's just a harbinger of things to come.
But there are always new friends, new adventures.
Snow Days 2018: Day 3
Today we did a lot of cleaning. Too much for L's taste. But strangely enough, part of that "too much" was something she chose herself. Deciding that E's closet was hopelessly chaotic, she took it upon herself to pull everything out and reorganize. And then complain that he wasn't helping.
At eleven, she's such a contradiction: she's a mix of child and teenager, switching back and forth unexpectedly. So mature one minute, so childish the next. Then back to mature: she made her own cake for her belated birthday party tomorrow.
K was there to assist, to advise, to do some tricky parts, but even some of the seemingly tricky parts, like removing the cake from the form, the Girl insisted on doing herself.
I look at these pictures and I can imagine what it will be like when she's older still, perhaps coming home for a visit, cooking with K and chatting about this or that.
Snow Days 2018: Day 2
We woke today to a cloudless sky and a temperature the comes as a direct result. It produces a conundrum: we have so few snowy days here in South Carolina that we want to take advantage of each and every one, but it's so cold that the prospect itself of going outside is chilling.
Still, we bundled up and headed outside mid-morning. That process needs careful choreography: the Boy needs help getting his layers on, and if I get him all bundled up before I even begin my own layering, he'll get hot.
"Sometimes, when I'm on the playground," he explained to me today, "I get so hot that I get cold." So we try to avoid that.
When we finally made it outside, the snow, now frozen over, was like a skating rink. The kids flew down our neighbors' hill.
They ride together; they ride solo; they ride feet-first; they ride head-first.
And there were a few quiet moments, when I caught a shot of them walking back up the hill, perhaps not quite aware that I'm about to snap a picture.
They're both growing up faster than K and I thought possible.
Snow Days 2018: Day 1
There's a price for everything: a snow day when you've already used your allotted make-up days means there's a chance you'll lose a day of spring break or have to go to school one Saturday. If it's just one, the state -- because then it becomes a state issue -- might just forgive that one day. If it's more, that's a litter trickier. We're out tomorrow for sure (hence "Day 1"), so we'll be two days behind. That's not too bad, but there's a good chance school will be canceled Friday as well, which makes it all the more likely we'll have to make it up.
But even if we do pay for it, who cares? The kids had a great time; the dog had a great time; K had a great time; I had a great time.
Cue: old MasterCard ad tag line.
Solo Baking
We made chocolate chip muffins last Monday during our unexpected snow day. I helped a bit -- not a lot, but a good bit, especially in the middle.
Today, the Girl decided she wanted to make muffins again, this time vanilla. She found the recipe online, checked the ingredients, made a shopping list, called K to see if she needed us to pick anything up for her while we were at the store, convinced me to go (didn't take much), mixed, poured, baked, and cleaned up after herself.
This is not to say there weren't moments of frustration. It turns out she didn't check eggs closely enough, a fact we discovered after we returned from the store. No problem: she went to the neighbors and asked for an egg, taking them some muffins when they were done.
She wanted to go to the store by herself, to walk down to the CVS about a half-mile down the street, but that was a bit much. Still, all these signs of growing up...
First Pinewood Derby
Kwasnica for lunch, pinewood derby in the afternoon, date night.
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We started by taking down all the Christmas stuff. I rooted around in the crawl space to close up a little gap from the unfinished laundry room into the crawl space that the little white cat liked to use.
Then birthday: the Girl did most of the cake. K made the kwasnica. Great day.
