We got much more spring like weather this week. No snow and even when it rained nothing froze over. Thank goodness for that. We planted our strawberries. The kids are having a race with theirs. Kiernan believes his will grow better because he has made them a castle. Megan believes her will grow better because she is a princess and told them too.
I filled up our strawberry pyramids and had plants left over to give to a few people at work and some for our neighbors. I hope they grow well. Now we have the waiting bit.
At tball practice this week the kids got their uniforms. Kiernan was so happy to see that his team wears red!
They asked us at the sign up what numbers the kids would like. As Kiernan had no strong preference we assigned him Valentino Rossi's race number.
Here is the before shot of the side of the house by Megan's window.
Here is the before shot of the back of the house outside of Megans window.
It was tree removal week.
The crew from DuBois came early and stayed until late. The removed 4 trees, all big oaks. They ground the stumps and removed the wood and left the wood chips. They even mulched the downed limbs from behind the fence and all over the yard.
They were nice to the kids. They waved at them and showed them equipment from afar. They did an outstanding job!
While they were working on the trees I made a mad dash to the other side of Baltimore to pick up a Craigslist twisty slide. I was hoping to lose as little work time as possible. There was some communication breakdown and the guy I was getting the slide from was not home when I got there and when I called him he wondered if I could come back on Saturday.
I asked if he had a lunch break instead because it was an hour plus drive each way. He ran home and helped me load up a huge slide and a crawl tube and even offered me a free climbing wall, but there was no more space in the truck.
It is always nerve wracking getting something from a random stranger. It makes me feel vulnerable being out at someones house that I don't know. Too much sensationalist TV for me plus natural caution ratcheted up I suppose.
All went well and the man was very nice and helped me tie everything down and we wound up paying slightly less than a third of what we would have getting the slide new.
When I got back home (just in time for pizza lunch) I put the tube on the front yard and the kids tested it out.
Unfortunately due to distracted driving on my part and bad timing for me and the muddy tires, I got the truck stuck in the mud in the front yard as well. As you can see I just narrowly missed hitting the basketball pole too.
The guys from DuBois came around and pushed me of the mud, bless them.
So embarrassing!
It was too dark to take pictures when they left but the next morning we were greeted by a huge wood chip pile. We promptly added a slide to this ultimate climbing surface. You can sort of see that there is a great deal of open space behind the kids in this shot. That is where the trees used to be.
Then we went for a hike. We went to the Meadowside nature center.
There was a really sweet little girl there who had and shared a flashlight for exploring the cave. The last several times we have been, there were nasty or rowdy kids pushing and scaring and being sort of intolerable. It was so great to see a fun and kind batch of kids this time.
When we got home Megan went down for her nap and Kiernan climbed trees the easy way.
I started smoothing out the yard and redistributing mulch.
The next morning was Opening day for the Little League season.
First off let me say; mad props to the coaches for wrangling so many little kids so well!
I love Kiernan's coaches and team mom!
It was hypothetically warm but the wind was blowing like crazy and we all wished to go inside pretty much straight away.
It was partially due to this and partially due to the super loud and crowded ball field that Kiernan had a hard time.
Here is Kiernan lining up and looking adorable in his uniform, plus the hoodie layer we found to keep him warmer. He is wiping tears away. He didn't make any noise and I don't think anyone even noticed that he was crying, but he was. He was overwhelmed. We wanted to go to him and comfort him and we wanted for him to get through it on his own because this is just the sort of thing he needs for getting ready for school. It was rough.
Then came the part of the ceremony wherein the kids run down a line of other players high fiving and running the bases and being cheered. This is a very nice idea and most of the kids got a huge kick out of it.
Kiernan was not one of those. He lined up bravely enough given his already unhappy mood but once he got into the gauntlet he put his head down and locked his arms at his side and slow marched through the crowed like a lamb to the slaughter.
It took ages for him to get through.
I think part of the problem is that we don't go to sporting events and we don't watch much on T.V. (other than motorcycle racing), so I think that when I told him he would run down a line of people to high five, he had no idea what that actually meant.
We addressed that this weekend by doing a few home high five runs with the family. He told us that he already knew how to do that because he had already done it with his team.
This reminded me again of what I want for him from this experience. It is not the goal for him to be the best athlete or the suave social butterfly. It is the goal to expose him to this kind of stuff and for him to learn from it and to enjoy it as much as possible.
Pardon the blurry picture here but I wanted to show you him actually enjoying some of this day.
At the end of the ceremony the teams all released balloons. He loved this so much. As nearly any 5 year old would.
This is his story about the ceremony. He told everyone how he let go of balloons with his team. He was proud and happy and that is wonderful.
The day warmed up after we got home and it was all yard work all the time for the rest of the day.
We mulched lots of beds and raked lots of leaves and had a relaxing warm day outside.
I needed that for sure.
David delivered wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of wood chips for us and we put them to good use.
He also worked on mending the fence and sighting out the new slide placement. This slide is much bigger than the other one and a new place will have to be prepared for it.
He even found the instruction manual online and confirmed that the weight capacity is 250 lbs.
Huzzah!
Come on over and slide.
While standing on the deck taking this picture I got an email from the Classical Charter school that I had so been hoping to get Kiernan into. They said that he is number 99 of 116 on the waiting list. So that is a no go. I was sad.
I wanted so much for him to be able to go there. It was much of our reason for moving to Frederick County in the first place.
We never really built it up to Kiernan much, in case he didn't get in, so that part is fine and that part is what matters at this point.
We spent some of the evening watching baseball on the television in order to start our sports reform.
The next morning in preparation for company we cleaned the house (and played Super Mario brothers lol) and I made Sauerampfer borscht. This is green borscht and it is made with potatoes and sorrel and egg. This is the only true spring soup recipe that I know and I had been wanting to make it for Pammy for months now. I have David's moms recipe but, of course, like all her recipes it assumes that you make the dish all the time and there are no measurements. Also it is ridiculous how hard it is to find sorrel. It is, in fact, so hard that I have ordered sorrel seeds so that I never have to do that again.
It took 3 weeks of searching for both myself and my mom into every gourmet and co-op and health-food store we could think of to find enough for a very small batch.
Got it!
I was particularly proud to have this done in time for my most German guest to try some.
Not only did aunt Lore come to call but Aunt Ruthie and Elcio dropped by as well to grab some baby stuff for young Kaleb to use at his Oma Ruthie's place.
Speaking of young Kaleb. The kids got to go play with their baby cousin.
Notice that Kiernan and Kaleb are all decked out in their pirate best for the warm. We dropped off some soup and noticed that the cherry trees are both getting new leaves and buds and that Kaleb is a cutie boy.
Then we stopped by Scearce's to admire the daffodils.
To spend a little time with Grandma and
to prepare to eat poisonous flowers. Doesn't she look like she is eyeing a smorgasbord? Well she certifiably thought so!
Yes Megan tried once again to kill herself. She saw and ate a beautiful purple hyacinth.
We called poison control and they asked about her weight and the amount she had eaten and how she was acting. They told us that we should give her plenty to drink and that she might throw up but that overall she would be fine.
Megan was singularly unexcited by all of this but Kiernan freaked WAY OUT!
He asked questions in near hysteria about poisonings and then proceeded to lecture Megan roundly for about an hour and a half. She took it with good grace and he seem to feel his job was done when she agreed to all of his demands.
Special shout out to Kathryn who starts her new job as a University instructor today!
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