Ice cream! We have been enjoying so much ice cream lately. Friday night was family night at Carl’s work that included a Millie’s ice cream stand, so of course that is where we started. Then the girls raced a robot, climbed into the cab of a semi-truck and did cartwheels in the parking lot. My brother is visiting for the weekend and we like to do ice cream tours of the city so yesterday we went to Jeni’s and Millie’s. Today we will explore Dari Delite, Carl and Amy’s biking destination last Sunday evening. I think my new favorite flavor is the salted licorice from Jeni’s, although I’m the only one in my family who likes licorice. Near the Jeni’s ice cream store there is a faux-grass lawn with gigantic bean bag chairs onto which we flopped. I could have easily taken a nap there, but I knew I would have woken up overheated because of the direct sun. The great thing about all of these ice cream places is that they have dairy-free options for Sarah. While I do allow her to have dairy, I prefer to limit it and save it for the times when we don’t have other options.
Amy and I went to the Barbie movie, decked out in as much pink as we could find. She loved it. I had seen it the week before with Carl, nearly falling out of my chair laughing at some of the scenes. That same night, Carl and Sarah took the bus to Aladdin’s so they could have a special dinner while watching buses drive by. We will certainly stream the Barbie movie once that is an option so Sarah can see it, but since she likes to talk loudly during movies it doesn’t really make sense to take her to a theater at this moment in time.
Camp Anna filled the girl’s days with impressive activities such as printing their own designs that they ironed onto t-shirts, making their own temporary tattoos, painting murals on movable slabs of wood, and running a lemonade stand. Sarah traced the pages of Blue Hat, Green Hat and Anna shrank the pictures so they could all fit on Sarah’s t-shirt. They also created a separate t-shirt out of the book cover, again traced by Sarah. Sarah read the book to her stuffed animal tiger, and she is eagerly anticipating reading the book with my brother who does the best “oops” sounds. Amy’s camp shirt included a stack of cats, of course.
One night Sarah and I clashed a bit over me telling her that it was time to stop watching TV. It escalated monumentally so we were both quite upset and yelling. In hindsight I could have avoided the whole altercation by changing how I approached the moment to begin with, so I have learned something for the future about not criticizing her. Obvious when stated, because who likes to get criticized? Who wouldn’t get defensive and protest more intensely? I think in criticizing her I was also judging my own parenting, thus setting us both on edge. Sarah gave me a good tool to remember for defusing similar moments with humor. When we were snuggling on the porch swing after our fight she said, “Stop watching TV Bernard!” That is a reference to a book called Stop Snoring Bernard. Now if I tell her to turn off her technology and she protests, I say lightly, “Bernard!” and she shifts to joking about that.
Amy’s week was mostly good, but still had rough patches of everything feeling too hard, especially when I erroneously commented that she might have to do Schroth exercises forever. Her mouth is sore from her new aligners which are tricky to pull off of her teeth, the top one often going flying across the room. On the plus side, I think I solved our problem of a fall and winter coat for her. She has outgrown the ones from last year, at least in her arm length. At first I despaired of where to find something suitable, but then had the idea of asking her to try on Sarah’s coats, which were the same brand but one size up. They fit! They are roomy around the torso, but not ridiculously so. Amy’s new coats should arrive soon, well ahead of when she will need them. Amy had been growing 1/4 inch per month for much of this past year, but now is growing twice as fast. She is 5’7” so if she keeps growing at this pace she could be taller than I am by the end of the year. At least we verified that I haven’t lost height so I’m still 5’9” which is nice to know.
Love and ice cream to you.
Ice cream tours! What a fantastic idea!