Updating My Resume

I decided to run through a few exercises last night as part of an "Updating Your Resume" discussion I was giving to a group of moms. All of my work experience and education seemed a distant memory. Sure, I have skills, and I've learned a whole lot about life and myself over the last 5 years as a full-time mom. Tons. More than I care to learn about myself, sometimes :) But I struggled to define and describe that experience in terms that a future employer would find relevant.

But that wasn't the strangest part.

I was in a good mood. I felt like I had accomplished so much, like I had made significant progress on many of my most recent goals. It was actually listing those "accomplishments" that was such a strange revelation:

Potty training Robert
Alice learning to ride a bike
Alice adapting to Kindergarten
Getting to 35 weeks in this pregnancy
Designing and building a better chicken coop
Building new relationships with other Kindergarten moms
Hammering out a semi-decent morning routine

More than half of my "accomplishments" are actually my kids' accomplishments. I have been measuring my success as an individual with my kids' progress. That's a dangerous, slippery path. Sure, we're all working hard to see these kids grow up into happy, healthy, stable, productive members of society. I should be happy with their progress. At some level, I really am responsible for my kids' progress, but it seems a fine line to walk. Where does my joy for their accomplishments (charity) spill over into boosting my own self-esteem (pride)? I shouldn't use their progress as a measuring stick for my own happiness and success. Or should I?

Since when do others' accomplishments get to go onto my resume?

I'd love to hear your thoughts/experiences along this line.

Unfortunate Truth

Robert wore a backpack on our way to Alice's school this morning. When Alice stood in line with her class, he stood waiting patiently. When the kids were allowed into their classroom, he started to follow. I had to stop him. Tears, frustration, and lots of sobbing soon followed, "Why me not go in?! I want to go in. I want to see!"

Poor guy. He's been exposed to SO many things that Alice had no concept of at his age. He wanted to do her homework last night. School, homework, packing a lunch...it's rough being so aware of these things and yet not allowed to truly participate. He can copy the behavior and stand in line with a backpack full of lunch and completed homework, but he's still denied entrance into the classroom.  And he just doesn't understand why.

Buddy, I know exactly how you feel sometimes.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

Well if you haven't read Susan's post yet you should.  This is a follow on to that one.  As you can so plainly see from the wonderful collage she has learned to ride a bike.




Much of this was inspired by our neighbor from across the street.  You can hear her giving Alice encouragement in the video.  Not to be outdone Buddy has taken quite a liking to the balance bike.




Alice picked up on bike riding in just two tries each about 20 mins.  Most of this is because of her previous experience on the balance bike. Despite one of them breaking in half the other day.

Art Class at the Library

Earlier this week, Alice saw an advertisement for a free kids' art class at the library and we decided to make it a Mommy-Daughter date. She's lucky I had completely forgotten that the Sweet Corn Festival AND the semi-annual Library Book Sale was going on at the same time...both events clogging every parking lot within half a mile of the library. Lucky for both of us, our timing was perfect and we found a sweet spot in the library parking lot. Whew!

The class focused on a technique inspired by Eric Carle's works. Where you decorate/paint paper, then cut the paper into shapes to create your picture. The teacher demonstrated a flower. Here is Alice's flower:

We still had time in the class period, so Alice put together a couple more pieces. This one was for Bobby:

It's a picture of Bobby about to eat an enormous strawberry tamale (inspired by a recent library book find entitled Too Many Tamales by Gary Soto). He has poofy sleeves and ponytails, which Alice found hilarious. At first, his ponytails were sticking straight up because he was so surprised at the size of the tamale he was about to eat. Then Alice decided that a big fan would make more sense. The big fan has one blade and it's on the left. The tamale is that big oval in the middle. It's sitting on a small, rectangular platter.

And this was a special creation (using a lot more help from me) celebrating a certain milestone in Alice's life. I'll let Bobby share the details in his Sunday Summary :)

Overheard at the fence

My northern neighbors had a fence company come out this week to give them an estimate for replacing the split-rail fence. I happened to be working with a friend in my garden when the guy came by. Turns out, our neighbors truly intend to replace the fence only up to the current grapevine and honeysuckle mess. Interesting. They are replacing 75 feet of a 100-foot fence that is falling apart all over. Not the same choice I would make, but it turns out I don't care about the fence much anymore.

I've made more measurements and researched brambles more. There just isn't enough sunny space on the north side of our house to fit a berry trellis next to a fence. Any fence. The only way to grow healthy berries along that side yard would be ON a fence. I've decided against that scenario (thanks to input from friends and family). Sooooo, that opens up the space for other gardening developments that don't require so much space (asparagus? rhubarb? sunflowers? dahlias?), and forces the question: If brambles, then where? Where indeed? Gotta think about this more.

Kindergarten Follow-Up

It's been an educational week for all of us. Here are a few things that surprised me as part of our transition to Kindergarten:

• My life got more structured. I expected Alice to feel the scheduling strain, but I did not anticipate how much stress it would cause ME as her mother. We are working out a morning routine, balancing her responsibilities with mine, and we just haven't found anything that works just right, yet. For example, I still can't predict how much time it will take us to walk to school. I think I need to start wearing a watch again.
• My life suddenly lost structure. We had a weekly routine before. We had regular play dates and free times that I could count on to accomplish certain household tasks. Suddenly, with school driving the schedule, I completely lost my grasp on the previous routine. Robert and I came home every morning this week and just sat around. We'd read or play or do some chores outside, but there was no driving purpose. No oomph. We were just kinda killing time until it was time to pick up Alice. Sad. I never realized how much I had allowed Alice's energy to drive my own life's energy.
• Robert needs me more. This first week of school has thrown him off, too. He's stopped asking about Alice and why we leave her at school and such, but he's way more clingy. He asks to be held and carried almost constantly, even at home. He can't bear to be more than a few feet from me. And now that he doesn't have Alice to play with, he's made me his default for play. I can't do things (i.e. dishes, email, housework) like I used to. I got used to doing them alone most of the time while the kids did their own thing :) I guess I'll have to incorporate him into those tasks better.
• School is social for the parents, too. I didn't realize how much I would be interacting with the parents of Alice's classmates. For the first week, anyway, most kids are lined up on time or early and the parents hang around until the teacher opens the door for them. Then we're all waiting outside at the end of the day for the kids to come out. There's lots of time to chat about anything. And then I run into other moms I know picking up their kids from other classes. It's a very SOCIAL activity, and I'm totally surprised at how much I'm enjoying it. Even the people who drive to pick up their kids have to park 100 yards away and walk to the school building. There's no drive-thru here. I really, really, really like that. I may feel differently about the drive-thru when I've got a baby in tow, or when it's blustery and freezing all winter, but I'm really enjoying it right now.

I tried to get formal "First Day of Kindergarten" pictures on the second day of Kindergarten, but Alice wasn't feeling cooperative. We settled on this informal photo shoot:

And off she goes

Alice started Kindergarten today. It's been strangely quiet.

We walked to school together, since she just couldn't wait any longer to get going. She lined up against the wall with the other kids and the parents were all clustered around just looking at each other and taking more photos. The teacher was there. The kids were ready. There was no reason for me to linger. I asked Alice if she wanted me and Buddy to stay until she went into her classroom and she said "No, I'm fine. You can go."

Yes, I did feel a slight, though sudden, loss when I turned and headed home. It wasn't because I was worried about Alice.  It's just that 75% of my life and focus had suddenly disappeared and I was left a little empty for the day. I wondered a bit about how my life and schedule would change. Robert filled the gap splendidly, by the way. He's just as engaging as Alice ever was: constantly asking questions, singing, playing out imaginary scenarios, trying new skills, and needing a good lap every once in a while. He did miss her, though, and asked about her several times, "Why we leave Alice there? Where we going? Why Alice not come? Where Alice?" At lunch, he picked out the "special pink cup" for his water and giggled, saying, "Alice not here. I get pink cup!" He said something similar when I bought some candy at the store and shared it with him. I think he'll come to enjoy this new routine.

We filled our day with shopping, farm chores (Robert's good with a rake), cleaning out the garage (he's also pretty helpful with a push broom), playing with scissors (he's not so handy with these, though), making lunch ("I spread my own peanut butter!"), and finally quiet time ("Why quiet time today?"). Then we took our bikes over to pick up Alice at 3pm. She burst out of the classroom with a big smile and knocked me over with a hug. She was gushing with love and excitement for what she called the best school day ever. Minutes later, on our bike ride home, her legs started getting tired and she started remembering some of the more difficult things about her day: there are a lot of rules to learn, she got hungry for lunch before lunch time, she almost cried at lunch because she missed us, Emerson is not in her class and wasn't at lunch/recess today (half of the KG students came today, the other half tomorrow, then they all go on Wednesday), so on and so forth. I could feel my energy draining at record-breaking speed.

Then, out of nowhere, her bike broke in half.

I kid you not. It split down the middle and she collapsed on the sidewalk.

Alice burst into tears, I burst out laughing. How on EARTH?!?

We picked up the pieces, shoved them in the back of the bike trailer, and she rode in the trailer the rest of the way home...in tears...loud, painful, choking, sobs, punctuated with "Emerson!" "I love Kindergarten and I hate it and I love it!" "My favorite bike is gone forever!"

All my energy was then officially spent. No matter how serene and peaceful and efficient my day had been up to that point, I was suddenly on the edge of my wits. 

Fruit/yogurt smoothies did not lift her mood. Finding another egg in the coop did not lift her mood. An offer to go swimming in the backyard made her even more grumpy, though Buddy hopped at the chance. Our backyard neighbor, Diane, came out and asked Alice about her day, and that led to more grumblings. Alice asked if she could go pick some tomatoes with Diane, and suddenly her mood improved. I wonder sometimes what Alice gets from her social life, but today it was obvious that Alice interacts with other people to recharge herself. She and Diane skipped off to pick tomatoes from Diane's garden. Ten minutes later, she was a different girl. She came up with the idea that if she played in the pool and the dirt hard enough, she would need a bath, and that was worth working towards.

Long story short, Bobby came home before she could really make a mess of herself. We dried off the kids, ate dinner, and enjoyed a movie together for Family Night.

That was Alice's first day of Kindergarten, and my first day as a Kindergarten mom. Exhausting.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week was very busy, but it all kind of seems like a blur.  There are some deadlines at work that are coming up, and I have had a lot to do to get everything done on time.  Also Alice's first day of school is coming up, so we got to meet with her teacher this week.  It is kind of scary and exciting to think that she is old enough to go to school.  It also felt like were just running from one place to another.

Yesterday was kind of surprising.  We cleaned the house in the morning, had lunch and a then Alice and Robert went to a birthday party.  It gave Susan and I a nice break.  After dinner we were supposed to go to an ice cream social.  Before we could leave we found out that our block was having a block party that night.  We showed up late, but had a good time anyways.  We also got to go the the social which was nice.

I don't like to hear "no"...

Garumph!

I had a chat with our northern neighbors about the fence line. The fence on that side of our house is an ancient split-rail design, flopping all over the place, home to a hundred carpenter bees in the spring. I had dreams to tear it down and replace it with 100 linear feet of trellised raspberry and blackberry bushes.  While our neighbor loves the idea of blackberry bushes, she said they were looking into replacing the fence with another split rail fence.

Oh.

Um.

And she likes the grapes a lot, so she wouldn't want those taken out. And our kids are welcome to pick grapes on our side anytime they like, but her daughter would be coming by today to pick ripe grapes from both sides of the fence to make grape jelly.

Um.

Well.

Um.

She was SUPPOSED to say, "Oh! Please do! I love fresh berries, and I've hated this fence for years. I'll miss the grapes, but it will be easy to grow my own grapes over here by my patio. What a great idea! You're such wonderful neighbors."

*sigh*

She didn't tell me "no", exactly, but her ideas aren't 100% in line with my ideas. Our concepts are most likely compatible, if I think about it a little more, but I had already decided exactly how to proceed with this project:

1. Rip out floppy fence, unruly grapevines, ginormous honeysuckle, and volunteer trees along the fence line
2. Build professional-looking and strong berry trellis
3. Plant berries and gorgeous "companion plants" to naturally deter pests and promote plant health
4. Enjoy fresh berries all summer for the rest of my life

*whine*

Maybe she'll give it a little thought, get an estimate for a new fence, and decide on the trellis after all. Or maybe I could put the berry trellis just inside our property line, even with a new fence there. A fence plus a trellis won't be as aesthetically pleasing as a simple trellis border, but it's workable.

I had hoped for a more enthusiastic reception of my brilliant plan (*sigh*) but I'll take a lukewarm "maybe" any day over an outright "no" ;)

Illinois State Fair

If Katie hadn't invited us, we wouldn't have gone this year, but I'm really glad she brought it up. Alice and Robert attended their first State Fair today. Bobby went to work for Hack Day and a number of other important meetings, so he missed out.

When Bobby asked Alice to tell him about the fair, Alice said she got to ride to Springfield in the car behind Katie and surprise her by kicking her seat. Then Alice described what it was like to fall asleep in the car on the way home and wake up when we pulled into the driveway.

Um, yeah. What on earth did she think we did today?

Here are some pictures Katie took, since I failed to pull out my camera even once:

Alice bravely asked to pet this sheep just waiting to be judged in the next round.

This little boy heard Alice ask to pet the sheep and ran off to get his own sheep to show us. Then he chased Robert around trying to get him to pet the sheep, too, "She's really tame!"

Robert petting a turtle.

Alice the Conservation Police Officer...concerned for the future of our natural resources.

A few other highlights from our fair adventure:

• Alice: "I want to play games and win or buy something!" Check. Thank goodness for educational booths with gameshow-like questions and free, temperature-sensitive pencils.

• A friendly, educational vendor calls to Alice: "Hi there, little lady. You want to come in and shoot some arrows?" Alice raises her arms to cover her ears, furrows her brow, and vehemently exclaims, "No!" "Are you sure? I can help you do it." "NOOOOOO!" Alice was scared of pretty much everything in the Conservation World section: rifle shooting, archery, bow fishing, whip demonstrations. I was just trying to figure out why hunting was such an important part of the Illinois Conservation movement.

• An American Chemical Society "chemistry show" that the kids actually sat through. I have no idea why, since even I was eager to escape after the first few minutes. We were on the front row, unfortunately, and the audience was small. I did win a dollar for answering a trivia question, though.

• I actually saw the blue ribbon turnips this year. And peaches. So much delicious-looking produce!

• High diving show cancelled due to a severe thunderstorm rolling in. But the apple cider slushies were truly delicious, and hanging out in the Artisan Building was a surprising treat.

• Alice got her face painted for free, and Katie scored her a couple of "Incredible Egg" tattoos. Just in time, too, since her Nature Day Camp tattoos have finally faded beyond recognition.

• Robert didn't do much beyond riding in the stroller. He liked seeing the pigs and sheep up close, but he was disappointed that the sheep didn't say "baaaa" for him. 

Speaking of Eggs...

We visited Coil Farm (Mansfield, IL) this morning and got a thorough tour of their new egg-laying setup. Over 300 golden buff hybrid hens, free-range, conventional feed and medical treatment. My friend from Mothers and More hooked us up. What fun! I got to ask ALL of my questions and see what it takes to put out 20 dozen eggs a day. The candling is still done by eye, but the grading machine was my favorite (besides the super-happy chickens running about). Their hens are all exactly the same age and they're getting the whole range of egg sizes. The jumbo eggs are usually double-yolked, which isn't very pleasant for the hen to produce. It means her egg-laying cycle "skipped" a day and caught up the next. Poor little hen. Most eggs are medium and large right now, but grading depends on weight, not volume. Some smaller eggs can be pretty dense. Amazing.

They're transitioning into a "rotational grazing" setup, but the fact that they could rebuild the barn, remodel the inside, raise 300+ chicks to maturity, and provide ample free-ranging grass in a matter of months just blows me away. They even managed to keep all of their hens alive through drought and record high temps. What a crazy year to start an egg farm :)

I'm not interested in managing an operation this large, but I love to see my friend doing it. I look forward to watching her experience unfold over the next few years. I love to see the chickens socializing and running around and acting like plain old chickens, too. These are happy chickens. Healthy, vigorous, glossy, curious.

My friend and her father are planning to raise fryers/broilers this fall, too. That's a totally different experience altogether. The best birds for meat tend to be fragile and ugly and aggressive. They grow too large to stand on their own legs in only 6 weeks, way before they're even sexually mature (the layers we visited today are 6 months old, by comparison). It's a joke to call most fryers/broilers free-range because they don't actually move that much. They just eat. And sit. And peck at each other.
Even with organic feed and acres to roam, their life isn't that pleasant. It's an eye-opening experience. Do I care about the quality of life of the animals I eat? Yes, sort of. Enough to raise/purchase happy "dual-purpose" chickens that enjoy 12 weeks of free-range, slower growth before slaughter? I don't know. Gotta think about that one a little more. Once you start raising laying hens, it's not that far of a stretch to raise meat birds...if you want to. Slippery slope ;)

SHE LAID AN EGG!

The first egg! Our ladies were acting weird yesterday. One of the australorps was spending a lot of time scratching around up in the coop and Penny was freaking out down below. Penny was screaming like she was being attacked, then the whole cluster was noisily cluck-cluck-clucking. They usually just moan and whine. Alice and I let them out of the pen for a little walk, thinking they were nervous about something. Anyway, the one chicken stayed in the coop and Penny and the other two went for a tasty walkabout eating grass and chasing bugs. They were remarkably well-behaved this time. Alice was able to gently corral them wherever she wanted them to go, even back into the pen. We're calling her the chicken whisperer, now. She beams with pride at the new title.

The chickens' instincts have them look for a secluded, dark space to lay their eggs. I'm glad the coop passes the instinct test. It would be gross to have them laying eggs randomly on the pen floor. A chicken's first eggs are irregularly-timed and itty-bitty. I think the technical term for this size is actually "pee-wee." The eggs will get bigger and more regular as the hen gets older. One egg every 25-27 hours. 

It's funny that the baby chicks were purchased on Bobby's birthday and they started laying the day after my birthday. About five months.

(Un)Happy Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. I did absolutely nothing to celebrate it. That was the worst birthday ever. I had planned it that way, actually, thinking that birthdays weren't that important to me and that I hated to draw attention to myself, blah blah blah. Well, I woke up that morning grumpy, did everything I would normally have done on a Monday, and had slumped into a true depression by bedtime. I was on the verge of tears. I had stopped caring about anything. Even the well-wishes of friends and family had seemed a mockery. I didn't answer the phone...sorry, Julia, but I was in too dark of a mood to want anything but an early bedtime.

I don't like that feeling.

So, I learned something about myself this birthday. I don't want much. I just want the day to be somehow different from all the rest. I don't need a public party or more attention from people (heavens no!), but a cake would be nice. On the actual day. We did invite Katie and Alex over on Saturday night for my birthday dinner and the game of Life. It was awesome! I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. I simply should have scheduled it for Monday instead :)

Despite the fog of disappointment, there were two bright moments in the day that I would like to remember:

First, making s'mores by candlelight at Marie's house. My kids were terrified of the flames, but we all enjoyed the gourmet touch of using Symphony bars instead of Hershey's. Oh, mama! I loved the simple elegance and fun of doing something familiar in a new way. Just plain delightful.

Second, watching Robert stomp through mud puddles with reckless abandon. We came home from Marie's house and had some time before Bobby came home from work. It had rained off and on during the day and there were several large, oozy, irresistible mud puddles at the bottom of our driveway. I pulled up a lawn chair and just watched that boy play for 30 minutes...jumping, sliding, running, tiptoeing, scooping, and slipping until his clothes were a mess and I couldn't wait another moment before preparing dinner (Alice was inside the house perusing a new stash of books she had just borrowed from Marie. She changed her clothes and got in on the last few minutes of the romping, but only played long enough to barely warrant a bath with Robert.)

We bathed the kids, ate dinner, put the kids to bed, and couldn't think of anything new or different or fun to do for the rest of the evening. Absolutely ZERO planning had gone into that day and suddenly I realized that was a bad idea. That won't happen again.

Since then, however, I've been in a delightful mood. We had freakishly good fruit smoothies for breakfast featuring strawberries from our own garden. I had a long chat with my good friend Rachel. We finally got a letter telling us Alice's Kindergarten teacher assignment (Ms. Howery! Huzzah!). My friend, Marianne, made me a gingerbread cake with lemon curd topping and my little family lit a candle and sang "Happy Birthday" to me. That was one excellent day. A great way to pull a crappy birthday from the fire :)

Bobby's Sunday Summary

Well this week has been nice.  The weather was a lot cooler, and we got to spend the first part of the week on vacation.  We went to St. Louis on Monday.  We did the zoo monday.  The weather was hot, but not bad.  The zoo was packed.  We got to see a lot of fun things.  Then we went to the Hotel.  We ate dinner at the hotel and then went out for ice cream.  After ice cream we went for a swim in the hotel pool.  Both Alice and Robert had a really good time swimming.  Alice got brave enough that she did 12 bobs, where she put her face in the water.  She did was so proud of herself.  The next day we went to the temple and then drove home.  It was a very long day.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week felt fairly normal, but we did do some fun things yesterday. After we cleaned the house, we went to the store, had quiet time, picked one of our sunflowers, went to the local Children's Museum, had dinner, and watched a movie.  It was busy but not too busy.

The best part about the day was the movie, not because it was an amazingly good movie, but because of Alice's reaction to it.  It was Cinderella, and all throughout it Alice was enthralled.  At the end when they got married and kissed, she let out a sigh like you wouldn't believe.  It was almost like it had fulfilled all her dreams of what a movie should be.

I also liked it a lot at the museum.  Buddy has started noticing when things "match".  Notice how he sorted the blocks.  He then made a bit more advanced pattern.  In the movie, Alice and Robert are playing on some large blocks that we used to make an arch, which they then knocked down.

Phase Two...Mwah ha ha haaaaaa

BoGah and other life-altering "unpredictables" permitting, these are the major yard/garden projects I have slated for next year (refer to the pale boxes in the above diagram). Wahoo! You'll have to click on the picture to get a better look, but here's a summary from top to bottom:

1) New raspberry and blackberry trellis along the north sideyard. We'll (i.e. paid professionals) have to take out those two trees on the left side first. We'll be planting everbearing varieties of berries, of course, since our family overwhelmingly prefers those fruits fresh and continuously :) Frozen and jam forms are tolerable, I suppose, if we grow more than we can consume or give away...um, yeah.

2) Rock "garden." It's an area riddled with utility boxes and underground lines. Useless for planting anything in the soil. I'm thinking we might park kid toys here, or perhaps an above-ground cold frame for season extension, or a work bench for farm/garden tasks. We have an enormous pile of gravel and river rocks we've gathered from other portions of the yard, so this seems like a nice place to deposit them. This is also where the rain barrels are situated.

3) Grape trellis over the patio. Provides shade and delicious fruit. There's enough surface area to support 5 healthy vines at first. Maybe up to 7, if I learn to love pruning. I'd like to have table grapes as well as juice, but 5 vines just doesn't seem like enough to satisfy both desires. I'm pretty much insatiable when it comes to garden dreaming.

4) Shady edibles garden. Lettuce, spinach, cilantro, asparagus...plants that tolerate/prefer less sun. This is also where Alice's garden is right now. She's planted shade-tolerant edible flowers and hostas.

And it looks like the front yard will go completely neglected yet again. So sorry, front yard neighbors. I just can't muster enthusiasm for shady, shadier, and super-shady horticulture. Nothing delicious grows from it! Nothing stunning blooms in it! It's a veritable sea of subtle shades of green, punctuated with bitty specks of white and yellow. Blah. Unfulfilling. Ask me to try caring again in 2014.

Looking for a Theme

BoGah’s room is almost complete. He has a bed, a dresser with clothes, and a changing table. I’ll throw a comfy chair in there soon for all those nighttime feedings. I’m looking for one last thing to finish the job, though: a mantra.

I need a short phrase or quote to pull me through the darkest post-partum times. You know, on those days when it takes every last ounce of humanity to get out of bed and nurse the baby one…more…time. Times when the older kids are clamoring for attention and the baby just won’t let me put him down, or sit, or stop bouncing for two minutes. Days like that, I want to be able to look at BoGah’s wall and read a short quote, a few words from a song, or something else that 1) acknowledges how hard and lonely that moment can be and yet 2) reminds me that things do get better. Preferably something that doesn’t throw responsibility or guilt at me (i.e. "Child of God" and "Love at Home"…those phrases/thoughts aren’t uplifting and helpful until I regain my sanity at about 6 months of age).

So! Please send me your ideas. What are some of the inspiring ideas you’ve found lately?

Tea Party with Hats

My friend Marianne is friends with an avid hat collector, Mrs. Potter, who recently invited all the kids to her house for tea and a hat fashion show. Here are a few of the hats Alice tried on:

 

Yes, that's a figurine of the Queen Mother on their table. Quite fahn-cy! Alice has since decided that she would like to throw a tea party of her own with three kinds of juice. We'll see what we can do the next time Julia comes for a visit. She's my English Tea go-to girl. 

That's Alice

Can you find Alice in this picture? She's the only child in all of Nature Day Camp who thinks a complex contraption designed to squash a banana with a brick will make a deafening sound. Yup, that's my Alice: