When you're only six, there's still a possibility that you MIGHT get your invitation to Hogwarts.

Dutch is in the middle of reading the final Harry Potter book. (She decided to keep reading in spite of the increasing scariness.) She disappears for long periods and then walks up to you, looking very concerned, and says things like "Mom, Hagrid is DRUNK!" as if you've been reading along with her, care deeply about it, and think of fictional characters in the present tense.

Tonight she watched part of the first Harry Potter movie, and Cook and I watched her watch it. The first part of the first book (and the first movie) is the most enjoyable part of the whole series, in my opinion, and it's definitely the most widely appealing. Who hasn't wished to be informed that he/she is very special and thus specially invited to a secret magical society?* It was an unmitigated pleasure watching with Dutch, because she was so deeply involved with it. If you want to watch four not-very-action-filled minutes of Dutch watching a movie, please be my guest:

(Why yes, that is Cook in the background, drinking a beer.)

*Okay, probably a lot of people. And that does sound kind of like Skull and Bones, or Scientology. But you know what I mean, right?

Covetous

The house behind ours was recently sold and renovated (it was already pretty nice), and the new owners held a birthday party for a child this afternoon. I noticed the decorations earlier, and then when Cook and I were out in the backyard wrassling with the grape arbor,* we realized that they had a full-on inflatable bouncy house set up. Dutch didn't notice it for a few hours, but when she saw it, she cried "No fair! They have a bouncy house!" That's a classic Dutch response - anything anybody else that she wishes she had is automatically NO FAIR. I gave her a mini-version of the Not Fair/Vincent Test lecture she's heard a billion times before.**

Later, she and Skipper and I were out in the yard watering the plants with the water from the wading pool, and listening to the really-fun-sounding party on the other side of the fence. We worked quietly for a few minutes, and then Dutch said firmly "Well, we have a better life than theirs."

I laughed, because I had just been thinking along very similar lines. Their house is very nice, you see. And I've been feeling really covetous of all sorts of things lately, and very poor. My response to other people's enjoyment of their Stuff is to grumpily scramble to inventory the ways in which I can still feel superior to them. I am completely ungenerous and don't in any way celebrate their pleasure of their Stuff that I wish was MY Stuff.

We talked about it a little, and the conversation wound up with Dutch happily listing all the things SHE has that she's pleased to have. "And I have LOTS of books! And... I have LOTS of BLOCKS! And... I have THREE swimsuits!" - I tried to redirect her into a more zen state, but it was hopeless, probably because of my notable lack of zen-itude. Dutch and I are maybe not very good people. No matter how much we do the Vincent Test, or remind ourselves of how unbelievably fortunate we are, we still want your Stuff for ourselves.

* Cook and I both thought that grapes were sort of delicate and finicky plants. Turns out they're really, really not. Cook is worried the grape vines on the north side of the house might break the next-door neighbors' bedroom windows and strangle them to death.

**Vincent is a kid featured in one of the excellent, earnest DK books she owns - he lives in rural Rwanda, is an orphan, and is raising his brothers and sisters. Is it fair that Vincent has such a hard life and other people have such easy lives? Is your Not Fair problem as substantial as Vincent's? If it is, then it has passed the Vincent Test, and you're allowed to complain.

Sentimental Interlude

My friend is getting married this weekend. We won't be there when she gets married, so I'm not going to be able to stand up and give a toast, but I wish I was (though it's a barbecue-and-hammocks kind of wedding, so I'm not sure toasts are even an option). This friend was my first real friend, the first friend I chose, the first friend of my heart. I had friends before that (though not very many, as I have been socially awkward since my first breath), but they were mostly proximity-based - neighbors and family friends - or the sort of person who is kind to a socially-awkward classmate not so much because of any particular chemistry as because they are just kind people.*

This friend arrived in my life when I was miserable and mean and sad. She was smart and funny and weird and warm-hearted. She was generous and expressive and loving in a way that I was afraid to be myself, and she showed me that being open to happiness often requires making yourself vulnerable. She taught me that it was fine to be both cynical AND sentimental. She introduced me to the joys of crossword puzzles and trashy books. I think it's not too dramatic to say that her friendship changed me, and only for the better.

I wish for my daughters that they find friends like this, who open their hearts to joy. And for my friend, I wish joy.** And trashy books, and crosswords, and everything else that is good.

*And may I say how grateful I am to those people? Deanna whatever-your-name-was in fifth grade, I'm talking to you. Thank you.

**But this does not affect my opinion that Beaches is a terrible, terrible movie.

Today

Sunny. Summery. Strawberries producing like crazy.

Also, grapes!

If all the fruit growing in our garden actually ripens, we are going to be up to our knees in grapes and tomatoes. We're already fighting the good fight against the green beans.

And the BBE came for a visit. Dutch was very nurturing and took excellent care of her, and Skipper was very suspicious and jealous. The BBE was very interested in both of them.

What we eat for dinner:

Vegetables. Piles of them. Our CSA share has started yielding in earnest. Tonight? Green salad, potato salad, and coleslaw. Skipper ate the potato salad, which was carefully designed to have no green in it, and she triumphantly announced "I ate vegetables! I am BIG now!"

Dutch, on the other hand, is starting to claim tastes that at least seem like mature palate preferences.* She doesn't like mayonnaise. She likes mustard greens. She likes pickles. She doesn't much care for chocolate, though she'll eat it if it's the only sweet on offer (but she prefers dark over milk). She prefers almond butter to peanut butter. She's going to have to learn to cook pretty soon, I think.

Also, Skipper is starting yet another childcare arrangement in September, at a preschool so awesome that the cook keeps a blog documenting the gorgeous, healthy food she prepares for the precious little ones. I really hope we can keep her there for the next three years, since the poor kid has gone through an awful lot of childcare arrangements for somebody who would really prefer no change at all. And if they can't get her to eat vegetables, nobody can.

* By which I mean "preferences that don't seem to be based on a toddler-like insistence on non-green foods, a common behavior that is probably the result of natural selection of kids who don't eat random plants they find on the savannah, but is still incredibly frustrating in spite of being perfectly rational and normal"

Small steps, big checks

Owning a house is expensive and very tiring. But our plumber is really adorable, and Skipper loves him. She tried to hug him (he fended her off, as he was lightly coated in sludge). I think we'll keep him for ALL our plumbing needs!

A conversation with Skipper

Summer, with gritted teeth.

I feel bad about complaining about the weather, when some of you are miserably hot. But we really have scarcely had summer weather here at all. It's been the coldest, greyest, rainiest summer anybody I know can recall. We've had a handful of days hotter than 80 degrees.

I don't like hot weather, and 75 and sunny with a breeze is pretty much my idea of perfect. However, summer isn't really right without at least a few weeks of shorts-wearing, and it's making me feel really off.

Tuesday I decided that damnit, we're just going to PRETEND it's summery. I took Dutch to a rockclimbing wall that Parks and Rec is setting up for free at different parks all summer. It was cold and drizzling, but we biked there in our raincoats and long pants and met friends. We stopped at the library on the way home, and it started pouring rain as we biked home from there. Dutch went to her swim lesson that evening in more drizzle at the outdoor swimming pool. We may never get to put away our sweaters, but we're going to do summer stuff. I'm going to get out the inflatable pool tomorrow if the temperature passes 75 degrees, regardless of rain.

A really big whine.

I'm pretty sure I'm doing something wrong. I have so much to do, and I do it so incompletely and so poorly that I feel like a fraud as a grown-up. Seriously. I don't even DO that much, and I feel overwhelmed. Here's what I try to do:

1) Raise children without fucking them up too badly.

2) Feed the family reasonably healthily.

3) Maintain the household (and family) in a not-too-filthy state

4) Do an okay job at work.

5) Stay on top of our patched-together childcare system.

6) Not be a jerk.

7) Stay in touch with a few people outside my immediate family.

8) Maintain the house and yard in a not-too-shabby state.

9) Stay at least sort of connected with my husband.

My to-do list has stuff on it like "water plants" and "take shower" and "wash breakfast dishes" and "take out trash" and "decide whether or not to get a seismic retrofit so your house won't fall off the foundation if the Big Earthquake hits while you still own it" and it takes forever just to do that.* Not to mention the looming to-do item of GET A GODDAMNED JOB ALREADY. Plus I'm supposed to be taking care of myself (exercise! meditation! vacations!) and keeping my marriage zesty (dates! romantic notes! lacy underpants!) and building community (book clubs! neighborhood associations! potluck dinners!) and being politically active (letters to senators! protests! volunteering!) and homesteading (sewing! canning! other frugal wholesome arts!) and all kind of other stuff that would make me happier and better and whatever. I go back and forth between thinking many people feel this way, and then noticing that I know many people who get twice as much done as I do. (You KNOW those people. Some of you are those people. How do you do it, anyway? Is there a drug for this?)

So am I wildly incompetent? Is my laziness even more rampant than I thought? Did I miss some big secret about how to do this?** Is anybody else's adulthood as jury-rigged as mine? Or maybe I just spend too much time blogging.***

Anyway, I can live with it. I know that I could make more time by being more efficient and not wasting time on the internet. I just wish there was a little more real down time. Sometimes Dutch complains when I make her do onerous stuff like pick up her dirty clothes and put them in the laundry basket, rather than leave them on the floor. She says "I have to do ALL THE WORK!!!" and I have to take a deep breath so I don't whack her upside the head with her grimy socks.

*Painting one room of our house took us three weeks to complete. (In our defense, Cook is a perfectionist and insisted on multiple coats, and the previous owner was so sloppy about painting that there was quite a bit of remediation to do.)

**I'm looking for a really good tip here, like "Wait, didn't you get the manual?" or "You were supposed to buy a self-cleaning house!" or "Silly, you don't actually have to worry about retirement because civilization's going to collapse and all you'll need is a seismically-retrofitted basement full of food, attack dogs, and guns!"

***Yesterday I was emailing while Skipper wandered around the study, and after a while I looked over and found she'd gone to sleep on the floor, her butt up in the air and all her limbs neatly folded under her. I think having your kid fall asleep on the floor while you waste time on the internet probably qualifies as inattentive parenting.

One kid. Two parents. So much attention!

Dutch is gone on an overnight trip. We have only one kid! And you know what? Having only one kid is different than having two. We got to actually pay some attention to Skipper with nobody jumping in. (It turns out that Skipper on her own plays pretty much the same games as Skipper with Dutch - she's brainwashed.) It was nice. My attention feels much less stretched. I feel like I SAW her much more today, though she played by herself quite a bit. I learned things about her that I didn't know. It was nice.

We all miss Dutch (though a brief Skype chat revealed that she's having a really, really, really awesome weekend), and we look forward to getting her back. I think that we'll try to steal a little more one-kid-two-parents time for both kids this summer, though. It's pretty nice.

Today's quotes: Skipper defined "librarian" for me today as "the teacher who lives in the library." And after sitting quietly on the potty for a while, looking at her hind parts, she said "My butt has a crack in it!"

Angry.

Hey, do you want to read something that makes me absolutely furious? Here it is.

In related news, John Mica makes me absolutely furious.

It's really summer, for real, this time.

Life is Good.

Grilled cheese sandwiches are lovely. They're almost as lovely as a nap. If only one could nap AND have a grilled cheese sandwich at the same time.

* You may notice that Dutch drew a Harry-Potter-esque mark on her forehead. She may have used a Sharpie.

We had a wonderful Fourth of July weekend. We went to Bend, as is now traditional, and the weather was gorgeous, the company excellent, and the food delicious.

The kids loved it. They loved being outside, they loved all the time with their beloved relatives, they loved doing stuff outside our usual lives. Skipper was assigned chores that she found extremely interesting.

Dutch participated again in the peculiar Pet Parade. Skipper wasn't very enthusiastic (and this picture suggests that Cook at least momentarily shared her feelings).

The Best Baby Ever apparently was also a little skeptical.

After the parade, Dutch got a popsicle (handed out to all the nine million kids who participated), and Skipper was very jealous. Dutch was completely exhausted, and when her popsicle fell apart a few minutes after this photo was taken, she burst into sobs and wails.

We also went rafting, swimming, and museuming, and Dutch enjoyed everything enormously in spite of her sleep deficit. The rest of us did, too, but only Dutch was overwhelmed with delight by standing in a cabin listening to "Mrs. Miller" explain to her about how underclothes worked in 1904. Dutch (who dressed up in her most old-fashioned clothes for the museum visit) would now like to buy some petticoats and corsets.

It was a lovely break. We returned (after a drive that was notably better than our two previous end-of-Fourth-of-July drives home with the kids, but still approached the world record for the amount of whining perpetrated in one four-hour period) to find our garden bursting with bounty (and aphids, damnit!), and our bedroom mysteriously STILL not painted. What's up with that?