Mother-Daughter Book Club

We met again tonight with our little Mother-Daughter Book club. There are a few reasons why I continue to do this:

1. I like knowing Alice's friends and seeing her interact with them.

2. The other moms are becoming my friends. Empathy is powerful medicine, man.

3. I'm holding out hope that in five years or so we'll have some seriously awesome conversations about all sorts of topics from the books we read together.

I'm not a big reader, but when I read a good book, I really like to talk about it. I like to hear what other people think about it.

This time, we discussed Ella Enchanted. I wanted to talk about our ability to choose. In the book, Ella is cursed with obedience. She must obey every order given to her. It makes her the perfect student at finishing school, but she's a slave to everyone else's accidental whims (or intentional abuse). I wanted to talk about my obedience. Our obedience. Their obedience. How it feels when we do something because we HAVE to obey. How it's different when we CHOOSE to obey. Maybe discuss techniques we use to subvert direct orders and regain some semblance of control in our lives. Maybe we could talk about other "curses" that restrict our agency...abject poverty, racism, ignorance, fear, sin. I dunno. It just felt like there was a lot more to this idea than a lovely story.

But we didn't talk about agency. We talked about all sorts of things, most of them related to the book, but the girls just couldn't grasp the abstract bits yet. I threw out a question or two about choosing to obey and they responded with, "Of course we obey when we don't want to! All the time."

Oh. Right. They're kids. Well, maybe I was the one not grasping the situation.

But one day, somewhere in the next few years, Alice's brain will develop to the point that she can explore abstractions and symbolism and talk about those ideas. It doesn't mean she WILL talk about them, or WANT to talk about them with me, but it will come :) and if the chooses to share those thoughts with me, I'll be delighted to listen.

Chickens Love Rhubarb

They also decimate my marigolds. I wonder if they use these "poisonous" plants to fight off internal parasites. Crazy.

Voice Recorder

Matthew rediscovered the digital voice recorder yesterday, but this time he could remember how to make and play back recordings consistently. He laughed his head off for 30 minutes recording (and replaying) every potty word he knew.

I caught a couple of them on video, but I have all of them on the recorder if you'd like to have a listen someday ;)

Monday Night Fun

Bobby decided our Monday Night Fun this week would be an Evans Fam Olympics. Alice has been DYING to try this minute-to-win-it game ever since she heard of it...wish granted!

Her mouth is open in case he misses the shaving-cream covered cap. Team Dinosaur Robots started us off.

Team Lightning Dudes takes the win! And the cheese puffs.

We also had a wheelbarrow race, and a stuffy toss game, and several rounds of "Sardines" (one person hides and when you find them you hide with them).

Jealous Robin

There was a red-breasted robin stalking our backyard all afternoon. He/She was especially focused on the bird net surrounding our blueberry bushes that are just beginning to ripen.

Humans scored the food this time! Mr./Mrs. Robin will have to hunt elsewhere.

It's unfortunate, however, that I've just shown Matthew that the berries are edible. Out of the frying pan into the fire!

I peeked in at the Brussels sprouts and snapped this photo:

Marble-sized Brussels sprouts nestled in the leaf joints of their mother plant. Grow big and beautiful, my pretties!

The row cover seems to be doing its job of keeping the cabbage moths out. Something strange happened this week, though. I spied a cabbage moth trapped INSIDE the cover. In my furious confusion to let it out and kill it at the same time, I hit the cover full force and ripped a good-sized hole in the side.

*eye roll*

I can laugh about it now...no worries.

I temporarily patched the hole. The next day, I discovered 2 more trapped moths. One was squished in a fit of rage and the other was let free in a fit of remorse. No trapped moths since. I'm guessing their mom got lucky a few weeks ago and I'm hoping they didn't mate with each other and leave another generation behind.

These Brussels sprouts are sure making me wait a looooooooong time. 

The big garden is good. Lots of green tomatoes. Peppers flowering. Sweet potatoes starting to stretch out their vines. Everything is planted now, so we're entering the watch-water-weed phase.