In the blueberry patch (with bonus recipe!)

Dorian: I found a really big one!

Sebastian: Is it as big as your head?

D: No. It's as big as Dustin's head.

*****

D: Here's some more, Mama.

Me: Thanks.

D: It's for the pie. Can we make a pumpkin pie?

M: Not with blueberries. You make blueberry pie with blueberries.

D: Oh. I want a pumpkin pie.

*****

Blueberry salad

1 large or 2 small heads lettuce
1 cup fresh blueberries
4 oz crumbled bleu cheese

dressing:
juice of 1 medium lemon
1T olive oil
1.5t water
8-10 mint leaves, finely minced
salt and pepper to taste

You're smart. You know how to put this together. It was enough for 6 side portions at dinner last night. Toasted walnuts or almonds would be good on this if you have some.

What a summer!

The summer continues to fly by, and the projects (completed and yet to be) continue to pile up. After our usual Tuesday trip to the lake, we stopped off for our CSA pick up. This week, we got to reap the benefits of the Rupard vacation by taking their share. (They get ours next week.) We also got to reap the benefits of PYO organic blueberries. Thanks to the extra bounty, we now have a few more items to add to the pantry. Two jars of peaches and four jars of blueberries and one jar of blueberries and peaches have been added to the cabinet temporarily. Temporarily, you ask? Why, yes, I answer because...
We have the craziest month ever ahead of us. We go to the ocean for a week, come home for 2 days, and then close on the new house! That laughable appraisal slipped by the mortgage company, so we can, in fact, buy the house. Here's the new twist: Jeremy leaves the next day for a business trip for 4 days. But, that helps me justify clearing out for IKEA the day after he gets back. Then, we have a week to prepare the house to move in, 5 days to get settled/clean out the old apartment, and then we're off for 3 days of camping. And if I can find time to sign Sebastian up for school, he would start the day after that.
Crazy! We are crazy. Or we will be when this is all over.

The (barely tempered) excitement

I'm still trying not to count my chickens, but there are a few things I'm really looking forward to about this house.

1. I will have a real garden. A garden with ample sunlight. A garden big enough for everything I want to plant. Fruits, vegetables, herbs-- all of it. You have no idea how happy this makes me.
2. There will be color on my walls. No more "cream" with white trim. Hell, no. My only fear is that I will obnoxiously over-color everything. But, so what? The boys have picked their room color, we've settled on the kitchen color, so now we need one for our bedroom. I want it to coordinate with the blanket I'm knitting, but it has a lot of neutrals and I don't want a neutral, but a hot pink room? I don't know. Make a suggestion!
3. The bedrooms will be upstairs. I'm hoping this means a lot less trouble with living room activity disturbing those trying to sleep. Having our bedrooms connected to the living room these last few years hasn't been all bad, but neither has it been good.
4. A first floor laundry! In our last three places, the laundry has been at the top of a ladder, at the end of the group of town houses, and in a dirt basement. None of these was ideal. I'll even be able to set up my sewing machine in there.
5. An extra bedroom will be very nice. Whether we split the kids up, or have a play room or a guest room, the extra space will be appreciated.

I'm sure there are more good things, but those are uppermost in my mind. So many projects to plan! I love to plan!

Conversation with Sebastian

Me: So, I have some good news. I heard from the mortgage company today that the appraisal was better than expected. That means we should be able to buy the house!

Sebastian: Yay!!!

M: Are you excited?

S: Yes!

M: What are you most excited about?

S: We won't have neighbors!

M: Well, we'll still have neighbors. We just won't have upstairs neighbors.

S: Yeah! No upstairs neighbors!

M: What else are you excited about?

S: Going to the ocean, The White Pants... and I like turtles.

M: ...

Lucky day

So, yesterday while Sebastian was at camp, a glorious thing happened. I was talking to Christine on the phone (surprise, surprise) when I noticed how quiet my house was.

Dorian tucked himself into bed... and took a nap! A 2 hour nap!

I have not had one child away and one child napping for a year and a half. It was amazing! I did all the cliche Mom things, and one not so cliche thing. Yes, I sat on the couch and watched a little soap opera while having a piece of chocolate. I started and screwed up some knitting. Then, I played Zelda until Dorian woke up.

What a precious time. A time I may never have again. Unless Sebastian actually does go to school and Dorian magically realizes he needs more sleep than he gets...

It only took 8 days

I have admitted, here and elsewhere, that my expectations for summer camp were kind of low. I do, in theory, love our town for its diversity of philosophies, parenting and otherwise. But in practice it can be a bit unpleasant, which is why I usually avoid the park where camp is held. I did assume that most of the kids going to this camp, which costs over $100 less than the other camps, would be a big bunch of hooligans with poor or cheapskate parents (such as myself).

This has not proved to be true. There has been one kid in each of Sebastian's packs that seems like a total butthead. Everything has been fine. But, like I said, I had certain expectations for the bizarre and unruly. Well, this morning they were met.

Camp was beginning at the skating rink because of rain. I walk in with the kids, Sebastian proudly dressed as a pirate in pajamas (it is Wacky Wednesday after all). What is on a ledge inside the door? A squirrel pelt, complete with head. What the f***!

Then, we run into a 7 year old drinking a caffeinated soda on his way in. At 9am.

Now, that's what I've been waiting for.

Attitude maintenance

Somehow, I managed to maintain a good sense of humor yesterday as the problems continued to pile up. After drying off from the rain shower, Dorian and I enjoyed a few lazy hours at home before leaving to get Sebastian. Let Round 2 begin! Ding ding!

First, Dorian decides it is time to nap just as I'm trying to leave. Much persuading later, we arrive at camp to discover that Sebastian's bathing suit is missing. He took it off and then it magically disappeared. No counselor or camper has any knowledge of its whereabouts. Fine. These things happen.

We take a trip to a certain outlet store in the hopes of scoring a $5 replacement bathing suit. No such luck. Despite being late in the season, they are still $10 and ugly. Sebastian announces to the store that he needs to pee, so we detour to the skanky outlet center bathroom and then clear out.

Jeremy was stuck in an 11.5 hour meeting yesterday, so I decide to take the kids to Friendly's. Just before we were going to order our ice cream, Dorian looks a little green. I catch the first wave of vomit in my right hand, while yanking the wax paper out of my "basket" with my left so I can catch the rest in there. How lucky for me that I had boned up on my vomit catching skills the day before! Practice makes perfect. We got our ice cream to go, left a generous tip, and hit the road.

Dorian's bed time last night? 5:40.

We're playing it safe today. Nothing fancy to eat, no real exertion. The stomach acid is spoiling my manicure.

I'm in a good mood

Despite the fact that

• Dorian threw up into my hands yesterday evening. Nothing like a handful of hot vomit straight from the source!
• I was sleepwalking last night. Only to the bedroom door, but still... I didn't remember it this morning, so not a good sign.
• I got caught in a rainstorm for my walk home from spending $1200 on less than one tank of oil.

Weird, huh? Something must be wrong with me.

Pretending we're moving

All's quiet on the home-buying front, lulling me into a potentially false sense of security that we will actually be moving out of this apartment we have occupied for 4 years and 10 days now. Not that I'm counting or anything. I have spent the last few days behaving as if we have an impending move, and it's been both good and bad.

Pros to pretending we're moving:

• It's fun to pick out a rainbow of paint colors to fantasize about.
• I can look forward to a day with no overhead stomping. (But only if the kids are downstairs with me or asleep.)
• I got a lot of things organized today and even found more stuff to get rid of, including 2 old sleeping bags, an incomplete set of dishes, vases that I never unpacked 4 years and 10 days ago, and Jeremy even was willing to give up a crate full of records.
• IKEA fantasy trips are always fun to take.

Cons to pretending we're moving:

• I have a huge list of supplies and tools to buy in order to prepare the walls for "Capri Grotto" blue paint.
• I look around at all the stuff we have and ostensibly need and shudder to think about packing and moving it all. Even if it is just going around the corner.
• The prospect of all this work is extremely overwhelming.
• The amount of money we are and will be hemorrhaging for the next few months is absolutely horrifying. This will probably leave the IKEA trip in the fantasy realm instead of reality.
• The kitchen floor that was already overdue for a mopping keeps getting spot cleaned and Jeremy and I walk around saying we'll take care of it when we move. Realistically, that will be in mid to late September. Gross.

The Batman

We went to see the new Batman movie last night. This is going to be an extremely lame post because everything I would want to say would be a total spoiler for those of you planning on going, and too much evidence of my geekery for those not planning to see it. So, I'll make it brief.

It was very well paced, so it did not seem like 2.5 hours at all. Super cool new toys. Wicked creepy beginning. Amazing make-up. Lots of 'splosions. Fun, fun, fun!

And I'm going to say it: I liked Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes better than Maggie Gyllenhaal's turn. So there.

My baby!

Sebastian announced to me this morning that he wants to go to public school in the fall. And being the dutiful mom that I am, I called the supervisory union to see what I need to do to register him. But I'm not all that excited about it.

I suspect he mostly wants to go because his friends are going. Little does he know that when his friends find out he's homeschooling, they start eyeing their parents suspiciously and wondering why they have to go to school and he doesn't.

I'm also dreading dealing with convincing the school to put him in 1st grade instead of Kindergarten. I spoke to the Kindergarten registration woman, who was supposed to call a principal for more information. Sebastian will have to be tested at our expense and visit a school psychologist to make sure he's ready. But there is such a rigid attitude toward age that they still may not allow him to do anything but Kindergarten. In which case, he will be home.

Camp has been great for him, but school is different. I really fear that he will be bored out of his mind. He's (almost) never bored at home. He's always got some big plan or project or book he's in the middle of. Sitting at a desk doing busy work is boring.

I know some of you are pretty happy to hear this news. You think homeschooling is silly or will somehow stunt their learning. I disagree. But if he wants to try school, I'll let him try.

No, I haven't forgotten to update you

Okay, I would just like to say that this whole home-buying thing is a real pisser. It has been totally absurd and terrible and stressful. I can only hope that the actual home-owning is better. (Please let me believe that it will be.)

We gave the sellers a list of demands that we asked them to fulfill or give us our deposit money back. Well, we finally found out 2 weeks later, that they are fixing the furnace and giving us money toward the other repairs. So, it looks like it's going forward unless the bank craps out. Which is certainly possible. I have found out that anything is possible in this game.

So, this is part of what we will be mortgaging if all goes well:

Our glorious future bedroom

Just look at that beautiful ceiling!

And who wouldn't want a duct-taped chimney thimble complete with creosote stains? And what a view through the cracked window glass!

And that closet!

What more could a gal want?

True blue, pt. 2

The princess and I went for our "spa day" today. The quotations are there because it was not quite the day we had planned. Quinn was supposed to come, but was thwarted by her boss. We were going to have facials and mani-pedis, which was down-graded to facials and manicures. Then at the last minute, Cortney was informed that we would not be having facials either. (We're dealing with a beauty school here, so we have to take this into account before we complain too much.) This was fine, we decided, because it meant more shopping time. While we were shopping, they called to try to sucker us into the facial again, but that conflicted with our french fry plans. So we went for just the manicure. And because Quinn wasn't there to be sensible, and Cortney likes to encourage ridiculousness, I got blue nails. Jeremy wanted green, but oddly enough, they didn't have that color. So blue it is.

True blue

Here is the blue bookcase, totally absorbed into the mess of the boys' room. I finished painting it a week ago, but didn't get around to photographing it until now. As you can see, it is covered in Sebastian's obsessions: Yellow Submarine, Gumby and Pokey, pirates, robots, and My Little Pony. Gotta love that kid.

Observations on summer camp

Today, Sebastian wraps up a week at the town day camp. Overall, it has been a great experience and we've decided to let him go back for a second week. During this week, Sebastian has learned archery, and I've learned a thing or two as well.

• At least 90% of my daily chaos is attributable to Dorian. Despite the blessed lack of sibling arguments from 9-4 every day, I am no less tired or frazzled than usual. That boy runs me ragged. The only real difference is less screaming. Less screaming is good. But why don't they make 7 hour camps for 2 year-olds?
• Going to camp does not necessarily mean picking up bad habits. I will admit, I was a little afraid of what Sebastian would bring home from this experience. Not so much in terms of head lice (that scare happened Day 1) or poison ivy, but in terms of attitude. The kid had enough going into this, as far as I was concerned. Strangely, though, he has had much better manners. He used to be a follower and happily get involved in whatever shenanigans the other kids were up to, but he seems to be avoiding trouble.
• Being forced to do something can be a good thing. Sebastian was very excited to go to camp, mainly for the archery. You may remember how hard archery is. And you may also know that Sebastian mostly only uses his muscles for drumming. Anything else, and he's a wet noodle. If he were trying this at home, the first time would have been a failure and then he probably wouldn't have tried again. But at camp, he has to do it everyday and now he's seeing a big improvement in his skills.
• Knowing your kid got dunked in the pool is almost as awful as experiencing it yourself. It is really hard to not be there to protect your little boy from other little ruffians.
• Camp does not provide enough bookworm activities. This was to be expected. But it is amazing to me how desperately Sebastian needs to read and write and draw. Not that I don't sympathize. I was the queen of spending the summer indoors. But he walks in the door and goes straight to his work table and draws and draws and draws and writes and writes and writes and, in spite of his hunger, has to be dragged to the dinner table. Then we put his collapsing body to bed at 7:30 only to have him come to his door at 9 to say that it's too dark to read anymore. That boy needs his books.

I'm so glad he got to go to camp. And I'm so impressed with how well he has handled all of it. But I'm also so glad to have him back home with me next week. Then I get to send him back on the 21st.

See that?

That is a set of cables that used to go from a telephone pole across the street and attached to the second floor of our building. Well, no longer. Apparently, the follow up to our crazy, snow-filled winter is a crazy, rain-drenched summer. What I swear was a hurricane blew through this afternoon and knocked down branches and trees all over our neighborhood. I was a little concerned that I would not be able to pick Sebastian up from camp, but the power company tied the cable television cables to the tree so I could be on my way. Hooray for them! But honestly, I'm tired of all this weather related excitement.

You know how some people make you feel like you've never done anything with your life?

Like inventors? Or teenage celebrities? Or the employed and employable?

Well, we have a couple of friends who are doing something exciting and terrifying and awesome. Mothra's cousin, Noah*, and his friend Tim** are biking from Alaska to Central America. Yes, you read that right. I mean, who does that? I'm sitting around putting off mopping the floor and they are cycling their way through states I've yet to even visit, let alone traverse on two wheels.

You should check out their blog, Cow Spokes, while you have nothing else to do. They are also raising money and awareness about Heifer International along the way, so donate if you are feeling generous.

*Not a good monster name.
** Also lackluster.

Conversation with the neighbors

I was on the porch, painting the bookcase I snagged for free last week. The upstairs neighbors walk up to go inside.

Neighbor: Oh, are you painting that for the boys?

Me: I don't know who it will be for yet.

N: It's blue.

M: Yes, it is.

N: That's good for boys.

M: Yes, well, I got it free from next door and I haven't decided where to put it yet.

N: I heard him on the phone saying people had taken things from their house.

M: Yeah, well this was on the sidewalk with a sign that said "Free". [I swear I didn't steal it. Christine can confirm this.] By the way, could you do me a favor and keep your garbage can outside? [They had it at the top of the stairs.] It's been pretty warm lately...

N: Sure. We've been living in Hinsdale.

M: *confusion* *continue to paint*

N: Thanks for bringing in that letter for me. It was my tickets!

M: Oh? What are you going to see?

N: Wrestling! At the [venue in NH].

M: Really?

N: I'm going to get to see Triple H!

M: That's exciting for you!

N: Yeah! Oh, and we're going to have a party tomorrow. But you probably won't notice because on 4th of July, everybody's up to the crack of dawn. See you later!

M: Bye.

8 years and 2 kids later...

It's wrinkled and has a stain on the back, but it still fits!

This should have been posted yesterday

I found this strawberry in our garden. Wild strawberries are all over the yard, but this one magically produced a real, edible fruit. And boy was it yummy! We each had a quarter. Share and share alike.
This bookcase was the one good thing that came out of the horrid neighbors next door. When I picked it up off the sidewalk, it was black and covered in mostly torn decoupaged collage work a la teenage girl. This is after I primed it yesterday. I am about to go out and paint what I hope is the final coat of blue so we can start to use it. Free solid wood bookcases are always good. Even if they require a little touch up.

Sometimes you really don't want to fit in

Yesterday, I took the boys over to the dread WalMart to get Sebastian a backpack and lunch bag to take to camp next week. Dorian's on again/off again relationship with potty training was apparently on again, resulting in a lot of misgivings on my part about whether to allow him to wear underwear to the store. His track record is not good, but I don't want to discourage him either.

We compromise with underwear covered by rubber pants and his shorts and head out. I asked him twice if he needed to use the potty. Both times he said no. And then it happened. In the sporting goods aisle he yells, "Oh, no! I'm peeing in my underpants!" Fantastic.*

I trot him off to the bathroom to discover that he has peed so much that it has seeped out of the rubber pants and soaked the shorts, too. I brought a diaper, just in case, so I put that on, but now he was also shorts-less.

And so it was that I was one of those WalMart mothers. You know, the ones with the kid (who looks too old to be in diapers) marching around wearing only a diaper, a t-shirt and sandals. And to top it off, he fished around in my bag while we were in line until he came up with some cheap, yellow plastic sunglasses Sebastian got at the dentist.

So now my pants-less, sunglasses-sporting child is parading around while I walk out with a bag full of urine soaked clothing. It's a charmed life I lead. Your envy is so justified.

*This was actually a step in the right direction for himsince he usually doesn't even notice.

FunSpot, the spot for fun

Sunday was our pilgrimage to FunSpot which went off without a hitch. There was a minimum of carsickness on the long, winding ride and no actual puking-- always a bonus. Many games were played, and won, and lost. As usual, a great time.



Also as usual was the New Hampshire-ness of it all. I would be hard pressed to be able to put into words what the citizenry of New Hampshire look like on the whole. But you go to FunSpot and you get a pretty good idea.

The picture below was taken specifically for the woman to the left of the vending machine. She has inspired me to submit an alternative motto for the state: "Live free or die with an unfortunate haircut."

Note the short, spiky section at the crown of her head. Very impressive.
Wiebe Rulz!

From the mouths of monkeys

S: (to the child who accidentally kicked Dorian at the playground) You should apologize. That's not some random person, you know. That's my little brother and I take care of him.

******

D: (looking at my lunch) What's that brown stuff? Poop?

HM: No.

D: It's poop.