Pink Prickly Pear

Four.

That would be the number of occasions I have obligingly allowed D'anjou to guide my hand towards his mouth in order to let him spit out a less than desirable morsel of food into it.

Three of those occasions?  Almonds.

Dear D'anjou,

I don't think you like those.  Let's move on to something else.

Love, 

Mama

Coconut flour pancakes

If you're nostalgic for mid-summer make-out sessions behind the tennis courts at the pool club, then maybe you'll relish the flavor of these gluten free gems facsimiles of pancakes.

I don't mind coconut so much, and some of those make-out sessions were pretty sweet, so I'll probably make them again, but no one else in my house is particularly smitten by them.

Approximately* half-way...

 to next year's gag gift of the season, and what I really want to know is What does your Snuggie look like now?  I'm sure it's got cat hair and herbal tea stains all over it.  Do you fold it up and drape it over the back of the couch when you're not wearing it, or do you hang it up in your closet?  

^{* I'm not going to bother with the math.   Not because I'm afeared of it, but because I just can't be bothered.}

Just me and the boy.

Mini-Pear is at camp this week.  D'anjou rarely gets me all to himself and it will be interesting to see if all this one on one mommy time satiates his appetite and kicks the sibling rivalry down a notch.  It's great to feel so loved, but it would be nice to get to cuddle my girl without her little brother's face contorting with the agony of sharing.

So far we have enjoyed a couple of hours at the sand/water table (rivers need big rocks in them), watched a little Thomas the Tank Engine, eaten rice cakes, yogurt, raisins and Pirate Booty (Oh, Pirate Booty why can't I quit you?) and looked through a great many picture books in search of other trains.  We've also thrown a rubber ducky down the stairs about 57 times, accompanied by D'anjou's excited stream of play by play, "Ooooh, Quack-Quack!  Oh noooooo! Up?  Up!  Ooooh, Quack-Quack!  Duck, duck, duck, duck.  Up, up.  Oh noooooo!  Boom! *laughs*  Oh, boom!  *more laughs* Mommy?  Mommy? Mommy?  Up?"  My job is to sit at the bottom of the stairs, look appropriately horrified at the plight of poor Quack-Quack, and to trot him back up the stairs for more fun.  

Sometimes uneventful is good.

 

The word of the day?  Contented.

I think I'm fighting a cold or something - throat a bit scratchy, sort of lethargic - so I didn't really plan on anything, which meant I wasn't disappointed that nothing got done.  I should do that more often.

We all went for a walk in the morning.  Mini-Pear and I ran an errand, and despite Target being involved, it was all good.  The girl who hates jeans, but must wear them for horsey camp, scored a pair she thinks she can live with for under $7.  And we were home within the hour.  Lunch was leftovers, doctored with salsa and the last of the tortilla chips.

There was a fair amount of sitting in the garden, while D'anjou puttered about his little play table, clucking over his mulchy, beach pebbly, sandy soup concoction.  I strung beads and listened to podcasts, went to the library solo, lounged on the couch reading about chickens.  We all wandered down to the fancy chocolatier for Spicy Mayan Hot Chocolates (hereafter forever referred to as Pricey Spiceys - sorry, Dawn that was too good not to steal!) and gelato (for those with less mature palates).

We had home made gluten free pizza for dinner, and I didn't have to do the dishes.  D'anjou and I walked to the end of the block to inspect the raging ant war, and watch a beautiful pink sunset over the ocean.  I strung more beads, ate grapefruit, played MASH (the Warrior Cats version) with Mini-Pear.

It's quite possible I fell behind on my epic To Do list today, but I don't plan on playing catch-up tomorrow.

What's been keeping me from keeping you updated on the most mundane of my daily activities?

* I've got this epic post ruminating about our epic road trip, but obligations being what they are it might never happen.

* Facebook.  Let's just blame it all on Facebook and the ease of a one line status update and the immediacy of the "like" button.

* The funk.  Oh lordy, the F-U-N-K.  More of an Emily Dickinson funk than a George Clinton funk, but at any rate...whatever the funk was, it was having me cycling between I-don't-deserve-to-have-any-readers writer's block and Let's-just-be-totally-real-and-tell-it-like-it-is-except-it's-the-internet-and-maybe-I-shouldn't.  Just in case I do something totally uncharacteristic* like run for local office one day.

I'm also really bad at keeping secrets.  My own secrets.  Yours I will take to a watery grave, if that's how it happens to go down.  At any rate, some interesting developments here at Chez Pear, but I really need to keep it all zipped up until it's official.  Ha.  More than half of you know exactly what I'm talking about anyway.  See the more I write the more I feel compelled to just spill it!  *squirms with excitement*

  

^{*Would that be uncharacteristic?  Feel like I'm giving myself ideas all the time!}

Cry me a river...a fast moving river swollen with snow melt.

I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to do this year's LIFE is Good conference justice with a blog entry.  I will say that I managed to take a couple of steps outside my comfort zone* and it made all the difference for me.  My family loves this conference, but until this year, I felt like the emotional roller coaster was a little too intense for me.  Way to make it all about you, Mama.  Bah.  I know it's not all about me, but at a certain point - like after Ronnie's excellent talk, which raised more questions for me than it answered, but in a most helpful way - one realizes that if one doesn't focus on oneself, everyone else is going to get shafted anyway, and possibly in a big, ugly, soul-crushing way.  Which is an obtuse and long-winded way of saying that while I've played everyone else's lay-therapist for years, it's really time to dust off the skeletons long banished to my rather insufficient closets and get my own house in order.  

At some point, I'm sure I'll write something substantial about the conference, but not yet.  I did feel prompted to write a treatise little something about the elusive nature of joy (whinge) this morning, but it's nowhere near ready for public consumption.  Maybe it never will be.  There's a reason I keep it short and snarky.  Harumph...and the like.

^{* Why is it called a comfort zone?  I'm not sure most people's comfort zones are particularly nice or comfortable, hence the need to step out of them.}

Not scared of heights? Check.

Here's Mini-Pear getting harnessed up for some fun on the trapeze.

 

No fear.  At all.

Of course, D'anjou wants to go to there... 

 

And would she be content to just hold on with both hands?  Of course not!

When we signed up for Girl Scouts, we had no idea just how much fun she was in for!  A huge thanks to Dawn for setting it all up.

 
 

 

Kid's toys are so expensive.

We get a lot of mileage out of:

walks around the neighborhood, blowing bubbles, obstacle courses...and dried black beans and lentils.

This morning I almost stumbled over the phone books delivered to our front steps.  Who uses those anymore?  

 

My kids.  They don't get the opportunity to jump in leaf piles, so they made do with leaves of newsprint.  The play goes on and on and on and on... 

Happy MILF Day...

to all the booty-ful mamas in my life.