Hickory Smoke

We're looking at - hoping to? - thinking about? - planning to? - remodeling our kitchen. Miss Mouse has picked out her favorite countertop swatch; it isn't the favorite of the adults, but it is called "hickory smoke".  Just keep this in mind while reading about our day.

The morning began with me laying Manly Mouse back in his crib after apparently snuggling him. I don't remember when he came in for a snuggle; normally I have a really strange ability to glance at the clock and remember exact times (i.e., "Manly was up last night at 3:14 and 5:23"). My sister says it's weird, but it's how my brain works. Well, the clock is currently plugged into the outlet attached to the light switch, so we're footloose and fancy free at 3:14 a.m. and have no idea what time it is. It must be having this fourth baby has made me loosen up because I would NEVER have been okay with a bedroom where I didn't have immediate access to a clock before we had Manly. To be honest, I still prefer to have the clock available, and I have my phone by the bed to check in case Sunny wakes up at a ridiculous hour. But having to look on my phone for a clock is a really huge step for me.  Anyway, I put Manly back in his crib, and somehow made it out to the living room to snuggle Sunny in the recliner. The ticking, analog clock in the living room told me it was close to 7, but my eyes couldn't focus. So, I just kept leaning over on Sunny and cuddling up to her, essentially using her as a pillow. As I drifted in and out of wakefulness, I could hear her giggling at me and telling me I was making her "too warm, Mommy!".  Mike was on the couch zonked out after another night of Mighty's nightmares, and I think Sunny was quite enjoying being the only conscious person in the room!

Somehow we got Miss Mouse off to dance camp on time, though I will admit it was the second day in a row that I drove her there in my pajamas.

We got out for our morning walk after dance, before the day heated up too high, and had a lovely time. There might not be much more pleasant than a walk with my kiddos down shady streets on a summer morning with a light, cool breeze blowing.

For perhaps the first time in 14 weeks, the boys napped at the same time this afternoon, and I was not needed to hold either one of them! I certainly don't mind rocking and snuggling, but it did feel good to get some organizing done in the basement with the girls while the boys napped. I'm trying to turn the spare room into a school room, and, though we have a long ways to go, we got an incredible start today.

Our evening was possibly the most interesting part of our day. We struck out on collecting milkweed for our butterfly jar, but we have high hopes that Mike can score us some tomorrow. There's a ton of it in the ditches north of town....but apparently 4:30 p.m. is NOT the time to go if you want to park alongside the road and inconspicuously pick ditch weeds. Note to self for future reference!

However, we did score ourselves the last parking spot anywhere near the art gallery downtown and had an incredible, amazing, super-fun time at the Community Art Evening (I can't remember the official title) tonight! It was spectacular. Really.  Spectacular. We started off in one of the galleries where the girls helped hand-weave on a giant loom. The artist makes rug-like structures that are going to be used for something....not sure what, but they'd sure make great rugs. Well, if you want your guests to just stand in one place and squish their toes into your rug their whole visit. They're that soft and comfy. There were multiple woven pieces on the floor for display. While the girls were weaving with the artist - and they did this for a loooooong time since we were on the early side for the program which meant they didn't have to share this station with any other participants for quite some time - Mighty and I explored the other displays. He initially just wanted to touch the woven pieces, but they were so soft, he suddenly flopped himself down on one. When the artist heard my admonition to him that he needed to get up, she told him he could stay because "that's what they're for; they're supposed to be touched". He was thrilled and flopped backwards, laying down on one and telling her "bed! bed!". It was a pretty impressive compliment from a one-year-old, I think.

Another station he really liked was a map of the city. It was drawn partly on the floor and partly on the wall, and you were supposed to put a sticker on it for something special in town. I wanted to put one on the church's location for "a place where I feel spiritually connected", but with Mighty joyfully jumping all over the map, I wasn't able to concentrate closely enough to find the exact location. I thought it might be strange to put it a street or so off and end up saying I felt "spiritually connected" at the Loaf-n-Jug or something. So, we just jumped on the map and didn't add a sticker. So cool, though, that it was FOR jumping on and pointing to and touching. There aren't many galleries where one can take one's one-year-old and just let him go to town like that!!  I think his favorite station was the marimbas made out of gourds. There were two mallets to hit them with, and he absolutely adored it. He sat in his stroller and made music, music, music!

By that time, Manly was awake from his catnap and wondering what the whole stalling thing was about. He prefers to move in the stroller!  The girls were just finishing up making wire-art where they got to cut as much wire as they wanted from a giant roll and then turn it into a sculpture. Miss Mouse made a really large heart with circles hanging on it. It was cute and made me so proud of my little "I-must-have-rules-to-be-creative" child, because she came up with it without any ideas from anyone else or any instructions. Sunny, who I thought would love the station, got frustrated and decided to turn her butterfly into a caterpillar. She would have needed more time than Manly could have given her for that station, and I think she knew it.

So, after spending 35 minutes in the gallery, we headed out to the parking lot where there was a band warming up, a pick-a-cast-off-plate-and-paint-it art project, and an ice cream bicycle. Yes, I just wrote "ice cream bicycle". The sun had sunk below the buildings downtown by this point; the wind was just strong enough to keep any bugs away; and there was enough of a crowd to ensure the museum keeps offering these programs, but not enough that anyone was fighting over cast-off plates or paint for their palettes at all. It was gorgeous. Someday soon I'm going to start carrying my camera again. Maybe I couldn't have captured it well enough anyway. Manly was still awake and beginning to be unhappy, but when the music started, he sort of forgot that he was supposed to be fussy and teething. That gave the girls time to not feel rushed on their projects; Miss Mouse painted a plate, just the way I would have, with a few designs in an orderly fashion all around the rim. Sunny started with splotches of color all over the inside of her bowl.....then before I knew what happened, the splotches had merged together and swirled around and mixed together. The rim on the outside is sort of bleeding green, but the inside is completely covered in a mixture of colors. On first glance it might look random and impatiently messy, but it took each girl about the same amount of time to paint. I love seeing how their different personalities come out in their differently creative styles!

Mighty, for his part, also got a plate. He painted his diligently with orange paint, and it looks actually really "modern" and artsy. Or it looks like a one-year-old did it. I guess it depends on your mindset at the moment, but I was incredibly proud of my little guy who hasn't slept a solid night since Saturday and was getting ravenously hungry. He did a great job being patient and even participating.

Before we left, I just HAD to go over and look at the flavors of the ice cream. I had no intention of buying any because it was nearly six o'clock, but I'd never seen an ice cream bicycle. Wow. I'd also never seen flavors like: brown sugar bacon, white chocolate lemon, dark chocolate lavendar, salted caramel (okay, I've had that at Cherry Berry), pistachio (probably heard of that one before, too), rhubarb (yep, that's familiar), hickory smoked vanilla. So, not only were the flavors bizarre, but they were all push-ups! Do I live under a rock that I haven't been exposed to this stuff before? Quite possible. So, please stop laughing at me if the rest of the world has already experienced and become immune to a brown sugar bacon ice cream push-up. But since I'm not, I couldn't resist. The ice cream man assured me that I had 20-30 minutes before they turned to soup, so with the girls assent to help us get the car loaded ASAP, we bought four push-ups for dessert. Mike got brown sugar bacon (the look on his face when I presented it to him at home was PRICELESS....I wished my brother-in-law was in town because I think he'd have given me the same look); Sunny chose rhubarb, which she ended up not liking and "donating" to her Dad; I chose dark chocolate lavender (which I'll be eating one spoonful at a time so as to hopefully not upset Manly's tummy!); and Miss Mouse chose - gleefully - hickory smoke vanilla. I could not figure out why she looked like a canary-eating cat when she chose her flavor. Then she told me "Well, I figured since I've chosen Hickory Smoke as the countertop I love the most, and I won't be getting THAT, then I might as well get hickory smoke ice cream!!". Oh, sweet girl. And she loved it. LOVED it. I sampled a taste, as in half a spoonful, and nearly vomited. It tastes like sausage ice cream. She LOVED every bite.

Good thing. She's right that she won't be getting hickory smoke countertops. We're not sure if or when I'm going to get my "platinum" or "bella capri" countertops, either......but maybe I can find some ice cream with those names......hm!