Dinner Laughs

Dinner time is often not a relaxing time. Between 5 and 6 each night the kids hit the wall and go crazy. Dinner is then an exercise in avoiding food being thrown on the floor or rubbed into the hair. But sometimes, when the stars align and the gods look favorably on us, they enjoy dinner.

On this night, they were laughing and enjoying their own company so much, we let them have some time to themselves while we cleared the table.



The boys are not just entertaining themselves more now, they feed into their antics. Liam can now say "poopy". Finn immediately laughs, repeats it himself, and the laughing continues indefinitely.

Of course, they also play, share and pretend together. Now that Liam's almost two, they really can play together and enjoy being around each other. And that's fantastic.

Spring Garden

Spring has been back in DC for a while now and many of our plants have come back from their hibernation. I tried something new this year with sowing seeds indoors and bringing them out after the threat of frost was gone. Mostly it worked, though the beans didn't make it and the new seeds I planted haven't come up.

Still, I've got peas, spinach, lettuce, sage, beets, mums and strawberries all growing well in the flower boxes. I even had flowers on the peas last weekend and now have pea pods gaining size in the warm sun.


So things grow well out there now, but I know the sun will someday soon overwhelm the plants and make them wither if I don't give 2 gallons of water a day to them. I also have a potential aphid problem:


Finn had fun squirting the bugs with soapy water to get rid of them. It worked well and most of the are gone. We probably have to give another round this weekend to completely rid ourselves of them.


Finn likes another sign of spring turning to summer, the blossom piles. He grabs them by the handful and throws them in the air. I say that he's making it rain like Flo-rida, but he corrects me and says he's making it snow!