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Showing posts from March, 2008

Fractured Lyrics

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Here is Sebi, giving his GQ pose, complete with white poodle. One of his most recent favorite videos has been Ultimate Silly Songs with Larry, of Veggie Tale fame. In fact, all the kids liked it so much, that after it went back to the library, I bought the album on iTunes. It manages to put all the kids in a happy place at breakfast, and really, if it can do that, do I care if they're singing about manatees and cucumbers? One of the songs is called "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" which has been spun-off into a feature-length film, as our capitalistic society is wont to do these days. In the song, the pirates sing about all of the things they've never done (like been to Greenland, or swabbed the deck, or what have you) and always end with " . . . and I've never been to Boston in the fall". Our kids sing it plenty. But just today we learned that Sebastian has his own version, which is " . . . and I've never been to Costco in Nepal."

Easter Morning

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I realize that I'm an adult now. It comes to me when I reflect on the fact that my favorite part of Easter is seeing the kids all dressed up in their new Easter finery, and my least favorite part is that &*%$# grass in their baskets that I'm vacuuming and picking up for the next week. The kids' favorite part is at least the sugar high they're on all day, but it could also be the egg hunting (Will just loved the one yesterday -- sounds like he was one of the most adept hunters there), or the anticipation of looking in their baskets Easter morning. This year, the kids got a larger than average haul, with regular toys and candy, and WebKinz (for those of you living under the same rock I am, these are stuffed animals with tags you use to register online so that you can pester your parents to play with the virtual pet on the computer instead of just playing with the toy itself). So now we have a cat, a hippo, and a white poodle named Quesadilla -- and three kids who wa

Egg Hunt with Oma

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On Saturday, Rob took the boys to an egg hunt at Oma's assisted living center. There were oodles of [well-heeled] children (it's pretty swank) and balloons and eggs and crafts and the Easter bunny himself. In Sebi's words: "I only got five eggs, but Will found thousands." Sebi also informed me that I should hug the Easter bunny sometime because he is soft and "lotsa cozy". Maddie stayed home because she's had a fever and a sore throat, and I ran to the store to buy her some juice and throat drops and Motrin. Sick kids at this age are so civilized! She says "I'm I ready for more medicine? How much? OK, I'll go get it." Wow. After the kids finished in the front, Oma's group had their own egg hunt in the back. They let the residents go first. Oma was tickled to find four eggs, and then they let the kids out and they found even more. Rob told me that the boys each gave two eggs to a grandma who hadn't found any and she was gl

Making Ice Cream Sandwiches

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C's mom gave our kids these darling ice cream sandwich makers from Williams Sonoma. They make a star, a cow, and a pig. On Saturday, I made the brownies and the blondies, and we used neapolitan ice cream to maximize our choices. Here S demonstrates the proper smooshing technique. One of the fringe benefits they don't mention is that there are lots of brownie and blondie scraps to snitch from. Our friend E was particularly good at it. We did find that you had to soften the ice cream a bit to put into the shapes, and then refreeze the sandwiches so that they'd stay. We made about 30 of them, and they were big sellers. We were out by the next night, and that was only with a lot of threatening. M is already thinking about new combinations involving sorbet and coconut cookies. Some of our finjished products waiting in the freezer. Six happy campers munching on ice cream sandwiches.

Violin Recital

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I know that the pictures are deceiving, but this really was Maddie and Will's second violin performance. They have been working on a song called "Fire Engines" (with their first glissandos) and so their teacher thought they should come perform for the professionals. We went into their training room, complete with a random fiberglass leg sitting on top of cabinets, and the kids played four pieces for the paramedics. They did a good job and didn't look nervous at all. Then the fire fighters entertained the kids. They got to dress up in helmets and earphones and heavy fire coats, and sit in the driver's seat, and see the chainsaws and hoses and shut the doors and watch the stairs pull up automatically. We saw the ambulance that Will and I rode in when he had a seizure (both Will and the ambulance are doing fine) and we talked shop with the paramedics -- violin and emergencies. For a recital, it was very entertaining for the kids. Unfortunately, the rest of their p

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

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So while I was flitting around seeing things and eating myself silly, R was at home, holding down the fort. He did an extraordinary job, which is unsurprising. He took the kids bowling, out to eat, got their chores and homework and art projects done. He visited his dad, his sister, his brother, and his oma. The boys both got sick and he had to stay with them and play Legos and Playmobil and blocks. He carpooled and shuttled kids to dance and preschool and went to church. Our friends, K, L, and M also did yeoman's duty by taking care of S on R's teaching days. But I came back to happy kids and a household that was humming and up to speed. He's a keeper!

Garden of Eden

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So this is J & C's closest grocery store. They get a VIP 15% discount for being locals. I wish that I could have had R on the trip for so many reasons, but this store is chief among them. He would have been in ecstasies over the produce and deli and bakery, and would have been on the floor by the time he'd seen the olive bar. Aesthetically it is a beautiful place, but it isn't just that. It's also the amazing variety they have of everything! There are lady apples and artichokes and oodles of berries in the produce department, and a wall of jams, jellies, preserves and a dozen or so different kinds of honey. This is the root cellar, which is its own little room. We laughed about it, because these are the only vegetables my other brother eats -- the roots and tubers, or 'humble vegetables' as he likes to call them. He'd never have to venture out into the larger produce area. The cheese and deli counter was astounding, as was the meat counter -- large pie

Manhattan in a Day

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So after Boston, mom and I flew down to New York. We took a cab from JFK and we were uniformly impressed with the taxis. My brother J and his girlfriend C live in Morningside in exactly the sort of apartment you think of when you think about Manhattan -- high ceilings, wood floors, white hexagonal tiles, and a long narrow bathroom with a tub as big as a coffin. After dropping off luggage and seeing the apartment, C took us out around their neighborhood. Once J got home, we went out to dinner at a french restaurant named Alouette. J was concerned that in my wide-load state, I might not fit at a table in some of the smaller restaurants. I wish I could argue that convincingly, but he's right. The next morning, we had a great breakfast at Good Enough to Eat, then went to the MOMA which had been completely rearranged since I was last there. I hadn't noticed Claes Oldenberg's Soft Fan before, and I enjoyed the Jasper Johns, Picasso, and Van Goghs. We also had a good time in the

Boston and the TomTom

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So I flew back to Boston with my mom to get a change of scenery and watch my niece and nephew, C & H, so that their parents could get a change of scenery. The flights were so unnaturally easy, since I didn't have to be looking after anyone else, and there were people serving me drinks and snacks -- whoo! Weird! We arrived to an absolutely sparkling house with homemade bread and chili for dinner and got to see J & S until they left after lunch on Saturday. They left us with the better of their two cars, and their GPS thingamajiggy, called the "TomTom" so we could find our way around. The kids were great -- rested and slept and ate and brushed teeth when you told them to. The TomTom wasn't so amenable. First, he wasn't on speaking terms with us until Monday when we learned how to turn on the sound. So I would drive and Mom would say "Ummm, it's green until it's brown. Up ahead. Yeah, I can't tell how far you go until you turn left, but it&

Movie Watch

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OK, so per Lois, I'm going to comment on the movies I've seen in the last couple of weeks. And for those of you I've talked to, these are the ones I've been talking about. In order of viewing: After the Wedding : Danish (R) about a man who runs an orphanage in India. He needs funding/donations so it won't close down, and a donor appears, but has strange strings attached. Explores interesting questions of ethics, and the nature of goodness. Language and brief nudity. I highly reccomend this one. Nine Queens : Argentine (R) a heist movie (remade in America as The Criminal, but not as highly rated on Rotten Tomatoes) about small time crooks. Lots of language, but no sex, nudity, or even violence. Entertaining. Paris Je T'aime : French (R) is a bunch of short films, each by a different director and set in a different part of Paris. Some are squeaky clean, and others are not. They tend to be set upper-downer-upper-downer in sequence. We loved some of them (Nick Nolte