Skipping Town

Back home. L&G seemed happy to be here and began playing with all their ponies and Shopkins in earnest the second they woke up. Late in the morning, we went to the library and got out a zillion books--probably our last summer library trip. I've loved this part of our summer--our regular weekly library visit. In years past, it was difficult to take them to the library. For one thing, when we first moved here, when they were very very little, I stubbornly held onto the idea that I should walk to the library, which meant pushing two kids plus a bunch of books up the hill in a double stroller to get home on a blisteringly hot summer day. (What folly: this is why we have cars in suburbia.) Second, there were diaper changes to consider. And nursing. And then potty training. How, how, did I ever leave the house at all???? You couldn't pay me to go back to all that. Anyhoo, then there was a stage where one or both would throw some kind of fit in the library, or run wild. Sigh. ...

Sat., 8/27 Since this was our last visit to NH this summer, we made our annual trip to the recycling center to deliver all the recycling we'd been saving up over the past few months. Of course we couldn't escape NH without an injury: Andrew cut his finger as he grabbed a bag of glass bottles. It looked terrible, but he didn't think it needed stitches, so we went on with our day. Next we went to Walmart so L&G could pick out their reading rewards--Lucia's been doing daily reading practice plus journal entries, and though going to Walmart is never fun, the girls were so excited. Greta chose a blind bag pony--Sapphire Shores--and blind bag Happy Places Shopkins. Lucia chose a blind bag Happy Places Shopkins and a regular blind bag Shopkins. The Happy Places Shopkins are ridiculously cute--and tinier than anything else the girls have. That's saying a lot. Each set comes with two regular-size Shopkins plus a miniscule accessory: a Shopkins bank plus a miniscule S...

Thurs., 8/25 We did something new-to-us yesterday--traveled an hour and a half to Lake Winniepesake to meet some of Andrew and Katherine's college friends for lunch and some lake fun. It was such a nice place--we had lunch at a restaurant right on the lake called Town Dock, then went to a public beach, where there was a lovely swimming area. Sandy bottom, no sludge, crystal clear water, waist-high for the kids at the deepest point. L&G had of course brought Equestria Girls, but they actually played with real kids too--two of the kids there were little girls age four and six, and the four-year-old had brought a big bag of My Little Ponies as well as an Equestria Girl of her own. It was a beautiful lake. Definitely a place to return to. We got home around 6:30pm and went immediately to our cousins' house for cocktails. I was worried about the kids being a tired mess--but they had so much fun. Our cousins brought out some toys they'd saved from their own kids' chil...

Lost some days in here but I'll try to recap the past few. Sat., 8/20 Did a preschool cleanup in the morning, then went to a rummage sale, then spent a lot of time losing my mind over the sheer intractable mess that was our house in preparation for a weeklong trip away, during which time the cleaners would come, so the house had to be both vacation-clean and cleaners-coming-tidied. Not fun. I gave the girls their first week's reading-practice prize--a blind bag pony and blind bag Shopkin. Lucia's been doing great with her daily reading practice, and as everyone knows I like to buy the girls their favorite tiny things, so the reading-practice incentive is win-win for all of us. In the evening, Katherine, Patrick, and Thomas arrived, to much excitement. L&G had been eagerly awaiting their arrival all day. A whirlwind of Shopkins and pony introductions ensued. Sun., 8/21 Katherine and I went to yoga first thing in the morning, and then we packed up the cars and...

The past few days, L&G have really just been happy to be home. All they've wanted to do is play with their stuff--all their stuff. All together, all at once, creating by the end of day a huge, house-size soup of stuff. Shopkins, ponies, animal figurines, play food, Equestria Girls, Playmobil food, Legos, kinetic sand, Beanie Boos. It's been blazing hot, but they haven't even asked to go to the pool. They just want to stay inside and play. We did go to the library twice so far, getting stacks of books. Today we read together nearly all day. We've found a new series called Never Girls, which is really cute and has totally captivated them. (Hence our two-days-in-a-row library visits. We read #1 straight through and had to go back for more in the series.) I'll miss our regular library trips once school begins. With school just a few weeks away, I've set up a reading challenge for Lucia--if she reads out loud every day (about 20 mins), she gets a sticker on a...

Beach week! We spent last week in North Myrtle Beach, all together in our cousin's beach condo: Andrew, the girls, and I, plus Molly, Luca, and Mom and Dad. None of us had been to North Myrtle before, and there was so much to do. We spent almost every morning at the beach, and then did some swimming in one of the condo's pools. We took a few excursions as well, and had some delicious restaurant meals. Here are a few highlights: --All three kids learned how to use a boogie board. Lucia, the eldest, was the most proficient, and she was beyond excited at her new skill. She said it was her favorite thing about the trip. --We visited the Alligator Adventure animal park, which was surprisingly fun--tons and tons of huge alligators, plus lots of other somewhat terrifying creatures. We watched a reptile show, and all the kids touched a skink. And learned the word "skink." The admission price included a second visit for free, so we went back to watch an alligator feeding--...

Friday's another one of those days that I remember little about, even though it was yesterday. I know the girls played a lot and made a gigantic mess of games and ponies and Shopkins. And Andrew and I got a babysitter in the evening and went out to dinner with friends. We also met with a contractor and then an architect about our basement renovation. It's moving ahead nicely. Today the girls slept in till 8:30am. They played for a while and then Lucia had a birthday pool party to go to over lunchtime. While she was gone, Andrew, Greta, and I went to the basement to start a massive cleanout. Greta was immersed in playing with pony stuff while Andrew and I tackled the scary area behind the refrigerator, plus the root cellar. We threw away a lot and sold a lot. We packed up all the stuff we're keeping and moved it to the attic. We made great progress and kept working even after I picked up Lucia. L&G were in a mood of happy cooperative playing, and they basically were on...

Today I took the girls for a walk on the Fairy Trail in the local nature reservation, a lovely adventure that was recently written up in the New York Times. It'd been on my to-do list all summer, so today the girls chose it over the zoo, and off we went. And it was pretty thrilling to start walking along the trail and spot the fairy houses--L&G were so excited each time they saw one. They stopped after a while to make their own fairy things--a campfire from a ring of stones and flame-colored leaves was the highlight. The reservation is beautiful, and we were having an extremely pleasant stroll. But then the stroll started going on and on and on, and I knew approximately how long it was supposed to be, and this was much much longer. And we were no longer passing other people. And there were no more trail markers, or fairy houses. We were lost in the woods--on a trail, yes, but not the right one. Fortunately, L&G were game for hiking and hiking, and eventually we made our...

Monday was a rainy rainy day. Right now, as I write this, it's only Wednesday, but for the life of me I can't remember even one detail about Monday. Not one. Was I even here??? Tuesday started off on an unfortunate note. In search of some packing material, I went down to the basement like I've been doing for the past four years, la la la, just going down to our basement, not even thinking about it, not scared, not even of the scary root cellar, and then, when I turned around to go out of the raw-storage area, I saw A ROACH by the refrigerator. It was the largest roach I've ever seen, and I've seen my share. My reaction was not in my control (see: phobia born of two nights amid roach-covered walls in Juarez, circa 1997). The next thing I knew I was in the kitchen, screaming and sobbing and hyperventilating, not even able to verbalize to Andrew what I'd seen. When I managed to rasp out roach to Andrew, he went downstairs...but found nothing. And had the gall to ...

Friday 7/29 Andrew worked from home and took the girls to the pool in the afternoon while I grocery shopped. Cheeseburgers and zuccini on the grill for dinner. Saturday 7/30 A big day for us. In the morning, we went to a local Volvo dealership to test-drive Andrew's desired car, the XC90. It's a three-row car, much larger than our small wagon, and it's been clear for a while now that it's time for us to upgrade. So we test drove it and then L&G occupied themselves in the car dealership's kid-friendly waiting area (TV! Balloons brought to them! Snacks!) while we suffered through the ridiculous charade that is buying a new car. End result: we bought one. It's the third car of our marriage, and the first brand-new one. I hope we like it!! L&G were freaking out during the test drive, beside themselves with excited proclamations of how much they loved the car, how we HAD to buy it, how they loved the white color (we're not getting white), how they...

Thursday was, yet again, a good day. I think we've reached a kind of turning point with little miss Greta. She's been pleasant and amenable to doing things like, you know, getting dressed and putting on shoes, with no wild whining that brings our day screeching to a halt. So, good. Maybe the whole Pinkie Pie Sweet Shoppe debacle will have led to something good in the end. We didn't do too much Thursday morning, just hung out at home. Lots of playing with ponies, Shopkins, and Legos. In the afternoon, one of Lucia's friends came over for a playdate. Lucia had been soooo excited, and they all had fun. Some iPad time, leftovers for dinner, lots of reading (Princess in Black, Francine Poulet and the Ghost Raccoon, Stella Batts: Superstar), and we'll call it a day. One thing I forgot about Wednesday. At one point during the day, L&G were happily playing downstairs in the basement with a bunch of toys they'd carried downstairs. I was in the kitchen, online...

Wednesday was a nice day, all around. The cleaners were here, which meant we had to be out of the house for most of the morning, so I took L&G to the mall with me to return some shirts I'd bought and no longer needed thanks to my super-deals at Gabe's last week. They were pleasant and happy at the mall and even tried on some rash guards, which I was hoping to find for our beach trip in August (no luck). There was no whining, no bickering, no silliness. We even went to Bath & Body Works and I sprayed the girls with their choices of body splash. (I'd gone there with the hope of finding some Sun-Ripened Raspberry products, which I'd heard they were bringing back--but alas, they brought back that scent only for June.) When we got home, we had lunch and quiet time. A note on quiet time: it became clear early in the summer that the quiet time we've had all these years to this point--just playing in their rooms--was no longer going to work. The reasons are many. ...

Monday, it was back to normal here in New Jersey. Andrew went to work, and the girls and I had our day. It was a surprisingly good day all around. No fighting, no whining. We went to the library, had lunch, then went to the pool for a little while before going to gymnastics. Going to the library has been really fun this summer, with the girls' interests expanding and deepening in new books and series. Lucia especially loves the Stella Batts series, which I like too. And yesterday we discovered our first Princess in Black book--really really great. I ordered two from Amazon because it's clear they'll be favorites for a long time. Today wasn't as fully good as yesterday. Greta descended into some whining this morning, pushing me to my limit, but she eventually rallied. We had lunch and quiet time and then went to the pool for the whole afternoon. It's been in the nineties, so the pool has been a real relief since, of course, we don't have air-conditioning. Bot...

Saturday, Mom and I took the girls to the Yough River Trail for a bike ride. They rode three miles with barely a blink of fatigue--Lucia rode far ahead, zippy; and Greta, too, pedaled fast enough so that I had to run to keep up. They had a lot of fun. Afterward, they played by the river, "not going in the water." Andrew flew back from CA that evening, so I drove to Pittsburgh to meet him and go out to dinner with three of our friends. We had a great time--building the case for a move to Pittsburgh someday... Sunday was the day of an epic Parenting Fail. As you may recall, we embarked on our week in Connellsville with a grand agreement: Greta agreed not to whine, and she and Lucia would receive the Pinkie Pie Sweet Shoppe set in return. Lucia's part of the bargain was not to bicker with Greta so much. Neither girl fulfilled her end of the deal for the entire week. There was a lot of whining. There was a lot of fighting. Requesting pristine behavior for a week was a roo...

Thursday, Lucia, Greta, and I started off the day with a visit and swim at the home of some of my very very old friends, along with another old friend and her daughter. It was so much fun to see all the kids in real life, not just Facebook life. Lucia and Greta had a blast. They'd swim all the time if they could. We were there almost two hours and they got out of the pool only once, to eat a donut. Mom's cousins were in town so the girls played at home the rest of the day. They made a big mud puddle outside, in which their ponies played. Today, I went for a walk on the Yough Trail first thing--if I could start off every day this way, I would. What a peaceful, beautiful place. When I got home, we all walked to a rummage sale at a nearby church. It was underwhelming. Unfortunately, Greta's disappointment at not finding a treasure propelled her into a downward spiral of whining that she couldn't break out of. So much for the Pinkie Pie deal. Mom and I got her to get in...

Monday, Andrew drove into Pittsburgh to work at the Pittsburgh office for the day. After our Idlewild outing, we took it easy at home, just playing here. We visited Grandma and Florence at Beechwood. Afterward, Mom had promised L&G some new Shopkins, so we went to Target to pick some out. Later, L&G and Mom and I took a walk/scooter ride around the neighborhood in the evening. Tuesday, we all drove into Pittsburgh together to go to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Such a wonderful place. Andrew got to stay with us for about an hour, before Ubering to the airport to catch his flight to CA. Mom, Dad, the girls, and I stayed at the museum. L&G like the dinosaurs and the gems, but more than anything else they love the Hall of North American Animals--beginning with the gruesome diorama of the lion attacking the camel and rider. They also love the bears eating salmon, and anything that depicts a predator attacking or planning to attack its prey. Greta really liked feelin...

We made a big plan for today: Idlewild. It almost didn't happen, because Greta succumbed to a fit of whining in the morning and refused each and every part of the preparations, including but not limited to putting on sunscreen, putting on her shoes, and putting on her clothes. We got her out the door, and by the time we got to Idlewild she'd rallied, and she was fine the rest of the day. I hadn't been to Idlewild for thirty years, I'm guessing, but I have vivid memories of pieces of it, and it was fun to be back. We started off in Storybook Forest. L&G liked going into all the little houses and identifying the storybook figures along the way. They met Princess Lily in the castle at the end. Then we went to Jumpin Jungle, which they loved. They REALLY loved the ball pit, and liked doing cannonball jumps into the balls. They both even climbed the huge rope-net climb thing, which is notorious in our family for an incident in which a young Molly got stuck in the mid...

Went to the pool Thursday afternoon. Got rained out by a huge rainstorm. Went to the diner later for dinner. Friday 7/15 we drove to Connellsville for the next big portion of our summer. Saturday: Connellsville! The girls are so excited to be here, and so are we. In the morning, L&G asked us to leave them alone with Gra and Pop-Pop, so Andrew and I took a run/walk on the Yough River Trail and then went to Gabe's and lunch at Panera. In the afternoon, Mom and Dad went to work at the St. Rita's Church Festival, and we met them there at 5pm for some delicious food. L&G loved the food as well and then had a blast playing down by the river. Our festival fare: cavatelli, meatballs, manicotti, pierogies, sausage sandwich, fried dough, ice cream. Food bliss.

Today was much better than yesterday. This morning, L&G played with their ponies for a long time, and then we went to the zoo. We rode the zoo train and the carousel, looked at the snakes and lizards, and Lucia touched lots of stingrays. Then we had lunch and quiet time. Then we went to the pool, which was less successful today because it was overcast and the water was cold and the girls were too chilly to stay for very long. They each had an ice cream there and then we went home. We read a bunch on the porch today. We finished Stella Batts: A Case of the Meanies and read most of Daisy Dawson Is On Her Way, and Lucia read a few paragraphs herself. Tonight a teacher from our preschool invited me to her book club--they'd read Each Vagabond by Name this month and I joined the discussion. Really fun to talk about the book and the inspiration for it. Greta made a grand pronouncement today: she will NOT WHINE the entire time we're in Pennsylvania. In return, I will buy her ...

We drove home on Sunday. We'd planned to spend most of the day in NH but it was pouring rain and the girls were surly so we just called it a wrap. Monday, we hung out at home, went to the library to get some new books, and then had gymnastics class. Of course Greta put up a fight about going, but then Ollie, her Beanie Boo octopus, suggested to me that if I gave Greta a hug she'd change her tune, and lo and behold, it worked. Sometimes I have serious worries that Greta is a schizophrenic. Today. Oh, today was a doozy. The girls woke up in a mood and were attempting to kill each other at the breakfast table. I was able to jump ship to go to the chiropractor, but when I got back Andrew left for work and we had to forge ahead with the day. Fortunately, they were in better spirits by that point and spent most of the morning riding things around the driveway and soaking each other with the hose. They were having a great time so I didn't intervene. We read a lot on the porc...