Updates from Spring

Wow. June? Wow. I have no idea how that happened, aside from that whole rotation of the earth thing.

So we got through that last spate of growing. I made Seamus three pairs of pajamas before we took off on our annual roadtrip with Grandma and Poppy and our niece A. We all met up in Vegas, rented a ridiculously large SUV and took off for Zion, Bryce Canyon, and several other places with astonishing geology. The thing I love most about the Southwest is how the colors of the canyons and mesas and plateaus change from white to pnk to red to yellow, all with contrasting striations. Seamus did really well up to our last night, when he melted down from being in one hotel room too many. I think I’ll be rooting for exploring one place next spring, and see if that helps.

I came home and witnessed the 2011 springtime drama. Not mine this year, thank goodness, but a lot of folks went through a rough patch where there was little more to do but listen and offer help and wait for them to accept it or not. We finally began unpacking the dining room and weeding our insane media collection, which even weeded at our current rate of discarding (25% of the books, higher for serials) is not going to fit in this house. We started climbing at Berkeley Ironworks. Patrick’s begun working on the Airstream. One day, one day we will camp in the bloody thing.

Patrick got braces, which has required a slight refit of my cooking, which was occurring as a result of the Great Freezer Installation, anyway. I’m making smaller dishes and taking as much advantage of the seasonal produce as I can. I’m freezing fruit early this year with the intention of cooking some of it- I want to figure out short dough this summer and make hand pies. I’m also cooking a lot of legumes in the slow-cooker and freezing them for use in recipes and for small dishes in preparation for the hot days that are somewhere ahead of us. That worked really well in the last late summer heatwave, since I could make various bean salads and serve them with bread and cheese and a green salad or whatever.

Seamus is still 3.5  on a stick, as Patrick says. We went through a rough month of unrelenting button-pushing which coincided with another growth spurt and energy uptick. He’s been calmer this past week, but he’s also ill, so we’ll see how that shifts as he recovers. We’ve caved to sticker-charts and gotten one for him to encourage listening and cooperation through the logisitics of our days. It’s….early days on that, shall we say.

Patrick and I got published in the newest GeekDad book. We submitted a tutorial on stenciling with your kids which was accepted, and we both received author credit, which was really cool.I was contacted by a lovely editor at Library Journal to write a book review, and I girded my loins and submitted an essay elsewhere recently. I’ll keep you all informed as to how things shake out, and I have a backlog of stories to share with you all. 

Alas it’s Monday, and I’ve got some deadlines, a filthy house, and a sick kid. So I’m off.