This is what you feed your kids for dinner when they had scones and cream and jam at a tea house at four o'clock, washed down with tea and enough sugar cubes to make you pucker, and then you had the bright idea to take them into an old-fashioned general store--the kind with big glass jars filled with candy--and then you had another brilliant idea and give them 25 cents a piece to pick out candy, which they ate before you even make it to the highway:

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I hope your Memorial Day was a little sunnier than ours. We did get lucky in the end, though. After hours of on again and off again sunshine, the rain clouds blew through around 4:00 pm and we ended up with a perfect window of sunshine for the annual potluck at our neighborhood pool. Also on again and off again most of the afternoon I cooked for the potluck (sesame noodles, banana bread, pasta salad) and listened to many remarkable stories on NPR about soldiers from days long ago, and recent days, too. [more]

L. used to be my craft kid. He loved crafts when he was small and I loved coming up with new and stimulating things for us to do together. We have bins of craft supplies carefully hoarded from yard sales and thrift shops and craft stores. Because he was a first child, of course, I spent way more time with him doing crafts than I have with poor T., who also loves a good craft or two. [more]

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, on Saturday we made some feeble attempts to clean out the crawl space. The crawl space (ours is a walk-in, so no actual crawling is involved) is where we keep the bins of holiday ornaments and decorations, and the bins of baby clothes that are too precious to hand on, and the bins of toys that are too special to donate. I spent a great deal of that time fending off T. who wanted to bring up all the toys she came across. Then, in one of the bins, I spied a familiar shape: something brown and cream-colored, the fur worn down to flat nubs all over its body. [more]

After dinner on Tuesday, we loaded up everyone into the van (dog included) and drove to register T. for our neighborhood swim team. It was all very exciting. The store that sponsored the registration was filled with pool friends, and T. was nervous, and excited, and happy to be the focus of attention. After we registered her she tried on the tiniest racerback Speedo swimsuit EVER made and paraded around the store.

Scott looked worried.

"Are you sure it isn't too tight?" He asked, plucking at the straps.

The store erupted in laughter. "Spoken like a true father," someone said. [more]