Our July 4th celebrations (complete by 2pm)

Better make sure we take Audrey to the Ladies Room before we get in the car. That was five liters of Strawberry Lemonade.

Two french fries, one bite of fish, three kale garnishes.

Great day out: Children's Museum all morning, til we were tired and hungry, then down the wharf to the Barking Crab for an (overpriced) lunch. No tears, no barfing. Kids asleep by last click of car seat buckles for the ride home.

The secrets in my mind

Chickpea

Audrey stopped me in the hall, wearing this get-up. She tapped on my arm and regarded me, quietly. All business. And she said, "Mom. It's me. This is a disguise."

Earlier in the day I caught her at the bathroom sink making a mess, water splashed all over the floor and the hand-towel soaked. "What happened here? What is going on??!!" I cried. (I should note that I said this in a very calm and nurturing way, with no accusatory note in my voice.) Audrey took a moment to collect her thoughts and then said, coyly, "I have a secret in my mind and I'm not telling you what it is."

For which there really is no answer. Checkmate.

Master Calvin.

Like all toddlers, he is the most interesting mix of manners and savagery. He says "no hank oo" and "peeese" but he also screams "no like it!" and "you top dat!" and "you go way!" He stands in the bathtub and daintily drinks the bathwater, one plastic blue teacup at a time. And I don't have to tell you what he did in that bathwater before he started sipping, do I?

His favorite book right now is "Snuggle Up, Sleepy Ones," or, "Nuggle up, leepy one." After he drank the bath last night and was freshly diapered and ready for bed, he toddled over to me holding this book and I got ready to "nuggle" down for story time with my darling boy. Just as he was about to climb into my lap he shouted "Cheers!" and clobbered me in the face with the book.

And now we turn our investigative reporting on... ourselves!

I have to report this little bit of jerkery that I heard myself spouting the other day. Background: we are moving from our suburban town of Arlington to the adjacent suburban town of Lexington, and I actually spoke to my friend about this "transitioning" process for our family.

First, I want to apologize to the noun/verb TRANSITION, a perfectly good and noble word, for turning into an obnoxious gerund. Totally uncalled for. And second, claiming that we must transition from Arlington to Lexington is a bit like saying that I will transition from the LL Bean style of Mom jeans to the Land's End kind. But with front pleats! The difference, in both cases, is but a few dollars in taxes.

I have since regained some perspective. We're just moving. Period. And we're lucky and happy. The end.

Happy Father's Day, Scott, Skip and Jim

We paid them in cash for these poses, or, as Audrey calls all money, "allowance." To observe the day, how 'bout an installment of our "Overhead" column?

Calvin: [growing frustrated while trying to move a foot stool] Eeees STUCKING!

Calvin: [racing after Audrey at school drop-off ] Audie, wait ah me! Audie wait! Audie wait!

Audrey: [sitting in passenger seat of car while I put on her shoes] I can't sit up here, right, Mom? This is a seat for someone with a BIG bum. I have a very little bum.

And here's one that set me back, not because it was cute or impish but because it was so shockingly clear. She said this the day after we played a game called "Silver Polishing Workshop," in which we cleaned all of my tarnished jewelry. I cleaned and rinsed, she buffed with a dry cloth. Now, before anyone calls this exploitative or brings up child labor law, you should know that Audrey LOVES my jewelry and getting to handle it like this for real was a big deal to her. She did such a good job that I actually bedecked myself in some of that jewelry the next day-- which I almost never do-- and thanked her for making it all sparkle.

"You're welcome," she said. "Thank you for letting me polish your jewelry with you. I really like it when you let me help you with stuff like that."

Friends, it doesn't get any clearer than that. That was almost spooky. The door of her young soul stood open for just a moment and I could see right in. Or Terry Brazelton had taken possession of my child for a moment, I'm not sure which. Either way, I felt that I was being handed something of great importance-- something I did not want to fumble. She likes helping me. Sitting at the kitchen table with a pile of cheap silver-plated earrings and my company is her idea of a great time. It will not always be so. May I be smart enough to love this while it lasts.

The preschool fair (with digressions about taxes and dirt)

Audrey loved the fair at her preschool so much she wanted to know if the fair would still be there when she came back on Monday morning. Sadly, no. The teachers would simply love to supervise a bouncy house of screaming four-year-olds every day, but it isn't possible.

And that's Calvin driving one of the fire engines that will NOT be taken out of service because we passed our property tax over-ride, thank you Arlington voters, and we still have an ambulance to drive you to the hospital, a library that's open and staffed and oh, decent schools! Thank you!! Did I just go on a tangent and use an entire year's allotment of exclamation points? Sorry!!!!!

Boy, but the kids were gritty by the end of today. When you mix dust and popsicle drips and sunscreen into the temporarily-tatooed, sweaty-sticky skin of a small child you get a resistant coating similar to that on a nylon tent. Swish them around in tepid bathwater all you want and they come out fresher, but the grime still clings, along with stubborn white streaks of SPF 50 behind the ears. Well, let them stay that way then. It's summer. They're not going to any job interviews.

Scott said it best when he compared the process of cleaning Audrey and Calvin to maintaining cast iron cookware. "They aren't clean so much as well seasoned."

The world's best baby-carrier is... another person.

Just forget Calvin and backpacks. FOR. GET. IT. Unless you like to be bitten between the shoulder blades. What really made him furious was that Audrey (outside the frame of my video rant) was riding her bike. Calvin was incensed that we were going to give her the freedom of the road, the wind in her hair, the thrill that only a tricycle rider wearing a helmet and flanked on both sides by a fretful adult can know... and make him ride in the pack. Well I don't think so.

Tonight, we dine on pickles and olives!

Things are a bit different at dinner time when Scott's away. Instead of the five course meal I normally serve, for which I always (but always!) change into a fresh frock, we dine informally when Scott's on a business trip. My spouse has never agreed with me that a meal can be made entirely out of items stored in the refrigerator door, but I disagree. I think that a can opener, a dollop of mustard and an open mind are all that are needed to assemble a week-night supper for your young family.

A couple of evenings last week were so broiling hot that I could not bear the idea of cooking, or schlepping us all to the grocery store. So when dinner time rolled around, we ate pickles, olives, cheese, crackers, fruit salad and various and sundry other items until we were more or less full. Everyone had some fruit, vegetable and protein to their meal. Everyone was pleased. And I don't feed the kids like that every night, so what's the harm?

Amen, and pass the ketchup.

The taste of love is sweet...