Marcus Family

“Too much of a good thing is wonderful.” ~Mae West as quoted on soap sold at Fat Bottom Farm

I’m working my way through a baking cookbook Dan bought me for Christmas.  I love the way the house smells and I love sharing the baked goods when they are done.  I think the smells alone will turn our house into my dream cottage.  I want to drop baskets of the treats on my neighbors porches but I am not sure if that would be overstepping a 21st century suburban boundary.

This cookbook is incredible; there hasn’t been a throw away recipe yet.  Last week we had blueberry muffins on Friday and coffeecake muffins on Sunday.  Sunday night was a blueberry cobbler.  (Sunday was Father’s Day – that was the excuse!)  We had chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, banana bread and zucchini bread in the past weeks too.  All incredible.  And none of the incredibility is due to my cooking ability – before this book I was never sure if the toll house cookies  would be flat as pancakes or delicious.  I thought I had a bad oven and worse skills.  My skills haven’t changed, but the oven has been redeemed for helping make our house a home with all those smells and goodies.  For now, the name of the book is a secret in case I open up a bakery.  But that would be after I return to my cottage from the fat farm.

“The most treasured and sacred moments of our lives are those filled with the spirit of love. The greater the measure of our love, the greater is our joy.” ~Joseph B. Wirthlin

Max calls his blanket a jampie (pronoucned something like jam (as in jam and bread) and pie (pee), but he adds a little twist to the jam part, maybe like jiam-pee). He’s the only one on the planet -or in our family at least- who can pronounce this word like he does. We’ve each tried to say the word and it just doesn’t come out the same. If you ask him to say blanket, he’ll say blanket. If he asks you for his blanket, he’ll say “where’s my jampie?”. I think it is some form of blankie. Or maybe he combined blanket with jammies. Whatever it is, its wonderful.

He’s usually tired when he calls it by name, and those are the times he’s most warm and cuddly and snuggled and nuzzled and raspy and melty. Sometimes he sounds like ET. “Jiaaaaaampieeeee”. A million times as much as he likes that jampie, I like to hear it, get it for him and carry him around. Those are sacred moments.

“In summer, the song sings itself.”  ~William Carlos Williams

Summer is here, or at least summer vacation.

The neighborhood kids have all grown up enough to run around the street together in the afternoons.  There are nine of them that play together all over the cul-de-sac.   There were lightening bugs last night.  We were in our lawn chairs in the driveway.   The sun set through the big old trees on our street.  We went in after it was way too late and the kids went to bed with dirty feet.

Summer is here for sure.  We’ve already had many snow cones, and are in the swing of our favorite outdoor activities — riding bikes, planting, eating outdoors, parks, walks, runs, road races with friends, (the kids ran their first 1/4 mile run!), meeting friends for picnics … a polo match … the zoo … a meandering dinner on a beautiful patio, and long days.  The kids are in a phase of adoring their time together and getting lost in it.

How do we survive the other seasons?  I guess they give us in a year what life is — there are the cold, dark times; the light, easy times; the warm, fresh, clear, blooming times; and the crisp, cool winding down and getting back to business times.  But still, what’d we do all winter? That we can survive the cold, short days with no hope of fresh air assures me that we are surrounded by grace.  It is a true blessing that we can find joy in what’s in front of us no matter the season.  At the same time, it is good to remember that, by grace, summer returns.

“An onion can make people cry but there’s never been a vegetable that can make people laugh” ~Will Rogers

I love the idea of getting more of our food locally and even growing some of our own.  We started a two-family garden at the Robson’s farm.  We bought a share in a local farm this summer.   Today, the kids and I picked up our second box of local vegetables from the Family Harvest drop spot in Kirkwood. 

I’m still adjusting to the change in mindset when it comes to planning meals — we’re so used to just picking what we eat based on what sounds good and getting the ingredients from the store.  It is a very new concept to work with what is fresh from the farm each week.  

So when we picked up the box today I planned our dinner meal on the spot when I saw what was in the box.  I planned fresh steamed broccoli, sandwiches with fresh lettuce and radishes and cucumber slices on the side.  That was until I took a big bite of the huge radishes and realized they were beets.   And a bite of the cute little head of lettuce helped me to realize it was cabbage. (Mom, if you’re reading, stop now) I steamed the beautiful broccoli only to find a steamed caterpiller-looking-thing in the strainer.

I threw the caterpillar in the trash and Grace was perterbed with me.  She says “That’s not nice to the world mom.”  “What?”, I say.  “He’s probably hot.”  I snicker a little and now that we are farm people I figure she is going to have to deal with the seasons of life.  “He’s dead”, I say.  She says, in total irritation with me , “Yeah, because you cooked him.  That’s not nice mama.”  Now I’m out-and-out laughing and she says “And it’s not funny.  It’s not funny mama.”  At which point Max has dug in the trash and found the little dead guy and is really laughing.

Two weeks of eating locally grown vegetables and I realize that as quaint and romantic as it seems to grow our own and get back to the basics, we couldn’t be further from farm life.  I never expected there might be a bug on our food.   I don’t know a radish from a beet or lettuce from cabbage.  I can honestly say I’ve never eaten fresh broccoli in my life before.  And vegetables can make you laugh!  This is going to be fun.

“If you want to make a song more hummy, add a few tiddly poms” ~Winnie the Pooh

Grace graduated from preschool.  She is no longer in the Duck Room at the Kirkwood Early Childhood Center.  She is no longer a preschooler.   She’ll always be my little lady, our little pooh bear, a little sugar bean.  

She had a great year there and is learning quickly, showing confidence in herself, taking care of things around her and making friends.  She walked into that school with a skip in her step every! single! day! this school year.  We couldn’t ask for more.

To commemorate the milestone, we gave her $100 in ones as a gift.  We took her to Target to buy herself a treat with $25.  She wandered around the toy aisle for thirty minutes struggling over what to buy.  It seems like she didn’t really want any of the stuff she was seeing but was trying to force herself to choose.  Finally, we suggested we go to the craft aisle and she lit up.  She was in heaven with how much loot she could get in the craft aisle for $25.   My heart just about melted seeing the true delight on her face as she was choosing.  She’s a little artist and loves nothing more than thinking about what to create, creating things, and surprising us with her works.   My heart also melted  because she bought a lap desk that had a little turtle as the cushion so she can draw in the car.  I think lap desks are the coziest thing and have been wanting a new one for myself!

We took her to the bank with the other $75 and she opened a savings account.  We also deposited all of the change that she’s had in her little milk jar banks since she was born.  It was $71 in change!  $99,854 more and she’ll be ready for college.  But I’m not thinking about that.  I can’t even think about kindergarten.  We’re focused on summer.  These are the days and they are full of tiddly poms.

“You’ll never know dear, how much I love you.” ~lyrics from You Are My Sunshine

Just wanted to note that Max is still really yummy. His skin is still baby soft and chubby. Dan is still the light of his life, although I have heard that he misses me when I’m gone.  He is happy when it’s a mommy day. We were walking down the stairs together the other day and I asked him if I could hold his hand. We held hands and I said “I love holding your hand.” He said “I love holding Daddy’s hand.”

Up until recently, when he’d refer to Grace, we weren’t sure if he was saying “Sissy” or “Gracie” since we refer to her both ways. I’m sad to say he’s growing up and he can now clearly say “Gracie”. He has also started to call her “sis” which is awesome.

He is getting more and more expressive in the way he communicates.  Most of the time when he asks for something he adds “right now”.  Like, “Can I have some milk, mama.  Right now.”  He has fully grasped how to put inflection in his voice as well.  So you can imagine what the previous statement sounds like.  He looks for opportunities to participate in a two sided discussion.  After most things you say to him he asks “is that outside?”.  For example, if you say “Let’s go down and get you a drink of milk” , he’ll say ” Ok.  Is the milk outside?”  He usually has a very serious expression with his mouth, as if he’s letting you in on something.   He really just wants any excuse to go outside.  He’s picked up quite a few tendencies from his sister as well.  She got a little reprimand for her behavior at dinner and she was sulking and whining.  He said “say sorry, sissy.”  Total role reversal.  And when we were getting ready for church the other morning I was reminding him of the rules at church.  I said “you’re a big guy now” –he refers to himself as “bid duy” — “and you can follow the church rules”.  His response was “I’m too little”.

If you are ever looking for Max, he is usually in his little red car, with no shoes, going up and down the street.  He moves the car like Fred Flintstone, except his feet go so fast they look like little duck feet swimming along the street.  He usually has one of our sets of keys in the ignition of that little red car.  Otherwise you’ll find him in one of our real cars with the keys.  If you see him doing that, remind him that it is illegal to start the car without a driver’s licesnse.  It still isn’t hard to get him to laugh and his sense of humor is right at the surface.  He is too precious; I hug and kiss him as much as I can with hopes that he’ll find comfort there too and still come near me when he’s really a bid duy.

“I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life that are the real ones after all.” ~Laura Ingalls Wilder

There are charming little things all around this summer.   Things we’ve never seen before.

Does anyone know what this purple flower is?

And does anyone know why we would decorate a child’s bedroom with little dragonflies? Those things are a bit scary in real life. And they’re big!

And, speaking of little things, we had our first garage sale today.  We sold 5 years worth of kids clothes and 20 years worth of Dan’s CDs.  You would be shocked at how much money those little things brought in!  Yay for the simple things.