Our Very Own Little Rascals

No one is more gleeful about spring and the attendant end to hibernation than these kids.

This crew has already packed in a few adventures (only one was unsanctioned) and summer isn't even underway yet. When one 8, two 6s, one 5, one 4, and one 2 year old have the run of the cul de sac, we adults are equally likely to spend a relaxing afternoon observing from a sunny blanket or (perhaps more likely) intervening before an ill-conceived plan involving a message in a bottle or some not-so-wild ducks is implemented under our very noses!

Such fun lies ahead of them! Though we just might need a door between our fences!

Mining the Creative Depths

I was so looking forward to our lazy spring break. I envisioned field trips to the Science Museum, Children's Museum, the maple tapping at Tamarack, the Art Institute. Having Maya home with us is a treat. Having no 11:30 deadline for kindergarten pick-up is a liberation.

But here we are, day 3 of spring break, and that list looks impossible.

Why? Because I'd be a fool to bring two little girls anywhere when I can't talk. AT ALL. The merest whisper escapes no matter how emphatically I try to speak. This has been going on since Sunday morning!

So how do we have fun inside on spring break when we've been stuck inside together for five months already?

We have actually managed to find a few things that are entertaining, don't require a lot of instruction, and haven't been overdone (at least in the last month).

We made marshmallow sculptures.

We staged puppet shows... I, of course, was relegated to audience member.

We discovered the wonders of bathtub crayons, keeping the girls entertained and steaming my laryngitis.

We painted.

We danced.

Maya read and read and read. To me, to Elliot, and to herself. She's mastering the reader level three, and she really, really wants to move on to chapter books, though they take a long time for her right now. 

And we did manage to go to the park yesterday. I brought one of their harmonicas (couldn't find the emergency whistle), so I could alert them when to stop.

I'm not accustomed to mandated personal silence.... but we're making the best of it. Let's see if the three thousand salt-water gargles, teaspoons of honey, and gallons of water and tea will make a difference today!

Until then, we're going to plant our garden inside... it's a rite of spring!

A True Summer Break

The first two-thirds of our summer were full of travel and family, garden installation and lawn mowing. In contrast, this last month has been light on all of those things, making room for the End of Summer Bucket List.

• Trip to the Zoo? Check.
• Daily visits to the beach? Check.
• Daily walks to the park? Check, at least!
• Reunion with my roller blades? Check (incidentally, a great way to keep up with two kids on big kid bikes!)
• Kite Flying? Check.
• Bug hunting? Check, daily.
• Ice cream slurping? Check (should I be embarrassed to admit... daily?... at least?)

The list could go on.

The real obligations of our world have been rejected in favor of pure, undiluted fun.

with just two weeks left before our days begin with an alarm clock, we have to choose carefully. These last gems of summer entertainment will necessarily be interrupted with important back-to-school reorganization efforts, meetings at school, and renewed attention to the rhythms of daily life. The big ticket items remaining are:

• Introduce the girls to our new canoe
• A bicycle built for four (yeah, I'm a dork), and
• A day trip to Duluth, because what's a summer without time spent tossing rocks into the big lake?

Photo Friday: By Car and By Sea

My mom and I bravely set out on the open road with two little girls last week. Once we got there, we caught up with much loved and long missed family members while bobbing in the water, not actually a sea, of course, but a gorgeous lagoon pool roughly the temperature of hot soup.

We must be Okies at heart, because the heat didn't slow us down a bit. Thanks to my gracious family, three really well-behaved girls, and a borrowed backseat DVD player, the trip couldn't have gone more smoothly.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, although the water kept me from taking too many. I am definitely still catching my breath from this adventure!






These last three are the birthday girl. My Mimi turns 80 this year, and we helped her ring it in with a houseful of family and food (though I spent most of the party in the pool... who could have guessed that I would reunite with most of my family in a swim suite!?)

Why My Two-Year-Old Scaled a Cattle Gate

During our vacation a few weeks ago, Joe showed the girls around his childhood farm.

It has been vacant, or nearly so, for over a decade.


Time has left its signature across the crumbling barns, in the imposing trees that were merely underbrush on his last visit, and in the thistles reclaiming the lawn. The girls were excited, and a little frightened, by this deserted place. That we climbed a cattle gate and weaved our way around a million cow paddies only added to the discomfiting fascination.


But they wanted to know every story. Where did you milk the cows, dada? Where were your chickens? Did you swim in that lake? Did you play with Aunt Jess a lot when you were little? What did you do?

He lingered in the telling as much as in the showing. At one point, he helped both girls jump into the doorway of a tiny barn, the granary. They peered doubtfully into the shadows, where a family of birds were sounding their annoyance. He quickly assured them that they shouldn't go inside, just stand at the edge and smile. With that, he captured these photos.



These pictures are twins to another, older version of two siblings standing in the same doorway. This epic picture, priceless in a way that my excessively snapped digital photos never will be, was taken on a busy day on a working farm. Two happy kids enjoyed a snack after a chore well done.


With our twin picture taken, we left. Not in a hurry. Not because we showed up at the farm to take that particular picture. But we were done somehow and went off to make new memories.

The Wonderlanding: A Whimsical Play House

That's what they're calling it, this haven that dad built. The Wonderlanding is actually just the upstairs portion. As a whole, it is known as the Princess Pavilion. Maya is working on the sign as I type.


With just a tiny bit of help from the design plans I found at Family Fun (which he vastly improved upon!) and his father's power tools, Joe created Wedgewood Court's new neighborhood hot spot.



It has two stories and a pulley-system to facilitate elaborate sandbox picnics.


The lattice walls simplified construction and give the place an airy feel. Just wait until our English Ivy starts growing up through it!


Joe and Maya still have a few finishing touches planned, including the sign, a canvas roof, a telescope, and perhaps a control panel. We are hoping it will evolve as the girls grow into their own ideas. This just might be the most fun place to hang out since Clear Lake was adorned with my own childhood tree house and play house.

It's Gonna Blow!

Ever wonder what to do with all of that gray or cream colored play-dough that the kids created out of happier colors on colder days?

During a brief monsoon that tore through last weekend, we brought out all of those little yellow containers of barely malleable dough and made something new. Something better.


A volcano! It was Maya's idea. She had been to summer camp earlier in the week, and was in love with the relationship between baking soda and vinegar. Almost as in love with it as with her preschool-teacher-turned-summer-camp-organizer... the famous Miss Krysta.

Maya eyed the play-dough skeptically, assuring me that Miss Krysta did NOT use play dough.

Well, guess who made the cooler volcano? Yes, mom reigned supreme with this little trick. A tiny tea cup from the play room wedged into the dough perfectly holds a teaspoon or so each of vinegar and baking soda, plus a couple of drops of red food dye.


The predictable result mesmerized both girls. They took turns exploding and re-exploding the volcano until the rain stopped. It was the perfect rainy day project.

The Incidental Fishing Expedition

When preparing for the sudden and all-too-brief wilderness canoe trip last weekend, we tossed the fishing equipment in as an after thought. And, eternal optimists that we are, we tossed in a bit of Shore-lunch and oil, too.

Many will tell you that dropping any shiny object into the Boundary Waters is likely to snag you a seafood feast. They might be right, given that I once attracted a toothy Northern Pike with no more than a toe ring and the arch of my foot.

But our experience is extremely limited, and the few times we have drug fishing rods and tackle through the wilderness have produced little more than extra weight in our packs.


This weekend, we floated on lovely, still waters beneath a low blanket of gray cloud cover. Somewhere between good conversations, quite contemplation, and surprisingly interesting water fowl watching, we caught fish.

The girls were with us in spirit. We kept planning for their first foray into the wilderness, especially after the fireflies joined us in the Pixie Hallow campsite.

That's right, both of us!


While I take pride in handling my catch (an extremely feisty Pike) alone (next step, field dress a deer? perhaps not!), Joe wins the Bad A## award for his fearless filleting. E-how instructions and a new fillet knife didn't exactly prepare either of us for the reality of fish guts, but we offered Bob the Bass and Pedro the Pike our endless thanks for their sacrifice.


I don't think I've ever eaten a more satisfying meal.

Camping with Preschoolers... Happily!

Camping with young children in no way resembles a trip without them.

That said, camping with my two- and (nearly) five-year-old kids was incredibly fun. We played, we explored, we laughed, and we even slept pretty well.


It helped that we stayed close to home, minimizing the car ride and giving us the option of bailing out for the sake of sanity or thunderstorms. We didn't need to bail, but the option was a comfort. We ventured an hour south of the cities to Nerstrand Big Woods Park.


This park is notoriously kid-friendly. The hike to Hidden Falls is less than a mile round trip from our (admittedly over-crowded) campgrounds. The Big Woods provides a cool, shady canopy, a shadowy fairyland of fallen trees to climb, and many little critters to watch. There are also several longer hikes to choose from, and after venturing to the falls a couple of times we tried the Beaver Loop as well. All told, those two and five-year-old little legs completed two one-mile hikes and a two-mile hike with minimal whining and only a slight stretch of piggy backing.

I realize these pictures look like they are from the 70s. It was a disposable camera...

I packed a backpack for both girls, including a homemade journal and crayons, a magnifying glass (and gloves since they hate to touch the bugs but really want to try), a snack, and a few band aids. They loved their packs. Especially the snacks.


They actually used their journals too. Maya asked frequently if we could stop and write... which warmed my cockles to no end.


When we weren't hiking, we were throwing the frisbee, blowing bubbles, or playing on the playground.


Or crafting at camp. I packed a small box with pieces of construction paper, safety scissors, crayons, glue, and pipe cleaners. I intended to make animal masks out of the paper plates we brought along, but Maya likes to free form her art these days, and Elle simply must follow in her shoes. Still, it kept them busy.


Because this trip really was for the girls, Joe and I knew that long nights around the campfire were unlikely. We made our hobo packets and roasted our Hebrew Nationals early and jumped right into the tent with them.

That three person tent was a little cramped, but we enjoyed a full family slumber party anyway, complete with silly stories and excessive giggling.


Before we left, I wondered if we were crazy to leave a fully outfitted house and backyard not to go to the family cabin but instead to set up a simulated living space in the woods for two nights.

Once we reached our campsite, I almost immediately recognized why this camping trip, and the others to come, are worth all the effort. It isn't simply the connection with nature, though that is the big draw. In the Big Woods, there was no garden to weed, or load of laundry to get done, or handy-man project to assemble. There was no one else to distract us.

Instead, the four of us were together, uninterrupted, marveling together at whatever we stumbled upon. This time together recharged us all.


When we began packing up after the second night, Maya begged for one more night, or at least one more hike. And she asked when she would get to go to the Grand Canyon with us. At this rate, I'm guessing ten years or so. They're headed in the right direction!