Mother's Day

"You should be sitting back with a glass of tea today!" called out my neighbor as he passed me knee deep in clay on Mother's Day, digging out roots in the side yard where I am soon hoping to plant a cherry tree, some pumpkins, and an espaliered peach, among other things:


"Oh, I did that already!" I called out cheerfully, but really: hard manual labor, outside in the sun with eye toward a future of greenery and produce--you couldn't have gotten me to do anything else, yesterday.

My work from this time last year is starting to look established

if a little dry, now that I look at it. This photo makes me want to rush home and water those poor little seedlings.

Snow peas, arugula, spinach, radishes, carrots and cilantro, in case you're wondering. With rhubarb and daylily in the foreground. If the weather stays warm, I'll be planting summer squash and beans before the week is out, and hopefully next weekend I'll get my indoor seedlings into the ground.

We also did some of this:

And found this as we were getting our new EPA-blessed fireplace installed:

Woody. The sight of which made Helen instantly want a Woody doll, and also about seven other Toy Story-themed toys. She followed me around all day on Saturday with her notebook and marker in hand. "How do you spell Buzz Lightyear? How do you spell Lotso? How do you spell Santa?"

"Christmas is a long way off, kiddo," I reminded her.

"I know. I don't want to forget," she answered. "How do you spell SlinkyDog?"

Another Helen tidbit: two weeks ago she cornered me when I came in to read to her at bedtime. "What order are they in?" she demanded, pointing at a chorus line of Disney Princess dolls laid along the floor.

"In order of your favorite?" I answered.

"Nope. Tangled is my favorite."

"In order of the Disney movie release?"

"No. Need a hint? 'Ah...ah...'"

"... Aurora first?"

"Close. But why? Give up? Alphabetical order. They're in alphabetical order. Ariel, Aurora, Cinderella, Jasmine, Rapunzel, Snow White, Tiana."

Oh. Of course.

Friday Favorites - Mother's Day Edition

My to-do list for the weekend:

- make Si and Helen make appreciation cards for their teachers before we procrastinate so much that it's too late to give them
- clean the house, esp the bathrooms
- pry ant-ridden timbers out of the landscaping and pile them for easy access to the roll-off dumpster we're going to get next weekend
- take Helen to gymnastics, preferably by bike
- go to Si's baseball game on Sat
- run with Si at least once (I've been making him run a mile four or five times a week--separate story)
- do the laundry
- help the kids plant their herb garden
- mow
- water the garden (the peas are coming up! and the carrots and the radishes and the chard!)
- weed
- go to the store
- go for a longish run
- finish a pitch for a magazine story I've been working on
- call our Littleton friends to see if they're still on for Saturday night dinner
- have our Littleton friends over for dinner
- figure what to do for Mother's Day

Note that last item? That's always how this holiday seems for me: one more damn thing to fit in. I'm not opposed to it per se, although I do grade into the camp of it's a holiday invented by card companies to sell more cards. I used to enjoy it, back before we had kids and Mother's Day was an excuse to go with my MIL to a nicer-than-usual brunch place. Sometimes I still feel nostalgia for the old brunch days, but then I remember that this was back in the days when I didn't know what to do with all my time. On Sunday we'd sleep in, laze about staring hungrily at the walls, drag ourselves to the brunch place, wait for hours, cram as much pancakes and French toast into our food-holes as we could, then roll home to laze about for the rest of the day. If I was feeling ambitious I'd go for a run or work in the yard. But the whole brunch thing would mean that the day wouldn't really get started until 1 o'clock or so--which is why brunching has pretty much become a thing of the past. I mean, please. One o'clock? That's like dinnertime, practically.

Anyhow. My five favorite things about NOT going out for brunch:

1. Breakfast takes 15 minutes to make, including the coffee, and I'm done eating in ten.
2. I can eat what I really feel like at breakfastime, which is cereal.
3. I don't spend the next three hours on a carbohydrate-fueled food bonk.
4. I can eat when I'm hungry and move on with my life.
5. No lines.