Despite the annoying, horrible traffic on the drive down there, we had a great time in North Carolina last weekend visiting Troy’s sister and her family.

We jumped on the trampoline, we swam in the hotel pool, we relaxed and ate grapes and popsicles and cookies and pizza and Mexican food.

Some of us performed in aquatic-mammal shows. Annalie would ride Troy’s back across the pool, then tell him “If you do a good job, I’ll give you a tasty fish!” Then she’d pat his head and tell him he was a good dolphin. It was hilarious.

Poor Bretty wasn’t feeling great on Saturday, and Dana ended up taking him to urgent care for what turned out to be swimmer’s ear. I wasn’t surprised because Brett is a regular fish and would spend all day in the water if he could. Leo and Annalie had a good time in the pool, at least once everyone had assured Leo that he didn’t have to go in the deep end if he didn’t want to. They had some elaborate game going on that involved going back and forth from the pool to the hot tub, doing a countdown each time. It was fun to watch.

Basically, Annalie had a blast hanging out with her cousins.

We said good-bye on Sunday night, and on Monday morning we got back in the minivan and headed for Virginia, where we would eat the world’s best hummus, climb to the top of a lighthouse, hit the beach, and meet a god and live to tell the tale…

Yesterday we had a fun playdate with Carrie and her kids. I feel like I was neglecting an assignment and now I’ve finally gotten a good start on it! See, Brenda and Carrie are blog friends from way back. When Brenda and Bug were here helping us unpack last spring, Carrie and her son Erik came over for lunch one day, and we had a blast, kids and moms alike. Brenda ordered me and Carrie to become good friends and have lots of playdates so she could live vicariously through us. I had every intention of following her orders, because Carrie is smart and funny and interesting and I liked her very much, and also I don’t have very many local friends!

But you know how life goes. First, we were busy unpacking and settling in. Then, Carrie and her husband Mike had a baby girl, Elsa, and were deep in the newborn stage of just trying to keep their heads above water with no extra time for playdates. Then Annalie and I went to Omaha for a visit. Then it was Annalie’s birthday, and my mom was in town for a few weeks. And of course by then I was dealing with first-trimester exhaustion all the time, and then we went on another trip to Omaha.

But finally, all the stars aligned and we had simultaneous free afternoons! So Annalie and I went over to their house to play and eat Carrie’s yummy version of my spicy veggie stir-fry with peanut sauce, which I just realized I’ve never blogged despite it being one of those recipes that everyone always asks for when I make it. Then Annalie and Erik wandered downstairs to the playroom while Carrie and I gabbed away for more than an hour. We were so busy talking (mostly about cloth diapers—more on that in a bit) that we neglected to check on our kids even once. But it was okay, because they got along great! They prepared a delicious pretend vegetable soup garnished with maple syrup for us.

Then we changed into our swimsuits and went to the splash park! There is an awesome park in their town that is full of fun things to do, among them this excellent splash park next door to a miniature golf course. Annalie has been to a half-dozen different spraygrounds in her life, so they’re no big deal to her, but when we walked into this place her eyes widened and she exclaimed, “Oh, wow! This is so cool!” She barely stood in one place long enough for me to spray sunblock on her, she was so excited to go play. (Incidentally, I’d like to kiss whoever invented spray sunblock. I love that stuff.)

Annalie and Erik both took off as soon as they were sunblocked. I grabbed my camera and followed them, persuading them to pose for a quick photo before they ditched me to play. I followed Annalie around as she checked out the “big mushrooms” and the waterfall cave and took a moment to spin the wheel on a spray fountain. I grabbed her for a quick arm’s-length self-portrait by the water maze, forgetting that I’d zoomed in for the previous photo and the result was a surprisingly good close-up shot.

Annalie fell in love with this blue whale, whom she said was named Daisy. There was a bit of drama over the fact that other kids kept climbing onto the whale with her, which would make Annalie hop off and pout till they’d left. Then she would race back over and climb on the whale’s back again. I think we are providing her with a sibling (and hopefully some perspective) not a moment too soon. Erik, meanwhile, spent a few minutes perched on the frog’s back, encouraging it to hop. “C’mon, Frog, HOP!” He didn’t seem to mind that the frog ignored him.

Towards the end of the afternoon, I pointed my camera at Erik, who tried to thwart me by sticking his hands in front of his face. So I just raised the camera and pointed it down at his head. Ha! At least to a 4-year-old, I’m still tall.

Most of the time we were there, both kids were in the water maze. I spent some time in there myself, since Annalie wanted me to go in with her a couple of times—purely for fun, not because she was afraid. I actually spent a few minutes contemplating how great it was that she wasn’t the least bit afraid of the noisy jets of water; that she just charged right into their midst, laughing. I bet last summer she would have had to spend a while working up her courage, and then she would have only gone in if someone had been there holding her hand. I love watching my kid grow up. No crying on my baby’s first day of kindergarten for me, thank you!

Well, she’s home-schooled, so her first day of kindergarten was at home with me. But that’s beside the point. My point is that I genuinely delight in her growing confidence, knowledge, and skills. Did you know she can totally make her own microwave popcorn now, starting with getting the package out of the pantry and all the way to dumping it in a bowl and adding a sprinkle of salt? She can also get her own bowl of cereal, pour herself a glass of lemonade without spilling, and get herself out of the shower, dried off, and into her pajamas. I love age six!

I admit that when I think ahead to her being a college student I might sigh a little, but then Annalie tells me that she doesn’t want to live in a dorm when she is in college because she would be too sad to leave me and Troy and her little sister. I take that with a grain of salt of course, because she probably will change her tune over the next 12 years. But it wouldn’t surprise me if she doesn’t. She is just that kind of person. Hey, my younger brother lived with my parents for six or seven years in his late 20s, just because he liked living with them, and I am forever telling Annalie how much she reminds me of her Unky Ben! So we’ll see….

…but I digress! I was telling you about how the big water maze was the main attraction for both Annalie and Erik. Even Carrie (with Elsa asleep on her chest) and I enjoyed standing near it. The shallow water cooled our feet and the mist from the fountain sprayed our faces and arms and kept us from overheating while we chatted about how we wished we had waterproof cameras and kept an eye on the kids. Though it was actually perfect splash park weather yesterday, not horrifically hot like it was last week.

Eventually, we noticed that the kids were getting tired, and were just sort of hanging out near us. It was almost time for us to head home anyway, to give us a chance to beat the afternoon rush. So we casually mentioned the magic words “ice cream” and Annalie and Erik immediately announced that they were ready to leave and rushed over to dry themselves off and put their shoes on so they could go pick out their ice cream treats. Not a bad way to end an afternoon at the splash park and a summer playdate!

Thanks again for the fun afternoon, Carrie, Erik & Elsa! We’re already looking forward to next time.

Oh, remember how I mentioned up there that Carrie and I were talking about cloth diapers while our kids played? Yep, I think we’re gonna cloth diaper this time.

I’ve been really intrigued by cloth-diapering since right around the time Annalie was potty-trained. I’d been watching my friend Lynn use cloth on her daughters for a couple of years by then, and I’d had several conversations about the whole thing with OMSH, who is a staunch advocate of cloth diapers.

Then I moved to San Diego and became friends with Sonja in real life. She’s a cloth-diaperer who also works at a shop that sells natural, organic and earth-friendly products for parents and kids, including a wide range of cloth diapering, breastfeeding, and babywearing products. So she’s kind of an expert. My friend Madge also used cloth diapers on her kids. And now Carrie, too. Much like with homeschooling, the more I considered using cloth diapers on a theoretical second child, the more people I discovered around me who had been cloth diaperers. Troy and I talked it over, and we decided we’d give it a shot.

Which leads me to the above photo. Carrie’s daughter Elsa, at 3.5 months old, is ahead of the growth curve and has already outgrown a lot of her size small diapers. Carrie had mentioned that she was trying to sell them online, but that she was running into a lot of people who weren’t willing to pay her (more than fair) asking price. I offered to buy a few from her, thus getting me started on my stash, and preventing her from having to deal with crazy bargain-hunters and shipping hassles.

Which is why I left the playdate yesterday with ten size small cloth diapers (and a sample of Rockin’ Green detergent and a couple of little cubes used for making wipes solution that Carrie generously shared with me). When we arrived back home and I opened Annalie’s door so I could grab the shopping bag of diapers, Annalie hopped out with a grin on her face and her doll Greta clutched in one arm—and Greta was now wearing the blue and purple diaper that had been at the top of the bag. Even Annalie thinks cloth diapering is a good idea, apparently.

How hot was it today? It was so hot, that just being in the swimming pool wasn’t enough, Annalie needed the sprinkler on too.

Yes, you’re reading that correctly. That temperature reading is 112F. Now, this is a cheap thermometer we bought on clearance at Target, so I tend to take whatever it’s telling me with a grain of salt. But when I checked online it said the temp in our town was 105F, and that’s not counting the horrid humidity. No wonder my brain seems to have melted a bit.

Troy and I got into the pool with Annalie for a little while, but we were cramping her style. She wanted to splash and we wanted to not be splashed, so we dried ourselves off and baked on the deck for a while, armed with large glasses of iced lemon-limeade.

Eventually Annalie got out too. As she dried herself off, she draped her towel around herself toga-style and said, “Look, Mommy! I’m a Greek person!”

Today was one of those mishmash Saturdays where we did a little of this and a little of that. In addition to hanging out in the pool, we did some cleaning and straightening up around the house and yard. I made Brenda’s stir-fry for lunch and for once got the sauce exactly right. Annalie and Troy hung out in the basement for a while, watching 80s movies and eating snacks while I had a nice long chat with my mom on the phone.

And we hacked a pink girly foo-foo ceiling fan for Annalie out of a boring white one!

When we moved into this house, none of the bedrooms had ceiling fans. That wasn’t a problem in the spring, but as summer heated up the bedrooms tended to get stuffy, especially at night, because our air-conditioner is weird. It keeps the living room and the whole basement cool, but the kitchen floor gets icy-cold, and the bedrooms stay several degrees warmer than is comfortable. Troy and I got a ceiling fan for our bedroom a few weeks ago, and had planned to get one for Annalie’s room when we got back from our trip to Omaha.

Of course when we took Annalie to Home Depot to look at fans, she fell in love with a pink one, decorated with ornate white hearts, that cost $100. If she didn’t get that pink fan, she was gonna be so very sad, you guys. We explained that the price was a bit too high, and although she bravely said she understood, her lip started to quiver. I pointed out a less-expensive cute fan with rainbow-colored blades and tried to talk her into that one, but she had her heart set on pink.

Then Troy came up with a brilliant idea. We picked up a plain white fan for half the price of the fancy pink one, plus a $3 can of pink spray paint. Later we picked up two dollars’ worth of sparkly white flower and butterfly stickers from Michaels. Troy painted the blades with two coats of the spray paint, and once the paint was dry Annalie and I arranged the stickers on them. Troy installed the fan, and voila! That’s how you hack a girly pink ceiling fan for half the price of the one at the store, and make your kid happy at the same time.