Last Week's Highs and Lows

Jemma and I were home one afternoon last week. I was cleaning bathrooms and she said, "Mom, I want to clean the kitchen floor."

"Great!" I said. "Do you want to use the Swiffer?"
"No, I want to be like Cinderella. With a rag and soapy water."

Done.

She is my little buddy, and I am going to miss having her around so much next year. I mean, who will put raspberries on each finger and eat them off one by one at lunch?

We all went hiking on Sunday. It's what we tend to do on weekends when we don't have a jillion other plans, and these hikes often end up being the high points of our week.

Kites to fly, trees to climb, a pound of sand in each shoe, and time to stop in Holland for ice cream and to play the piano at the retirement home where Jason used to work long ago.

It's not all hiking and happiness around here, though. Last week we tried to take the girls out for dinner one night to escape the dust/noise/chaos/electrical shutoff caused by our construction, and the meltdowns that occurred in the backseat of the car while we tried to come to agreement on a restaurant were epic. EPIC. So epic, in fact, that after five minutes of all the Love & Logic scripts and various parenting techniques I know, I gave up and started videotaping the meltdowns, which amused Jason but further enraged the girls. I have tried in vain to upload it here, but you will have to trust me: there was hysterical crying, hysterical screaming, and hysterical kicking-of-seats. We did not go out for dinner. We drove back home, went back inside our Godforsaken construction zone, got out the jar of peanut butter and the bread and a hunk of cheese, and said, "There."

We have talked about it since, agree that it was ridiculous, and have decided to move on.