summer fun – Life Off Headset

Weekly Recap + what we ate: No flow state

This past week has felt like a disjointed mess. Errands. Play dates. Life. Laundry. Dishes.

Everything just felt fraught, everyone was grumpy. Or maybe just me. Then in the middle of the week, it hit me: I was feeling so off because I wasn’t in a place to have any sense of flow in my life – there is no flow in parenting. Flow. That state of total occupation where time seems to melt away. When an activity is just challenging enough to demand total attention and focus. Much ink has been spilt lately on how flow is essential to well being. When I took the Yale Happiness Course (free online – I found it very insightful and tweaked some life habits after taking this course.), flow was cited as important to achieving well being and reducing stress. When you’re in a flow state, you’re in the zone, totally present with a sense of purpose, which makes for a really enjoyable experience.

I think about activities when I find that sense of flow:

-In the Kitchen. Cooking and baking definitely put me into a flow state – the mixing and combining and seeing yummy things manifest.

-timing scores. At work, one of our jobs is to listen to the opera with a stopwatch and mark every 15 seconds in our score. It helps later on to figure out how much time there is between two moments in the show – say, a singer exiting and re-entering, or if we have live flame onstage we can tell the fire marshal how long the torch will be lit, that kind of thing. Timing the score is one of those moment of flow because I have to really concentrate to follow the music and get the marks in the right place. We all know not to bother someone when they are timing a score. And at the same time, I love it because I get to listen to the music and music is pretty awesome.

-mending. Part of it is I’m not very good at mending, so I have to concentrate very hard on it and I find it a completely absorbing activity, and it’s also really satisfying when it is done to know that I saved a piece of clothing for a few more wears.

-Writing here on the blog. I am a very slow writer, also it doesn’t come easily to me. Or maybe I have a lot to say, and like finding ways of getting words out. When I get a chunk of uninterrupted time to write, the time can fly and I’m usually really happy with the outcome.

But even aside from those “fun flows” I get a certain satisfied sense of flow in being able to just get things done. Like bang out all the “internet errand” (bills, registrations, forms, etc.) in one go, or tidying a room, or organizing a closet. I actually think I get a huge sense of flow from cleaning the kitchen late at night after the kids go go bed.

Which all brings me to my realization: There is no flow in parenting. With the kids at home, there was no chance to get through something uninterrupted, no chance to immerse myself, lose track of time. Someone was always hungry, or needed help with something, or complaining about a sibling. And even when the house was quiet – that in itself also disrupts flow because something in my brain would tick and say, “It’s too quiet, what are the kids up to????” I’d sit down for two minutes to get a task done, or roll out my yoga mat to do ten minutes of yoga… and suddenly footsteps, a knock on my door, a small hand tugging on my arm, a voice in my ear, then my train of thought and sense of purpose is shattered. If flow is about uninterrupted immersion, then yeah… there was not flow during daytime hours last week.

The other thing I found interesting in reading up about flow this week, is that researchers say flow is achieved when peak skill level combines with peak challenge level. So if you don’t feel challenged at something you’re not at all skilled at, you’re going to feel apathetic about it. I like the range of states on the chart below:

from this website, but also it features in Laurie Santos’ talks.

And here, I realized, is another reason I find no flow in parenting – Parenting, for me is a high challenge situation for which I have low skills. Empathy and understanding and doing the right thing and having the perfect response – those come neither naturally or easily for me. So there I am right in the “Anxiety” corner of the chart, though I probably hang out more in the “worry” segment. (I also feel this way about work sometimes. ) So not only does parenting disrupt any flow I may have when I undertake an activity, it also does not provide any kind of venue for intrinsic flow either.

I don’t know if I can spin that into a positive – something about savoring my children while I can despite the challenge? Or if I should just live with the expectation that when the kids are home life will feel abrupt and disjointed and fractured and at sea. After all reasonable expectations are also a component to well being. I think it’s perhaps all of it – setting boundaries with the kids, managing my own work load when they are home so that the tasks can be interrupted, and also leaning into those interruptions. That all sounds very idealistic. Well the kids are all back in school as I write this, so hopefully in the hours between 9:30a and 4:00pm, I can regain some sense of the flow that I was missing the past few weeks.

Speaking of being interrupted, I read this article last week about the importance of curiosity and how we can foster curiosity in ourselves and in children and it really struck a nerve with me. This paragraph:

Children also have to feel that they are free to express their curiosity. Adults need to ‘create environments where children know that it’s safe to ask questions, where there are opportunities to explore, where it’s OK to be wrong and to express uncertainty,’ Bonawitz says. In one high-school classroom that Engel observed, a ninth-grader raised her hand to ask if there had ever been places in the world where no one made art. ‘The teacher stopped her mid-sentence with, “Zoe, no questions now, please; it’s time for learning”,’ Engel recounted.

I think I needed this reminder as I felt myself growing impatient with the constant questions from the 6 year old. He’s very into asking the meaning of words these days, and when I’m trying to achieve a flow state, the constant interruptions for word definitions was so irksome. He’s not old enough for a dictionary yet, but even still, another thing the article points out is that research shows that children display more curiosity if the grown ups around them also engage with a curious mind. So maybe instead of just impatiently rattling off a definition to the six year old, we can get out the dictionary together. Time seems like a precious commodity and I definitely feel myself torn between doing my own thing/encouraging independence vs. engaging with my children. It’s a balance – for everyone’s sake. Constantly responding to never-ending demands certainly taps me out, but I do want to respond to my children in a way that will help them grow and learn and, yes, be curious.

Snapshots of the week:
– The 11 year old had her mini day at middle school. After all my dilemmas about how she should get to school, she ended up just walking. I followed her to school on her mini day, ten steps behind because I had the two little kids behind me. I was really proud of how she looked at her watch before she set out (she’s wearing a watch!!!), and then took note of how long it took her to get to school. It seemed a very mature thing to do. There a lot of kids who walk, so once she crosses the busy road into the next neighborhood, she’ll have lots of walking buddies. I love seeing how she is thriving with the added independence of middle school.

-We went to the 6 year old’s sneak peek at his classroom. His teacher has such boundless enthusiasm, and I’m excited for his school year.

– We went to the local botanical gardens with some friends and their kids. We saw turtles and geese. The 11 year old took over my camera and took a bajillion pictures of all the kids in various locations. It was like a fun photo shoot.

-In an attempt to curb middle of the night visits from the three year old, we’ve given her an alarm clock and told her not to come into our room until the first number is 5 or 6. We are having various degrees of success. Sometimes it works really well. Sometimes she comes when the clock says, 2:05, saying that there is a 5 and therefore it is time to get into mom and dad’s bed. There was the one time at 9:22 pm when she got out of bed, holding the clock upside down claiming that there was a 5 and she should not have to stay in bed anymore. Either she’s still figuring it out, or she’s already figured it out, crafty girl.

-Speaking of time – The kids got into my iPad and set an an alarm:

Every day at 8am. It’s good to have the reminder.

-We went to Longwood Gardens on the Sunday before school started. We hadn’t been all summer and the Husband wanted to go, so we bundled into the car, listening to How To Train Your Dragon on the way up and back. We haven’t been to Longwood Gardens in the summer in a while and I loved seeing all the colors of the blooming flowers.

One of the best parts of Longwood for me is always the vegetable gardens. They grow so many varieties of vegetables, and I always love seeing how vegetables look as they are growing, before they get plucked and delivered to the grocery store. My favorite thing this year was the rows and rows of basil, growing so tall . The smell of it all, sun soaked and fragrant, was just pure summer.

-It took me a while to find PEACE:

Grateful for:
-Siblings. I love that my kids (mostly) get along. They play together. They have the oddest conversations. They hold hands when they walk. They read to each other. They collude against the parents. They encourage each other. Particularly the oldest – she is always encouraging the little ones and can talk them out of a tantrum better than I can. Sure they have moments when they squabble and fight and take each other’s things, but on the whole, the love they have for each other shines so bright. I know you can’t predict how siblings turn out, so I hope they continue to be close as they get older.

-Public school. As I was taking the kids to their various pre-first day activities, I saw all the kids streaming to school and I thought how lucky we are to have schools were kids can go to learn. The six year old is in a French Immersion program that costs us nothing but our taxes. The 11 year old is taking a theatre class as part of the regular curriculum. And I felt grateful not just that my kids could go to school, but that any kid in our county could go to school. I borrowed a picture book from the library last week about two girls who couldn’t go to school because of the hukuo system in China. It’s a system where you have to register your residency in order to, among other things, receive services. Once registered, it is very hard to change so if you move from the rural area to the urban area, your kids aren’t guaranteed a place in the school of your new location. That’s an oversimplification, but the idea that a child would not be able to go to school makes me so sad.

-Public transportation. Another good use of my tax dollars. One day last week, we had another 6 year old over for a play date and we decided to take the bus to the library. It felt so much easier than trying to get the extra booster seat out. I just learned that the 11 year old and the 6 year old can get a bus pass to ride the county bus for free! I’m going to have to put that on my list of things to look into.

Looking forward to:
– September. A New Month! I’ve been thinking of habits and routines that I want to try to cultivate.

– Maryland Renaissance Festival! The Husband is going out of town this weekend – he’s going ot the Minnesota State Fiar with a bunch of friends. I guess it’s a bucket list trip for some of them. So a three day weekend with the kids for me. The Husband does not care for the Renaissance Festival, so I usually take the kids without him. For some reason or other he’s often away labor day weekend. Given the number of trips he’s taken with the kids solo this summer, I feel like he more than deserves a trip with his friends.

-Cooler weather. We’ve had a spate of weather in the low 80s and breezy and it’s been lovely. I’m not ready for autumn life happenings (The Hallowe’en stuff is out at Costco already!!) , but I sure am ready for autumn weather.

What We Ate:

Monday: Pasta with tomato and anchovy sauce. Tomatoes from the Husband’s garden. From the cookbook “Cook What You Have” about easy pantry meals.

Tuesday: Egg Curry. I heard about this on the podcast Didn’t I Just Feed you? I would not have thought of making a curry with hard boiled eggs, but this was really tasty and will go into our rotation. The Husband said, “I knew this was going to be good – it’s two of my favorite things: eggs and curry!”

Wednesday: Tomato Chirashi and tuna sushi bowls. The tomato chirashi bowl was from a Washington Post recipe that calls for marinading tomatoes in soy sauce, mirin, fish sauce so that the tomatoes sort of mimic raw fish. I made brown rice with vinegar and added edamame, cucumbers, carrots, and canned tuna and we topped with nori. It was really satisfying and the kids could pick and choose what they put in their bowl.

Thursday: Corn Dogs and bubble tea. We met up with the Husband after work at a Korean Corndog place in the mall for Happy Hour, which turned out to be not a great food choice, but very tasty.

Friday: Pizza (carry out) and Frozen. It was the 3 year old’s turn ot pick the movie.

Satureday: Pizza (again) at a birthday party.

Sunday: Totellini with sausage and red sauce. Pantry dinner after we got home from Longwood Gardens. I wanted something simple and quick and this was it.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Countdown to end of summer!

Last week, I had one day of work to wrap up things in the office and archive paperwork, and then I was home the rest of the week with the two older kids. The youngest still went to daycare. It was a very full and frustrating week. I felt like I was still catching up on sleep, trying to get my body back on a regular sleep schedule after the week of tech – there were a lot of late nights – my own fault! Revenge bedtime procrastination was definitely in play. And then trying to do fun and productive things. Things definitely skewed fun over than productive. The house definitely becomes a pit much faster when we are all home during the day- clothes, toys, books, food, dishes – it all piles up. And then it’s physically exhausting to be constantly cleaning and mentally/emotionally exhausting to constantly nag the kids to keep things picked up. We do need to think of better systems.

We did have a family meeting about the laundry last week and the kids decided that laundry would be put away when they get into pjs. We aren’t super great about enforcing routine clean up habits. I think this is also because the Husband and I are very different about this – he likes to constantly clean and I like to clean all the one go at the end of the night. So no wonder the kids are getting mixed messages about how to maintain a baseline level of tidiness. I’m hoping getting their input in when the laundry gets put away will help it actually get done.

Something I Learned this Week:
–Nothing draws a kid to step on your toes like your toes being broken It is amazing. It is as if a broken toe exudes a magnetic force that just draws kids (or at least my kids) to step on it. On Sunday, a week ago, I walked into a door frame. I don’t really think I broke my baby toe, but it hurt like a bejeezus for a few days. I have many friends who have broken toes and the verdict was if it wasn’t blue and sticking out sideways it is probably fine. Then a few hours later, I tripped while walking up our exterior back steps and badly stubbed my big toe on the opposite foot – I thought I was going to lose a toenail, but it has stayed in tact so far. I never noticed how much my kids step on my toes until my toes are in excruciating pain. What is with that? Do they have some kind of hidden talent for hurting me where it hurts the most? And they don’t even realize. This is the conversation, repeated many many many times:
Me: Don’t step on my toe!
Child: Ooops! Sorry! I didn’t know your toe was there!
Also – this is what gets me – don’t you notice when you are standing on something? Or is this a princess and the pea situation where only the most sensitive will notice the toe sized lump under their foot??
Okay – my toes seem fine now. A little tender still, but I’ve been walking on it an everything. Haven’t been running, but that is probably more life and having the kids at home than really about the toe.

Fourt Signs of Late Summer:

School supply shopping. While the 6 year old’s school sent a school supply list, there was nothing form the middle school. At first I thought, “Wait, maybe no one expects middle schooler to have school supplies?” If I thought elementary school was a huge information vacuum compared to daycare, it seems like middle school is a black hole. (Is that even an appropriate analogy? I’m not an astrophysicist.) The 11 year old had an ice cream social for incoming sixth graders. We got to the school and there was a sign that said, “Come back and pick up your kids at 1:30pm.” What? I just send them in there? At 1:30pm I came back and the Assistant Principal was out front reminding us of the practice mini day coming up. “Are parents supposed to come to that?” I asked.

“No! No! You just send them to us. They need to get used to figuring it out on their own,” was the reply.

Oh my. Okay.

Anyhow, I hadn’t received a school supply list and I texted a friend with a high schooler to ask, “Do they still get school supply lists in middle school?” I mean maybe this was just one of those things that I don’t know since I’ve never had a middle schooler. Turns out there is a list of sorts. My friend forwarded me the email that was sent via the PTA listerv. Another thing I have to get on. So list in hand we went to Staples.

I love school supplies. While I appreciate the efficiency of schools that create a lump package through some retailer, I do love actually going and wandering the aisles of Staples. Moreso than my kids. They do not appreciate the way I look at every single pen, or Post-It or compare notebooks and binders. They were definitely done with the process before I was. Sigh.

We also got a new back pack for the 11 year old. I figured since she was off to middle school, she needed a new sturdy backpack. She’s had the Lands End backpacks for most of elementary school, but I’ve found that they don’t hold up really well since she is very rough on them. (In kindergarten she had a backpack from Target with a some licensed character on it – I can’t remember what. It was very pink and shiny. That did not last even one year. A friend of mine says if her kids want character backpacks from Target, she always buys two because then when it rips halfway through the school year, she’s prepared.) The 6 year old has an L.L. Bean backpack – and those are nice and sturdy; I’ve had my L.L. Bean backpack since college. But the L.L. Bean backpacks don’t have the sternum clip and the 11 year old really needs something with a sternum clip since she will be walking and maybe biking to school. Someone had suggested that we check out REI for a backpack, and indeed that was where we found her a backpack – The North Face Borealis – lots of pockets, tough material, laptop sleeve, and most importantly a sternum clip. More than I had expected to pay for a backpack, but I think it will really hold up and actually it will be great for travelling adventures too. The patterns aren’t as exciting as Lands End, but I think it’s a nice colour that will grow with her, and she’ll hopefully like it just as much in three years as she does now.

Things from the garden. I’ve been in hard core kitchen nesting phase, where I just make things in the kitchen – It’s probably a result of having not really had any good kitchen puttering time yet this summer. I normally love spending time in the kitchen, whether it’s just cooking dinner, or baking, or making kitchen experiments. The Husband has been growing cucumbers and tomatoes (among other things). He is the kind of gardener that loves to grow things, but doesn’t always harvest it in time. A lot of it is over ripe, not really suitable for eating raw, so I’ve been making other things with it. The cucumber has been made into cucumber agua fresca, cucumber lemonade and cucumber yogurt soup. This latter is not really something I usually am partial to. I like my soup to be hot and chunky with texture and variety. But a friend suggested a cold cucumber curry soup, and I used this recipe as a basis, except using curry powder instead of dill. It was very tasty, but in my mind cold soup is kind of like a savory smoothie – which, once I phrased it to myself like that, it was a very nice snack to have on a very hot day.

The tomatoes I have made into tomato sauce. No recipe – just chopped two large bowls of tomatoes, mixed with a sliced onion or two, lots of garlic (like half a bulb), olive oil, salt. Roasted at 450 for an hour. Let cool, then run through the food mill. The food mill is one of those single function tools which I use maybe twice a year, but which does its one job oh so well.

It feels really satisfying and good to be messing around in the kitchen again.

Summer Day Trip. We also went to see my friend at her new house over on the southern tip of Maryland – it took about two hours to get there. She has a pool and lives on a cove with a dock on said cove. It was just a lovely relaxing day – we swam in her pool, we walked to the dock and saw lots of fish and jelly fish. We even saw a crab swimming. I’d never seen a crab swim before – it swims sideways, paddling furiously all its legs. My friend grilled us a tasty dinner, with a fantastic German potato salad on the side (note to self, get her recipe), and then we went to visit her neighbor who had sheep. I don’t know if I could live so far from the city all the time, but our quiet, calm, and nature filled day with my friend certainly made a case for it.

The County Agricultural Fair. We went to the County fair one day. We saw animals – rabbits, chickens, turkeys, cows. There was a cow giving birth; we stayed to watch the water break then the lady in charge said it might be another hour until the calf was born so we didn’t stay for that. (I did see a calf being born one year – it was kind of amazing. One moment there was one cow, the next moment, all the a whoosh, there was a baby cow, walking and everything.).

We did go check out some of the entertainment, but I found the escape artist kind of cringe-y and chauvinist. He had this act where an audience member puts him in a strait jacket, and I was just really uncomfortable with his double entendres the whole time. I’m sure he’s someone who does the fair circuit, but I would be glad never to see him again.

And then went to the Midway and we rode rides and ate fair food. Our fair feels quite standard and modest. We probably have the same rides and food booths and over priced lemonade that you would see at any other county fair. But even still, it’s a good time. The 11 year old and I like riding rides – I don’t have the courage to do the upside down ones; I’m always afraid that my glasses will fall off. But I like the big swings and the twirly rides and the roller coasters, though there aren’t really roller coasters at the fair. I do not like bumper cars. This year we got the unlimited ride wristbands for the 11 year old and me. In past years I only got a limited number of tickets, but I figured that the oldest is of an age where it makes more sense to get the wrist bands. We got the little kids enough tickets to ride a few rides. The Husband does not like rides, but he is a stellar bag holder and child watcher. The six year old only wanted slow rides and the 3 year old wanted fast rides. She was too small to ride the super fast rides, but we found a couple that were quite zippy for her and she had fun.

The 11 year old said to me at one point that a good ride had to be just scary enough to be fun, which I thought was an interesting metric. Around 7:30pm, the husband took the two little kids home and I stayed and rode rides with the 11 year old, which was nice because we don’t often get just mommy/daughter time since the little kids take a lot of attention.

On the shuttle back to the parking lot we talked to a lady who grew up showing cows at this fair. “You saw the animals, right?” she said to us, “You don’t come to the fair just to ride the rides, right?” I do wish we had spent more time with the animals, but we arrived at 3:30pm, and by then a lot of the animal stuff was winding down. Next year, I think we’ll plan to arrive earlier.

Now I truly understand the term “Sheep eyes”.

Ice Cream Adventures – We haven’t had as many ice cream adventures as we usually do. My how work gets in the way of fun! But last weekend we had no plans so we got in the car and drove to Prigel Family Creamery. On the way, we played this game:

It was a lot of fun – we all laughed so hard. Highly recommend. One of my favorite cards: “Is the Driver driving with just one hand on the wheel? He loses a point.” Hilariously on the way home, the 3 year old fell asleep and still managed to score three points.

In between we had a very relaxed visit to the Prigel Family Creamery. We first visited this place as part of the Maryland Ice Cream Trail – a list of ten or so dairies in Maryland where you could get ice cream. Visit all ten and get entered to win a prize. That first year we went to seven of them. This dairy is a nice outing because you can get sandwiches and meat and cheese plates, and there are cows – we can go, get lunch, eat it while watching the cows, and then get ice cream. I’m glad that we went because it turns out they are shutting down their sandwich counter and we were there on the last day. We ordered lunch then played some CodeNames – one of our new favorite games- then had ice cream. I had lemon ice cream, the six year old had strawberry (I think my favorite of all the cones), the three year old had cookies and cream and the 11 year old had a vanilla milkshakes with cookie dough chunks. I was a little annoyed when she thew out most of the cookie dough chunks – she said they were too big. I was probably disproportionately irked at her for this, but food waste annoys me and I would have eaten them if she had asked around. Oh well, lesson for next time.

The kids picked rocks from the parking lot to keep our cards from blowing away. I like Code Names because you don’t have to be able to read to play so all the kids can participate.

All in all, some good summer adventures for these last few days. Also not as much life admin as I would like – I still feel very behind. But I guess when we look back on the last weeks of August 2023 I want to remember the time I spent with my friends and family and the food and the sunshine, not the time I spent paying the bills. (Though that is important too.)

Grateful For:
-A full summer of work. I haven’t worked all summer in a very long time, so I’m grateful I got to do that this year.

-Friends. Now that I have my evenings back, we’ve started to make plans and see friends. One day we went to Comet Ping Pong and had pizza and played ping pong. One evening a friend came over for dinner, and she brough dessert and marinated anchovies (the way to my heart!). The past week felt very social, but that certainly fills up one my buckets too.

-Friends who cut hair. The 11 year old needed her hair trimmed – seeing as how she wants to keep it long I just wanted to take a few inches off the bottom so that the ends could stay healthy. I texted my friend and asked if she could do it and she said yes! So we went over for dinner one night and my friend did a bathroom trim. Frugal and friendly! Win!

-Bose wireless speaker. The rear speakers on my car don’t work, which makes it hard for the kids riding in the back to hear whenever I play music/audiobooks. The husband had the idea that I should bring his wireless speaker on our drive to see my friend in Sothern Maryland and it worked really well. We listened to the audiobooks of How To Train Your Dragon – hilarious. Highly recommend.

-Our new lawnmower. The 11 year old ran our lawnmower into a stump in the backyard while mowing and pretty much killed it. The lawnmower, not the stump. The stump was dead already. She feels pretty terrible about it so I am practicing putting on my big girl parenting pants on and not getting angry at her. I mean, truth to tell, the Husband is the yard/garden person so I think he took it harder than I did, but even he was the one who told me not to yell at her. I’m trying to embrace the idea that there will be casualties of raising children (My husband’s favorite snow globe, for instance that got smashed last Christmas by toddler hands), and not flip out any time something gets ruined. Seriously there should be some kind of insurance for parents of children. At any rate, as part of our agreement to buy a new mower rather than hiring a lawncare service, I have agreed to mow the lawn every other time. (I think I used to mow maybe twice a summer) The Husband is letting me get away with not using the trimmer or the blower. I just have to mow. The lawn is tiny. It takes about 45 minutes for me. Anyhow, we got a new mower. It’s battery powered. (Our previous one was gas.) It actually makes mowing not feel like an uphill struggle. It’s so quiet that I’m afraid that I’ll forget that it is actually quite dangerous. Something about the ear splitting noise of our gas mower reminded me every moment that I was one absent minded moment from losing a finger or toe. I wouldn’t say I’m looking forward to mowing now, but I guess with our new mower, it does seem like less of an inconvenience than before.

Looking Forward To:
-Having time back to myself after the kids are in school. I haven’t been exercising – first because the kids have been home and I can’t leave the six year old home by himself, then there was the whole smashed toe incident. I did manage a few yoga sessions, but I haven’t been running.
– A trip to Longwood Gardens. We haven’t been all summer, so we’re going to take a day and go before school starts. I’m looking forward to seeing the fountains and the flowers and the trees and eating the mushroom soup.
-Season Two of the Gilded Age! The trailer just dropped – I love a good soapy costume drama. I binged the first season earlier this year – it was my “watch while I do the dishes” temptation bundle. Second season starts end of October. Knowing me, I probably won’t get around to watching it until next spring – I’m horrible at keeping up with tv shows – but just knowing that there is a second season coming is very exciting for me. And I hear that there will be a dueling opera company rivalry as a plot point. Oooh!

What We Ate:

Saturday: Went out for Mexican food at Guapo’s with my sister in law and her family. I had the ceviche sampler plate. I do love ceviche. This was the last day we saw my sister in law’s family before they went back to the Netherlands (which reminds me – I still have to finish those trip recaps!)

Sunday: Grilled salmon and veggies. I did the veggies (onions, peppers, zucchini) on skewers -which isn’t something I usually do because for some reason I thought they don’t cook as well on skewers, but turns out they turn out great. I might be changing up my grilled veggie game now.

Monday: Comet Ping Pong with friends.

Tuesday: Cold Mapo Tofu, stir fried green beans w/ fired tofu, and cucumber salad, brown rice on the side. There was a great collection of recipes in the Washington Post of no-cook meals and the tofu was one of them. Basically it’s marinated silken tofu. It was very tasty, but I think I would like to use soft tofu next time; I don’t think I’m much of a silken tofu fan.

Wednesday: Snack dinner. Both the Husband and the 11 year old had plans this evening so I took the two little kids to the pool. We had crackers and cheese and fruit and whatever else I could pull from the fridge.

Thursday: Fair food. I had the grilled corn. I think the kids had corn dogs and sausages. There were also fries and funnel cake and lemonade. I’m kicking myself because I threw out my lemonade cup and I should have kept it because refills are definitely cheaper than getting a new one. Oh well, lessons for next time.

Friday: Dinner at my friend’s house in Southern Maryland.

Saturday: Pizza (Husband made) and move night. We watched the first How to Train Your Dragon movie. I thought it was quite good, but very different from the book.

Sunday: impromptu dinner at friend’s house – wings, hotdogs, salad, corn. Perfect casual get together.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Dishes

A shady basketball court – on of my grateful things lately.

Welp the dishwasher was broken for much of last week. The last day my brother and his in laws were in town, right after I cooked dinner for 12 people, it decided to not turn on, after the Husband had loaded 12 people’s worth of dishes into it. For a while, we limped along and washed dishes by hand, but eventually we gave up and started eating on paper plates. The Husband had given me a hard time a couple months ago when I bought the Costco sized pack of Chinet for a party. Well, who’s laughing now?

Growing up, we never had a dishwasher. My mother taught me to wash dishes at an early age. I also learned how to wash dishes in Home Ec. Our Home Ec teacher taught us the two sink method – you fill one sink with soapy water, and wash in that sink and then rinse in the other sink. We have only one sink in our kitchen so I fill a bowl with soapy water to wash. The home ec teacher did say that if you only had one sink to fill that sink with soapy water and then rinse under a light trickle of water to prevent diluting the soapy water too much. But we don’t have a sink stopper hence the “fill another bowl” method.

The first time we moved into a house with a dishwasher, I was thirteen. My parents lived in that house for probably twenty years and I don’t think they ever used the dishwasher to wash dishes. They did use it to store dishes, however, so it’s not as if it went completely unused.

Anyhow I think dishwashers are the norm now. I certainly use it to wash the majority of my dishes. Even the week that the family was away and I was all on my own – I still amassed dishes in the dishwasher until there was a full load to run.

But man, this past week or so of being without a dishwasher was tough… A family of 5 generates a lot of dishes, even when we are all out of the house for the majority of the day. Things I realized when we were doing all the dishes by hand:
1) It’s not just about the washing, it’s about the drying too. We don’t have a dish rack, just one of those super absorbent mats on which we put clean, drippy dishes. This was actually a huge disagreement between me and the Husband early in our marriage. He grew up where everything was put in the dishwasher and the counters were kept clear. I grew up without a dishwasher and the dishes just drained in the drying rack on the counter. Anyhow, I couldn’t convince him of the need for a drying rack so we just use drying mats now. Which is fine…. until you have a ga-billion dishes to do all the time and they don’t all fit on the mat. So you have to dry them and put them away so that there is room on the mat for all the other dishes coming down the pipeline. This is partly why it takes so long to get through the dishes. Eventually we realized this and someone always had drying duty during our evening clean up time. I guess I never really understood the phrase, “I wash, you dry” until now. (Although I just had a friend suggest that we should have put the dishes in the non-working dishwasher to dry, clearing off counter space. That’s brilliant. Must remember for next time.)

2) Another dish decision – wash now or wash later? I suppose this is also a decision when the dishwasher is working, but it seems like a bigger decision when hand washing dishes looms in one’s future. Wash everything as I go, after each meal, each snack, each packed lunch? Or let it sit in a pile and do it all in one go? I am definitely a “accumulate and do it all in one go” type of person. But when it’s just one fork or plate, it’s just as easy to put it straight into the dishwasher.

Anyhow, the dishwasher is now fixed, after having one mis-scheduled appointment, for which I sat at home and no one ever arrived….

The other exciting weekend happening was that we lost power for six hours on a Saturday night. A storm came through fast and furious and left huge swaths of the DC area without power. So we decided to go out to eat. The restaurant was bustling and it took a while to get us our food, but we were in no rush to go home and sit in our dark, warm, stuffy house. When we got home, we went for a walk, and I tried to capture the amazing lightning in the sky, though I fail:

That light behind the trees is lightning.

The Sunday after that was such a perfectly chill day. We had waffles in the morning and then spent some time tidying. Then we went to a park for a couple hours, then the two little kids had skating lessons. Then we went grocery shopping and then came home. It was such a nice combination of chores and low key fun stuff None of our adventures were huge or novel – they were familiar and routine. Afterwards, I thought, “If every day could be like today, that would be awesome!”

Other nice things in my life lately:

-Going to the opera and going to the theatre. I went to watch a rehearsal of the other opera that my current company is putting on. It was a beautiful production with some really wonderful performances. How awesome it is to just walk into the building next door and see an opera!
Then a couple days later, the Husband and 11 year old and I went to see The Play That Goes Wrong. The premise is that a group of people are putting on a play and onstage mishaps just keep happening – people keep missing lines, props are misplaced, the doors don’t work, the set falls apart…. I’ve written in the past about onstage mishaps that I’ve experienced… well this was two hours of onstage mishaps. It was side splittingly funny. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in the theatre. Part of the fun for me was that there was a Stage Manager character and his booth was actually in the house and seeing him do his job (or sometimes screw up his job) was was both nail biting and hilarious. I know some people go to the theatre expecting to be moved to devastation, and that’s what makes it a worthwhile experience, but I think we undersell how powerful joy and laughter can be in a theatre too.

That’s the “stage manger’s booth” on the left.

-One day, I had the afternoon off from work, so I picked up the three year old from school early, and took her to the pool. The pool was pretty empty at 1pm on a weekday afternoon; I think there was only one or two other families there. It was one of the days that was in the mid-nineties, so pool time, broken up by lots of snacks, was such a great way to spend a few hours. Having one on one time with the three year old was pretty great too. I’ve been feeling bad that she goes to day care while I have adventures with the other two kids, and I think she was feeling a little left out too.

Mommy daughter date – pool snacks and swimming on a 90 degree day.

-One day, I treated myself to a boba tea. My usual order of black tea, 25% sweetness (I usually get no sweetness, but this place didn’t have the option), with both boba and lychee jelly. Well, to my delight, the lychee jelly was shaped like stars. That little bit of whimsy really made my day.

– Discovering that there is a stylus on my computer and I can use it to draw on groundplans! My laptop can flip to be used as a tablet, which I knew. I did not know that there was a stylus tucked into the computer as well. I was poking around on the laptop one day, trying to figure out why I didn’t have any internet connection and I discovered a stylus tucked into the bottom.
This was a real game changer for me. One of my jobs is to make “minis” for our books. A mini is a small version of the set’s groundplan, where we write down staging notes. Often time (these days), I get a PDF version of the groundplan, but it usually has all sorts of writing and extraneous lines on it – like measurements and dimensions of various parts of the set, or indicators of where things are hung overhead. So I usually take a PDF snapshot capture of the groundplan and plop it into Paint and edit it there, erasing lines, adding lines, etc. . I am sure there are better ways to do this, but this is how I learned to clean up a mini. And I do all this manipulation on the computer with my mouse. Which can be frustratingly imprecise and tedious.
Well, the stylus has made this process as easy as drawing and erasing with a pencil – this last show, making the minis was so much easier.

A peek at my work life. It’s a round tower with stairs going around it and a table in the middle.

Now that I look at it, the groundplans kind of remind me of those pictures of “cowboys making eggs.”:

Grateful For:
– Dishwashing gloves. When I was younger, my mother always made me wear dishwashing gloves when I did the dishes. I thought they were cumbersome and silly so I once I was out of the house, I didn’t bother to wear them anymore. But then I got eczema on my hands and the dermatologist’s number one recommendation? To stop doing the dishes. His other recommendation was to get a platinum wedding ring. Well neither of those were going to happen. So I started wearing gloves to wash dishes and my hands stopped getting so chapped. Mom was right.
-Shady paths on which to run. Last week was so so so hot. Consistently in the 90s and humid too. The air was thick, the sun was bright. I am so grateful that there are several options for me to run on tree lined paths.
-Shady basketball courts. I’m glad that our local basketball court is surrounded by tall trees, so that it stays shady until at least noon. We’ve gone to shoot hoops early in the morning a few times to beat the heat, but being in the shade also makes it more enjoyable.
– The privilege of knowing some good people. I have two new-ish friends who are moving. One is moving overseas – her husband is in the foreign service. The other friend is moving across the country for work. I’m sad they are leaving because I don’t always find it easy to make friends and these two people were just souls I clicked with right away. One of them, I met at the school bus stop and our casual “Good morning!” over the school year became long walks and coffee and just standing at the bus stop chatting long after the bus had borne our kids off. I just feel so lucky to have been able to connect.
– A new to us bike. The friend who is moving across the country actually gave us her son’s bike as they couldn’t take it with them. Our six year old is finally learning to ride a bike with lots of help from every one!

Looking Forward To:
– More visits from family. My sister in law is in town. They have gone off to the western part of the state for a couple days and then will be back, so I will look forward to them
-Running. I don’t particularly like running – I find it hard and often tedious. I’m slow. It takes a lot of effort. It makes me hot and sweaty. But I do recognize that I feel better physically and more alert mentally when I do get a run in, so I make and effort to fit a run in when I can, often at work. This week, though, I noticed something – as I was packing my running shoes and running clothes into my tote bag to take to work, I was struck with a feeling of excitement. I wasn’t excited to do the actual running, but I was really happy that I could look forward to having the time to run and be outside. I don’t know if that makes sense or not. Just the simple act of packing my running stuff to take to work made the day seem like it was going to be okay – I could start the day hopeful that I could do something good for myself at some point.
– Tech! This week is tech. It’s always exciting and exhausting, taking a show from the rehearsal hall to the stage.

What We Ate : I think I’m behind in writing down our dinner – so here’s two weeks’ worth:

Monday: Fish taco, made by Husband

Tuesday: Sandwiches from The Sandwich Shop before the opera. They had a broccoli rabe and sun-dried tomato sandwich that was divine!

Wednesday: Pasta and Meatballs.

Thursday: Grilled Cheese and dumplings. Fast thrown together meal as we were trying to get to basketball.

Friday: My mom make three cup chicken and rice. A Taiwanese dish that is sooo tasty. Eaten in the theatre lobby before the show.

Saturday: Pizza and The Sandlot. A lovely lovely movie.

Sunday: Chinese food – a new to us place that we wanted to try out. The food was very very spicy. The Husband made milkshakes at home afterwards.

Monday: Zucchini tart and green salad. I always forget how easy a vegetable tart is when you have puff pastry in the freezer.

Tuesday: Greek Chicken and Cabbage Slaw. The Husband made this. I wish I had the recipe because it was really good.

Wednesday: Sauteed tofu and green beans.

Thursday: Lemon and brown rice chicken soup from Grains for Every Season. Really tasty and made for good leftover.

Friday: Pizza and Brooklyn 99. We had friends over and were going to watch Parent Trap but the kids were too busy playing so the grown ups watched six episodes of Brooklyn 99 instead. It’s a great show.

Saturday: The day the power went out.

Sunday: Zucchini Orzo – recipe from New York Times. Meh. The flavors were good, but it was mushy. I always like the idea of orzo, but the reality is always just disapointing.

Weekly recap + what we ate: the last week of summer!

The baby started daycare this week, and the two big kids start school on Monday. Three kids all starting new schools! And each kid will be at a different school. So three drop offs. Well, actually two drop offs because the ten year old’s bus picks up down the street.

I was feeling all the feelings when I dropped the baby at her first day of school. She has been home so long and I am going to miss having my little buddy with me. I was worried drop off would be hard, but she waltzed right in with nary a backward glance that first day. My friend said that this was probably a sign that she was ready to be with other kids. I think she was also a little lured by having a second breakfast. The next two days, though, there was more resistance, including one morning where the teacher pried a crying child out of my arms. But the last day of the week she was fine and walked right in. She was really excited because they had had water play the day before and wanted to do it again. Shhhh – don’t tell her that was the last water play day this summer.

We decided to have the five year old enroll in the French Immersion program – a decision influenced slightly by our trip to Montreal. To be honest, I’m still not convinced it’s the right choice, but we’re going to take it one year at a time. The ten year old is starting a new school – switching school for fifth grade is probably not the easiest thing, but I think we agreed that we gave the Mandarin immersion school a good try and it just wasn’t the best fit for us now and into the future. With so many options for school these days, I feel a lot of pressure to make the “right” choice for my kids. And that “right” choice not just for the person they are today, but for the person they will grow into and the world they will live in. And perhaps I’m overthinking this – after all, it is just elementary school.

This last week of summer, we were home. I wanted to take things easy for the kids and also I had several work and union calls sprinkled throughout the day. But the week turned out to be kind of the perfect “last week before school”.

We went school supply shopping! I tied very hard not to fill the shopping basket with things for myself. I did buy one pack of post-its in my favorite, but hard to find colour combination.

We had playdates. We finally met the neighbors across the street this summer – don’t know why it took four years. They actually are members at our pool, and one days at a swim meet, the ten year old said to me, “Those are the girls who live across the street.” And I went over and made friends. I feel like sometimes we get so caught up in living our lives – especially with COVID, that we forget to extend our social bonds. Anyhow, one afternoon this week, I sent the ten year old over to their house to play. And a few hours later they came over to our house to play. And they actually played – screen-free and with low/no parental intervention. It was amazing.

We went to a waterpark with friends. There is a small waterpark near us, but it is only open to County residents during weekdays. Weekend and holidays it is only open to residents of the city it’s in. So one day my friend took the day off work and we packed lunches in coolers, ad we took our kids. After we got used to the many rules, we all ended up having a great time. The ten year old convinced me to go on the really tall slides, and I’m so glad I did. There was one that was super fast and thrilling and one that was slower, where you could see the end coming with time to take a breath and close your eyes. I thought both were really fun, but I actually preferred the slower one – there was something so soothing about meandering down the twists and turns while gazing at the blue sky and clouds.

We went to the pool!

We went to the library and borrowed a bunch of books, including a whole slew of Vox books for the kids. Much as I like reading to them, sometimes it’s great that they can sit with a Vox book and be engrossed so I can get other things done. Definitely one of my favorite things lately for a screen free way to keep the little kids busy.

We had Open Houses for the schools. Both big kids had open houses on the same day, but at different schools. Thankfully the times were slightly staggered. Even still, I didn’t quite time things right and I think we ended up showing up to the last fifteen minutes of each open house. Note for next time: show up earlier if you want PTA ice cream. Even still we got to see the schools and talk to their teachers. Afterwards I took the kids for ice cream at one of my favorite ice cream places, Tropics Ice Cream and Jerk. They have lots of fruit flavors, which is what I like. I got my favorite passion fruit and lychee combination. I also found out that they sell Jamaican patties frozen by the case. Which was very exciting for me – their patties are really tasty and make a perfect lunch option. I think I might think about picking up a case or two in the future for some easy lunches.

Seeing friends – My mom’s group gathered for happy hour one night. Last night we went to hear music at the Golf Course with friends. The band was really fun and our kids went running off in all directions. The five year old found friends from his school and took off with them, kind of a first because he’s always been kind of clingy. We live in a pretty big metropolitan area so I don’t take for granted when we are somewhere and we run into people we know. The golf course concerts are perfect because it’s semi enclosed and very safe and we know our kid will find their way back to where we set up our picnic blankets and lawn chairs. Watching the kids run and dance and laugh and play made me feel like that was summer right here.

Eating summer produce. We don’t always get to the Farmer’s Market – and to be honest the produce is on the pricy side so it’s cheaper to drive twenty minutes to a farm stand – but one of my favorite vendors was having a peach sale, so I put in an order for a 1/2 bushel of peaches and a 1/2 bushel of peach seconds. It always seems like a lot of peaches when I bring them home, but I’ll can some peaches next week, and we’ve already eaten the seconds. We also picked up tomatoes and cucumbers and lots of other vegetables. For lunch that day, I had tomatoes, cucumbers and feta cheese. It was really tasty.

I did not get as much cleaning/purging done as I wanted. But I have big plans to tackle some of that this weekend. Also I really need to tackle my email box for the account I use to make purchases since I’m running out of storage, though that might not be a this weekend thing. Weekend plans/ aspirations:

go through pantry and organize. I want the big kids to pack their own lunches so I need to clear space in the pantry for them to have bins for lunch foods.
tidy toy room and guest room in anticipation of cleaners coming on Monday. The guest room has become a unintended office for me and the paper situation is a little out of control.
organize school supplies and backpacks.
Five year old has a birthday party invite that I’ll take him and the baby to. The Husband and the ten year old got invited to a football game.
Meal plan. We are toying with the idea of doing vegan week nights, so I need to dig a little to figure that out.
hopefully raft night at the pool for a lazy Sunday night before school starts.

Two more things this week:

How is “flowy” not a word!?!?!?! Have they never heard of a flowy skirt? Or flowy hair? Then the next word I tried was “Crony” and that was accepted. And now I have some irate internal monologue about patriarchy and the male-centeredness of Wordle.

And I’ll leave you with this – one day on the way home from school, the five year old suddenly flopped down in the grass next to the sidewalk with a big sigh. “I love shade!” he said with a smile on his face. And he’s right. Is there anything as delicious as a cool spot on the grass underneath a shady tree on a summer’s day? (okay, part of my brain screamed “TICKS!!!!” but I’m telling that part of my brain to shut up and just check for ticks when we get home.)

What We Ate:

Saturday: Home from Montreal. I think the grown ups decided we weren’t hungry because we were unpacking. The baby somehow managed to find a bag of wine gums and ate those. Right before bedtime, she says to me, “But we haven’t had dinner!”
And I say, half-jokingly, “But you ate all that candy!”
And she says, with a little giggle, “Oh, yeah. I forgot.” As if wine gums were a perfectly acceptable dinner.

Sunday: can’t remember. I think it was low effort frozen tortellini and jarred red sauce.

Monday: I went out for happy hour with my mom’s group. The Husband made breakfast sandwiches for the kids.

Tuesday: Chicken Tinga Tacos. Made simple cabbage slaw and pickled onions to eat with. The Husband has requested Taco Tuesday.

Wednesday: Ratatouille sheet pan gnocchi, based somewhat on this recipe. Baked gnocchi is a wonder! I used canned tomatoes instead of fresh, and I think it gave the dish a more saucy taste. Will make again.

Thursday: I was full from Happy Hour and then I went to the Kindergarten Back to School Night. The Husband, home with the kids, I think he fed them chicken salad and PB& J for dinner.

Friday: Sandwiches from our favorite deli, eaten at an outdoor concert. Along with ketchup chips. I brought back several bags of ketchup chips from Canada and I’m almost afraid to break into them because who know when I will get more. But I guess no one is enjoying them when they sit uneaten in the pantry…

Weekly (bi-monthly?) recap: Summer so far

Well, we are coming off another long weekend and a positive COVID test for the Husband. Luckily, he isolated in the bedroom and the rest of the family managed to stay negative. I think the strategy was for the Husband to isolate in the bedroom, and for the rest of us to spend as little time at home as possible. The two older kids were in camp and pre-school, and the baby and I found lots of adventures to keep us out and about.

I have to admit, that I don’t mind solo parenting. There is something really freeing about realizing that there are no excuses for not prioritizing the well-being of the people in the family. I could let the house get messy and leave the dishes to be piled in the sink until after the kids went to bed and it was totally a fine to say time with the kids was more important that the dishes. To be sure, kids should probably trump dishes any day, but I think when I know the kids will get attention from another parent, it makes it easier to find the time to do the dishes and pick up the living room and fold the laundry. I will say, lest you think the Husband was a total invalid slug – he actually felt fine a few days after his positive test, and when the kids and I weren’t home, he would emerge to do things like go mow the lawn or pick up the mess I left in the kitchen. But even still, the house was a bit of a sty and I was soooo very tired from having to do housework after the kids went to bed. On the plus side, I finished season three of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. Or maybe that is a minus because that was the last season made and I have developed such a crush on Detective Inspector Jack Robinson and, truth be told, on Phyrne Fisher herself. That series was such a perfect slow burn romance. Okay, so another plus of solo parenting is that I get to watch whatever I want.

We did use up a lot of rapid COVID tests during the week. I remember when the county and the federal government first started handing out tests for free, we somehow ended up with ten test kits in our bathroom cabinet. “We’ll never get through this all!” I thought. Hah. Last week I actually had a slight panic that I would run out. I guess a family of five goes through test kits pretty quickly Luckily the county is still handing out test kits and the federal government has made more kits available – these latter arrived in the mail two or three days after I ordered them. Speedy!

At any rate, this fourth of July weekend has been low key. We cleaned out some of the attic, visited the Smithsonian (more on that below) and there was a birthday part and raft night at the pool, when people can bring their inflatables Then on July 4th itself, my friend Kristen came over and we went to the pool and then came home to grill (salmon, shrimp, mushrooms, sausages, corn, and an eggplant salad that I thought was really good). We capped off the evening by looking through old photo albums from college – Kristen and I had been roommates for all four years of college. The ten year old seemed to really get a kick out of this. She looked at pictures of me glowing with youth and said, “Now I understand why dad married you.” Thanks? I think?

It’s been a while since I wrote of our adventures -something about being exhausted from solo parenting and all the weighty world and national events this last half of June has made it difficult to prioritize writing. But at any rate – highlights of Summer so far:

-I did make it to a beach with the two little kids, packing a lunch and snacks and taking them to Calvert Cliffs State Park. It was an easy 1.8 mile hike from the parking lot to the beach, but that did not mean the hike was easy, just the terrain. With the two littles, it took us about 2 hours and lots of M&M breaks to go that 1.8 miles. At the end of the trail, we were rewarded with a sunny sandy shore and temperatures that made it a little too chilly to brave the waters, but perfect for soaking up sunshine, hunting for shark’s teeth and building sand castles. I was particularly excited to use the beach tent that I had bought last year, but which I had never gotten a chance to use yet. We stayed almost all day, and even though I was certain the littles would be tired after the hike back to the parking lot, they played for an hour on the recycled tire playground next to the parking lot. Which was fine by me – I lazed in a recycled tire hammock and read my book as the sun started to set.

-Riding the carousel. The ten year old’s theatre camp is in what was once an amusement park, but is now a park used for various arts and cultural programs. In fact, it’s at the park’s ballroom where the Husband and I met, one summer evening at a contradance. In the park, there is a carousel, originally installed in 1921. It’s $2 to ride and $5 for a day pass. One morning, after dropping the ten year old at camp, I bought the baby and I day passes and we spent several hours riding the carousel, taking pauses to go play at the playground next to it. I think we rode the carousel six times that morning. It was a great morning – the carousel music is courtesy of a Wurlitzer band organ, and hearing the familiar old tunes is one of my favorite parts of riding the carousel. They must have also at some point commissioned new music rolls for the band organ because one morning the band organ played such vintage hits as “The Boxer”, “One Tin Solider”, and “Love Potion No. 9.” There is something charming in hearing these modern hits coming from a band organ with it’s reedy pipes, bass drum, cymbals, and triangles. The simplicity of going around and around to the loud oom pah pahs, the velocity of the carousel creating just enough breeze to cut through the summer heat – this is summer as it is meant to be savored.

– The ten year old’s camp is also about a ten minute drive from a wonderful hike along the Potomac river. One day after camp, I took the baby. The trail winds through a nicely shaded route next to the Potomac, and at one point we came to some rocky out crops, great for a rocky scramble, which the baby is always up for. I am always amazed at her ability to climb rocks, fitting her small fingers in crevices and pulling herself up with the slightest purchase. We had a snack and enjoyed watching the river flow by. Hikes with the baby don’t always go far, but they are nonetheless full of wonder.

– Fizzy water and popsicles. At the beginning of June I took a weekend away with a good friend to Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. One of the things we discovered there was flavored balsamic vinegar used as a drink ingredient. I came home with some blackberry ginger balsamic and blood orange vanilla balsamic and the next day went to the store to stock up on fizzy water. Well after a week of that, I remembered that several years ago my brother had gifted me a SodaStream, which I had used little bit but never really got the hang of it so I put it in the attic. Inspired by my balsamic adventures, I pulled the SodaStream out of storage, bought a new Co2 cartridge, and now have fizzy water at the touch of a button. This makes me so happy. Also – summer also means popsicle season. The husband bought a new Mexican cookbook and there is a recipe in it for lime paletas. I have been making those weekly now, though sometimes I, in a fit of frugalness, throw in all the dried and sad citrus that has been languishing in the fruit bowl. So a fun realization is that the paleta base also makes a good lemonade base. And when mixed with fizzy water, makes a delightful summer drink. I feel so clever for getting two uses out of one recipe!

– Pool Time. The ten year old is on the swim team again, so we are spending a lot of time at the pool what with four practices and at least one meet a week. And then on weekends, the kids inevitably want to go to the pool. While the five year old is very cautious in the pool, the baby is fearless. She insists on wearing her brother’s swim vest rather than her more buoyant Puddle Jumper. The swim team parents have to volunteer to work the meets and I’ve been usually assigned to be a timer, which is kind of fun and exciting and my feet have been getting very wet. The ten year old and I have worked out a deal that every time she drops time without being disqualified, she gets and additional dollar for the snack bar. I’ve never really been one for bribing a kid to do well, but I do think that achievements should be celebrated.

– Anticipation. I read this article a couple weeks ago about how anticipation can help a person enjoy life more, and that having something to look forward to can boost one’s mood. The most interesting part of the article for me, though was this: “The flip side of positive anticipation,” the author writes, ” is anticipatory anxiety.” That is to say, a lot of things mix feelings of excitement and anxiety. “The key is acknowledging the happy, positive aspects of what you’re doing along with the nervous feelings,” the article goes on to say. I was thinking about this lately when the Husband and I were trying to plan some travel this summer. There is a lot of stress that goes along with planning a trip that sometimes all I can think about is, “Is it really going to be worth packing the kids in a van for a ten hour road trip?” or “Three kids + two adults + 1 tent = no sleep for anyone.” (except maybe the five year old. he sleeps like a rock.) But, I realize that if I thought about all that could be painful about a trip, I would never take the kids anywhere. So we do have some trips planned and I’m trying to persist in finding things that will be fun and interesting on this trip to get the Husband and I excited about going. I talk to people about our plans, read books, look at maps…. anything to get me to think of the trip as more than just a bundle of challenges and missteps. I’m sure there will be many of those, but surely there will also be some good moments too.

– The Smithsonian. I always feel so lucky that the Smithsonian Museums are just a 30-40 minute metro ride from home and that there are so many wonderful things to see there and it’s all free. It had been several years since I last went to the Smithsonian’s Folklife Festival – the past couple of years I’m not sure it was held due to COVID. So when I heard that this festival which celebrates cultural traditions was going to be going full swing again, I decided to take the baby and meet up with my friend Kristen to check it out. This year’s theme was the United Arab Emirates and Earth Optimism. We saw a Bedouin cooking demonstration, watched someone make fishing nets by hand, participated in an art project and relaxed on a majlis – a community sitting place, often for discussing cultural and political issues – set up in the shade of a tree. The art project was particularly interesting – the artist Azza Al Qubaisi gave each person a cross section of a palm stem to decorate, then she will take a picture and assemble them all digitally into a design. It was really neat – the baby’s effort was a little messy and chaotic, but when seen as part of a large whole, it didn’t look that bad. The artist’s goal is to collect 1000 palm sections, which I think was a pretty easy goal.

One weekend, after the Husband was done isolating, we took the metro downtown again, this time to check out an exhibit called Futures, which sought to collect artifacts that recalled how we thought of the future as well as objects that could give us a glimpse of today’s future. There were some really neat exhibits that really made me think about the idea of inclusion – a computer generated voice that was meant to be genderless, and a version of Minecraft that you could play with your eyes. And some machines that would make food production and transportation more efficient. It was all incredibly thought provoking to think about what I would want the future to look like, and what it might actually look like.

archway into Arts and Industry Building.

I also liked that throughout the exhibit there were quotes on the wall about how we can think about the future. My favorite:

And speaking of the unimaginable future – the best thing of all in June:

– The Husband’s positive COVID test coincided with the approval of the vaccine for kids 6 months to 5 years. The baby had been in a Pfizer trial and she had a 2 in 3 chance of getting the real vaccine, the other 1 in 3 being a placebo. The trial was to be unblinded in six months or when the vaccine was approved for her age group, whichever was sooner. Anyhow, the Monday after the vaccine was approved, I was driving the ten year old to camp, when I noticed I missed a call which turned out to be the folks from the study calling to unblind the baby. It took four days for them to call me back, and I was so impatiently on pins and needles to find out. Finally, I was running errands at Target one morning and the study folks called again. This time I was able to answer the phone, having left the ringer on since I first missed the call. Well turns out…. the baby received three doses of the vaccine, so she is now fully vaccinated! Whoo hoo! Until, that is, she needs a booster. I celebrate with a grain of sobriety, since the Husband, who is fully vaccinated managed to get COVID despite everything. But… it’s a layer of protection and I’m so glad that we are all vaccinated to some degree. I did have a feeling that she had the real vaccine because the 24 hours after the third shot, she was a tired, cranky lethargic mess and she usually is the happiest ball of energy. Interestingly, she had no side effects from the first two shots, however. The baby (okay, toddler) will go to pre-school in the fall, and I feel grateful that she will have had three doses of the vaccine. On the other hand, I’m really going to miss going on adventures with her. I’m already mourning the loss of my little buddy.

(Okay, funny toddler side note – For some reason, she thinks that every store is called Target. So whenever I mention buying something, she says, “Go buy from Target?” Even if it’s a car.)