lemonade? you're my best friend

Lemonade day is approaching, and we've been doing our best to get ready.  To those who may not know (or have it in their community), lemonade day is a program in which children are encouraged to learn about entrepreneurial matters by planning lemonade stands and dealing with the purchase of supplies, planning and promotion, sharing profits, and suchlike.  (Even though the official lemonade day is on a Sunday, we've gotten permission from the city to hold ours the day earlier.)  We'll be serving fresh-squeezed lemonade with an assortment of fruit syrups and some baked goods -- and dancing around at the corner of a busy street with signs.  Come by!

 

too tough

Gwennie: Can we pretend this is a walk-in restaurant?

Daddy: What's that, Gwennie?

G: It's when you go into a restaurant and the food's ready, and it's filled with a lot of tough guys that are foreigners.  Like you see sometimes in movies.  It's filled with a bunch of guys that you don't want to mess with.

Gwennie: I'm just kind of over-exasperating about that.

We visited our nature spot from 2009, and enjoyed exploring our old haunt.  Many of the paths we used to walk were totally overgrown, so we stayed in the sun.  Might as well enjoy the warmth before it gets unbearable, I suppose.

engineering

and more

Margaret is growing, and not only in cuteness. We've already waxed rhapsodic about her chunky thighs and wrists, but she's also becoming aware of the world around her in new ways. This means that if you're holding her, she's ever more likely to grab for the plate you're eating from, or do her best to snatch your glasses.


















She may not be sold on that whole solid food concept, but one thing she loves is to help me eat fruit by gumming my apple cores. She was getting impatient this afternoon as I got the apple ready for her to lick and slobber over. It's a great party trick.

pole position

Casper (while playing Charades, guessing what his Mama was acting out): Folding laundry. Easy! She's acting how to Mother.

Casper (encouraging his baby sister to grab for a toy, much as in Monday's post): Whoa! Extreme reach, Greta! Excellent!

freewheelin'

The children insisted that I take them on a bike ride the other day. This doesn't mean that I ride along with them -- my bike's in the shop, sort of like the Simpsons' waffle iron -- so I just run along until we get to the end of our street. There, a generally-deserted Elks Lodge provides a fine spot for negotiating narrow spaces (Gwennie) or taking wide turns (Linus).


















Linee really has become more interested in his bike, and I'm sure that it's entirely my fault that he's still having to ride with those training wheels. In my defense, they've fallen so far out of position that I don't know that they provide much support to him; he may as well be riding free and easy.
















































In no time he'll be giving her a run for her money.

Easter portrait

ambition

Of course, the three older children weren't the only ones to have fun with eggs this weekend. Margaret was satisfied by sitting with a plastic egg, and by reaching after it once it got away from her.









and






















Triumph!

(Jen here.  I wanted to write a note about this beautiful dress.  This was my first Easter dress, which makes it special, but it was also hand-made (even the smocking!) for me by my paternal great-grandmother, Granny Grace.  I'll have to look it up, but if I'm not mistaken, she was in her late 80's or early 90's when I was born.  It is truly stunning and still in impeccable condition.  I'm so thankful to have it and so thankful that to have these photos of Greta in it!)

thrill of the hunt

After returning home from church (and taking our Easter family portraits, and eating a nutritious lunch) we held our egg hunt. I explained to the children that since (with church meetings beginning at 9 o'clock) we wouldn't be able to look for eggs and baskets in the morning, the Easter bunny would deliver the goods, but I would be the one to hide them. Apparently, this was deemed satisfactory by all.


















Here is Casper in the moment he noticed an egg which I'd hidden for Gwennie in a lighting fixture. I don't know whether he was struck by the placement of the egg, or by the fact that he'd found one of Gwendolyn's eggs before she had.













This wasn't the best-hidden egg, however. My favorite -- and the last to be found by Gwennie, who refuses all offers of help and hints -- was one I'd put in a decorative teapot on our credenza. Because the pot has a metal mesh filter, I placed her egg underneath it, and one of Linus's inside (and above hers); this way, when she lifted the lid and looked inside, she only saw her brother's egg. I think she considered it pretty clever, after she finally turned it up.

dyeing over here

Egg decorating is a big thing in these parts. Part of it is familial heritage, part is the fact that at significant holidays, we break out the Slavic eggs (not only painted wooden eggs, but duck and even large goose eggs, hollowed out and resist-painted in intricate designs) Jennifer and I each bought compulsively during trips to Russia and Poland.


















The children weren't going to let the opportunity for an egg session pass up, and they reminded us about it ad nauseam all last week. I think that the experience was all they'd expected.

conundrum

We can't decide whether she's cuter awake or asleep.

buck

These days, Linus likes nothing better than walking around with something official-looking attached to his belt: a tool, a phone, a knife. His favorite is probably my buck knife, which he takes out whenever I let him come into my office and rifle through my storage bureau.


















I've let him know that he's bound to receive a similar knife when he becomes an Eagle Scout, but somehow this isn't enough for him. I've spent some time discussing knife safety with him, which he likes almost as much as walking around with the knife itself.

I Need Somebody!

Casper, frustrated that he couldn't see the game Linus was playing on Mama's new phone: Linus! You keep playing it and I keep can't seeing it!

Linus: Is this called a spatula?
Mama: Yes.
Casper: Is this called a Pudge-ula?

Casper has been walking around the house singing "Guy on a Buffalo" (an internet favorite), followed by the Beatles' "Help" and the Imperial March from Star Wars.

lovely

chore repertory

Last Saturday, Gwendolyn came outside as I was mowing the front lawn and made it known that she was ready to take her turn. Having been doing yardwork for some hours at that point, I wasn't really in a position to tell her no; besides, I think she's arrived at a point at which she is mentally and physically able to handle the task. I walked with her for some time to help her with the safety rules and some handling pointers, and she did a very good job. Something to add to her portfolio.

Pranksters ahoy!

Sadly, we realized that today was the kids' favorite holiday -- Pranksters' Day! -- only halfway through the morning. We debated postponing our celebration before stumbling upon a masterstroke of pranksterism: a practical joke played on a wholly unsuspecting and innocent victim. What was this tour de force, you ask? We decided to give Greta her first taste of solid food, and to do it on film.













The photos that follow document her reaction, one which isn't too surprising. If anyone remembers Casper's first taste of food, you'll note that Margaret's response is pretty similar.














This may actually be my favorite shot of the series. There's something about her expression, turning away from Jennifer, and the desperation of her eyes that speaks to a profound shift in her world. She has just been introduced to betrayal (in the form of mashed banana and pureed sweet potato). Now she knows that it's an unforgiving world.














Fortunately for all of us, babies are resilient, and she bounces back quickly (in no longer than it takes to spit out the baby food). I think she's forgiven us, largely.


















The other main prank of the day was the classic rubber-band-around-the-sink-nozzle. It worked on all three children, but they thought it was such a good idea that they kept staging it throughout the day, after we'd stopped paying attention. It got each of us once -- or, in Jen's case, multiple times.