Egg on my face

Just photos.

Keniworth and Botanic Gardens

I'm sure you've had these moments. Or something similar. Morning. Breakfast eaten. Day stretches ahead open to a whim. SO you suggest an outing to see how interested children and significant other are. Screaming and crying commences.

All efforts to get reasonable behavior out of C7 failed. So C42 took C7 and put her on the porch and locked the door while the rest of us got ready. Yes, he locked her out of the house. But she knows the code so she could have gone around the house and get in the back door with the keyless entry, but didn't because .... the sky was cloudy.

Yes, her fear of weather was impeding her. But no matter, we were going, since we thought we might have an hour of dry and the rest of the day wet. In fact, I was hoping so because I wanted to finish watching The Sound of Music with the kids (but that treat had to be cancelled).

We quickly got ready, grabbed C7 a dress and shoes (yes, she was in pjs), and left the house. At which point C7 realized she could go to the back door but when I told her we were leaving she thought better of going back into the house and came with us.

We had a fine time once the screaming stopped. Kenilworth Gardens is somewhere C42 used to take the girls a lot on their Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. We haven't been for a while.

I didn't see much wildlife this time. Bugs. We heard a frog or two. We saw Herons about 1/4 mile away. And the flowers were dying. But the lotus are fascinating.

We saw the seedpods.





We saw exactly ONE Lotus flower.




We saw the dying leaves.




And we loved the leaves with water in them. The lotus leaves repel water, so it was fun to play with them. We spent a lot of time looking for the leaves we could reach without falling in.





We did manage to stay at Keniworth for about an hour, then it actually did start to rain. C7 ran under a tree for protection. Here she is kind of fearful, trying to stand up straight, and then Q5 joined:





In order to get back to the car we had to assess the situation.

E41: Is it raining?
C7: Yes.
E41: Is there lightening?
C7: No.
E41: Is there thunder?
C7: No.
E41: Are you melting?
C7: No.
E41: Can you manage?
C7: Yes.

Which she did. She managed by making a beeline for the ranger's building/museum. Without screaming or crying. See? Managing. But she did run the fastest and farthest Carter has ever seen.

I wasn't ready to go home so we went downtown to the Botanic Gardens. Actually, we were headed for the Natural History Museum and the American Indian Museum, but they started fighting about going to both. I think Q5 was upset that C7 said they could go to Q5's pick first, because she thought C7 would then insist we'd spent enough time there and would have to go to the other museum right away.

So I overrulled both options and we went to the Botanic Gardens. Nice as always.

Only one picture.




We were going to go to lunch downtown but they got themselves too wet and wanted to put on dry clothes. So we went home.

Introducing ... C7!

Yes, C is now C7. At 8:14 am 2003 2004 C7 was born. (yes, I had the year wrong! Thanks to wrinkledman who pointed that out.)

This morning she woke and was thrilled to find a pile of gifts waiting for her. We made her have breakfast first (oatmeal pancakes which neither she nor Q5 liked). The we let her open gifts.





The haul? Books, books, books and clothes. Exactly what she wanted. EXACTLY.

The following is a recreation of the actual events that happened when C7 opened the package that contained the book she wanted most of all:





Seriously. Only it was louder and more spontaneous. She was out of her mind with joy.

After all the clothes and gifts were open she cataloged her books:





Not only that, bought C7 a cat stuffie ... a cat. C42 tried to disuade her, but she insisted. And C7 loves it. Phew. Although I think Q5 MIGHT have been trying to get it for herself.

C6's 7th birthday party

This week C6 told me she wanted a party. I mean, sure, I knew she did, but she finally focused and told me who she wanted to come. On Thursday. Birthday on Sunday. I told her the birthday party had to be outside. She balked and reminded me that last year it was inside, but I told her last year it was 95 degrees and about 100% humidity that day.

We haggled a bit, I offered a pool party, she refused. I offered Magruder Park, she refused. I offered Bartlett Park ... and BINGO, we decided we could both live with that. Bartlett Park in Brentwood has a new little water feature that we just discovered and both C6 and Q5 love it. Especially Q5. But C6 loves the whole park enough to say OK to that venue.

So, we looked at the weather and though Saturday the 3rd would be a better party day than Sunday the 4th. C6 wrote up a list of invitees and I started calling. The first two parents I called said that had another party to go to that overlapped our time. So, we changed our time, and went with two to four instead of one to three. Great, two of our invitees could come. C42 called his cousin and invited her children, whoo-hoo, they could come! Our final two invitees were unable to come, one was going out of town for the long weekend and the other was celebrating her birthday at the same exact time. Bummer.

I thought three kids wasn't enough, we went with the wider tier of friends, and invited people I like (well, and that C6 does, too, but hadn't made the narrower list of 5 children). Both big families, so it added 8 children. Gulp!

This was the easiest party ever. We didn't do games, or a craft, or a piñata, or goodie bags. Awesome. I made a cake, made Country Time pink lemonade, C42 bought ice cream and we were done. Of course at this point C42 got a little freaked out because I'd sold him a small party and suddenly 16 children would be there. Well, that's what you get when you invite two families with 4 kids each. A big party! And then, to top it off I'd told C42 just cake. And then I added lemonade (well, you can't have nothing to drink) and then I added ice cream (well, come on. Cake and ice cream go together). And so I looked up the town's website and found nothing about park permits, so phew, we were in luck, and C42 relaxed a tiny bit.

When we got there, the fountain wasn't on. DISASTER. But luckily it seems to turn on exactly at 2:00 as if by magic. So, thank you other child who was having a birthday party today so we had to push ours forward. Or back. Whatever. When it turned 2:00 the water turned on and Q5 went right it.





The party really was just all play. Here is C6 with two of her cousins in the middle of some game.





Once everybody got there C6 went around to ask if everybody was ready for cake. Oh, yes, they were.

C6 has been in a patriotic fervor over the last few months, so after the 4th I bought some red white and blue plates and tealights, which is why C6 has some non-traditional candles on her cake.

C6 blowing out her candles:




Picking the candles off the cake:




And finally serving the cake. C6 did a great job serving everybody before taking a piece herself.

Remember Q5's rainbow cake? Well, I decided to do the same cake for C6's 7th birthday, except red white and blue. This cake is so easy. Yes, it is lots of layers, but they cook in 15-20 minutes because they are so thin!! It takes less time than a regular cake. And you get more frosting!! It does take a lot of frosting.





But because the cake was so tall, I gave everybody a very small piece. 26 pieces in that cake! We went home with one tattered piece. I don't think you could eat much more than one piece, even if there had been extra.

I don't think we left until almost 5:00, everybody happy.

Hurricane Irene

Well, after C6 got over the earthquake in roared a hurricane. Hurricane Irene which wreaked so much havoc in Vermont and western Mass. But not much here in Maryland. And lucky for us, the peak passed through overnight, when the kids were asleep.

C6 had taken to not going outside at all if she could help it, as she was afraid of the hurricane. Not letting go of my hand during the walk home. That sort of thing.

So we stocked up on stuff to distract during the build-up of the storm, hoping we would not lose power too early. We didn't.

So we were able to make s'mores in the microwave:






C42 bought Lilo and Stitch since it had a Hawaiian angle, which he though t might appeal to C6. It did. Here they are taking Hula lessons from the DVD at the end of the movie.





C42 pulled out a new CD for Q5, a compilation of Disney Princess songs. She love love loved it!

We had power through bedtime, and the kids fell asleep fine. Around 12:30 am I woke to a huge BANG of one of the transformers blowing. I looked out the window and saw a small fire ... and promptly hit C42 to wake him. I called the police to inform them, and C42 ran out the check the fire. It was electrical in nature, although we still had power. And the rain was pouring down and the wind was really getting going.

We were up for about a hour or so, and then the line outside really got going, sparking something serious. It made great fireworks a couple of times, and then another huge explosion and the power went out.

The next day we went down to check out the damage. This was the downed power line






And this is the hole that downed power line made.





When you put your hand in the hole it was still warm from the current. C42 has an explaination of HOW it happened on facebook, I think, but I'll tell you the end result -- the concrete/sand turned to glass.




We took a handfull home, as did most kids in Hyattsville, I believe!

Power came back about 24 hours after we lost it. Yippee! We'd been prepared for days without power as we had after Isabelle a few years ago, so we were very pleased!

Corn husk dolls

So, the two day after the earthquake the girls had off from school, as school officials had to check all the schools in the school system for damage.

C6 did NOT want to go outside. I had to force both kids out to play, I suppose this isn't so unusual, actually. But once outside they did play and eventually they asked if they could harvest the corn.

The corn was way ripe, but it had never really gotten big. Because of the space it was in? lack of rain? I don't know. We had a ton of ears, they were just all ... stubby. I later tried to cook them but they'd gone all starchy and not the best.





Anyway, we stripped all the corn, and made corn husk dolls.










Q5 took the dolls I made and cut their bottoms off so they would stand up.





And then she made a movie

Shakey Wakey

Yep, Tuesday August 23, there was a 5.8 earthquake based in Mineral, VA (isn't that a perfect name for an earthquake epicenter?).

There was some of talk about how the animals could feel the trembler 15 seconds before people and while some of it has merit (why yes, elephants can hear the lower sound range and feel vibrations in the ground that humans can't), I don't think it is a super-power (except maybe for the toads in Italy). I think that humans aren't paying attention. AND we wear shoes. We can't feel those subtle vibrations with shoes on.

I was waiting to pick up the girls at the elementary school; it was the end of the school day. For 30 seconds before the earthquake hit I was feeling the wall next to me vibrate. Just a little. Enough for me to think about it, ask the person next to me, have her lean up against the wall, pause, then agree that it was shaking. I told her it was disconcerting and then the real earthquake hit and I leapt 10 feet away from the concrete wall toward a brick wall.

Not 100% smart, from one wall to the next, I suppose.

The kids were inside, and Q5's teacher immediately opened her door, I rushed in and asked if I could take Q5. Yup. Then we walked through to C6's class, where we poked our head into her classroom. All was calm, the lights were off (they were using the visualizer, I later found out. I'm still unclear of what that is), so I thought the teacher was just helping them stay calm. Which she probably was. I thought it was so under control that I didn't need to pick up C6, but a friend, M6 spotted us, told C6, who told her teacher, who told her she could go. And C6 caught up with us in the hall.

I was freaked out, but rational about it. Q5 had just seen the TV in her classroom shaking (which she later claimed "The TV was shaking and it fell down on the ground. Luckily nobody was hurt." Nobody was hurt, but that is because the TV didn't fall off the wall). In C6's classroom some things had fallen off the shelves (books, I guess) and pictures went askew. But, again, nobody hurt. But C6 would not let go of my hand the whole way home, she just wanted to GET HOME and hole up in her bedroom and freak out.

We didn't let her do that, of course. I texted about 10 people and asked them to come to the park. Turns out C6 wasn't the only freaked out child. Getting to the park for some distraction was a great idea.

No pictures, but just to let you know C6 has calmed down about the earthquake and ramped up her fears about the impending Hurricane Irene. More on that in days to come.