I didn’t anticipate, this morning, that we would have quite such a full and busy day. But that’s how it evolved! First, I thought we would check out the beach at North Point State park, reputed to be an excellent, quiet little spot, perfect for waders. It was.
Elijah finds a fellow shell-collector.
The water was very warm, and soon even reluctant Brynny was happily splashing around. I look forward to going back when I can actually swim, and float on the gentle swells. On the way out we stopped at a farm stand and bought peaches, cantaloupe, patty-pan squash (so tasty fried with bacon) and pickling cucumbers. One of my little plans is to try making refrigerator pickles with the kids- they are big pickle eaters.
Next, we headed up to IKEA as it is free kids meals week. I packed a sandwich for myself and a water bottle so we didn’t spend a cent on lunch. We were surprised to run into Elijah’s friend Nina, who was out having an expedition with her aunties.
After some very unsuccessful naps at home, I decided to make a peach crisp with the kids with the peaches from the farm stand. They were thrilled to assist:
After boiling the peaches for a minute to loosen the skins and cooling them, Elijah found himself to be very good at slipping the skins off.
They both helped put together the crisp topping. Note: this moment of brother-sister cooperation should go down on the books as a rather unusual occurrence. We hope for more such moments on an increasing basis. Here, they use the pastry cutter to break up the butter.
Scattering the topping over the peaches.
After the crisp was in the oven, mama’s little helpers gathered their buckets to help weed the front walk. Beats me why they think this is the most fantastically fun thing to do, but I’ll take it. “Weed! Weed!” Brynny yells with enthusiasm.
They did a great job helping me out. I pull the weeds and they stand with buckets at the ready to collect them. Then they tote them off to dump them in the weed pile. The front walk looks much better.
After the crisp came out of the oven we ate dinner (Marc is out tonight) and walked down to the Tuesday Farmer’s Market and procured a few items. Elijah and I had a lengthy (but fairly civil) argument on the way about why he couldn’t ride his tricycle since Brynny got to ride in her stroller. He didn’t understand my objections relating to steep hills and street crossings and wanting to move along since it was getting late. He would have happily continued this discussion till the cows came home, but Mama decided to forcibly end it. Words may have been had, let us say. Still, being a resilient little fellow, he didn’t let that get him down and there was no lack of conversation for the rest of the walk.
When we got back, Brynny had completely conked out in her stroller so I put her straight to bed. Then our neighbor, Mimi, came over to share in the delights of warm peach crisp and ice cream.
I’d say it was a pretty satisfactory summer day. Tomorrow, though, I think we might try to relax a little more…
It’s good to be together again. Us and our kids. The kids are still adjusting to EST (we were on the west coast for 3 weeks) so we didn’t hear a peep out of them till after 8:00. So nice to lie in bed with the sun starting to come in to a newly-cleaned bedroom with a vase of zinnias and cosmos on the dresser under the print of a birch forest. Then Elijah comes in and snuggles down right between us, a look of pure contentment on his face, and arm around each parent. Brynny pipes up from her room and Elijah goes in and looks at books with her in her bed and we enjoy listening them talk to each other. Then everybody up- downstairs we go for a french toast-blueberry sauce-morning. The day lies enticingly before us.
