Fodder for Memoirs

A. and I joke a lot that we provide a lot of fodder for our children's memoirs. You know the kind of memoirs written especially by sons? All about how as children they were, I don't know, forced to watch lamb tails get whacked off or were traumatized by the sight of a gutted doe hanging in front of the house every November.

It's a joke only because Cubby is so far showing nothing but relish for this admittedly odd life we live. Charlie, however, is still a question mark. He might write his memoirs one day, blaming his parents for everything that's wrong in his life. 

And if he does, his first haircut will surely be related as an example of how unfair life is for the second child.

Cubby's first haircut occurred at an actual salon. Cubby sat on Daddy's lap and got the tiny cape with the brightly-colored tree frogs all over it. The event was duly recorded for posterity via my camera.

There is no picture of Charlie's first haircut, because I did it myself while he was taking a bath.

I noticed when he was in his bath one night that when his curls were wet, the back of his hair was essentially to his shoulders. So I grabbed the scissors A. uses to trim his beard and shortened Charlie's hair up a little bit. I don't dig long hair on males of any age.

Since it was the very first haircut I've ever done on anyone, it was a little . . . rough. I neatened it up a little bit during his next bath, and it looks presentable now. Although it did mean the end of his curls, a fact which I think caused the MiL to tear up a little bit.

I kind of miss the curls, too, but here's how I see it: he's walking in a more or less competent fashion now. He recently completely weaned. He's ready for the big time. The big boy time, that is. So it was time for big-boy hair.

I may have failed at photos of the cutting, but I did get some afters:

So long, curls. Hello, big boy. 

The Making of Ice Cream

Perhaps surprisingly for those who know us and the extent to which food and its procurement dominate our life, we had never made our own ice cream. This, despite the fact that every single member of our family (and yes, I include Charlie in this--start ´em young, I say) loves ice cream with a deep devotion.

However. I have had no complaints with my Perry´s White Lightning (except when I can´t find it, and then I complain loudly and publicly). And I have not been very motivated to make ice cream at home.

A. was, though. Specifically, he was motivated about a month ago when I went into the kitchen right after dinner to find him improvising a double boiler on the stove so he could make a vanilla custard base. He had apparently decided during dinner that he wanted to make the ice cream. He used the hand-crank ice cream maker that belonged to his grandparents. It had been languishing in our upstairs back hall for about, oh, five years now. God knows how old the thing is, but it was there, and A. wanted ice cream. So he made some.

And you best believe Cubby was on hand to lick off that extra-large paddle. And drip ice cream all over his pajamas.

It worked, and the ice cream showed great promise. There was just one teeny-tiny problem: a literal teeny-tiny hole in the bottom of the ice cream canister that allowed the salty ice water outside of it to leak in.

Not that salty ice cream is a deal breaker, but it´s not ideal. So the MiL, inspired by the fact that A. was willing to do all the work, decided to buy a brand-new ice cream maker. It arrived a few days later and A. put it to work making peach ice cream.

Cubby, of course, was again on hand for clean-up duty. With Mia's able assistance.

A. and the MiL were in ecstasies over the homemade ice cream. Cubby and Charlie made no complaints. I thought it was . . . okay.

I´m going to be stoned by every foodie in the world for saying that, I know, but the truth is that homemade ice cream is best with things like fruit. And I´m not a huge fan of fruit ice creams. Know what I AM a fan of, though? Ice cream with maple syrup. And know what´s about the best thing ever? Homemade maple ice cream.

We made a batch for a big family party we had here on Friday. With so many people, each person only got about half a cup. Which is of course plenty with ice cream as rich as this, but not really because I could eat a gallon of that stuff.

Over time, of course. A gallon all in one go would make me really sick. But it would be a satisfied kind of sick.

So before it gets too cold to eat ice cream here, we´re going to have to make more maple ice cream. And I'm going to eat A LOT of it. So there.

The Lying Clock

When Charlie woke me up in the dark of the morning this morning, I automatically looked at the clock. It was blinking, indicating a power outage at some point in the night. But this particular clock doesn´t blink 12:00 over and over, like some clocks do. It will still change every minute. When I woke up, it was blinking 3:48 a.m.

I watched the time progress on the blinking clock as Charlie worked on putting himself back to sleep. I watched the minutes blink by as I listened to the thunderstorm outside that illuminated our bedroom with flashes of lightning.

Finally, when the clock was blinking 4:48 and I was still not asleep, I decided to give up and get up. I got dressed in the dark (a skill I have perfected since having children--thanks, kids!) and crept downstairs. When I turned on the light in the bathroom, I saw that my watch said 4:20 a.m.

Aw, hell.

So here I am, up dark and early. I will really regret this around three this afternoon, but at least I get to have my coffee without interruption. And at 4:30 in the morning, I´m going to need a lot of it.

Happy Labor Day, my fellow Americans! Here´s hoping you slept later than I did.

Bowing to the Inevitable

Almost invariably, anyone who observes Cubby and Charlie in their natural element--that is, at Blackrock--makes some remark along the lines of, "It's so great you let your kids get dirty. Good for you."

My response to this is always, "Let them? You think I could stop it if I tried?"

No. I could not. Short of locking them inside the house and keeping them on leashes when they're outside. Neither option appeals to me, so they will go outside and they will get filthy. No question.

Though maybe the mud puddle is pushing it a little bit . . .

Charlie found a worm, which I admired appropriately. From a distance, because I'm not so into the invertebrates.

Literally down and dirty is the only way to go when you're under five and have access to mud.

The plane also got a mud bath. It was great for his pores.

Yeah, my kids are dirtier than most. It can't be helped. Sure makes for a lot of laundry, though.

Large, Medium, and Small

It always kind of messes with my mind to look at my small boy children and imagine that some day in the not-too-far future, they will be as big as their father. A. is not a small man, and I'm pretty sure my sons will not be small, either.

But it's hard to believe when I see things like this:

When the day comes that the wearers of those two small shirts on the right can wear that shirt on the left, you may find me crying a little inside. Or maybe hiding, because the testosterone is going to take over the world.

Rough and Ready

Today's Sunday Family Fun was an outing to a nearby state forest. The same state forest, in fact, where A. and Cubby went canoe camping over Father's Day weekend. A. actually led us right to the same site they camped on that trip (accessible by foot as well as canoe), where he proceeded to build a fire, using some of the pile of sticks they had left behind previously.

A. had one of those big sticks in his hand when Charlie started crawling towards the fire, no doubt bent on self-immolation. So A. reached out with the stick in his hand to block Charlie's progress. And Charlie SCREAMED.

It was not the "How dare you thwart me!" scream with which we are so familiar. It was an "OWWWWW" scream. I thought maybe A. had accidentally poked him in the eye or something. But when I pulled him onto my lap, I saw the hornet on his hand. And I pulled the hornet's stinger out of Charlie's pinkie.

Yeah. I would scream, too.

A. found a ground hornet nest under the pile of sticks he had been using, and there were quite a few pretty pissed-off hornets buzzing around. So he moved the fire on top of the pile of sticks, which took care of the hornets.

It wasn't until a few minutes later that I noticed Charlie's lip was swollen. Poor little dude got stung right on his top lip, in addition to his finger.

Surprisingly, the crying only lasted maybe thirty seconds before he forgot about it and started crawling around again. I would have wailed longer than that. Those are some tough little boys I have.

Good thing. This is no kind of life for a delicate child.

There Is Something In His Pocket . . .

Confession: I was never an actual Girl Scout. I did Daisies (like preschool Girl Scouts). And Brownies (like the Girl Scouts' little sisters). But I never did the Very Serious Bridge-Crossing Ceremony in which young girls become a member of that august body, The Girl Scouts.

My follow-through was not so good.

Luckily, my older sister was much more ambitious than I and did become a full-on member of the badass G.S. So she could teach me the Girl Scout smile song. Which I still remember. It goes like this:

There is something in my pocket
It belongs across my face
I keep it very close to me in a very special place
I bet you couldn't guess it if you guessed a long, long while
So I'll take it out and put it on . . .
It's a great big Girl Scout smile!

This is an important thing to keep in one's brain for twenty-five years (OH MY GOD, THAT'S A LONG TIME) obviously.

Cubby, Charlie, and I were hanging out in the living room today not doing much of anything, when Cubby announced that he would put the marble he had in his pocket.

So of course I started to sing the Girl Scout smile song, because that's how my brain works. I got to the part about guessing and right on cue, Cubby pulled out of his pocket . . .

Not a smile. A cicada shell*. GROSS.

He would so not make it in the Girl Scouts.

* If you don't know what a cicada shell looks like, please go to this page. That was about the first thing that came up when I searched for "cicada shell." I might have nightmares about that.