Laundry Line Dilemma; Little Swimmers
It’s a beautiful sunny day in a week that calls for rain, so naturally I’m throwing the clothes onto the line, when I turn around and say … hmmm, that looks kinda counter-productive. Today’s construction innovation involves great plumes of black smoke wafting from the half-filled pit.
On another subject altogether, last night Mama treated the kids to delectable and questionable and surprisingly expensive ice-cream sandwiches to celebrate the end of this session of swim lessons; everyone passed, hurrah. The sandwiches sent the older children into some kind of fugue state of angelic behaviour, while having the opposite effect on Captain CJ, who literally lost his mind. I love the frantic treat-stuffing look in his eyes, below.
Ugh.
It’s my constant companion when out and about. It’s been in our lives since Apple-Apple was an infant; that’s longer than we’ve had our car or our house. I fill it with children, school bags, groceries, library books, cookie crumbs. It goes uphill and down, through rain and snow and sun, and requires nothing more than a jolly stride to operate. Someone took it off of our front porch in broad daylight this evening. It feels like someone’s stolen a part of our family’s history. That sounds silly … but those were our fresh cookie crumbs someone walked off with, and they won’t mean a thing to whoever’s taken it and is hawking it online right about now.Thanks to our friends for their instant offers of stroller loans, especially to one who walked over a stroller less than an hour after we discovered ours was missing. I’m getting a little teary right now.
The Upside to Construction
Weekends the noise stops, and the digging, and the beep-beep-beeping, and the dust settles, and all is quiet at our little corner of urbanity. Time to hang the clothes on the line. Time to get out the wheeled devices. Time to fly.
Buying Club
Friday is now buying club day. I found myself looking forward to it like it was a holiday. This afternoon a group of moms teamed up in the nearby little park, to watch each other’s children and take turns “shopping.” Apple-Apple got to work at the treat table, but the other children stayed at the park and played. I’ve yet to get a really good photo from the club itself, or the loaded stroller. Maybe next time. This is an amazing weekly experience. We’re about to tuck into nitrate-free local hot dogs, a glorious-looking salad, and more steamed asparagus.Streetscape
Imagine, if you will, trying to keep your little fellow in the house with THIS going on mere feet away. Imagine the noise this machine is creating. Imagine beep-beep-beep starting at six in the morning, continuing till after supper. Imagine an aboveground sewer pipe blocking your driveway. Imagine summer, windows open, heat. Imagine having to shout at your children not because you’re in a bad mood, and not occasionally, but because otherwise THEY WON’T BE ABLE TO HEAR YOU. Imagine yourself saying to your husband, “Uh, how soon can I lose my patience with this situation?” “Better not. Not yet.”Deep breathing, deep breathing, cough, cough, cough.