Already Sick of School

At the tender age of six, Carter is already sick of school. Well, he says he's "tired of going to school." And I believe him. Going to school all day, every day, for five days in a row has got to be exhausting after a year of half days in kindergarten and a summer of doing absolutely nothing.
There have been a couple of incidents, most notably during his first full week of school when I had to carry him out to the car. I did get to say: "I've carried your brother into that school, and I'll carry you too if I have to!" which for some reason is fun to say, but less fun to do. Fortunately he did walk from the car to the school after I pointed out the number of witnesses getting off the line up of buses outside the building. Unfortunately, he stalled at the office and wouldn't go any further. Thank goodness for teachers who don't want you to stick around.
Now he tries the sickness tactic. There have been a few unsuccessful attempts but the best came yesterday when he was lying in bed not wanting to get up and I was trying to coax him awake.
"But I have a fever," he tells me.
I feel his forehead. Perfectly normal.
"No you don't," I reply.
"It hasn't reached my head yet."
He has a great mind. I hope he puts it to good use some day.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

 Excellent book I read recently: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. It's fresh, funny, and I love Flavia deLuce. She's an eleven year old chemistry expert with her own lab in her house and she can solve murders to boot. It's the best thing I've read in awhile, and there's already a sequel, The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag. Read it.

Got Milk?

You may think that this Got Milk? logo actually says Got Milk? You are wrong.
Claire has a new, ongoing, not so endearing habit of wanting to cling to me like some kind of baby monkey. In order to leave the house I have to go through a lengthy routine of good-byes and hugs and kisses. I assure her that there are people in the house who are fully qualified to take care of her in my absence and that I will, in fact, return.
At friends' houses she could be playing happily one moment, and then crying bitterly the next, all because she suddenly realized that she missed me (sorry Julie).
Sunbeams, which still isn't a smooth transition, is getting worse. In fact, she's probably frightening the other children. (My personal favorite is "Protect me from Primary!" Sorry Primary workers.)
So the other day she sees the signs: closets being opened, shoes removed and put on feet, jingling car keys, etc. She starts in on her usual one-girl protest movement and suddenly pauses to run to her backpack. She comes back with a Got Milk? sticker she got at pre-school, sticks it on my stomach and informs me (with a jab to the stomach to emphasize each word): "This says 'Don't Go Anywhere!'"
This is repeated several times before I manage to get out the door, sharp jabs accompanying each reiteration of her unique interpretation of her sticker.
Why oh why can't she find it impossible to live without someone who's not me?

Getting Her Cry Back

Last Friday morning Claire woke up on the wrong side of the bed - she was whiny, she was demanding, she was pitiful. She insisted on having something one way, and as soon as I leapt to obey her commands she then wanted the opposite of whatever she'd originally requested (requested being a euphemism here).
Well, she worked herself up into a fine lather. I couldn't even understand what she was saying half the time, but I could make out the word "Tissue! Tissue!"
Then we had the following conversation (ditto the euphemism comment):
Me: Do you want me to get you a tissue?
Claire: Crying noises
Me: Here you go...
Claire: Screaming noises, rejects tissue
Me: Do you want to get it yourself?
Claire: Crying noises
...and so on, and so on.
I then spent a few minutes trying to get a few words in between the louder spurts of crying, explaining that I can't understand her when she's crying, she'll have to calm down so I'll know what she wants. Eventually this works and she says that she wants to get the tissue herself. Why did she not just get the tissue then? I'll never know.
So I say (imagine me trying to hang onto my upbeat, soothing tone):
"Okay! You can get the tissue!"
Claire pulls a tissue out of the box and sadly says:
"But I need to get my cry back!"

Lemon Buns

I'm pretty much in love with King Arthur Flour. Not the flour itself, although it is good, but the website. I also drool over the catalog that I get in the mail. And the emails. Every now and then I just go through the recipes and print a few out, then try them over the next couple of weeks.
Just before Valentine's Day I got an email with a picture of Lemon Love Buns, which are just Lemon Buns made into heart shapes for Valentine's Day. I fortuitously had the lemon oil on hand since I'd planned to try a brioche recipe (still haven't), but you can use lemon zest as well.

The website often has step-by-step pictures of the mixing/shaping/baking process, which come in handy. These were so yummy and looked so good that I had to post it. (These are my actual handiwork, not a picture stolen from the website!)

In Which We Drive to Idaho and Look for a Bathroom

Anyone who knows me can tell you that I don't really like to put myself out there. For example, I wouldn't want to knock on a stranger's door and ask to use their bathroom. But somehow I found myself doing just that during the drive from Salt Lake to Rexburg.
Now, I have driven this road before, but it was many years ago and other, more capable people were actually in charge of things like driving and stopping for potty breaks. To make a long story short, we got caught in no man's land without a bathroom in sight.

I also learned that if there is no sign indicating the presence of a bathroom at an exit, then there really is no bathroom at the exit. We decided to get off anyway, thinking surely there must be a gas station somewhere, right? Someone lives here, somewhere, and those people need gasoline. No. No sign, no gas station. After almost ten miles of bumpy road we were beyond desperate. You're probably thinking 'What kind of idiot drives ten miles down a bumpy, virtually unpopulated road thinking that a bathroom will appear out of thin air?' That idiot would be me.
Thankfully, someone was home at the second house we tried, and was kind enough to let two idiotic tourists use her bathroom. She even apologized that it wasn't tidier. It could have been the most disgusting bathroom on the face of the planet, and I would have been happy to use it.

Baby Kate

I think Claire has the makings of a good babysitter. She definitely puts a lot of effort into it, but she does seem to think that a real baby is something like a baby doll, there to dress up however she'd like. When I told her that we needed to find baby toys, she came back with all of the baby things from the doll house: the high chair, cradle, car seat, and actual babies. I suppose I did say baby toys.