Proud mama moment

So, we got the results of a reading readiness test that the school district gives kindergarteners at the beginning and end of kindergarten. The test assesses things like whether the kids can recognize certain letter sounds, read certain words, recognize rhymes, sounds, know the alphabet, simple spelling, etc.

The benchmark score -- i.e., the expectation for kindergarten -- is a score of 28. The highest possible score is 102.

Rachel scored a 95.

This explains an exchange that happened at recess last week. Rachel noticed, in her words, that one of the 2nd grade girls was "excluding" another little girl. "You're being disrespectful," she scolded the 2nd grader.

"What's 'disrespectful' mean?" the girl asked.

See my point?

A troubling trend

Rachel is not the perfect child; she can get whiny and mopey when she doesn't get her way. Sometimes she even has a mild temper tantrum when one of her friends isn't home to play, or we won't let her do something she'd like to do.

Drew and I rarely yell at her and never spank her; we just speak sternly to her and tell her to knock it off. Or, we'll let her know that we're disappointed in her behavior. Her reaction is very interesting (and heartbreaking): usually she'll hug me fiercely and say, "I want MOMMY," and start to cry, and then she'll offer to do something dramatic, the worst thing she can think of to punish herself. Usually that involves throwing her favorite stuffed animals or her bathrobe in the garbage. Once in Portland she said she tried to hit and pinch herself as punishment (this was when Drew was in D.C. and I was trying to close out our life in Oregon and I flew off the handle at some tiny thing she did. I was so upset that she was trying to hurt herself that I took her into my lap, sobbed, and told her to promise me that she'd never, ever hurt herself again. She hasn't done that since).

Anyway, tonight she did something similar. She was upset at the end of "Angelina Ballerina" that there wasn't enough music on the movie for her and Drew to dance to (they usually dance at the end of all the episodes before she goes up to bed) and so she got whiny and said, "it's not FAIR!" Drew had to remind her that she'd had a very nice day and gotten her way on a lot of things, and that it didn't make sense for her to focus on the one thing she didn't get.

When it was time for her to say goodnight to me after her bath, she got all weepy, and said "I want MOMMY."

"What's the matter?" I asked her.

"I want MOMMY!" she insisted.

I hoisted her onto the counter and said gently, "are you upset at yourself that you made such a fuss after the movie?"

"YES!" she said, bursting into tears. "I told Daddy that we should stop celebrating my BIRTHDAY!"

I told her gently that I understood that she was upset she had acted that way and that she wanted to punish herself, but told her that instead of doing that, she should focus on how not to exhibit that behavior in the first place. "Can you try to remember that next time?" I asked her.

"Yess," she said. "I hope I don't cry on the way to school. I don't like crying in public. Everyone looks at you and it's embarrassing."

I told her a week or so ago, when she insisted on throwing her stuffed animals into the garbage to punish herself, that she shouldn't do that. I took her into my lap, looked into her eyes, and said, "Rachel, the world will punish you enough. Don't punish yourself, OK?" Evidently that didn't take.

Hopefully, our discussion tonight will.

Rachel the chef

Looks like I'm not the only chef in the family. Rachel, who has taken a cooking class this past semester after school, insisted on making us colored waffles this morning. Drew helped her with the dye, and so she and I had pink waffles and he had blue. (The actual waffles she had learned to make in cooking class were filled with whipped cream, but we started small this morning).

Oh, and last weekend she made us cinnamon tortillas, a dish she had watched the cook at her preschool make. They were excellent.

Of course, Drew helps her put together the dishes, but she is also a big help to me when I make things for dinner parties and special events. Yesterday she cracked the eggs for the chocolate silk pie without making a mess, and she knows how to punch down the dough (and knead it, too) for challah. We are just at the point when I can give her a couple of tasks and then do other parts of the meal, confident that she'll follow my directions.

One of my goals is for her to cook us one meal a week by the time she's 9. We figure that meal will be pretty simple: tacos, maybe, or spaghetti with meat sauce, but at least she'll be confident enough in the kitchen to have picked up the basic life skill of cooking for herself (and others). We'll also round out her education by taking her to the grocery store and having her comparison shop for ingredients and work within a budget. Maybe we're pushing her to be grown-up too soon, but I love the idea of her learning how to be on her own years before she has to do so.

Why we are so lucky to live here

This morning we went to a bowling alley for a get-together with a bunch of folks from all the kindergarten classes at McKinley (there are four). I almost didn't go; I was tired, I knew we had a full day of clothes shopping ahead (in anticipation of the day I get a permanent job, I need to wear clothes that are more suited for D.C. and less fleece and jeans, which I was able to get away with in my old job) and I wasn't feeling very social. But, I went anyway. And, boy, was it worth it. Rachel got to BOWL (and she did pretty well!); Drew and I chatted up a bunch of parents and had a long conversation with the parents of one of Rachel's friends, Simone, who apparently talks about Rachel all the time and refers to her as "one of my best buddies." Simone's dad is a public policy lawyer for Bank of America and his wife is a professor in the communications department at American University (and knows a former colleague of mine from the Oregonian who teaches there). She teaches about social media and is very interested in the work Drew does. I told him on the way back that he should really offer to teach a class there about working with data as a journalist. They would totally eat that up.

Rachel has been wanting to play with Ivy for the last day or so, and we were all set to go shopping at an outlet mall about an hour away, when Ivy's mom called and asked if Rachel wanted to come over. We ended up taking her over there and Jenny, Ivy's mom, graciously offered to let her stay most of the afternoon while Drew and I raced out to Potomac Mills. It helped that Billy, Jenny's husband, said he loves that mall and has gotten great bargains on clothes, and after we repeatedly asked Jenny if she was SURE she was OK with Rachel being there the whole day, we left. At the mall we bought cookies for all the kids as a thank-you, and then Drew bought jeans and I bought a bunch of things that will serve me well when I fully rejoin the working world. Before we knew it was 6, the mall was closing and we raced back to retrieve Rachel. Jenny had some work to do (she's a freelance technical writer) and so she was happy that Rachel kept Ivy occupied (Ivy's brother Liam was at a Scouting meeting). Ivy invited herself over for breakfast on Sunday, and Liam chimed in that he wanted to come, too, so...we'll have waffles and cinnamon tortillas (which Rachel will make) and bacon and orange juice, and I will probably make homemade hot chocolate. Maybe if it's really cold, Drew can build a fire....

It was early enough when we got back so we could have family movie night, so Drew got pizza and we settled in to watch a couple of episodes of "Angelina Ballerina," a British cartoon series about a mouse named Angelina who loves to dance. Then Drew took Rachel up for a bath, she said a teary good night to me (more on that later), Drew went out to grocery shop and I am about to put away my new clothes and go to bed. We are so fortunate to have neighbors who will volunteer to watch Rachel when we really need to go somewhere to get stuff done. And it's astonishing that it has happened so fast in a place where we've only been living since August.

Rachel wins over our dinner guests

We had a lovely dinner tonight for two friends of ours, Jeff and Crystal, who are expecting a baby girl in February. Jeff used to work with me at the Oregonian and we reconnected when I moved out here. They had us over for dinner in September and I've been wanting to have them back ever since.

So, tonight was the night. I spent much of the day cleaning the house (also in anticipation of Mom and Dad joining us for Thanksgiving...yay!) and preparing the dinner: roast chicken and potatoes, salad, chocolate silk pie with homemade whipped cream. We got just about everything done that I wanted before they arrived, and Drew even lit a fire -- the first one in our new house! -- to ensure that the fireplace does, indeed, work. We can't wait until Thanksgiving, when it will be COLD and we'll just keep the fire going for most of the day!

Rachel was especially sweet today; she cheerfully helped me with the pie crust (we're getting to the point where I can just give her tasks to do in the preparation of a meal and I know they'll get done), and then she did her homework. When I thanked her for doing her homework, she said cheerfully, "You're welcome! It's MY responsibility." Of course, I smiled hugely at that. Then Drew went out Hanukkah shopping -- Rachel is going to be very happy with her gifts -- and I continued cleaning and prepping while Rachel crashed out on the couch. (Friends of mine with kids in kindergarten warned me that kids are so exhausted at the end of the day because their brains are absorbing so much, that they end up sleeping really soundly). I covered her body with a blanket and just kept cleaning and cooking around her.

Jeff and Crystal came at 6:30 and at first Rachel moped around because she had thought that her friend Ivy would get back in time from running errands for them to have a playdate, but it was not to be. But she was cheerful by dinnertime, and after chatting with our guests she got down on the floor and busied herself with coloring. Turns out she was making a picture for Jeff and Crystal, which turned out to be a depiction of them with a turkey (gobble, gobble! she wrote helpfully) and I could tell they were really touched. Crystal immediately said she'd put it on their refrigerator, and I told Rachel later how proud I was that she was so well-behaved and made our guests feel so welcome. I can tell she's going to be a great hostess someday.

A restful Shabbat

So, yesterday we were invited to Shabbat lunch by a friend of mine, Andy Boltax, whom I haven't seen for, oh, 25 years or so. He and I worked on the Daily Northwestern together and he was always extremely nice to me; maybe because we're from the same part of the country (he was raised in Connecticut) and he was very disappointed when I decided not to seek the editor-in-chief's position (I was an African Studies minor and I needed to improve my overall GPA, plus I thought the position of off-campus bureau chief was better suited for me).

Andy reached out to be via Facebook. It turns out he has been living in the area since around 1997. He was raised a largely secular Jew and now has become quite religious and keeps strictly kosher. So, no way I could bring over a homemade babka. (sigh). He and his wife are both journalists -- she works on the website of AARP magazine and he owns his own company that advises news organizations on content management -- and they both work. They have four daughters, aged 17 to 10, but only Chana joined us. She's 13 and Rachel immediately took to her and her friend, Sheer, who joined us later in the meal.

It was one of the best kosher meals I have EVER had in my life -- even the cholent, which I have terrible memories of from the Chabad House in Portland -- and I helped myself to just about everything. Even Drew and Rachel found things to eat, although Rachel's portion was mostly the homemade challah, and we had a great time sitting around and catching up on two decades' worth of news. Andy read a d'var Torah portion about the futility of worrying, which was especially timely for me, and we ended up staying for 4 1/2 hours, even though Andy had to leave toward the end for closing prayers. We all agreed we'd had a great time and we had to do it again. I pledged to smoke a brisket for them at their house, as long as they provided the kosher smoker and I supplied the ingredients.

Then we went home and had a decidedly non-kosher evening of pepperoni pizza and cupcakes from our favorite bakery in Shirlington. We watched an Angelina Ballernia series of episodes with Rachel and then Drew and I watched a creepy but great movie called "Side Effects." Awesome day.

cold! cold! cold!

Yes, winter has definitely arrived here in D.C. It was 40 degrees this morning when Drew and I walked to the EFC Metro station, me in a miniskirt with tights, a jacket, a hat and gloves and I was STILL cold. I had two meetings downtown, though, that required formal dress so there was nothing much I could do. Spent part of the day at the National Portrait Gallery (ahhh....) and had a late lunch after my second meeting, then took the Metro home in barely enough time to change into casual clothes and pick Rachel up from kindergarten.

She threw a fit when the 2nd of her two friends on the block couldn't get together tonight (Lina's nanny was just about feed the kids, and said to come back at 7, and Rachel stamped her foot and said "I want to play NOW!" and I was so appalled that I said our goodbyes quickly and left). I was so exasperated when we got home that I told Rachel we wouldn't be going over there, even though I really wanted to talk to Lina's mom, Carol, and Rachel cried and pinky promised not to throw a fit again. Carol called after the kids had eaten and told us we could come over, but I explained the situation and said Rachel has to learn not to throw a temper tantrum when she doesn't get her way.

Of course, Rachel being Rachel, she then went sobbing up to her room and brought down two of her jewelry boxes with jewelry in them, trying to give them to me as a way of apologizing. I took her into my lap and we cuddled while I told her she really can't behave that way, and pretty soon she perked up and washed her hands, set the table, wrote in her journal and then we did some scrapbooking (I  bought her a Hello Kitty scrapbook when we went to Target yesterday) before Drew came home. We had Scotch broth, challah and salad for dinner as soon as he walked in the door.

I'm raising her well....

On Monday, Veteran's Day, Rachel and I went shopping for clothes. We stopped at the Westover Market, a neat little grocery store in the "town center" near our house, and I got her a snack and me some brisket sliders (the market has a beer garden out back, so they're a restaurant, too, with surprisingly good food).

"Do you want to try some brisket?" I asked.

"No thanks," Rachel replied. "The only brisket I want to try is MOMMY'S."

we're changing the blog name

to DeSilversEast. Please make a note of it and keep reading!

It's lonely around here

Anne and David left yesterday (sniff). We had a great time with them right up until the end. On Sunday, after a leisurely breakfast, we hung around the house, me cleaning up and Drew raking the dead leaves off our lawn (my, there were a lot of them), running to the farmers market and then it was my turn to run to the hardware store for more paper bags to stuff the leaves into (we bag the leaves out back and sweep the ones out front into the street). At first we were going to go to Mt. Vernon and then say goodbye as Anne and David headed to the airport, but then David, Drew, Rachel and I decided to take a walk while Anne did some work outside on her computer in the sun.

Rachel and I hopped on our bikes and rode to the playground right near our house; when we arrived, David and I sat on a park bench and talked while Drew and Rachel played on the play structure and with the toys left on the playground. Then Anne called David and said she needed to get into the house; Drew walked back and returned on HIS bike. When it started getting really windy, we all went home, Anne and David packed up their stuff and left. I persuaded Anne to leave some of her things here for when they come for a return visit, probably the last week in March/first week in April.

The rest of the day was quiet: Drew and Rachel went grocery shopping and I took a nap and tidied up the house. We grilled mustard chicken out back -- it's great to be able to grill so late in the season without worrying about the rain! -- and then we went to bed late. But today was Veterans Day, and Rachel was off school, so we figured she and I would sleep late when Drew went to work.

This morning I worked on a friend-of-the-court brief that a law professor at Willamette asked me to edit; she's submitting it to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday and will be in town for the oral arguments in January (and probably will be staying with us). My neighbor the FBI agent has already asked me if she should get me tickets to watch the proceedings (!) and I told her I'd get back to her on that.

Then, I took Rachel clothes shopping for serious winter gear -- this isn't PDX anymore and she needs a heavy coat, pants, stockings, etc. We struck out on pants; she is slim-hipped with a small rear end, just like me, and so all the pants that fit her legs are way too big in the waist so Drew and I have given up and she'll just wear leggings and dresses with stockings. I did manage to find a great coat at REI that should work in cold/snow/rain, plus a wonderful hat that actually fits her. Also bought her long-sleeved t-shirts, more socks, black patent leather shoes (for dressy occasions like the ballet and Thanksgiving), and a wonderful holiday dress and sweater that she looks just beautiful wearing. Since we really didn't have to be anywhere at any special time, we had a great day; I was relaxed, so was Rachel, and we finished up our time together at home, snuggling on the couch together and listening to a Laura Ingalls Wilder CD (need to get more of them). We met Drew at the train station and had dinner at our favorite Lebanese restaurant in town, then came home and gave Rachel a bath and put her to bed.

Altogether, a really nice last couple of days!

NEWS FLASH!!!

RACHEL LOST HER FIRST TOOTH! AT GREAT FALLS NATIONAL PARK! She was eating an orange when the tooth that had been irritatingly wiggly for about a week (and driving us all crazy by extension), fell out! It's in the lower right part of her mouth (left if you're looking at her face) and..just..wow!

Sniff. Even though the tooth is under her pillow (actually, Drew replaced it with a Susan B. Anthony dollar while she was saying goodnight to us) she is growing up! Ah, I will miss my little girl....

A perfect fall day

It's funny how some things stay with you from childhood, even when you become an adult. When Daniella and I were kids, Mom and Dad used to take us to a place they called the "Private Park." It was private because you needed a key to unlock the big gate at the entrance, which was chained up except for members who must have paid an annual fee every year to join. We went to the park in all seasons -- winter, fall, spring and summer -- and it was entirely nature; no play structures or carousels or another distractions. Just trees and creeks and wooden bridges over the creeks. There was a network of trails that seemed to go on forever, but I'm sure the park isn't as big in reality as I though it was in my imagination. We'd go there a lot, sometimes on Yom Kippur, or around Thanksgiving. I saw my first frogs' eggs there; I got stung multiple times on my leg by a bee there; it was the place where I really learned to look inside logs and at leaves. Daniella and I ran races and held hands while we walked through the woods. It was a really special place and I've never found anywhere like it.

Until today.


This morning we decided (well, actually, we decided to this a few days ago) that because it was such a beautiful, sunny (if a little brisk outside) day, we were going to take a hike somewhere. We decided to go to Great Falls Park, run by the National Park Service. A friend of mine from high school, Ed Stephenson, had told me about it just before he moved away from here a few months ago. It's in McLean, about a 40-minute drive from our house, and after a big breakfast of bacon and pumpkin and cinnamon bread from Great Harvest, we set off. We got there around 1:30, clambered out of the car and began walking along the Potomac. The park runs along the river and there are three spectacular overlooks where you can see a magnificent set of waterfalls. At first we walked along the part of the trail that led to a dam where the water flowed uniformly over; there was an island in the middle of the water that we walked onto that Rachel announced we were "jumping to conclusions" because we had to hop amidst rocks to get out here (and the reference was a sly one, to a part of "The Phantom Tollbooth" that Mom and Dad gave to me a long time ago). We decided to turn around and walk toward the falls, and the view from the falls was incredible -- we got to see kayakers ride the rapids, and hang over the fence and just stare at the water. At one point Rachel turned to me, jumped in my arms and gave me a big hug. "THANK YOU for taking me here!" she exclaimed. "I thought it would be much boring!" You're welcome, sweetie.

I hiked for myself for a bit after the others decided to hit the visitors center, and I saw not one, not two, not three, but FOUR deer cross my path and head into the woods. Magical! And then I looked up with a bunch of tourists and saw turkey vultures in the trees. The weather was perfect, the leaves were magnificently colored and it was hard to believe we were only 15 miles outside D.C.

Then we decided to have an early dinner at a place Anne found called "Amoo's House of Kabob" in McLean. Totally unpromising name and decor but my LORD, the food was amazing. I have never in my life tasted Persian food so good. We are definitely going back there, even though Rachel refused to eat her chicken -- I told Drew we will force food on her if we have to, but we are going back. One clue as to how good it was: lots of locals eating there.

It was so early still that we decided to get cupcakes in Shirlington at a place near the hotel where Darryl, Daniella and Valerie stayed when they were here last month. The place we went to was called "Cakelove" (the place we had gone to before was wiped out of desserts by the time we arrived around 8 or so) and we picked up six cupcakes. Then we headed home and had "Family Movie Night," watching "Enchanted," a clever sendup of Disney fare with Patrick Dempsey and Amy Adams. Anne and David had the right spirit and LOVED IT, as do Rachel, Drew and I, and Rachel cuddled in my lap, and Drew's, for most of the movie. When it was over, she and Drew danced around the family room and he lifted her up a few times -- she really does know how to pose like a ballerina in the air -- and then he took her up to bed while I cleaned up dessert. Altogether, a terrific, terrific day.

Rachel wants a sibling

Conversation between Rachel and me in the car on the way to get flu shots on Tuesday:

Rachel: I wish I had a sister.
Me: Why?
Rachel: 'Cause then I could play with her instead of just my toys.
Me (slowly, turning around from the front seat): Well, Rachel, you know that I tried to give you a sibling but it didn't work, right?
Rachel: (nodded).
Me: And besides...you are MORE than enough for us.
Rachel (relief flooding her face): Thanks, Mom.

Hope I handled that OK. It breaks my heart every time she says she wants someone to play with, because there's nothing more I would love than two kids playing with each other every night before dinner. But it didn't happen, and hopefully Rachel will be OK with it when she's older.

***

Totally forgot to mention that I voted in a booth Tuesday, the first time in 15 years. Oregon has vote by mail, and I missed getting a nonpartisan Voters Pamphlet to help me decide what candidates to vote for; the Washington Post doesn't bother with local races so I left one office blank because I truly didn't know about the candidates and didn't feel I could make an informed decision. Sigh.

As I approached the nice elderly woman at the check-in table, she said: "We have new technology." (Turns out you vote onscreen. No more levers to push or ballots to punch with a pencil).
"I'm from Oregon, and we vote by mail," I said smugly. "I haven't been inside a voting booth for 15 years!"

She didn't appear impressed.

Family!

Well, we've been having a great time with Anne and David. A sampling:

--Tuesday Rachel and I got flu shots at a free health clinic in one of the local high schools, the one Rachel will be going to if we stay in the area. We could have gone to a pediatrician on Drew's health plan, but we've been so busy and frazzled with other things that as soon as I saw the announcement about the clinic, I jumped on it. It was a huge, huge relief for me to have us both get shots, because I've been feeling irresponsible for not doing so until now. On the way out of the clinic we ran into a bake sale and I got to chatting with the woman in charge of it, who happens to be a journalist and we had a long talk about the public affairs/journalism world out here. These encounters are what I'm beginning to call Quintessential Arlington Moments.

Then we all drove to the Ballston Metro parking garage, hopped on the train and David, Rachel and I went to the Air & Space Museum on the Mall while Anne visited some other museums. I got a great shot of David and Rachel under the Voyager, which David helped build, and he seemed to enjoy taking her around the museum and explaining the concepts of thrust and other engineering terms. We went outside to take a break at one point -- it was a beautiful day, in the high 60s -- then went back inside to see a movie at the Planetarium. At 5 we met up with Anne, having taken a pedicab from our side of the Mall to where she was, and then we continued on to the great Mexican restaurant they'd chosen for dinner. The pedicab driver was so nice, he was enchanted with Rachel and sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and threw some D.C. landmarks into the lyrics. She cracked up, she's so easily amused these days. Drew joined us around 6:15 and we all shared small plates.

The food was fabulous but on the Metro on the way home I began feeling queasy, probably because I don't eat Mexican food that often. When we got home, I had to go upstairs and lie down for a while until I felt better.

--Wednesday I had a lunch meeting, so Anne and David took the Metro with me. I got off at Pentagon City..only to have my lunch date forget about meeting me. Grumpily I decided to take the Metro into D.C. and meet Drew for lunch, which of course was great, and then when I got home the day was so gorgeous that I decided to take a late afternoon bike ride down the W&OD trail. I got almost all the way to Vienna. The sunset alone was worth it. I'm still in the Portland frame of mind that says I MUST be outside whenever there's sun because it could disappear all in one moment and I'll be facing six months of rain. Dad, this is probably a demented version of your 10 o'clock rule on weekends. If so, it's definitely working.

When we all got home, Drew warmed up the turkey soup he made from the carcass of last weekend's turkey at Dan and Beryle's. Paired with my parsley-flecked dumplings, it was a great meal and David and Anne were profusely glad we'd made it. We all had the last of the pumpkin cocoa cake for dessert.

--Today Anne and David were on their own; I considered going into D.C. to do museums with Anne but then got caught running errands in the morning (including FedExing a copy of the law school magazine to Montana for a contest) and then really wanted to swim this afternoon, so I ended up working at home (answering emails, organizing my list of jobs I want to apply to) and then making chocolate chip cookies for Ivy's dad, Billy, whose birthday is tonight. They weren't home when Rachel and I stopped over after school, so hopefully I'll be able to deliver them tomorrow. In the meantime, there's plenty left for us (including Anne and David, of course, who are staying until Sunday)....

Happy pre-Thanksgiving!

Thank heavens for Daylight Savings Time, because it helped me make a great Thanksgiving dinner (if I do say so myself). Got  up at 7:30 a.m., which was really 6:30 a.m., to prep the turkey before putting it in the oven this morning; we were due at Dan and Beryle's between noon and 1 p.m. I made the pumpkin cocoa cake last night, plus the cornbread and stuffing, so all I had to do this morning after the turkey was to prep the salad and make the gravy after the turkey came out. I was worried that a 9-lb. bird wouldn't be enough, but we had leftovers! Also leftover cornbread and stuffing! It's true what Drew says, I always make too much food even when I don't think I make enough. Anyway...David and Anne took great care of Rachel while I bustled around and Drew went out to the farmer's market. David, great guy that he is, loaded some math (!) games on his smartphone and Rachel apparently mastered all of them. She also did a lot of cuddling with David and helped Anne bring a chair in from outside where Anne had been sitting -- like me, Anne grabs at any chance to be outside when it ISN'T RAINING. I have to get used to the idea that there are lots of sunny days here.

We got to Dan and Beryle's at 1. David and Anne ran to the grocery store to get apple cider -- perfect with the dinner -- and we all made a toast before eating. Everyone loved the dinner, including Rachel who couldn't say enough about the turkey and the cake. We sat around and talked about the government shutdown, about the places Beryle has lived, about all kinds of things while it slowly grew dark outside. Rachel was extremely well-behaved, as usual, and gave a big hug to Dan and Beryle as we left. They really seemed to enjoy our presence, and we're hoping that we can do this again next year if Anne and David are in town around the same time as this year.

Then we went home and had an abbreviated version of Family Movie Night. Anne and David spent the night in Rockville; Rachel and Drew and I weren't hungry, so Drew went grocery shopping for the week while Rachel and I watched some "Angelina Ballerina" movies. Just as she was whining about Drew not being around to read a book to her and give her a bath, he arrived home. I cleaned up from the turkey (we brought everything to Dan and Beryle's, including knives to carve the turkey) and was dismayed to see that the lemons I'd put on the bottom of the pan to flavor the chicken broth had eaten through the coating on the pan. ARGGHH...yet another chore to deal with this week...

We will see Anne and David several times this week, and on Tuesday we're all going into the District to play during the day (the kids have off school for Election Day) after I vote and Rachel and I get flu shots. So great to know that Anne & David haven't forgotten us even though we're on the East Coast!

A perfect day

Anne and David are visiting us from Seattle, and today we had the most perfect day we possibly could have had. We all woke up late -- Drew and I didn't get to bed until 1 a.m. -- and had homemade gingerbread for breakfast. Drew ran out to do some errands, Anne and David spent the morning working (David in the dining room, Anne outside because the weather was so warm and lovely), and so I decided to enlist Rachel's help in making a pumpkin cocoa cake for our early Thanksgiving celebration with Dan and Beryle tomorrow. I volunteered to bring a turkey with all the trimmings to their apartment.

Rachel was such a help; she now knows how to RUN THE MIXER ALL BY HERSELF! I was so proud of her. She's also a champion egg cracker, a skill I didn't master until much later than 5 years old. The cake isn't hard to make, but it's complicated because it involves multiple steps, so I was able to give her a task or two while I finished the rest of the cake-prep process. I really love having her in the kitchen with me, so much so that when she's not there, I feel kind of lonely.

When Drew got back we all went for a walk along a bike trail, although Rachel and I rode bikes. We can now do mother and daughter bike rides! Yay! I'm sure we'll do lots of rides together as long as the weather holds. Then Anne decided we should walk to the Metro station together; she was very impressed by how close it is to our house.

When we got back home, Drew helped Rachel do some extra math homework that her teacher gave to the kids while I made stuffing and cornbread. Then we all went to dinner at a Lebanese place near our house that I love. We had a fabulous dinner, I had a good conversation with David, plus two apple-flavored martinis that left me quite pleased with life in general. I think we've all decided that as soon as Rachel goes to college we're going to end up in a cool D.C. neighborhood together (Anne and David spending part of the year there, Drew and I living there, in Dupont Circle or somewhere else, full-time).

Altogether a perfectly wonderful, relaxing day!

Halloween night

Well, we apparently live in Mayberry. The day before Halloween I came home from a dispiriting day of running errands to find some cookies on my doorstep and a note: "Happy first Virginia Halloween!" signed by our neighbors. Immediately cheered me up. Then McKinley Elementary, where Rachel goes to school, had a school-wide parade Thursday at 2 p.m., the day of Halloween. I went, because I figured that if I didn't go, and next year this time if I have a job, then I'll kick myself that I didn't attend this school event when I could easily do so.

It was epic. Really.

The parade was led by the Arlington Police; they closed the surrounding streets. At the head of the parade was the Swanson Middle School band, wearing "help the homeless" t-shirts and playing "Louie, Louie," -- their "theme song," explained the band director. Each class had a banner, all the teachers and their aides were dressed up in costume, and Rachel and a classmate, Marat (who speaks Greek at home, he told me today) held the banner. Rachel looked adorable in her little Ariel costume. (She complained it was itchy last week, and Drew was really mad that he had bought a costume she didn't want to wear, so I offered to sew cloth inside the parts she said were itchy, which I did, which took three hours and all of my really bad stitching...only to have her announce on the morning of Halloween that she would wear a t-shirt underneath, which if she had agreed to do so last week would have saved me a lot of time and work and I never would have stabbed myself in the thumb with a needle. Suffice to say that, Mom, I can't believe you made all those dresses of ours when we were kids and I TOTALLY SALUTE YOU).

Anyway.

So, the kids marched around the block while I madly took pictures and teared up, because, really, where else does this happen? Rachel looked SO happy to see me when I just showed up (I had warned her I might not be able to come because I had a dentist appointment for a sore tooth, and even though it took longer than I thought it would, I was still determined to make the parade).  I watched the parade with a mom whose son is in Rachel's class; she was there with her FOURTH child, a toddler, and I marveled at her patience and her slim figure. The high school band played a few numbers when they got back, including "In the Mood." They sounded pretty decent. When the band members were done I went to Rachel's class and watched her eat candy and make a pumpkin face out of an orange paper plate and some black construction paper, then went home to...

prepare for the onslaught of trick or treaters I just KNEW we were going to have. I lit two tea candles in the pumpkin Rachel and Drew carved last week, put the bowl of candy on the hall table and..waited...and...waited. Got the neighbor kids at 5:30, our across the street neighbors at 6:30 and a bunch 'o kids between 7 and 7:30. Drew, meanwhile, took Rachel out trick or treating with Ivy. They squabbled a bit about who would get to say "trick or treat!" first, and he noted later to me that while Ivy is a nice kid, she can be kind of bossy (she's in 2nd grade, I told him, of course she's bossy). We had a fast dinner of warmed-up brisket and cornbread, and Rachel got to eat two small pieces of candy before she went to bed. I kept away from the candy although I was sorely tempted to indulge. As a friend of mine from Portland said last year: must remember to keep away from the fun-sized candy if I want to have a fun-sized body.

And then Drew and I stayed up until 12:30 unrolling our new rug in the family room, hanging art and re-shelving the books, CDs and knickknacks, all of which had to be moved to get the rug in place. Happy Halloween, everyone!

Halloween weekend, cont'd

...so the day after my friend Charon's Halloween party (exactly this time last week; I'm a little late catching up, I know) we had two other parties -- one, a neighborhood party from 10 to noon. Actually it was a parade around the Dominion Hills neighborhood, with a party and food at the neighborhood park afterward. I brought gingerbread and it was gone. I mean, GONE, within an hour. The guy who organized the event sounded very disappointed that he lost out on tasting a piece. Found out that the park is actually owned by the neighborhood association; the county helps maintain it but the neighbors keep it clean, mulch the ground, make sure the grass is cut, etc. They even leave toys near the play structure for the kids to play with! Anyway, I had a nice time chatting with some of the folks there, including one Jewish family who advised me what synagogue around here that would work for interfaith couples.

After the event we drove to a place that was having a gigantic sale on carpet remnants and bought one for the half-finished basement area, which we now refer to as "the family room." It's beige, with a wonderful pile, and we hung a bunch of really cool posters so it's a great space to watch TV and listen to music, rather than the pile of boxes and CD crates we worked around during "family movie night" on Saturdays (whereupon we make a special exception to the "no eating away from the dining room" rule, order pizza and maybe Drew brings home cupcakes, and we watch a Barbie movie, put Rachel to bed and then watch a grownup movie. This is how Drew and I catch up on movies that everyone else in the universe has seen, oh, three years ago). Lately Ivy has been joining us, so Drew re-named our routine "Family Fun Night," and we all have a great time together.

We dropped by a consignment store to get Rachel some winter clothes (alas, consignment stores here aren't nearly as good as the ones in Portland), and she started complaining that her stomach hurt, her head hurt, her whole body hurt, and when we got back all she wanted to do was cuddle with me on the couch and listen to a Laura Ingalls Wilder CD. She insisted she felt well enough to go to the Halloween party Ivy's parents were having, but as soon as we got there I could tell it was a mistake. Rachel tried to play upstairs, but then came into the living room, put her head on my lap and started bellyaching so loudly that I finally scooped her up and we went back home. She crashed for two hours in her bed ("will you please check on me?" she asked forlornly, and of course we said YES), and then woke up, ready for family movie night. We watched a Barbie movie together, and then Drew and I watched "Django Unchained."