The weekend cured one of us of last week's virus and sent another of us back to muscle relaxers--it must have been good!
Saturday we stayed at home, not quite wanting to risk taking Sis out and about, even to a friend's birthday party that afternoon. She was still tired and prone to crashing at odd times; a worst, I worried about her catching something else. So we made the most of it by playing in the yard. Mama went to work on a big grilled lunch, taking advantage of the nice weather. There were vegetables, chicken, roasted garlic for bread, pizza, baked beans, shrimp, cabbage (hey, don't laugh, it was sweet and tasty), even peaches. She really enjoys the creativity of cooking outside, I think.
Meanwhile, the kids and I occupied ourselves by building faerie houses under our pine tree. There were lots of small branches with leaves on the ground, casualties from a wind the night before, that made for perfect camouflage* to hide our little houses. We got fancy with miniature* furniture and gardens*, even food in little shell bowls. We hadn't built faerie houses in a long while and it was fun . . . the kids are much better at creating stable structures, have finer motor skills to add little details.
Then we decided to go float faerie boats down our stream, using sticks and big wax leaves to build the vessels. Sis and Bud climbed up and down the rocks, helping each other to navigate a path across the water. "I need teamwork!" Bud would shout if Sis got too far ahead and he wasn't sure how to follow. She would come back and help. "Twins always stick together," he said. And they did, holding hands, encouraging one another, pointing out wobbly footholds. They concentrated* on the best place to launch their boats for maximum potential, just pleased if the boats didn't sink. Though having fun, they worked up enough of an appetite not to complain when lunch was ready.
After lunch, we played indoors. Mama had designed "Word on the Street" notebooks for the kids, with a page for each Sesame Street vocabulary--they drew pictures and cut out magazines for all the words we've seen on tv (marked here with an asterisk!). The kids also played with the new puppet theater I found at a tag sale for just $5, complete with chalkboard signage and red and white-striped curtains. Sis performed her "Barn Show" in three parts, first with a visit to the CSA garden, second with a meal in the kitchen with all the vegetables, third a family trip to the ice cream parlor, all using her birthday Playmobil sets. Bud used his knights and dragons to put on a war; later he showed his "Green-Headed Schwaubble Worm" Drag picking flowers for his grandmother, Tango the penguin (not a Schwaubble!). And they were in bed by 7 pm!!
The next day, Sunday, we figured Sis was well and truly better, that we could do something bigger, take advantage of the nice weather and one of our last unscheduled weekends before school. So we went to Mystic Seaport. We realized we hadn't been in two years, since the Morgan was put in dry dock for restoration. But Sis remembered it all: the wooden boat toy structures, the children's museum, even that the whaling ship was the Morgan. The girl has a memory like a steel trap.
And it was as much fun as we all remembered, perhaps even more because they've added a few things. The kids loved the new wooden tugboat to climb on and the new Map Spot children's exploration area. There, Bud became obsessed with grids and coordinates, while Sis drew her own maps. They both liked building bridges and canals and using the cranes and driving the simulated car. Then we made wooden boats, painted scenes of the seaport on canvas, and rode in the horse-drawn carriage. I enjoyed looking at the kitchen and parlor gardens of one of the old houses, getting some new ideas for trellises for next year's beans. Mama also created a piece of scrimshaw (on polymer, of course, not actual whalebone) with a knot design; I think she's found a hobby that combines her love of drawing with her love of woodworking. If she can find the right polymer . . .
On the way home, after almost 8 hours walking around the seaport (which is probably why my back is bothering me this week, my PT says), we stopped for pizza at the restaurant with the trains. Mama and I really liked the mushroom pesto pizza and Bud continued his preference for lasagna. Sis preferred the Kentucky Derby Pie, which is like a big, warm chocolate-chip cookie. They napped on the way home, the icing on the cake of a good weekend.
*This weekend was brought to you by Sesame Street's "Word on the Street!"
