7 Quick Takes about Houseguests, Rock-a-Bye Baby, and a Shortcut for Making Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

In our house, I make a majority of the weeknight meals but Phillip was cooking this weekend. He told me what he was going to make and then changed his mind, so he came to ask me about it. 

"I think I'm going to make XYZ instead, is that okay?"

I shrugged and started to open my mouth, but my 10-year-old daughter (who I didn't even know was in the room) piped up and answered, "She doesn't care what you do, as long as she doesn't have to make it."

That child has been quietly watching me for way too long because those are the exact words I was about to say.

—2—

My 18-year-old's high school graduation is this weekend, and my dad, my stepmom, my brother, and my mom are staying with us to see it.

We set up the comfy guest mattresses and bedding in the basement for the first two visitors to arrive, but by the second two visitors we were out of fancy accommodations and they got the two basement couches and some Baby Yoda blankets. So people keep showing up and we just keep shoving them in the basement. It's fine.

My brother asked if it was weird having so many people in the house and I told him it wasn't really. Is there a term for terminal velocity, but with number of people? Because we've reached it.

—3—

My kids have started taking our pet rats and tucking them in like babies to take a nap. Piper doesn't really like it, but Scout is so chill (and possibly too old and tired to care) that she lets them do it. 

She often goes to sleep tucked in the crook of my 14-year-old's arm like this, actually, which is pretty much the cutest thing ever.

—4—

My high schooler marched in our town's Memorial Day parade. The parade route weaved through the town and ended at the cemetery, where there was a short program to honor the veterans.

Like many other families, we waited on the parade route to see the parade pass by, then followed it to the cemetery to catch the program.

My 16-year-old, who has a gift for looking at a situation as an alien would, laughed to me, "What are we doing? The high school band is walking down the middle of the street with the whole town running after them!"

—5—

Living in New England, we make the effort to visit the ocean about once a summer. But since we had family here, we decided to do a beach day. 

It was a gorgeous day, but the water was REALLY cold since it's still spring.

I could not believe these small people willingly went in the water.

It was the kind of cold that was so cold it didn't even feel cold. If you tried to go in the water, it just hurt.

—6—

FYI, if you ask a precocious 6-year-old to make himself a sandwich to pack for the beach, he might just passive-aggressively do this:

—7—

A month or so ago, I mentioned the first happy signs that spring is here, like opening up all the windows or seeing the guy who lives on the corner sitting out in the sun in a lawn chair. 

But there are also other, more unpleasant signs of spring, such as:

1. The weather event I call The Pollening, where so much yellow-green dust blows in through our open windows it coats every flat surface in our house and causes massive allergy attacks in half our children
2. I have poison ivy on my legs. It's more tolerable this year than last, but I wonder if that's because I've tried really hard to embrace it as an inevitable part of the season and basically expect it instead of getting bent out of shape about it.

Of course, I'm still paranoid about poison ivy and point it out constantly to my younger children as they obliviously go romping right through it.

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