Wandering into the Wide World of Bagels!

This was so exciting for me.  I've been working with sourdough for about a year now.  Some recipes have turned out more successfully than others, but we're coming along, my sourdough starter and I.  So I decided to try my hand at bagels.  I'd heard they were a real pain, but the recipe I found for sourdough bagels didn't look complicated, and she who hesitates is lost (quoth Linda Brown), so I gave it a whirl.

I am so very glad I did!

They turned out so well.  Crispy on the outside, squishy on the inside.  Even my wretched children who generally scorn all my food liked the bagels:

Well, one of my wretched children liked them.  The other wretched child "read" The Gruffalo, with which she is currently obsessed and ignored the food.  Fifty per cent ain't bad?  I'm considering leaving my baking projects in the teachers' lounge at Frances's school.  Those teachers are appreciative, approximately five hundred times more appreciative than my wretched children.

(Ok, to Frances's credit, she did try the lamb meatballs I made tonight.  The other kid gets no points.  Zip.  I give her three years to come around to food, as Frances has done, and then she's getting nothing but hot buttered toast, I tell you, just so I know some calories are getting in.)

New Stall Tactic

The little pests geniuses have discovered a new way to delay bedtime: distract mom with the sunset.  "Oh, Mom, look at the pretty sunset!  So many colors!  Look, Mom, look!"

Stinkers.

This didn't work, back when it was dark at 4:30 and no one was trying to make them sleep.  Now bedtime and sunset are more or less lining up and the kids know it will distract me.

So they point out the sunset, and then stand around angelically waiting to be photographed.

Honestly, with all this sun, we're getting a little sleep deprived.  We're going to sleep later and later but they still have to wake up in the morning at the same time.  Summer vacation won't come a moment too soon.

Who took these pictures?!

I found some photos on my phone that I didn't recognize.  "Did I take this one?"  I thought to myself.

"I know I didn't take this one," I then thought to myself.

"Have Frances and Chandler been photographing each other?"  They're usually way too busy pretending to be cats or playing school or beating on each other to stop and take a photo.  "What a mystery!" I thought to myself.

Then I remembered that Frances had a play date with Yari, from school.  Frances must have let her on to my phone.  I feel this is new parenting territory - keeping kids' friends off my phone - that I didn't have to address when the kids were younger.  I am not pleased with this development.  I prefer dealing with baby problems like diaper rash -yay, naked time! - than phone etiquette.  New frontiers; away we go!

Little Person is Going to School!

Chandler got a seat at Frances's school for K1 (free preschool)!  So she needed a backpack, of course.

We didn't realize how huge the backpack was until we got it home and compared it to Frances's.  It's very huge.  Ah, well, Frances hasn't protested and Chandler will grow into it.  Eventually.

School will be...interesting.  We tried and failed once again to get into our dream school.  I believe this is our third attempt.  Knowing us, we will try again next year.  But Frances's school works very hard to get everyone learning and we've met very nice people there, so that part will be fine.  I really don't know how Chandler will do.  I know eventually she'll be happy, but the change from full-time home to full-time school worries me.  She gets overwhelmed in crowds, and school is all about crowds.  I'm working on projecting calm confidence about it all.  So far, so good.

Monkeys at the Zoo

Chandler and I joined Frances's class at the zoo.  It was so very, very hot.  Not "hot" for Boston, but honest to God hot.  This is (almost) everybody near the end of the day:

Little Chandler was ready to melt.  One of Frances's classmates wept (I put her in Chandler's stroller).  A boy from another class threw up.  It's not that it doesn't get hot here in Boston.  July 4th through July 6th are consistently miserable.  But a heat wave in the middle of May?  The kids were wiped.  The adults weren't so great either.  At the end, Frances's teacher said something like, "I could sleep for two days."  And she has all the stamina of a 24-ish year-old who runs half marathons.  Forty-one year old moms who struggle through 10 milers would be forced to hate her, if she weren't so darn nice and generous.

Honest to Goodness Spring!

This is us being late to play group,...

...but who cares?!  The sun is shining and the grass is green.  We have to soak it up while we can, that's what living in the Northeast has taught me.  Thank you, Northeast!

Wake Up The Earth, 2017!

It wasn't raining!

Not the best picture, but this is Frances, Chandler, and Darby doing spin art.  There's a bike just to the left.  Pedalling the bike spins the paper.  The kids spray paint.  And art!

Our stay at the festival was brief this year, though we didn't make it home until about three in the afternoon.  Mom was tired and cold.  I never bring quite enough water-repellent clothes.  Now that I've written this, I'm sure next year I'll do better.  And Frances wants her art to turn out less brown.  Next year, we'll get it all right.  Surely.

Guess The City!

It's Philly!  Because this is the year of driving south for the weekend, apparently!

We had a lovely little trip to Philly.  I hadn't been there since I was pregnant with Frances, so eight years or so.  We dashed into the Reading Terminal for lunch, and then to the Barnes in the afternoon.  The Barnes was very, very lovely, like so:

It was so lovely, I could tell it was lovely even as I was dragging a too-tired munchkin back outside because she was way too strung out to be in tiny rooms with priceless art.  She looks like such a nice kid, too.

Then we all "slept" in a hotel room together.  Then I was in a 10 mile race (I finished in under two hours - yay for me!).  Then we beat it back home.  It was a little crazy.  I think I'll stick to races closer to home and not try to squeeze being a tourist, a parent and a runner all into one weekend.  Too much by half!  But the girls have had a glimpse of Philly, Mark has visited the Barnes and I finished a 10 miler, so life could be a lot worse, too.

Ninety Months of First-Grader Frances

Ninety Months Fun Fact:

• Disposition: Easier!  I may have said this before, but Frances has hit a really nice phase.  Less weeping, less gnashing of teeth, more cooperation and consideration.  It is so not bad.  She even suggested, her very self, that she complete a 5k.  The 5k turned out to be a wet slog which she was encouraged to skip, but still she volunteered to run a 5k!  She continues to be a cooperative student and she hardly torments her sister at all these days.  All mothers should be so lucky.

Fifty-One Months of Preschooler Chandler

Not the best picture ever, no, but I couldn't resist using the photo of Chandler in one of Beth Brooks' creations.

Fifty-One Month Fun Facts:

• Girly:  We are having a major dose of girl lately.  She wants to be wearing a dress or skirt almost at all times.  Chandler has a little friend who is going through the same thing right now.  Perhaps it's the age?
• Ornery:  I know I've mentioned this before, but she can be a bit ornery lately.  She still asks to sit in my lap (she likes my body heat), but moments later, she'll be stomping on Frances's toes with all her might.  She gets sent to her room for shrieking on a regular basis.  Not terrible, horrible infringements - she doesn't actually wound Frances, she's not destroying property or running into traffic - but, Lordy some days are rough.  And then today, she couldn't have been nicer.  I never know what I'll get.

We don't pay them enough

Chandler and I joined Frances's class at the Museum of Science.  That's Frances making a face on the very right and Chandler two kids to the left of Frances.

God bless those teachers.  Their font of good will and energy seems unceasing.  These kids are lucky to have them.  I try to help out.  Chandler and I go in every Friday morning so I can read with the kids.  That's two to three hours.  I believe a full week would have me prostrate.

The poor flowers

The girls have been more interested in flowers this spring than ever before.

This is good for the girls, not so good for the flowers.

The poor, poor flowers.

The girls have done their part to spread dandelion seeds around.  If there's a special abundance of dandelions next spring, you can thank the girls.

Stealing the Neighbors' Dog

Scarlet's a big 'un, and we weren't so much stealing as dog-sitting.  A weekend a year with a huge dog turns out to be just about right for us.  The girls sure do love her, and I think the feeling is mutual.

Proof of Life During April Vacation

Just two quick pictures to prove we braved the Aquarium during April Vacation, because Frances really wanted to go.  It was crowded, but the girls did great.

This is Frances and Chandler at the beginning of the visit, at the Shark and Ray Touch Tank.

At the end of the visit, the girls were eaten alive by a sea polyp(?), as sometimes happens at the Aquarium.

We went home to recuperate.

Oh, Happy Day!

The hair got cut!  All it took was some prodding from Pinterest, a very good tool to use in child manipulation, it turns out.

As soon as we got home from the hair salon, Frances dressed herself up as Ramona, complete with name tag.

She has received so many compliments, I dare to hope that shorter hair is here to stay.

Run More!

We met up with the Linfoots around mile 24 of the Boston Marathon.  It was perfect weather for spectating, but a bit warm for running.  Here are the five yahoos:

The girl yahoos, still spectating:

And four of the yahoos, having given up spectating:

I was in a race recently.  A frequent spectator sign read "Worst Parade Ever."  I get it.  Watching people jog by can be boring.  And I am glad the kids found ways to entertain themselves.  Cindy and I?  We are good spectators.  We clapped and cheered (one of us cheered in two languages - it wasn't me) for over two hours.  It takes such a crazy dedication to get your body and mind to complete 26.2 miles.  Step by step.  I have such awe.

Someday the yahoos will get it, surely.

Or they'll start bringing books to read.

One or the other.

Easter!

We had a wonderful Easter.  The secret?  We skipped church!  (Don't tell.)  We headed out to World's End in Hingham.  Wonderful, wonderful.

We started with a picnic (biscuits and ham, naturally).

Then we flew our kite.

Egg hunting with green eggs that are actually hidden is a lot more work than picking up bright, plastic eggs from a mown lawn.  The girls adapted nicely.

Then we flew our kite.

This was cool, a sort of mirrored spiral.  The girls thought it was brilliant.

I persuaded Chandler not to get wet so we wouldn't be hauling a miserable child on the long walk back to the car.  An Easter miracle!  (I'm not kidding either.  She's been an ornery little critter the past couple weeks.  Throwing stuff, shrieking, stamping.  So very pleasant.)

Queens of the Castle:

Then we flew our kite.

A really successful Easter.  I doubt we'll let ourselves skip Easter services two years in a row, but maybe we'll learn to embrace the Easter vigil?  Five year olds like the Easter vigil, right?

Eggs and Cabbage

We made egg dye with cabbage this year.  The girls took turns helping me chop up the cabbage.  And Chandler wore her ball gown, as one does when chopping red cabbage.

Frances, dear, was not at all sure about this process, but she humored me.

The results were not as advertised.  After a night in the dye, we found green eggs where we expected to find blue!  Perhaps we left them in too long?  It is unclear.

But they were intriguing all the same.  I told Frances they looked like jade, and she seemed pleased with that.

Someday the kids are going to discover and demand Paas, but we've made it one more year with our wacky experiments.

Good Friday, indeed

Frances had Good Friday off of school, so our to Drumlin Farm we went!

Frances has been studying bees in school, so she was pleased (sorta) to find and pose near a bee hive.

And, boy. don't those girls love sorting wooden eggs?

I'm always tempted, after a Drumlin Farm trip, to buy them their own wooden eggs and baskets, but I just don't think they'd be that inspiring in an apartment instead of on a farm.  Lord knows we don't need more toys to sort through.

Moving on: the tractor is also always a hit.

And we finished up with the season's second round of ice cream novelties. 

It wasn't quite warm enough, but that didn't stop us.

First Ice Cream of the Season!

Frances is learning the power of money; she bought those ice cream novelties herself.

We talk a lot about when Frances will start walking places unaccompanied.  I bet the first time she works up the nerve, it will be to get herself ice cream.  Whatever it takes.

Egg Hunt, Again

Jamaica Plain's egg hunt was on Palm Sunday again this year.  That always feels a little off, celebrating Palm Sunday and then going to an Easter egg hunt on the same day, but my bet is maybe only ten percent of the crowd actually attended a Palm Sunday service. We're the oddballs.  The day was beautiful and not too cold.  Not one snowflake!  Ah, the little things.

Chandler found a golden egg, which entitled her to a gift certificate at the local toy store.  She was thrilled with the egg, but tried to give away the gift certificate.  I suppose gift certificates are too abstract for four year olds to grasp, at least this four year old.

The kids made short work of their haul.

Everyone has made note of Chandler's green, shiny dress, right?  Some might mistake it for a Christmas dress, but some would be wrong.   It is a Palm Sunday dress.  I don't care what the kid behind us in the Communion line thought.  

Back to the egg hunt.

All five weapons of mass destruction: Chandler, Frances, Peanut, Darby and Adler.

Eighty-Nine Months of First Grader Frances

Eighty-Nine Month Fun Fact:

• Physical Prowess:  Frances has decided to complete our annual Mother's Day 5k under her own steam.  I couldn't be more thrilled that she is volunteering to walk/run 3.1 miles rather than be pushed around the course in a giant double stroller, as long as I'm not the one responsible for coaching her through.  I need to concentrate on getting myself around.  Luckily, Mark has volunteered for that job.  In preparation of this blessed event, Frances has been practicing walking around the Jamaica Pond twice, a good three miles.  She also stops to stare at the water and contemplate her folly, but never mind.  Good fun will be had by all.