Lucy: “The step-mother is here!”

I start to ask one of those motherly questions which draws out the story behind her pretending, but before I can form the words…

Lucy: “I’m going to kill her!”

And she was gone again.  I turned red, shocked, and sent Craig to deal with this.  He deals with football players and wrestlers and marine-wanna-bes on a daily basis, after all.  Apparently Lucy was protecting her friend, Meadow, from the step-mother, who was going to hurt her.

Thanks, Disney.  Non-violent child-rearing takes another set-back.  Craig tried to explain, and suggest that she convert the step-mother, but I’m not sure that it sunk in.

Related, or not, Lucy spent a good half hour crying because she didn’t want to take a nap today, which she hasn’t done in months.

Tomorrow – the journey to Fargo begins.  Pray for us.

After which, Craig took Lucy to Baton Rouge and I stayed home with Samantha and slept.

Our other exciting event of the last week or so is that a litter of kittens has taken up residence in the back yard.  I first discovered them, just starting to walk, in the shed.  Since then they have moved the bushes on the other side of the yard and they were last seen under the house this morning.  The mama is black with a few white features, and the five kittens run a full range of color: one almost white, one grey, one calico with a lot of brown, one mostly black calico, and one almost all black.  Needless to say, the girls are enthralled.

While I’ve been writing this, Samantha has managed to color significant parts of both of us with blue marker, and is now very upset about the color on her hands, so I’m done.

http://inspiredtoaction.com/2010/07/survivor-suburbia-the-grocery-store-with-children-challenge/

It was funny, because as we passed the fountain outside the Riverwalk in New Orleans, (Grandma, Uncle John, the girls, and I) Grandma was explaining to Lucy that this wasn’t like the fountain she played in in Florida, and that we couldn’t go play in it.  When we got inside, Lucy wanted to go see the other fountain, so we swerved around an elderly man and his “Information” table, and went up to the little square tiled pond.

As she always did when my brother and I were little, but as I have never yet done as a parent myself, my mom offered Lucy pennies to throw in the fountain.  This was just the distraction needed.  Lucy readily agreed, and as I looked away and Mom went to dig her purse out of the stroller, Lucy tried to lean on the rope barrier (what are those things called?!) that was put up, apparently, to keep people from getting to close to and/or in this little fountain.

Little did Lucy know that the rope barrier was not attached in any way to the ground, or anything else solid.  First the nearest pole went in with a splash, which caught our attention so that I turned just in time to see Lucy lose her balance and hop from the side of the pool into it, landing (miraculously) on her feet, in water right up to the edge of her dress.

She was shocked, to say the least.  I leaned over and lifted her out, thankfully only wet on her shoes and about an inch up her favorite purple “ballerina” dress.  And, more thankfully, she was not screaming.  I righted the rope line, which was now soggy and dripping, and noted the puddle Lucy was making on the floor.  (Fortunately, she had talked me into letting her wear pink sandals instead of tennis shoes and socks.)  Mom proceeded to give her the pennies, all of which she threw in, and one of which she clanged off the side of the potted plant, and we moved on in search of lunch.

The “Information” man, who was less than five feet away, never even turned around.

And later in the same car ride…

Craig: “Have you ever tried to talk to Jesus?”

Lucy: “No, I’m too shy of him.”

We talk often about trying, someday in the future, to live in an intentional (Christian) community.  We liked what we had at the Tulane Catholic Center, we’ve had retreat/camp experiences that were short term communities, and we liked it, so we’d like to do something similar full time.

Funnily enough, Craig’s parents already practically have this.  We borrowed their house over the 4th of July weekend while they went on a vacation to Boston.  Here is how our weekend went.

We drove in on Saturday afternoon and set up shop.  Before we could decide what we would do for dinner, Miss Mary Lou and Mr. Bob next door invited us over for ham, corn on the cob, and potato chips.  This, of course, led to an evening of conversation, running children, and general fun.  It was a good way to start the holiday.

On Sunday, we went to Mass (after which the youth group help sparklers to liven the spirits of those exiting the church – Fr. Tom’s idea, not ours!) and then spent a long time talking over donuts with Rusty (who we found out lives two blocks from Craig’s parents) and Anna who is the 13th of 18 children.  We were almost the last ones to leave.  But we went back home and cooked hot dogs for Bob and Mary Lou (aka B-Bob and Mimi) while the girls swam.  Dinner was kindly provided by Mr. Joe and Miss June across the street, and B-Bob and Mimi, the neighbor next to Joe and June, Mr. Darwin, and the couple two doors down were also there, along with a good part of Joe and June’s family.  So far – five meals, four of them in communities.

The other thing with Mr. Joe is that he invites everyone who lives around him over for beer every afternoon at 4.  Accommodations are made for little ones who can’t drink much beer.  And Mr. Bob spends 9/10 of the day, rain or shine, hot or cold, on his back porch (which might as well be his front porch) open to company.  We barge in frequently, and often return with ice cream.

Monday we had Mr. Darwin and B-Bob and Mimi over for dinner (Craig made some amazing meatballs, I’m sure he would be willing to share the recipe if he remembers it!) and then went to a youth group softball game.

Tuesday Craig went to work and the girls and I met Bob and Mimi at the donut shop, where they meet their friends Bill and Mary (and anyone else who comes in!) every day.  Lucy enjoyed her pink sprinkled donut, and the shop owner gave them donut holes when she saw that Samantha hadn’t touched her pink sprinkled donut.  Chocolate milk was enjoyed all around.

We finally headed home Tuesday evening after Craig took some youth to visit a local nursing home.  On the way back I was counting (we had 6 of 9 meals in community – and 7 if you count dinner with his parents after they got home!) and realized that the community we would like to build could look very much like this:  neighbors watching out for each other, feeding each other’s dogs, drinking each other’s beer, (occasionally accidentally feeding each other’s beer to each other’s dogs…) talking, talking, talking.  Most of the world’s problems have been solved at least twice on Bob’s back porch.  But there is one thing that makes it all happen – people take the step to invite other people to share with them.  Then the trust builds, then the back porch is always open.  It was a good lesson for me.

Lucy: “We’re leaving the house.”

* unintelligible question from interlocutor*

Lucy: “Because we can’t pick up our big house!  It’s too heavy!”

Apparently her friend on the phone was a turtle.

Get it?

“I want to go to church with flowers.  And ducks.”

Me too, Lucy, me too.

School ended, thank God.  Everyone survived.  Summer is hot, hot, hot.  There will be not trips to the zoo any time soon, membership or no.  The goal is for everyone to survive the summer.

We’ve been keeping busy.  I can’t actually remember what happened right after school got out, but we spent some time at Craig’s parents’ house (mostly in the pool) and then came back to spend a day canoeing with Theresa and her friend Paul, and then a day of rapid laundry and packing, and off to Bunkie.  For nine days.  If you don’t know where Bunkie is, it’s in central Louisiana, near Alexandria.  It does not have its own Wal-Mart.  That tells you how small it is.

So we were on the outskirts of Bunkie, LA, helping to facilitate a leadership retreat for some of the finest Catholic youth of the Baton Rouge and Lafayette Dioceses.  It was really good (I think there are some pictures attached in some way I don’t understand to Craig’s Facebook page…or maybe he can see them but not share them…I don’t know) and we had a lot of fun and great prayer experiences and spent time with wonderful people.  The down side was the ridiculous number of chiggers and mosquitoes (which I am still scratching) and the two poor baby sitters who were left with my attached baby most of the day.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  There’s only one danger with attachment parenting – they might actually become attached.  And Samantha definitely is.  So that was hard on Samantha, me, and the two patient young ladies who volunteered to spend their week watching the facilitators’ kids.

Also, the camp is run by the Department of Education, so we had school lunches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a week.  On the last night, vegetables were brought out as snacks.  I have never seen teenagers attack bell peppers and carrots, watermelon and cucumbers like that before.  The cookies were abandoned.  The granola bars, abandoned.  The Big Cheez-its were not abandoned, as they apparently complimented the vegetables.  This should tell you something about the nutritional content of school lunches.

[I have been told that the nutrition in school lunches "balances out" over the course of a week - sure, sometimes it's pizza, but sometimes it's meatloaf.  That only worked for our week if all the students were pregnant and needed 80 or so grams of protein a day, but only needed one serving of vegetables per day.  Over the course of the week we had corn twice and carrots (overcooked and drowned in sugar) once, plus the lettuce for hamburgers and tacos, which I don't count.  I do not call eating French fries at least one meal a day balanced.  But I digress.]

So we were happy, after another two days at Craig’s parents’ house (for meetings and a youth group softball game – which we won!), to return to our garden and our kitchen.  We had pizza with chocolate bell peppers, a tomato, and basil and parsley all from the garden for dinner tonight.  We’ve also had two yellow squash now, a couple of other tomatoes (including a beautiful Cherokee), and delicious purple beans which have all been eaten raw.  There weren’t really enough of them to cook, anyway.  I have battled slugs in the squash/melon patch, and finally have plants large enough to survive their onslaught.  There are now beautiful yellow, black, and white caterpillars eating my dill plant, but the thing was taking over the garden, so I’m letting them go to it.  They don’t seem to be bothering anything else, and Stephen Locke says they make pretty butterflies, although he couldn’t remember which kind in particular.

Meanwhile, Lucy has taken to singing made-up songs with repetitive words, which is pretty funny, and she is writing beautiful letter “L”s and upside-down letter “U”s.  Samantha continues to learn new words to say, and to mimic whatever Lucy may be doing.  They both swim fearlessly with floaties now, which is great except we have to make sure Samantha doesn’t get near the pool without them, because she will jump in and expect to float.

In case you were wondering, the pooping on the potty seems to have been a fluke on all accounts.  There have been no repeat attempts.  Two steps forward, one step back.  Or something.

I have tried to update my reading list, but the plug-in is on the fritz, so that will have to wait.  I’m busy with several sewing, framing, and card-making projects, which will hopefully be posted when they are done and/or delivered.  There are pictures, I just have to sit down and put them up.  I should really get Craig to work on that part I guess…

So for the rest of the summer we have a week planned with my mom’s family in Florida, and a week in North Dakota (actually, a weekend in North Dakota and the rest of the week driving there and back), and another weekend in Bunkie for Taylor’s wedding.  After last week’s experiences, I, for one, will be wearing eau de bugspray with my bridesmaid dress.  I’m still scratching.  And then the rat race starts again.  If, of course, you consider it ever to have stopped.