Get up to get down

I did that thing where you fall asleep putting the kids to sleep. I just woke up, remembering I didn’t post to the blog. So here’s my post, and then I’m going back to bed. I’ve forgotten what was notable this week. Eliza’s waking up before six o’clock in the morning these days, so that’s a drag, and some of this weekend was spent trying to claw our energy back.

The other huge weight hanging from our necks this week was the passing of our friend Eric Schneider, who fought an aggressive type of cancer for little more than six months before succumbing. He worked in Molly’s office, and was a longtime anchor of the Penn Urban Studies Program, for which Molly has taught a class for several years. He was a sweet, sarcastic man, and will be missed. Here’s a writeup from Penn: https://www.sas.upenn.edu/urban/news-events/news/memoriam-eric-schneider-19xx-2017

And falling unfortunately in the midst of this stress was the ninth anniversary of Molly and my marriage. Nine! And that’s just the holy sanctified years. We finally made it out last night to celebrate a bit, and Babbee put the kids down to sleep. We ate dinner at a soul food joint called Amari’s, down the street. I can’t wait until we’re comfortable going out on a date of longer than 90 minutes.  We’ve been trying to make it to the movie “I am not your Negro”for a month now, and have conceded we’ll just rent it online when it’s available.

We made it to Tinicum this afternoon, and schlepped all three kids’ bikes along. Asher rode his bike partially around the block yesterday, and was excited to ride it again today. He did great, and I hope it was a psychological breakthrough, meaning he’ll ride with us more often with less drama. Eliza is speedy on the balance bike and doesn’t need any encouragement at all. She tries to make her bike rides more difficult if she can (see her cyclocross photo below.)

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March Madness 2017

My memory only extends back to Thursday, having been addled by a few days of driving and catching up with friends at the bi-annual March Madness get together down at our friend Chad and Britt’s place in North Carolina. The kids had a good time with Molly and Babbee… at least they were in good spirits when I arrived home, and the photos Molly sent me from the zoo and and ice skating were fun. I didn’t come in the door too long ago, so we haven’t properly caught up yet. So I guess I shouldn’t spend much time with the blogging…

This year was much like our get together two years ago, with the big difference being the absence of our friend Rod, who passed away last year. It was heavy, but the stories were mostly fond, and Chad arranged a small Japanese Maple tree that we planted by their pond. Chad and Britt were unbelievable hosts, and they fed us seemingly constantly with the finest of Smoker’s smoked meats. Dave and I provided one meal- we had bought three dozen hoagie rolls and a big box of shaved steak down from Philly and we had a big cheesesteak lunch. It was very fine. And just this instant I realized I left my giant cast iron skillet down there Weak. So weak.

Rod’s tree

Burn pile

 

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Lice time is the right time

Am I supposed to blog about lice, or keep it on the down-low… I can’t remember.

Babbee noticed that Silas was trying to scratch his head off a few days ago, and diagnosed him with having head-bugs. It was very obvious. Turns out Asher also had a few, but not nearly as many. So that’s what we’ve been doing since Thursday. Molly had already taken Friday off to relax a bit, but instead of relaxing she was the head-of-laundry: I swear she did 20 loads over the past three days (I also did some, but it was only in a supporting role.) I cute about half the kids’ hairs off their heads. We treated the boys with an alternative technique, which involves large amounts of Listerine, olive oil, and bathing caps, which seems to have done the job, but it needs to be repeated every few days for two weeks until the gauntlet is run.

On to more pleasant things… after ice skating on Saturday we hit the new University City Beiler’s Bakery (their flagship location is in Reading Terminal Market.  They make very very good donuts. Guilty confession… Molly and I just split a maple-bacon cream donut and Great Lakes Porter a few minutes ago- I’m pretty confident that’s better than whatever you were doing.

Eliza and I had a few good days of frolicking- both at the kids’ museum and the zoo. Spring weather meant the giraffes were outside, as were the hippos.

Today we trucked up to Mimi and Pop’s to hang out, and wish them belated happy birthdays. Nice time. It was brisk, but meant the mud was more firm than during our last visit, when Silas almost lost a shoe to the muck.

Putting the kids to sleep this evening was arduous, thanks to this ridiculous daylight savings time. We all need our sleep, since Tuesday morning we’re going to wake up to between 1 and 24″ of fresh snow. So my point is that I’m going to bed. As soon as I’ve inspected the donut box for any remaining crumbs.

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I got it

These three phrases exemplify our little girl Eliza right now: Hold on.  I got it.  No problem. Those are her phrases, not mine. I say none of those things. I say No, you don’t, stop now. She occasionally wanders off by herself, sits in a box, and plays with her dolls for an hour. And other times she won’t leave my arms for hours, like the floor is lava. She came down with pink eye a few days ago, so that has made the past days somewhat special, especially since Molly was gone for two days at a conference. We managed ok here thanks to Babbee helping out, but we are glad Molly’s home and has recovered from her infestations/infections. We’re hoping March is going to be more enjoyable than February.

A few days ago Asher’s pre-school took a handful of kids down to City Hall because they were having a hearing about the soda tax (which funds the PhilaPre-K program.) I saw a few cute pictures of Asher and his classmates holding pro-Pre-K protest signs. I always knew he’d be a successful poster-child for something.

Silas and Asher had another successful ice skating lesson yesterday, although Silas’s teacher pulled me aside to warn me that Silas is skating kind of knock-kneed now, which she thinks might be due to his growing so fast. I said, yeah, he is getting kind of lanky. And goofy. And she agreed that yeah, he can be goofy.  And Asher won’t put aside his pvc-pipe-walker during his ice skating lessons, even though he’s working on rather advanced spinning and jumping maneuvers around his walker, implying that he doesn’t actually need a walker anymore. It doesn’t look like we’ll get any skating done on natural ice this year, although it did drop down to the teens last night it was in the seventies mid-week, so that’s probably that. I’ll be happy for spring to come, but sad that we didn’t skate on a creek or pond this year. Our weather box (sand box with tarp cover) did freeze over (since it was full of rain water) this week, and the boys had a great time smashing the ice apart and staining their clothes with stinky mud. So it’s not like they’re completely without the joys of my youth.

 

post-Beiler-donut

I don’t know

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