The Dress Up Box

Every year after Halloween I buy up discounted costume parts to add to the children's dress up box* - I also add clothes and jewelry that I don't want anymore and other odds and ends as I find them.

Beatrice loves dragging out the box and playing dress up.

Arthur is too young to dress himself but he loves playing with the wooden knight sword and shield and the fairy wands.

I really like this series of pictures:

 

* During our annual Halloween parties I also bring out this box so that guests who didn't wear a costume can dress themselves in something fun.

The Noc-turtle

Beatrice walking down the sidewalk with her vacuum cleaner and wearing what she called a "beautiful mommy outfit": a sundress, tutu, pajama pants, ballet slippers, and backpack worn upside down.  She explained that was she was "going to work."

As usual, Beatrice has been saying some pretty funny things lately.

The Nocturtle
While visiting Mina and James, Beatrice laid her head on the bottom of the bathtub, submerging her head totally in water, closed her eyes, and shouted, "I'm sleeping during the day! I'm nocturtle!"

She also told me at bedtime the other day, "I'm diurnal, but I am pretending to be nocturtle" (that is, refusing to go to bed at night).

Melodrama
Beatrice spilled her milk.
"It's okay," I told her.
"Everything will never be okay!" she declared.

After anything upsets her now she also asks for "a tissue to dry [her] tears."

Randomness
Yesterday completely out of the blue, she declared, "I can't grab owls!"

Self-Knowledge
After having a tantrum at Target, Beatrice calmed down and told me, "I think I'm just acting this way because I'm hungry."

She will also often say things like, "I think I need a nap now, I'm tired," or, "I think I'm just crying because I need to go to bed."

Most heartbreakingly, though, she said the other day, "I feel upset because I am not an adult or a brand new hospital baby, I am just a little big."

College
Beatrice recently declared that she is going to go to college with her friend Donovan and study botany.  Initially she planned on going to college directly after kindergarten but now she knows about elementary school, junior high, and high school.  However she still often tells strangers, "I'm going to college!"

Vegetable Garden Wrap-Up

Well, summer is wrapping up here and with it, the summer vegetable garden.  I just finished harvesting the last tomatoes and peppers and now I'm taking stock of what worked and what didn't.

Things That Worked

Tomatoes, obviously.  If our other prospects don't work out we could probably make a living as tomato farmers.  This year the plants grew even taller and more profusely than last year with no more attention that occasional watering.

Early Girl and Yellow Cherry Tomatoes

The okra took a long time to get started - I realize now that I planted it too early - but once the weather really heated up they did pretty well. 

Beet greens and eggplant leaves

Our beets were wonderful - they grew well with almost no effort and tasted great - I may try to get a second cool season round going just so we can have more.

Things That Didn't

I didn't realize when I laid out the beds that the looming tomato plants would completely shade the green beans growing on the trellis behind them - we got a handful of beans but the bigger the tomatoes got, the more the beans withered and died.  Next year I'll reverse their positions.

Some of the few green beans we got this year.

The peas shriveled up and died before producing anything - I think they were getting too much sun.

Most disappointingly, none of the pumpkins or winter squashes I planted worked at all and I can't really figure out why.  They all grew steadily to flowering but never produced any pumpkins.  Even with hand-fertilization they failed to produce.  Pumpkins are one of my favorite things to grow and to eat so I kept trying and trying, with two rounds from seed and then two rounds of seedlings, all of which died. It was all the more frustrating because pumpkins and squashes are traditionally known as plants that are easy to grow - a neighbor was telling me she just dumped her old jack o' lantern in a corner of the yard and the following year she had eight pumpkins!  Oh well, maybe next year...

Things That Sort of Worked

Our eggplants, peppers, carrots, and zucchini all grew abundantly - the eggplants in particular were taller than Arthur - and produced delicious but incredibly small vegetables.  Most of the eggplants and peppers were no bigger than tennis balls and often smaller.  Of course it doesn't really matter - I am growing them to eat, not to show at the fair - but I'd like them to be at least a little bigger next year.

  Tiny little California Wonder peppers 

 

This weekend I just tore out all the remaining plants, raked up the leaves, and now I'll start prepping the beds for cool season vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, kale, lettuce, potatoes, onions, and radishes.  I also have pages of notes in my gardening notebook for better summer crops next year...

Spring Break 2012

Trying to look dour - or some of us were

It seems a little ridiculous to post about something that happened so long ago, but I just now regained access to all the photos we took during Spring Break this year and I didn't want to let the year go by without posting them.

Sam, Lilli, Travis, Michael, Laura, Aubrey, Melissa, Crawford, Jessie, and Monty all visited Los Angeles for two weeks at the end of May and beginning of June (and Travis stayed another week and a half solo after that).  From their home base of Golf Haus, a rented house and mini mini golf course in Studio City, we roamed around the city eating, drinking, and playing the punishing rounds of Pictionary for which the group is known.

My new favorite facial expression.

One night I hosted a croquet-and-dinner party to welcome everyone.

And we all celebrated Michael's thirtieth birthday with dinner in a private room at Mozza.  And a horse head.

I really, really like these people.

Beatrice Tries Attachment Parenting

Beatrice wearing the Ergo she asked me to make for her.  The baby doll in the carrier is named Ivy Robb, after her friend Miller's little sister.  She has a wide range of stuffed toys and baby dolls, but her chief imaginary baby is named Franny Popper.

She insisted on wearing the carrier all day including while eating dinner but grudgingly conceded that she couldn't sleep in it.  She considered co-sleeping but ultimately decided to make a separate little bed for Ivy Robb and let her cry it out.

Patio Furniture Mini-Makeover

Four years ago we bought our outdoor dining set at IKEA.  Every six months Dev would coat the wood in linseed oil to keep it conditioned, and my plan was to let it just age naturally to a fine, mellow gray.  Unfortunately, the furniture was coated in some sort of finish that resisted aging gracefully.  Instead, the surface became flaky, discolored, scratched and pitted, and the whole set started to look like it was falling apart.

BEFORE

AFTER

Back when we started working on our outdoor room last spring, I had intended to refinish the dining set but kept putting it off because it seemed like an exhausting project.  In fact, it was much less painful than I'd feared and definitely worth it.

First I thoroughly scoured the two tables and six chairs with soap and water, then Dev retightened all the bolts and used wood glue to fix any places where things were coming loose. 

Then I sanded the whole set with an electric sander.  I stained everything a color very close to what they were when we bought them.  Then one coat of sanding sealer, then more sanding by hand with steel wool, then a coat of polyeurethane, then more sanding, another coat of polyeurethane, more sanding, and so on for three coats total.  And done!

Watch that water bead up on the poly-coated surface

They tables look great and should keep their finish for a long time (the polyeurethane is UV-stable but I imagine at some point in the far-away future it will need to be touched up again).
 

All in all it took about 24 hours to finish everything and cost $0 (we already had sanding sealer and polyeurethane left over from previous projects and the old owners had left some stain in the garage).

It's like having a brand new outdoor dining set! And one that doesn't have to be oiled every six months anymore, either.

You Have Plenty of Time to Love Them Later: Unsolicited Advice for the Mothers of Newborns

Over on my work blog I posted "You Have Plenty of Time to Love Them Later: Unsolicited Advice for the Mothers of Newborns" - a list of slightly reasonable pieces of advice for new mothers.  If you're a new mother or just love being told what to do, you may want to check it out.