Summer

Things have been busy lately. since last posting, we've gone camping (ugh), graduated kindergarten, started summer camps, visited Orcas with friends, finished my big annual event (San Diego this year), picked strawberries and raspberries, made jam, and attended/hosted infinity play dates. Oh, and binge watched a little So You Think You Can Dance and Orange is the New Black - both of which are having pretty annoying seasons this year IMO. Who wants to watch creepy little kids dance better than you in jazzercise outfits?? Not this person. Bring back the adult dancers please. Sheesh.

Living in Bellingham sometimes feels like adult summer camp. We walk almost everywhere, including to pretty much all play dates, dinner parties and most meals out. We have monthly cocktail parties with the neighbors where we share a sitter who watches all of the kids (typically 8-10 children under 8yrs old) and then all the adults walk to another family’s house for drinks. The sitter puts all the kids to bed and then we pick them up sleeping, carry them home and tuck them in. At the last party I had too much wine and made plans to go to Australia next year and maybe also committed to directing a 5^th grade play at Lowell while talking with the PTA president, which apparently has not been attempted for some time. So there’s that.

Edie has become an avid reader. She’s always been leaps ahead of the other kindergarteners with reading, but now she devours chapter books and is currently reading what I’m sure is a horrible book series about pirates that are also puppies. Whatever floats your boat though! Who am I to judge, I’m currently wrapping up a trilogy that is being made into a series for the SyFy network. Perhaps puppy pirates are amazing.

School has been out for 2 weeks and Edie has already completed Tennis Camp, which she loved. It was fun to have her get into something that I know zero things about; no baggage like with drama and dance classes. Jeff bought her a little racket and they practice at night (at her request) at the school black top. She still can’t ride a bike, but she’s becoming quite the little tennis pro. This week is Farm Camp in the morning and Art Camp in the afternoon with her 2 neighborhood pals. We are knee deep in carpools and have become those people that carry a bazillion extra booster seats around with them all the time, just in case.

We hosted our niece Caroline for a dinner and movie date last week, which went swimmingly until Edie was attacked by bees and stung 11 times in our front yard.  It was all very My Girl, except no one died and there was more screaming. There is apparently a nest hiding in our ivy in the front yard. It was pretty scary and I’m sure our neighbors thought she was being murdered; those screams are still a little PTSD-inducing when I remember them. Jeff was sort of a hero. He swooped her out of the ivy, got stung himself and proceeded to run with her indoors while swatting all the bees clinging to her while I grabbed Caroline to make sure she wasn’t getting attacked (or traumatized by the screaming). Ugh. It was sort of like one of those nightmares where you can’t move fast enough. It felt like it took forever to get all the bees away from her. Thankfully, she is amazing and rebounded VERY quickly. Some baking soda paste and Benadryl and she woke up the next morning totally recovered. She’s been saying, “Did you hear what happened to me?” with just the right touch of drama to everyone we see.

She has also developed a passion for her joke book for kids. So much so that it feels like one of those stories that Amy Schumer or Tina Fey’s parents would tell – about when they discovered they were going to pursue comedy. She not only devours the joke book all day long, reading line after line to me and then explaining why each one is funny - she brought it to camp to tell jokes to the teachers and kids yesterday! And then started making up HER OWN jokes. Some of which were actually kind of funny. In a super random, totally stupid way. I think there might have been one about Maniacs being yaks from Maine? I actually hate formula jokes, so it’s a bit like my own personal hell to have her sit next to me while cooking dinner for an hour straight saying over and over, “Hey Mom, here’s another one – knock, knock!”, but there’s something so aggressively nerdy and hilarious about her doing it, that I have to love it.
 A few pictures from the last month or two:

In the audience for Anything Goes at Bellingham Theatre Guild. Directed by my old high school teacher and mentor, Terri Grimes. Edie LOVED it and made me go up to the lead actress after and ask her to meet Edie. She's still reading the Playbill and listening to the sound track at home.

Picking Raspberries at Aunt Laura's house. We made jam and 3 pans of raspberry crumble bars from our score:

Post bee stings  (each bandaid covers a sting - can't see all the ones around her middle and ankles):

Caroline and Edie watching a movie before the bee sting situation:

Edie and her buddy Ever at his birthday party. He wouldn't let ANYONE sit next to him because he was saving the seat for Edie.

Our little comedienne:

My Kindy graduate and her teacher after the last day of school:

Later that night at a friend's house with my glass of wine the size of my head (it had been a loooong week for all of us):

Edie and Iona on Orcas:

Edie with her preschool BFF and sister when we visited them recently in Seattle. They took this selfie:

I'm in charge of organizing and managing the school movie nights through the PTA. This was only the second one this year, but it got scheduled for the second to last day of school. Terrible timing as things were pretty manic getting ready, but there was still great turnout for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:

With all her pals at the School Round Up, a country western party the week before the last day of school: