Ice Cream for Dinner

As one who frequently eats cereal for dinner, I kind of knew this, but the following Grist quote was still shocking.

"On average, children’s cereals are 34 percent sugar by weight. Compare that to ice cream, which is usually around 15 percent sugars."

Maybe I'll start eating ice cream for dinner.

(Quote from "Meet the Breakfast Cereals that Want to Destroy You," Grist)

A Grump Bearing Good News

Warm Mother's Day wishes to all who mother.

Commiserations to all who - for whatever reason - are Mother's Day grumps like myself.

But we made it! It's over for a whole year! And I come bearing good news:

The Washington Monument reopens today! 

 

Coincidentally, the boys and I had George Washington Spring Break. We visited George's birthplace on Pope's Creek in Virginia and his adult home at Mt. Vernon.

Matt badly wanted to cap our week with a trip to the top of the Washington Monument, but it's been closed since the bizarre earthquake in August 2011. The monument sustained significant damage in the shaking and has been under repair ever since.

I can't wait to tell Matt we can go up now!


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Further Reading

• "Washington Monument Reopening," National Park Service

• "Washington Monument To Reopen After 3 Years Of Quake Repairs," Associated Press (on the NPR website)

Seeing Things

It was the mid-1990s, Granddaddy and I were in the back seat of Aunt Marilyn's car. I don't know where we were going or who else was there, but I remember looking out my window at Rockhold Creek. I saw a kingfisher and excitedly pointed it out to the rest of the car.

Granddaddy was excited too. I've never known anyone who could get so much joy out of small things. He took my hand and squeezed it.

"I'm so glad you SEE things. Not everybody does," he said with a proud smile.

I was in my early twenties, but I was Granddaddy's girl. It made me warm and giddy to think I'd pleased him. Proud too, that this "seeing things" was something we shared. Something I inherited from him.

My boys see things too.

Gabe is the champion of things no one else notices. The bit of trash shaped like an elephant. The microscopic manufacturer's star on the back window of our old mini-van. The chicken pox scar on my forehead.

But Matt sees things the way Granddaddy did.

Gabe has piano lessons on Thursday night and between school and work and commute times, I stoop (and they cheer) to fast food. The boys take turns choosing a restaurant. Gabe's favorite is Subway. Matt's is Sonic.

A few weeks ago, we sat devouring our burgers and tots, when Matt leaned toward the windshield to stare into the sky.

"Is that a bald eagle?"

I followed his gaze. White head, white tail, HUGE bird.

"I think it is!"

It turned out to be the first of two eagles we saw that week. Both were very special, but made all the more so by the thought of Granddaddy doing his heavenly happy dance over our ability to see things.

Photo Friday

Last week, the boys and I day tripped our way through our annual Spring Break "Staycation." I have lots to share, but it's been difficult returning from the vacation mind set.

You might think a week on the road with two boys would make a person a little crazy, but I get to think a lot on those trips. The car is better than any chemical sleep aid for Gabe. He's asleep within the first ten miles. Matt and I have some of our best heart to hearts, but eventually, he fades out too.

And so for much of the drive it's just me, behind the wheel, humming to myself, rearranging words in my head, completely at peace.

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Photo credit belongs to Matt. He loves the new camera almost as much as I do.

Photo Friday

I don't know when I first fell in love with flowers.

I have early memories of sitting barefoot in our yard, wiggling my toes between cool, green blades and gathering grubby bouquets of flowering weeds for any female relatives with the misfortune of being nearby.

Once they stopped sneezing and I gained fine motor skills, I spent hours weaving and tying stems of clover to make necklaces, bracelets, rings and tiaras. The grown-ups were spared and I instead decorated myself and little sister.

By the time I read The Secret Garden in second grade, I was hooked. I loved flowers and daydreamed incessantly - of many things - but especially of my own bit of earth and the wonderful treasures I would grow.

I wrote a series of stories about little fairies who lived in a garden world. And as my interests shifted to art, I drew and painted portraits of flowers.

As an adult, I've learned I'm a much better dreamer than I am gardener. I've never achieved anything remotely like the pages of my favorite Martha Stewart garden book, much less that of my imagined fairy world, but this time of year inspires me to break out the spade and try again.

Even the flowers at Whole Foods call my name. I'm as likely to splurge on a bouquet of tulips or a fragrant bunch of peonies (my favorite) as I am to buy ice cream or cookies. The added bonus: flowers are better for the waistline.

And it's been an easy move to combine my love affair with the new camera with this lifelong love of things that bloom. Once again, flower portraits reign.

Flower photos, after all, are much easier than those of boys.

Flowers can't stick out their tongue.

You Say Oyster, I Say "Erster"

Last week, I found myself cruising the Severn River. The wind was in my hair, the sun on my face and in my hand a . . .

very slimy shell.

My big boy's sixth-grade science class took a field trip to the Annapolis Maritime Museum. The trip included a ride on the Harbor Queen to plant spat on a reef at the nearby oyster sanctuary.

Spat are baby oysters.

They are also proof that the phrase "baby anythings are cute" is not true.

There were more than a dozen spat on this shell. Gabe got to "plant" it on the reef (i.e. chuck it in the direction of a yellow buoy).

While on the boat, we also measured water quality and learned how oysters help filter the water of the Bay. We learned the oyster's place in the food chain and how oysters provide a habitat for other Bay critters like the blue crab.

It was a chilly, but beautiful trip.

We left from the Annapolis City Docks, but the boat dropped us off at the Annapolis Maritime Museum.

The museum is located in an old oyster packing plant. It was an appropriate place to learn the role oysters play in the local economy. We got to talk to an active waterman and try our hand at tonging for oysters.

It was hard work.

Gabe decided oysters are cool, but he'd rather be a marine paleontologist.

I decided I'm grateful our school system puts such value on teaching kids about our environment.

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To learn more about oysters, try visiting the following resources:

• "Oysters," The Chesapeake Program
• "Oyster Reefs," NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office
• "Shellfish Program," Maryland Department of Natural Resources

Maryland Day: Three Hundred and Eighty

March 25 marks the day 150 colonists set foot on St. Clement's Island and founded the colony of Maryland.

My ancestors weren't on those first two boats, but the family joke is they were on the next one out.

Happy 380th Birthday, Maryland!

Replica of the Dove
(this photo makes me think of the last scene from Goonies)