Always Remember That

Mallory: Mommy, I learned a spell to make a book come off the shelf to you. Me: Oh really? How does it go? Mallory: Peas and carrots, carrots and peas, come to me book, please please please. Me: Ha! That's good. It would be nice if it would really work. Mallory: If what would work? Me: The spell. Mallory: What spell? Me: The spell you just said. Mallory: But why would that be nice? Me: Because then you would have magical powers! Phoebe: What matches the flowers?

Last Thursday night, with the help of “Mappy” (our borrowed GPS unit, so christened by the girls), we drove up to Washington, DC, for a few days of fun with Aimee and her family. And millions of other people, as it turns out, although why I expected the crowds to be thinner in July I do not know. Lesson learned, along with the cardinal lesson of parenting, which is that your children will never enjoy the parts of the vacation that you think they will most benefit from. Also: food in museum cafes is very expensive. On Friday we went to the Natural History museum, where we saw the elephant And the blue whale And my favorite animal, the penguin. From 2009-07-20 Then we paid $22 (!) to see butterflies. It was around this time that Phoebe stated she wanted to go back to the hotel. Instead, we pressed on to the National Air & Space Museum to find Amelia Earhart’s plane, which unfortunately was not on display due to exhibit maintenance. Also, the museum was absolutely thronged with people...

Phoebe sang this song: Washington DC is my favorite place It was fun there And I want to go back And play with Rhett and Noah some more And I liked the zoo And the pool And I wish we didn't leave ever again. Details and pictures to come.

A few days ago Mallory went out to get the mail and came back with a spiral notebook. “Look what I found in the street!” she said, handing it to Chris. Chris examined it, and found it to be the property of one “Pac-Man,” the (apparent) leader of a trio of aspiring rappers, according to the doodles on the front cover. And inside the notebook were pages and pages of Pac-Man’s “lyrics.” Now, I know very little about rap or hiphop or any kind of “tunes” that came out after, say, 1997, but I’m here to tell you – these lyrics were bad. Oh so bad. Some were actually obscene, which only added to the hilarity. Most of the “songs” were on topics that you would guess would interest a teenage boy – sex, money, smoking marijuana. One sample strove toward social commentary, as it lamented how hard it was to get a job in this “reasciene” (recession, we determined, after a few minutes of puzzlement). But it was this verse that brought us to our knees: Girls are a dime a dozen So why am I hanging with...

...and I don't know why, because I'm here at work every day just as I am the other nine months of the year. Except! On Thursday night we are off to Washington DC, to meet Aimee and her family for a few days of sightseeing and zoo-going. And! The next week (July 27-31) we're off to Myrtle Beach with Chris's parents for a week of beach-going and pool-swimming and lazy-river-floating. Strange! That my packing lists (which are totally in my head, and thus not terribly useful) now include: the phone charger, the camera charger, the Kindle charger, the laptop charger, and the GPS charger. Everywhere we go, we are plugged in to something. Someday! A post of substance.

On our way to the town park on the Fourth of July, we saw this funny fellow: At the park, Mallory and Phoebe "painted the town": and decorated cupcakes: and decorated visors (Phoebe's hands were sticky, thus the unhappy face): The best part of birthdays? Cake batter: Mallory woke us all up very early on Phoebe's birthday so Phoebe could open her presents. She got a Tinkerbell baby doll: a book about herself: a Rosetta fairy: a card: Here she is receiving birthday wishes: This was her favorite present, a Rosetta fairy costume: We went swimming, and then there were more presents, like this Build-a-Bear puppy (Build-a-Puppy?) from Mimi: and some My Little Ponies: Phoebe requested that we eat at Applebee's, where she was delighted to be presented with some balloons: Daddy decorated her cake, as usual (have you gotten the idea that Phoebe likes fairies?): Finally, the candles and the wish: She had a good day. "I'm four!" she said before she went to bed, a...

Spinning in the driveway under a pink parasol pink dress pink shoes pink cheeks She says: "Mommy, watch! When I dance with my gumbrella, I look just like Marian Poppins!" Happy birthday, little girl.

There's a wallaby on the loose in my hometown. A wallaby. On the loose. In suburban North Carolina. She jumped the fence at the vet's office. Her name is Sydney. I kind of hope she hops past our back yard while I'm out there with the kids today. A wallaby. Wallaby darned.