I had big plans for Beka, Molly and Zak's visit. Big plans. We were going to visit the Children's Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts quilt show, the Swan Boats, the Arnold Arboretum, a local fabric store, an alternative ice cream store, a restaurant with excellent grilled beans, the food trucks and the sprinkler playground. We were going to make paint stamps out of potatoes for the kids to experiment with. We were going to go through our bins and bins of clothes so poor Zak won't freeze in Brooklyn this winter. We were definitely going to get a picture of all four kids together. And we were definitely going to stay up chatting after the kids went to sleep.
Not so much. Coordinating eating, napping, school, etc. turned out to be delicate, exhausting work.
We did manage to get to the food trucks, largely to avoid cooking. We took the three littles to the sprinkler playground, though I'm not sure anyone actually made it into the sprinklers. And we did rummage through several clothes bins. But mostly we hung around the house so Beka could read to the kids.
Frances is just a bit fond of Beka.*
And then around five o'clock, we'd feed the kids before they self-destructed.
And then we'd start the bedtime routine, which turns out to be complicated with four children, two of whom aren't in their native environment.
And the adults usually called it quits long before 8:30, in contrast to freshman year of college, when our bedtime was 1 a.m.
We are too old for this.
*A few days after Beka, et al., left, Frances said, "I like Molly's mom. She's good. I like her reading process." High praise!
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