Weekly recap + what we ate: Back to School and Labor Day Weekend 2023

A couple years ago, our school district switched the first day of school from after Labor Day start to before Labor day, and I am not a fan. So much momentum and excitement to get back into a routine with kids back onto the school bus, and then it all gets derailed by the last long weekend of the summer. Labor Day weekend is supposed to feel like the last hurrah of summer, but instead it kind of feels like we can’t have too much fun because we are now in school and the routines must be kept. (not that we really did that…) The kids at the bus stop this morning were definitely very low energy. Though that might be the heat.

So last week – First day of school. This is the only picture I got of all the kids:

The 11 year old was in a low level amount of panic and not wanting to take the picture because she wanted to get to school. I get that – she leaves the house at 7:30am, a time at which the other two kids are still in sleepy shinegans mode. This is her face saying, “Fine. We will take this stupid picture, but I don’t want to be late.” She hates being late. The Husband walked her to school that first day. In subsequent days, I’ve walked her to the main road and made sure she gets across safely. Once she’s across, the traffic through the neighborhood is slower and there are sidewalks and other kids that she can walk with. I’m not at all happy with the speed at which cars come down this main road, and with the lack of stopping for people in the crosswalk. The Husband says we can can request traffic monitoring from the County to see if there is anything else that can be done to encourage traffic slow down and stop for pedestrians. We live by the hospital, so I always tell myself that maybe there is a person in labor in that car and to try not to judge. But it still pisses me off. And I do judge. I don’t get Mama Bear about many things, but not stopping for people in a crosswalk is one of them.

The six year old started first grade. The bus has been a source of drama. The first day, another mom at pick up got a call that her kindergartener did not get on the bus and was still at school. She went off in a rage to pick her child up. I guess I’m just glad that the kid didn’t actually get on the wrong bus. That would have been more complicated. Every September, I think about how logistically challenging it must be to get all those kids dismissed to the right bus, or car, or parent, and I’m amazed that it gets done. One child out of 200 sitting at school seems kind of not bad.

The three year old started a new classroom as well – so new classes for everyone! I was a little surprised that they moved her – this would be her third classroom in less than a year. But she is a September birthday, so I guess it’s not a bad idea to move her to the pre-K class. We are contemplating trying to get her into kindergarten next year – one year ahead of schedule. Mainly because we are tired of paying for childcare, but also I think she could be ready. She has a lot of spunk and independence but also is really good at following directions and interacting with people. There is a testing process that we have to go through in order to try to get her into school early, so that’s one of my fall projects is to figure that out. I know she is almost 4, but in my mind she is still 3, and the thought of my baby going to kindergarten… I’m not sure I’m ready for that.

Labor Day Weekend was jam packed. The Husband was out of town – he went to Minneapolis with some friends. I guess the Minnesota State Fair has always been on someone’s bucket list, and they decided to go. The Husband had lived in Minneapolis right out of college so I think he was happy to go back for a visit. Which is all to say, I had a three day weekend at home with the kids. I usually like to have a mix of “to do” activities and “for fun” activities on long weekends, but solo parenting, I decided to let the “to do” slide and we did a lot of “for fun” things. I think when I have the kids by myself, I try to spend as much time out of the house as possible. I know they aren’t at an age where they will let me just plow through a house project (see my last post on no flow in parenting….). I suppose if I just handed them screens they would leave me alone, but I didn’t really want to spend the whole weekend locked in screen battles which usually arise when they have too much screentime – so I tried to be a little purposeful about the screens.

Friday we had a chill evening at home. I had thought about going to the music concert at the golf course, but I didn’t want to schlep everyone down there. Plus I knew Saturday was going to be a big day, so I wanted to have a low key Friday night. We had dinner, cleaned up, and then I promised that they could watch something. They chose Superstore, so we watched two episodes of that, then we headed for bed. As they were getting into bed, though, I realized I hadn’t thought through what they were going to wear for our trip to the Renaissance Festival the next day, so we stayed up for another hour or so trying on bits and bobs and things to cobble out costumes.

I always think I don’t need to have the kids in garb for the Ren Faire, but then I always change my mind at the last minute. Dressing up is so much fu, why wouldn’t we want to do it? This is what we came up with. Not bad for thrown together at 10pm the night before.

The 3 year old is wearing:
– a puffy white shirt that I pulled out of the Goodwill bag – it used to belong to the 11 year old, but she had outgrown it and it was a little more crop top than I originally thought so I wasn’t going to keep it as a hand me down.
-a pink party dress that my friend handed down to us. I feel a little bit bad because it’s a really nice flower girl dress and it got pretty trashed at the Ren Faire. But… it had been sitting in our closet for a couple years and I don’t think anyone ever wore it, so I figured at least this way, it got some use.
-a headband I had made for the 11 year old three years ago when she went as Moana for Hallowe’en
-purple fairy wings that we had bought at last year’s Ren Faire.

The six year old is wearing:
-a white blouse of mine from Uniqlo that I bought a couple years ago, but have worn maybe twice. I liked that it was a nice light fabric and a flowy cut, but let’s be honest, I don’t have a job where I wear button up shirts very much.
-A red faux silk scarf of mine, wrapped around his waist and tied
– a black vest made out out an old black shell of mine that no longer fit and which I pulled out of the Goodwill donation bag. I cut the shell down the front to make a vest, and then stitched the boat neckline to make the pointy/cap shoulders.
-his own grey shorts.

The 11 year old is wearing:
-An old skirt of mine that is super twirly and I love, but which I don’t wear anymore because I have little use for clothes without pockets theses days.
-A yellow peasant-y shirt from Uniqlo that I originally bought for myself, but which is a little short for my middle-age/post-3 kids belly, so the 11 year old now wears it.
-And a length of cut up black t-shirt as a sash
So she did not actually end up going to the Ren Faire in costume because we couldn’t get the sash to stay up quite right, but it was fun to create a look. I think next year I should think ahead and get her a costume cincher or corset. I think I could probably make some kind of cincher pretty easily.

Saturday we pretty much spent all day at the Ren Faire. (The official title is the Maryland Renaissance Festival, but I’ve always just called it the Ren Faire.) We left the house at 10:15am and did not get home until 7:30pm. It was a hot hot day, but I had looked at the weather and Saturday was the coolest day of the holiday weekend – only 84 vs. 91 the other two days – so that’s why we picked Saturday to go. We were able to stay in mostly shady spots and by the time we left it had cooled of significantly. And to be honest, I think once we accepted the heat, we barely noticed how much we sweltered. I was amazed at the people who came in head to toe leather garb. That is dedication. Also they looked pretty awesome.

It took a few hours to feel like we were having a good time – I always find the first few hours of the Ren Faire overwhelming with so many choices to be made particularly since a lot of the show are playing simultaneously on different stages. Do we see the juggling ro the acrobats? The Musicians or the magician? But once I accepted that we can’t see it all and leaned into seeing what we could while making time for quiet moments to sit and savor the atmosphere, I started having a great time. (It’s very reminiscent of Oliver Burkeman’s theory that once you accept that you can’t do it all, you start to enjoy what you can do even more.) We saw some shows, listened to some music (bagpipes!), ate food on a stick, played some games, saw the jousting. Jousting was something which I had never in all my years of Ren Faires never actually made it too so this year I was determined to go and we did! Twice! We people watched – which is one of my favorite things to do because there is some pretty entertaining garb going on, from the authentic to the fantastic. It was crowded but not suffocatingly crowded and everyone just seemed happy to be there. At the end of the day we were sweaty and dusty and covered with food stains. But, as a lady told us last year, “I can always tell which kids’ parents let them have the most fun here – they are the dirtiest ones.”

The three year old was asleep before we made it out of the parking lot – I carried her right into the house and put her in bed, wiggling her out of her stained and dirty dress. The other kids were not far behind. I spend the rest of the evening scrolling and cleaning the kitchen before heading to bed myself.

Saturday morning I woke up to the three year old asking me why I was still asleep, after all the clock said “6”. The Husband is the early riser. I am not. So I managed to let the kids amuse themselves until about 7am, when I got out of bed. I decided that we would make waffles for breakfast, and a double batch so that we could have some for breakfast the upcoming week. Our standard is the buttermilk waffle recipe from the King Arthur Flour cookbook, but I subbed in a cup of buckwheat flour for the all purpose flour. I had had this bag of buckwheat flour in the pantry for a while and thought this was a good time to use it. I couldn’t actually tell the difference in taste – maybe a little “nuttier”? They were not as light as waffles made with just AP flour. The 11 year old helped make the waffles and she made some with sprinkles and some with raspberries and blueberries.

Around 11:00am I packed a picnic lunch and we headed out of the day’s adventure – the Labor Day Art Show and Social Dance Showcase at Glen Echo Park. Glen Echo Park is special to us because it was there are a contradance that the Husband and I met. Glen Echo was once an amusement park and people could take the trolly from DC there, but these days it’s the home to a variety of artists and cultural groups. The kids’ summer theatre camp was here. There are a couple dance venues, a playground, and a small aquarium. There is also a carousel that you can ride – $2 for a single ride, or $5 for a wristband to ride all day. That $5 wristband is probably one of the best deals ever.

Glen Echo is one of my favorite places to take the kids. They played on the playground, rode the carousel, then we went to the Social Dance showcase – it’s an all weekend event where the variety of social dance organizations had a free dance – mostly with live music! – so people could come check out what the dances were like. We went for to the Family Dance, which I guess they now call barn dance. The Family Dance is run by the same organization that does the contra dance. It’s so strange to think that the Husband and I used to go contra dancing two or three times a month and now we haven’t been in maybe six or seven years. There were kids, then COVID. How hard COVID must have been for the dance community! The people at contra dances are such kind, smart people who strive for connection – why else would you be drawn to social dancing? To think that suddenly people had to stop dancing in groups, stop gathering to hear live music and move together…

When I walked into the dance with the three kids, it was just like I remembered it. . There was the same guy working the sound board, the same lady calling the dances. So many faces were the same, just seven years older. Though there was one gentleman, an older guy with a snowy beard, who looked exactly the same as I remembered. A few people recognized me, which is surprising because the Husband was the one who was well known back when we were coming – he had been doing it for years before I even got started. One guy said, as we passed each other in line, “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“In about six years,” I said, gesturing to the six year old.

“You let a little thing like that keep you guys from dancing?” he said as he and his partner danced to the next couple.

Now to be perfectly honest, none of the kids wanted to dance. This was purely something that I wanted to do that I brought the kids along for. It’s like that line in Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here – “Maybe raising children was just giving them the things you loved most in the world and hoping that they loved them too.” I had to bribe them to dance; I told them that if they each did two dances we would go get ice cream afterwards.

So they all agreed and each did two dances with me. The 11 year old was most reluctant, but I saw a smile or two eventually. “That was funner than I thought it would be,” she told me afterwards. The three year old required a lot of guiding on the dance floor, but she seemed to get it – although she didn’t quite grasp the do-si-do and just stood there are I orbited her. The six year old actually ended up doing a contra dance with me. He had only done one dance by the time the family dance was over and the contradance was the next session, so we stayed and he did the first contra, which was not very difficult and he actually did very well and danced the whole dance. Afterwards he said that he liked it, but that it “was a little much.” It was so much fun to be dancing, to remember what it’s like to dance to live music and move in counts of 4 and 8, and how smoothly things can flow. (Dancing must be one of my flow activities!).

After the one contradance with the six year old, I really wanted to stay for more, but decided not to push my luck that the kids would be willing, so we popped in to the art show – it’s a showing of art from artists and students at the various studios at Glen Echo, some pieces which were for sale. The kids got a little squirrely, so the 11 year old took the 3 year old back to the playground while I took another look around with the 6 year old. Then we took one more ride on the carousel and headed out.

On the way out, we stopped to peruse the pottery that was for sale by the Glen Echo Potters. Periodically they have a “seconds” sale where they sell pieces by weight, but this was the regular sale. I have a weakness for pottery and we walked away with a couple things –

This small mug – because I have two small mugs, bought back when I thought we were just going to have two kids. But of course we had a third kid, which makes hot chocolate time difficult.

This sponge holder. I love beautiful and functional things.

And this soap dispenser. Which I picked up and put back so many times because it is so beautiful, but also much more money than I should pay for a soap dispenser. In the end, I decided to splurge and we brought it home.

We then went for the promised ice cream, at the little shop near home. They were out of many flavors – not quite sure what was up with that, so we ended up having banana (three year old), peach (six year old), pumpkin (for the 11 year old) and passionfruit sorbet (for me.) Aside from the passionfruit, they aren’t flavors that we had tried before. The pumpkin was my favorite -it tasted like Thanksgiving! While we were eating our ice cream we decided to order Bahn Mi sandwiches for dinner since the prospect of cooking seemed so daunting.

We picked up our sandwiches and came home. The kids did some picking up and piano practicing and then we ate our sandwiches in front of the tv. We had much debate over what to watch – I wanted to watch some kind of musical. AT first I was going to watch Dear Evan Hansen, but I realized that the kids listening to the soundtrack is one thing – I wasn’t quite ready for them to see the movie yet. Eventually we settled on a movie called Everybody’s Talking About Jamie – a film that came up a couple times in a reddit post for best movie musicals. It’s a movie loosely based on the true story of a gay teenager who dreams of becoming a drag queen. It was a sweet movie – the music wasn’t particularly memorable or catchy, but the dancing was fun and I enjoyed the performances.

After the movie, we watched some trailers, then I sent the two older kids to bed because the three year old had fallen asleep on me. It had been many an age since I had been stuck under a sleeping baby, so it was a sweet, if inconvenient moment. Eventually, with some tips from the Husband via text (he gets trapped under the sleeping three year old a lot when I work evenings…) I got her to bed. then I went and cleaned the kitchen that was still in its’ post-waffle decimated state from the morning.

Labor Day Monday started off much like the day before, only this time with two kids in my bed. Eventually they realized I wasn’t goin to get up, so they took themselves off for other mischief. I have no idea what was going on while I slept, but when I finally got out of bed, the bench that had been at the foot of the bed had been dragged askew and there were papers everywhere. Oh well. We had breakfast and biked/scootered down to meet a friend at a park. It was so so hot, but our park has lots of shade so it wasn’t so bad as long as we stayed out of the sun. We took the scooters on a ride down the road since it is closed to car traffic on weekends and holidays.

We came home and had lunch. Freezer and snack lunch, meaning crackers and cheese and whatever I could find in the freezer, which turned out to be frozen edamame and friend ravioli. The fired ravioli was new to me, but we have friends in St. Louis who have told us how popular it is there, so when I found some at the grocery store last month, I got some to try. It’s basically ravioli with a crunchy breaded filling. I cooked it in the toaster oven and it was actually not bad. It doesn’t seem too healthy, but I think it is a perfectly nice sometimes snack.

After lunch, because it was the last day our pool would be open for the summer, we went to the pool for the afternoon. Even though I’d been to the pools with the little kids at last once a week this summer, the 11 year old hadn’t really come with us at all. (The one time she came, she forgot her bathing suit!). I’m glad she came and participated this time – the diving board was open, which it hadn’t been at all last year, and she loves jumping off the diving board. She later confessed to me that she felt bad about going to the pool because she didn’t join swim team this year and didn’t want to run into any swim team people. I felt so sad that this was what she was hung up on! It just goes to show how we can get into our own heads sometimes with a really false narrative. Anyhow, it was lovely to spend the 90+ degree day at the pool. Afterwards, we came home, ate some Dilly Bars and went to pick up the Husband from the airport.

One the way home we stopped for Indian food, where I had this really awkward exchange:
Waiter: Everything okay?
Me: Yes, but our butter chicken didn’t come.
Waiter, pointing at a dish: That’s the butter chicken.
Me (feeling awkward at not knowing the difference): Oh! I thought that was the chicken makhani.
Waiter: Chicken makhani and butter chicken, they are are the same thing.

Mind blown. And I felt like an idiot. Although, why did they let us order both a butter chicken and and chicken makhani??????

So we got home, put the kids to bed (eventually) and that was the end of our three day weekend. The house looked like a disaster, but I guess that is to be expected when we were home or out having fun all weekend.

And the Husband brought this home with mhim from Minnesota:

Grateful For:
-A smooth first week of school and everyone getting to and from school safely.

-The bag of peach seconds – made into a galette. The whole thing made so much easier because past me made a double batch of pie crust and froze it for future me.

-Music with the kids. We don’t do it a lot but every so often I’ll sit down with the kids at the piano and we’ll sing songs. I don’t play very well, but I can bang out chords enough for us to sing. I discovered that there are lots of easy piano e-books available on Hoopla with our library card. I also recently discovered YouTube karaoke videos which we love doing too. Belting out tunes with the kids is such a fun way to pass 20 or 39 minutes in the evening. Last week, I also showed my kids my hidden talent for playing the spoons. Okay I’m actually pretty terrible at it, but it is a lot of fun. I love that the kids love making music too.

-A long weekend filled with fun adventures.

-Shady roadways, closed to car traffic, giving us a long way to roll

-Pourable mason jar lids. I’ve been very much into making my own fancy drinks this summer. My chai concentrate goes into a large jar, but the lemonade base goes into a mason jar. I’ve also taken advantage of our bounty of basil and made some basil simple syrup and then making basil lemonade. These mason jar lids made storing a pouring the concoctions so easy. I had originally gotten them when I was pumping and storing breastmilk in mason jars because the lids were great for pouring the milk cleanly into bottles. I love that they continue to be useful.

-Time to run. Now the kids are back in school, I’ve been running three times a week after drop off. I only manage a mile or two and then a very long walk back to the car, and it’s been great for clearing my head, listening to audio books and podcasts.

-Beautiful dusk skies. I love skies – the infinite variety of colours and cloud formations. I’ve never looked at a sky but thought breathlessly, “What an expanse of beauty.”

Looking Forward to:
-Kids activities starting up again. I’m eager to see what the routine will be like and to see where the spaces in our weekends will be. Currently the oldest is doing basketball (1-2 times a week), piano lessons (once a week + practicing), and swim clinic (once a week) and religious ed classes (once a week.) . I think she’s also going to do the school play too if she can get on the crew or cast. The six year old is doing soccer (twice a week, but only for eight weeks) , piano (once a week + practicing) and skating (once week) and religious ed classes (once a week). The three year old is doing agility classes (once a week) and skating (once a week). It seems like a lot to places to be, but it also seems like there is so much more out there that they can learn and do. The six year old wants to learn how to sew – there is a pace locally that has sewing classes, but you have to be 7, so maybe next spring.

-Using our new soap dispenser. I’m so excited to have such a pretty thing as part of my every day mundane experience.

-Billy Elliott, the movie. I have never seen this movie, but I heard it’s a great family film, so I put it on hold from the library and it just came in, so I think we will watch it for movie night. I’m trying to find more live action movies to watch for movie night. Cartoons are great and very well done, but sometimes I want to see real people. Suggestions welcome!

What We Ate:

Monday: Eggplant curry – I had bought some Japanese eggplant at the local produce market and had a can of coconut milk to use up, so I made a simple curry with eggplant and chickpeas. Vegan.

Tuesday: Cornflake chicken, corn and bagged Caesar salad. the 11 year old wanted to cook dinner, so this is what she made – the recipe is from the America’s Test Kitchen Young Chef’s cookbook.

Wednesday: Snack dinner and smoked salmon and green beans. Cheese and crackers and the like.

Thursday: Zucchini Boats.

Friday: Tomato and kale Pasta, recipe from New York Times. We have a bunch of tomatoes to eat from the garden, so we’ve been having some variation of tomatoes and pasta at least once a week. This recipe is cool because it’s pan deal – you cook the pasta, tomatoes together in one pan with a bit of water and it makes a nice sauce as everything cooks down. I also threw in some corn leftover from corflak chickn night. Vegan (we didn’t use the cheese)

Saturday: We just snacked all day at the Ren Faire.

Sunday: Bahn mi and Everybody’s Talking about Jamie

Monday: Indian Food, eating out.