Light and Momentary

Seven Quick Takes: Chatty Three-Year-Old Edition

1. Stella is standing in the living room, wearing only her sparkly pink sandals, when she announces her plans to go outside. I say, "Are you missing something?" She frowns, thoughtful. "...Ummm...." She brightens -- she's figured it out. "A magic wand!"

2. She's started saying "Sure" whenever she means "Yes." It works often but not always -- she sounds like a non-native speaker who hasn't quite figured out an idiom. For instance: "Wanna watch Dora!" "Not now, sweetie." "Suuuurre!"

3. She's pretty good at putting sounds together, but she has some quirky errors. She makes mistakes on /n/, which is weird -- /n/ is a really easy sound. She has a mee where you have a knee, and she frequently meeeeeeds one thing or another. I think she's on a mission to perplex her mother, who has never seen such a basic error in a kid with such an otherwise normal sound system.

4. She has a performer streak running through her. Last week we went to Boy Scout camp for family night, and she watched the drummers and dancers fairly patiently. When their first song ended, though, she stood up. "I go down and dance too," she announced. I didn't think that would go over well, but lo and behold they invited anyone who wanted to dance to come on down. Alex scooped her up and took her to the girls with fancy costumes, where she draped herself in a diaphanous white cape and twirled to the drums along with her biggest brother.

5. I fear this will be interesting to exactly zero people besides me, but I am watching with interest as she figures out prepositions. In my first year of high school Latin I remember learning that "in" could have multiple meanings in Latin, including in, on, or to. I thought, "To? To and in are completely different concepts." I was intrigued, then, when she started using "to" to mean "in" earlier this summer. Now she's sorted out "to," but she's overgeneralizing "for," along the lines of "We sit for the couch."

6. She has been on a Dora jag, asking constantly if she can watch another Dora episode on Amazon. My 30-year-old self would emphatically disapprove. Yesterday she decided we were living in a long-ago Dora story. "Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "I can't walk! I'm a giant potato! I not a girl; I'm a potato." [rendered poo-tato; in a related error she says "poo-mana" for banana. Do you think she's expressing her distaste for produce?]

7. One of my summer plans was to have a picnic dinner somewhere each week. Last week's picnic was kind of a disaster: they hated the food I'd packed, and we were supposed to meet Elwood but it didn't work out. But there was one bright spot. Someone nearby started playing some music with a good beat. "I'm gonna dance!" Stella announced. She got up and went to town, enjoying the heck out of that song in that moment. I hope she always feels so much at ease in her own skin.

More quick takes at Jen's.

Kids and the Low-Car Lifestyle

Kathy asked for tips on navigating the bus system with little ones in tow, and I have a few.

1. Routine is your friend. Just as your kids learn the drill with riding in the car, they can learn the routine with riding in the bus: we get on, mom pays the fare, we sit down, we stash the stroller, we talk about the stuff we see, we keep our hands to ourselves, we get permission to push the "stop requested" button, and we hold onto mom while we're getting off. In fact, they can learn more quickly because you can sit beside them, teaching and correcting, instead of having your back to them while you operate a moving vehicle. My oldest was 21 months old when we moved to Edinburgh and began taking buses everywhere. He was a rowdy little 21-month-old, but I have only pleasant memories of those early months on the bus -- seeing the sights, talking about the billboards, spotting trucks and machinery together. Don't be discouraged by a chaotic first outing or two.

2. The bus driver can be your friend. Most bus drivers are good eggs. They may flip the handicapped ramp down for you so you can push the stroller right up. They will probably tell you it's fine to sit in the handicapped seats as long as no wheelchair users need them. (In my experience, most bus systems outside major metropolitan areas are underused, so drivers can be flexible about things like that.) You may be able to keep the toddler strapped right in the stroller, using the wheelchair space, so you don't have to fold and stash the stroller and reverse the process when you get off. Bus drivers are accustomed to dealing with people who need patience for one reason or another, and most of them would rather be patient with the courteous mother of young children than the conspicuously drunk, loud, and confused college student.

3. You can often depend on the kindness of strangers. Of course you want to be able to handle things yourself, but I have been pleasantly surprised over the years at how welcoming and accommodating other riders have been on mass transit. People may offer to scoot over so you can sit together. People may help your child to get seated and stay seated while you fold up the stroller and get it on the rack. They may intercept (nicely) a toddler who zips down the aisle while you are paying the fare. They will very often jump up to help you get down the stroller from an overhead rack as you prepare to get off. Of course there are exceptions, but I have received more help from strangers than I ever would have imagined.

4. Insularity is not your friend. In contrast to your car, where you control the music and the company and the conversation, you are going to run into weirdness on the bus. There will be occasional profane or inappropriate conversations; there will be strongly expressed opinions that you strongly disagree with. I once read a blog post in which a mother forbade her child to read the bumper stickers in a Whole Foods parking lot because "those people are crazy." That kind of attitude will only lead to misery on mass transit. Mass transit is there for the masses, some of whom smell bad or look funny. You can view it as an opportunity to learn about the least of these, or as a reason to take the car next time. Up to you.

I've never had to get an 18-month-old and a newborn onto the bus at the same, because my kids are all 3 years apart. My strategy in that situation would look something like this:

1. Plan ahead. Find out how much the fare is, and have exact change ready to go so there's no fumbling at the fare box. Sling the newborn securely and have a lightweight umbrella stroller that you can lift onto the bus easily and fold one-handed.

2. Prevent chaos. Keep the toddler buckled in the stroller while you pay the fare and wheel him to your seats. You can pen him in the seat with your body while you collapse the stroller and put it on the rack.

3. Pack light. Strip non-essentials out of the diaper bag and bring home fewer library books than usual. It's easier to be cranky if you're doing something unfamiliar and hauling a giant bag. The goal is...

4. ...Have fun! You don't have to reach behind you blindly to meet a need -- you can sit face to face. You can see the sights in your own town as a passenger, through the eyes of your little one. You don't have to park, you don't have to worry about rude drivers, you can just sit back and let someone else get you there -- and pay for the fuel, too.

The Low-Car Lifestyle

A commenter emailed to ask if I'd write a post about living with one car for seven people, and I said sure. My husband and I have been married for almost 19 years, and we've been a one-car family except for the five-year period when we had no car. Our policy is "Buy 'em used and drive 'em till they die." We've never had a car payment.

This is mostly my husband's doing. Early in our marriage he said heatedly, "I'm never going to have two cars." I said, "What if we have seven kids? Can we have two cars then?" He unbent ever so slightly. "Maybe," he allowed. "Maybe if we have seven kids then we'll have two cars." Five children later, here we are.

When I first talked to a realtor about buying a house in this town, she asked about my priorities. I didn't hesitate for a minute: my top priority was sidewalks. I told her I needed to be able to walk to church, to the library, to the playground, and to the grocery store. Our current neighborhood is less walkable than the last place we lived, and the mass transit options are of course more limited than they were in Chicago. But it works anyway.

Elwood takes the bus to and from work almost all of the time. He likes the buffer it gives him between work and home, and he gets through an impressive number of books given his short commute. Occasionally he oversleeps, or it's pouring rain, or there's ice on the sidewalks, and on those days he'll drive or be driven. That's rare, though. My office is a ten-minute walk from the house, so it's no trouble at all for me to walk or bike to work.

Our oldest takes two buses to his Catholic high school. We weren't quite sure how that would work out, because it's a long commute. Fortunately, just like Elwood, he likes having the time to read (or play on his phone), and he likes being able to get himself around town independently. He has no sense of direction, and a couple of times he got on a bus going in the wrong direction. In this town, though, the buses all run on loop routes. A little patience will get you where you wanted to be, even if you're directionally challenged.

On rare occasions, maybe once every year or two, we'll rent a car. Perhaps our van is in the shop, or perhaps some of us are traveling. Whatever the reason, it's much cheaper to rent a car for a weekend than to own one.

The hardest part is leisure activities, especially as the kids' schedules get busier. I have found that very few parents are interested in carpooling. Sometimes we ask to share rides and try to show our appreciation in other ways: I took once-a-week meals to the family that gave Alex an early-morning ride to driver's ed, and kicked in gas money when a neighbor drove to the Behold conference. Whenever possible, our preferred solution has been to teach the kids to get themselves where they're going. They can bike to soccer practice; they can take the bus to karate. It's getting trickier as Alex gets involved in more late-night activities: Elwood often conks out early, meaning that I need to deal with both bedtime for the Toddler Who Never Sleeps (she wants to be a part of it) and transportation for the teenager who needs ferrying.

For now, though, it's working. We could afford a second car if we needed one, but it's nice to be able to put that money elsewhere. Driving Alex to and from school twice a day would cost me an hour, and I'd rather spend that time doing other things. I haven't tallied the environmental cost of making 20 avoidable 15-minute trips each week, but I'm sure it adds up.

Our parents think we're a little wacky, and maybe we are. "This is America!" my FIL said in 2000, when we announced we were going to continue to be car-free after our two years in the UK. "People look at you funny if you don't have a car!" And living without a car was harder than I realized at the time -- we moved back from Scotland just in time for a bitterly cold Chicago winter. These days I would never, but never, walk a mile in 6-degree temps with a 3yo and a 1yo. But in 2000 I wanted to be a full-time mom and I wanted to stay out of debt, and that meant living without a car. I bundled them up and off we went. Now I don't walk anywhere if the thermometer is showing single digits, but I have to smile when I look back at my 30-year-old self, determined to make the best of it.

I remember talking to an acquaintance that winter -- she was astonished that we were living with two kids and no car. I said, "Life is full of trade-offs. Having a car means you have the stress of maintaining it and driving it in traffic and dealing with all the other hassles that go along with car ownership. I'll take the bus, thanks."

Alas, earwigs

Sunday night I spotted an earwig on the living room floor. I said to my husband, "Are you feeling chivalrous enough to deal with that bug? Or are you just going to remind me that I've been through childbirth five times and I can handle it?"

I smote the earwig myself.

I wouldn't have thought anything more of it, except that this morning I was scrubbing up under the rim of the upstairs toilet and I dislodged...AN EARWIG.

Why, internet, why was there an earwig lurking under the toilet rim? If I wanted pests to pester me while I was seeking quiet and privacy, I would move to the Amazon. How did it get upstairs in the first place? Did it march itself up the steps, perhaps with the aid of a tiny carabiner? Did it scale the outside wall and sneak in through cracks in the caulking? Did one of us carry it up there, unnoticed, on a piece of clothing? SHUDDER.

Did you know that the bite of an earwig can draw blood? Isn't that a cheery thought to start your day: you sit down sleepily to take care of your morning business and arise with bleeding nethers?

That's too much to cope with before coffee. No. That's too much to cope with after coffee. That's too much to cope with after vodka, for crying out loud.

The title of the post comes from Albert Dumbledore's line at the end of the first Harry Potter book, when he accidentally eats an earwax-flavored jellybean. I would eat six dozen earwax-flavored jellybeans rather than have earwigs skulking in the toilet. If you need me, I'll be obsessively scrubbing.

I flushed the one I found this morning, but he was pretty resistant to being flushed. Do you suppose they can crawl back up the pipes?

Summer serendipity

• Petely and I enjoyed some early morning reading, in which we followed the hobbits to the Prancing Pony
• We rode our bikes to swim lessons and played at Concussion Playground afterward, injury-free
• It was a hot day, but Pete and I played I Spy in the shade while Stella climbed
• He is small for his age and doesn't win a lot of races at school (small frame = short legs = short stride), but he found a 4.5yo who wanted to race and he felt positively fleet
• We rode our bikes downtown, knocking some items off the to-do list before a stop for a crinkle cookie at our favorite downtown cafe
• Elwood came home for lunch -- an uncommon treat
• I finished the yoke of the sweater I'm knitting for my nephew and soon-to-be godson while Pete played with a friend and Stella napped. Also finished Karen Edmisten's book, which has been on my shelf for a while.
• I dusted off the paper I'm hoping to submit in the next couple of weeks, and enjoyed re-reading it. Here's hoping the reviewers feel the same way.
• It was day 11 of diaper-free daytime, with no accidents
• I went to a strength-training class that left me quivering like Knox blocks. In a good way.
• The kids and I picked up our CSA veggies (any kohlrabi ideas?) and hung out on the playground as the heat died down
• I took my bike in so they could true the front wheel. It rides so much better that I couldn't help but add a couple of miles to my route home. We have this great shady bike trail that winds all over town, and I aim to make the most of it this summer.
• In the last of the daylight I watered the garden, admiring the basil and tomatoes and zucchini and the radishes (all looking promising). Let us not speak of the broccoli, which our neighborhood bunny seems to find very attractive.
• Twenty more pages of Wolf Hall to go.

In which I join the club

You guys, I did the most unexpectedly fun thing tonight. Elwood P. had asked me about joining this running group for women, and I was ~75% skeptical. I was pretty sure I'd be the slowest and most pathetic, and believe me, I have enough trouble withstanding the tide of self-loathing that swamps me when I exercise. But I decided to listen to the 25% of my brain that was saying it might be a good idea, and I wrote a check. Tonight was our first meeting. It surpassed my most optimistic expectations.

First, I was not the slowest, not at all. They divided the 30 of us into 4 groups. I decided, with a little interior nail-biting, that I did not need to be in the slowest group. I wound up with a perfect fit: a workout that pushed me without causing me to feel that I might throw up. The group had two leaders, one in the front and one behind. I don't know about the one who brought up the rear (because! I was not at all the slowest even in the not-slowest group! which merits these exclamation points of surprise even though it sounds kind of pitiful!), but the one who was up front did a great job: she was encouraging and peppy without a whisper of condescension. I finished with a grin on my face.

I have never run with a buddy except for the night I asked my husband to join me, which was pretty much the death knell for running for, oh, most of the rest of 2011. It was surprisingly fun to be in a group. At the point when I would have said, "Forget this -- I'm taking a walking break," I had five other women nearby who were hanging in there. This motivated me to hang in there too, despite scorching temperatures. (Actually, my thought process went something like this: "Look at us! We are not running -- we are shambling! You can keep shambling for a little longer, Jamie.") The woman who led the fastest group had two coolers in her trunk, loaded up with water and Gatorade. So delicious, sucking down icy water while riding an endorphin buzz. Just thinking about it makes me eager to go back next week.

I've decided to put some energy toward fitness this summer, after years of thinking that I shouldn't be vain or shouldn't take the time when I have so many other responsibilities (not to mention the occasional Akron U-turn). But the mood-elevating effect of vigorous exercise is really potent, and a happy mama makes for a happier family. I'll keep you posted.

Play-Doh Socket Wrench Ice Cream

Southerners use buttermilk more than people in other parts of the world. A long time ago I posted about making buttermilk pie, and people said, "What? Buttermilk? In a pie?" It's like custard pie, only with more zip.

Buttermilk ice cream is the same idea: it gives a little twist to a summertime standard. I was thinking about fun summer things we could do today and homemade ice cream seemed like an obvious choice.

The recipe is easy: 2 cups buttermilk, 2 cups whipping cream, 2 cups sugar (I like dark brown sugar better than white sugar, but white sugar is more traditional), 2 T. vanilla. Stir it until the sugar is dissolved. Pour into your ice cream maker and let 'er rip.

When I got to the let 'er rip stage, however, I was chagrined to discover ice water leaking from the bottom of my ice cream maker. A dim memory from late last summer resurfaced, a piece that rusted out. Since I bought the ice cream maker at the thrift store 7 years ago, I didn't shed bitter tears. I said, "All right, boys, we're cranking this batch ourselves."

The boys have been watching Mythbusters lately, courtesy of Amazon Prime, and they had a bunch of ideas about how we could get it going. ("It's too bad we don't have any servos," my 12-year-old mused.) We plugged the hole at the bottom with Play-Doh and added the water and salt. We tried a couple of options for connecting a lever to the dasher, including superglue and a plastic fork (FAIL), until we settled on a wrench and packing tape.

It was kind of a slog, but the result was really good ice cream.

I had it stashed in the freezer in a plastic container. Marty came in while I was doctoring a different plastic container, filled with the vichyssoise I planned to take on our dinner picnic tonight. It hadn't turned out very well initially, but I thought I'd improved it. He tasted it and said sadly, "It's so...potato-ey." I thought, "Yeah, well, it's POTATO SOUP, kid," but I said, "What do you think it needs?" He knew right away: "It needs to be sweeter." I said, "Sweeter?"

He thought I had been doctoring the ice cream, and had turned it into vichyssoise. He was relieved to be wrong. :-)

Back on the horse

I remember a college acquaintance opining that safer playgrounds were to blame for the decline of hardihood and determination in American youth. It is, of course, a bit ironic for a 20-year-old to be griping about the moral failings of American youth, but it is an argument that has stayed with me. His idea was that kids used to be able to take risks on the playground, but that increasingly playgrounds were being redesigned with added padding and less dangerous equipment.

Twenty-odd years later, it's even more conspicuous. My kids gripe about it too: one of the playgrounds near our house is much less fun than it used to be. They took out the merry-go-round; they took out the funky metal spider you could climb all over (rickety, blazing hot in summer, covered in peeling paint of uncertain vintage). There's one of those green and beige plastic structures in place now: safe and boring.

For years I have wanted my kids to play hard on the playground: to get stronger, to figure out new skills, to wear themselves out so they would take longer naps. (Wait, perhaps I shouldn't admit my secret agenda.) I have rolled my eyes inwardly at parents who seemed to want to control the playground experience. "No, no, Sadie!" they say. "We go UP the steps and DOWN the slide." Isn't it more fun to go up the slide and then down the slide some more? Is there a rule against going up the slide? Aside from the Big Rule, of course: Don't Be A Jerk. If someone's waiting to go down the slide, or heading up the ladder in preparation for going down the slide, then you don't go up the slide. If there are littler kids around, you are vigilant about their safety even if you have to slow down your own fun. Courtesy trumps fun. But fun is the reason we have playgrounds, isn't it?

And then. Friday. My little guy's little body, the body I bore and nursed and diapered and tended -- motionless after that horrifying thud.

I would insert a joke here about bubble wrap, but I can't even joke. We're scheduled to go back to that park for swim lessons tomorrow, and I don't want to go. This is the wrong thing to take from his accident. Even as I was biking home that day, grateful for a fast bike and strong legs and good health insurance, I thought, "This should teach me not to be so fearful, because it's so easy to fear the wrong thing and the actual disaster always takes you by surprise."

I think I need a little more grace to absorb that truth.

Pete's doing well. He has some nasty bruising on his knees and a still-sizable lump on his head. He complains of intermittent headaches. But his memory is just fine -- he even remembers the accident now -- and he's managing perfectly well with Tylenol. So maybe the thing to do tomorrow is to follow his lead, to see if he wants to visit the playground again. And maybe duct-tape his bike helmet in place.

Seven Quick Takes: ER Edition

1. Earlier this summer I was thinking to myself, "It's a little strange that we've never had to take a kid to the ER given the number of kid-years we've lived through." (The kid-years total is a little more than 48. And yes, that's foreshadowing.)

2. This morning we biked over to the pool. Stella and Pete are starting swim lessons on Monday, and today was the little pre-test. It took about 5 minutes, and then we went out to the playground. I sat down in the shade with my knitting, but a few minutes later there was an enormous thud. A worried-looking boy tried to explain: "He...um...fell."

Petely loves to climb up high. This time, though, he lost his grip. (I blame the wet bathing suit, I think.) He fell about seven feet, smacking down hard on a metal platform. He was lying still, crying weakly.

3. Oh, you guys, I didn't know what to do. Ambulance? Taxi to the doctor's office? Could I move him safely? The good news was that he could move and talk, but he was clearly hurt -- a giant goose egg on his scalp (more the size of a goose nest than a goose egg, actually), and God knows what happening beneath it. He didn't know where he was or how he had come to be there. He didn't know my name (he knew I was his mom, but he couldn't come up with Jamie); he didn't know his address. He said, "I don't remember anything. I only know that I'm Pete." I got an ice pack from the first aid office and just held him for a few minutes. His brain seemed to unfog: he could name everybody in his family and say where we lived. He remembered the swim test. But nothing more.

4. I decided that it was not an ambulance situation, and that the fastest way to a doctor was via bicycle. I loaded Pete into the bike trailer next to Stella, leaving his bike for later retrieval. He cried when I eased on his helmet, but I was not about to leave it off. At home I called family practice. They recommended that we go to the ER. In the few minutes it took me to talk to the nurse, Pete had drifted off to sleep on the couch. I hustled Alex out of the shower and left him in charge; I scooped Pete into my arms. He looked around the living room -- the room where he was born -- and said, "I don't know where I am. Where am I?"

5. He slept again in the ER waiting room, where we spent about an hour. I kept thinking it would be our turn next, but they kept calling other patients. (To the old man with the tremor and the chest pain: I am sorry for begrudging you prompt treatment. It's just that I was envisioning a subdural hemorrhage unfurling inside my Petely's skull. What was that Robert Altman movie about the kid who died after what seemed like a minor bump on the head? It scarred me for life, man.) He perked up markedly when he woke up, as we were being called back. He is pretty bruised, but his CT was clear. I imagine his guardian angel darting in beneath him to cushion the blow: he fell so hard, you guys.

6. I am thinking one more time about the folly of dread. I was worried about the bike ride there, which requires us to cross a couple of busy streets. I was worried that Stella would be sad about the swim test, because she doesn't love going underwater. It never crossed my mind to worry about a 15-minute playground stop. Providentially, I had compelled my 12yo to come along (thinking even as I did it that it was strange for me to insist that he come). He was able to keep Stella safe and happy while I iced Pete's head (and turned his eyes into the sunlight, willing his left pupil to react).

7. And I am thinking again about grace for the moment. I sat in that waiting room with his limp weight in my arms, imagining hematomas and surgery and spiking intracranial pressures and and and...and then I remembered that God does not offer grace to deal with hypotheticals but with realities. I said, "Oh, God, help me to be right here," and -- bam! -- the grace was palpable. I had to chase away another panicky thought: what if he never regains consciousness? Was the last thing I said to him a kind thing? I was relieved to remember that he had slipped into sleep listening to me whisper the first sorrowful mystery.

Now here's hoping we don't go to the ER for at least another 48 kid-years. Maybe 96. More quick takes at Jen's.

Flummoxed by Fashion

The inbox is zeroed and the desk is clear, a feat which so pleased me that I thought briefly about posting a picture. The idea of posting an empty desk picture causes my Self-Indulge-O-Meter to emit loud aah-ooo-gahs, though, so I will spare you.

Next on my list is dealing with kids' clothing (along with the overstuffed "action required" cubby in my newly tidy desk, but little girl clothes are more fun than mysterious notices about retirement funds). Stella is lucky enough to have two cousins who are a bit older than she is: my brother's daughter will be 7 in the fall, and Elwood's sister's little girl is 5. They send cute outgrown clothes our way, which is much appreciated. But today I made a discovery that has me perplexed.

Stella has been wearing a sweet little sundress, a floral print with gingham trim. In the bag of clothes to be sorted, I just discovered a triangle of fabric, with strings attached, in the very same floral print. On my first pass through the bag I had thought it was a halter top, but that can't be right. My first idea tonight, on getting a better look at it, was that it might be a mantilla, but I realized quickly that there's not a ton of overlap between the set of people who tie mantillas on their 3yo daughters' heads and the set of people who dress their 3yo daughters in bare-shouldered sundresses.

Next I wondered if it was a bandana kind of a thing (a secular mantilla, perhaps), or a superhero cape (Floral Print Girl, able to leap tall rickrack in a single bound), or a matching bandage for those regrettable skinned knee occasions that seem to follow kids around all summer long.

But now I think I have it figured out: it is obviously a disguise for the well-dressed bank-robbing 3yo.

6(+)6(=)12

So I am sitting in my living room floor, and I am tempted to feel a little gloomy. There is a pile of paper in the floor that I was going to sort through tonight, but I might rather clean the oven instead. (I don't clean ovens, even when it would be a really good idea to clean an oven. I just figure the ook will burn off, and I channel Dionne Warwick to sing "That's What Flames Are For.") It's going to take some time to get things back in order after working so much between early March and late May, and that's just the way it is. On the plus side, grades are submitted and the house is clean and my veggie garden is planted. One thing at a time, right?

Laura Vanderkam wrote a post that I kept unread in my Google Reader for, like, weeks, waiting until I had time to think about it. I've made myself a list of things I want to do this summer -- some relatively quick and easy ("make profiteroles" is one that I can do in stages in an afternoon) and some more involved ("take family to West Virginia" will require planning). We'll see how many of the items make it off my list and into reality, but she also recommends keeping a record of what's going well. Instead of sifting helplessly through the heap of colored pencils that the boys brought home at the end of the school year, I am going to write quickly about some fun things from the past two days.

Yesterday was exhausting in a good way: I was up until 1 because I was determined to finish grading, and then awake at the usual time with the kids. Even though it was a short night, we worked well together to get the house cleaned and then we went out to lunch. We made a slightly chaotic but mostly fun stop at a consignment store to pick up some summer clothes, and a flying trip to the pool, and then we flung together a picnic and walked to campus to see the transit of Venus. I might see Halley's comet a second time, but I will be dead and buried the next time anyone sees the transit of Venus. I thought about Joseph Banks and his arduous trip to Tahiti, and I was grateful that the most difficult part of getting to our viewing site was figuring out where Elwood had stashed the pastrami.

I finished up the last of the CSA veggies from last week about 15 minutes before I went to pick up the next installment -- success for week 1! The kids love the playground at the pickup site, and I was pleasantly surprised to run into a friend who, it turns out, has been part of the CSA for years. This week we have more food than we did last week, but I'm off to a good start: I knocked together a speedy lambs quarters soup for lunch (3/5 kids requested seconds) and a cilantro pesto at dinner that is probably the tastiest thing I've made this year. I'm reading Lord of the Rings to Joe and Pete, and we finished chapter 2 today, and Wolf Hall is getting better and better, and I was able to get to yoga for the first time since spring break.

Recipes if you are interested: Saute some onion and garlic in butter, and add a bunch of lambs quarters, or spinach if you have no lambs quarters. Peel and slice three potatoes, and toss them into the pot. Add about a quart of water or stock, and simmer until the potatoes are tender. Salt emphatically. Add pepper and ground celery seed and a generous pour of cream. Hit it with an immersion blender until it is smooth. Serve with minced green onions and garlic scapes, and a spoonful of sour cream. My kids were happier to taste it when I said they could dip their buttered bread into it, and then they figured out that it was good on its own.

Cilantro pesto, from the CSA cookbook: take a clove of garlic, a hot pepper, a bunch of cilantro (stems and all), 1/4 c. oil (I used a mix of plain vegetable and toasted sesame), 2 T. lemon or lime juice, 1/4 c. nuts or seeds (I used pumpkin seeds), and 1/2 t. salt. Toss them in the food processor and let it rip. Eat with a SPOON. (I served it with the fish we had for dinner, but it is SO good that it really is spoon-worthy.)

Waterside and Watershed

I am playing along with Darwin.

Waterside books:

1. The Aubrey-Maturin books. So much fun -- I especially love the relationship between the two principals.
2. The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times. I bought this based on a lukewarm recommendation, and so I was surprised to enjoy it as much as I did. I've been re-reading bits of it, which is unusual for me. A skeptical nurse comes to live with nuns for midwifery training, providing care to working-class women in London's East End.
3. The Dirty Life or The Quarter-Acre Farm or The Seasons on Henry's Farm. That's kind of a cheaterpants thing to do, sneaking in three books when I was asked for one, but I'm doing it anyway. I suppose since I kicked off this section of the meme by recommending 19 books instead of 1, I'm obviously not displaying a firm commitment to following the rules. Last summer while Elwood was away and Stella was sleeping like a wombat on Dexedrine, I was on a farming tear with my late-night reading. My own garden was sadly neglected during this stage, but I sure did read a lot about growing vegetables. I can't decide which of these I liked best; the third is the slowest-moving of the three but worthwhile anyway.

Watershed books:

1. War and Peace. I'd always thought this book must be the slowest, dullest work ever written -- somber and pretentious and interminable. But then I read it. I laughed out loud at the opera scene. I was blown away by Tolstoy's perspicacity -- his ability to write a scene that rang absolutely true, revealing something I recognized but could not have articulated. I read it at 19, and it was my introduction to the truth that Great Books are great not because they are suffocating but because they seem to breathe.
2. Bleak House. I read this one in the winter of 2003, when we were living in Rockland County, NY and I hated everything about it. ("It" being Rockland County, not Bleak House. I'm glad to have met my friend Gina that year, but otherwise it was pretty dismal.) Bleak House was a kick in the pants, reminding me that you can live your life wishing for the future or blooming where you're planted.
3. King Lear. I have posted before about reading Lear, the play that kicked off my Shakespeare project. There's another story behind that choice, but there is also a wombat-ish call issuing from upstairs and so I am going to settle my daughter. Perhaps I'll tell it tomorrow. Oh UGH I am thinking now that this is too pretentious to post but I'll hit publish anyway. Draft posts only rarely make it out of the drafts folder.

Seven Quick Takes: Countdown from Seventy Edition

Okay, I'm doing that thing again where I use a quick takes post as a nudge to keep on grading. I have 32 final exams to grade, and 38 papers but I think they're going to have to wait for Monday. If I divide the exams into batches of 5 and write a quick take after each one, then I'll be done with grading final exams when I'm done with this post. Onward!

1. I have been working on my neglected garden, in which I was mostly growing creeping charlie and maple seedlings. When we had that crazy warm weather in April I put in some herbs; I have some volunteer frisee along with some of the allium gang that showed up for a return engagement (onions, garlic, and leeks). With some help from my Petely, I have put in seeds for radishes, beets, peas, and letttuce, along with seedling zucchini, tomatillos, acorn squash (which is not my favorite, but the lone butternut squash plant didn't look very healthy; I am optimistic that I will enjoy it more if I grew it myself), an unfamiliar variety of sweet pepper, and seven basil plants. Mmmmmm, I love summer pesto. I also moved the two healthiest volunteer tomato seedlings from out of the shade of the asparagus ferns into full sun. Pete is snuggled up next to me, helping me remember what we planted. Still to come: more herbs, kale, chard. Pete assures me that he's on the case.

2. This week I am the resident whip-cracker. We wound up accelerating my oldest son in math this year, with the result that he is required to finish up an online trigonometry course before he returns to school in the fall. Since he's going to be gone most of the summer (he's a CIT! so excited for him!), we want him to push hard to get it done early. I think he is waiting for the Trigonometry Fairy. She, mysteriously, seems no more reliable than the Grading Fairy.

3. We just had a birthday party, and I am sad to say I was not looking forward to it. Sometimes I worry that my children will look back on their childhoods and remember me as a sour-faced pucker-mouthed shrew shrieking "NO FUN ALLOWED!" Well, not shrieking. I don't shriek very often. I wonder, though: will they remember how much fun it was to set off the firecrackers, or will they remember me saying that we should stop before the carelessness intensified and save the rest for Fourth of July?

4. One of the items on my summer list is getting Stella out of diapers. She has zero interest in this process -- zero. Everybody says girls are supposed to be easier than boys, but that is not the case for this particular girl. Although -- maybe it's not a girl thing or a boy thing. Maybe it's a me thing. I am bad at the whole get-them-out-of-diapers deal. I expect I will manage it after a vexing week in which there is lots of peeing on the carpet, but we shall see. Neither the Dora underwear nor the sparkly princess underwear is proving an especially helpful incentive.

5. Oh, you guys! This never happens. I mean N-E-V-E-R. When I am grading I am always acutely aware of how many things I have left to grade. My inner calculator is constantly adjusting the percentage done/percentage remaining. But this evening I got a happy surprise: I thought I had six exams left to grade but it was only three. Whee! I'm finished grading the essay portion of the exam; all that's left is the papers. And a bunch of the papers (I've been interspersing papers with exams) have been really interesting, which is not the usual descriptor for student writing.

6. I just cooked a dinner that was delicious and good for us and inexpensive, and the kids ate it without a word of complaint. That also never happens -- N-E-V-E-R. I chopped beet greens and some radish greens finely (I wound up composting some of the radish greens from this week's CSA delivery, but I think I'm okay with that) and sauted them with green garlic stems and bulbs. That turned into brown rice pilaf, which got a flavor boost from homemade beef stock. I marinated skirt steak in olive oil and lemon juice and garlic, and ran it under the broiler until it was medium rare. The meat-eaters ate it on top of the pilaf; the vegetarian had chickpeas instead. Everybody had baby beets with butter and lemon juice. A hit, with minimal hands-on time.

7. The sun hasn't gone down yet, and Elwood left half of his beer behind when he left to take the boys to a movie. (A documentary about a sushi chef, which all four of them were eager to see. Weird, huh?) I am going to finish his beer and eat my salad, and then perhaps I'll grade a few last papers before Monday. Over and out from the lecturer who is almost done wearing the Dr. Gladly hat for the summer, and who is eager to be just plain Jamie for a while.