Gradu-palooza -- the girl version!





So the girl in charge graduated from high school last weekend.  

 I feel old.  I ask you -- does this look like the face of someone who is ready to step out into the wide world? 

No?  OK -- how about this?
I know, right?
 [ The festive bow was after the fact, and I say -- too bad.  ]

While the mortarboard hat does make a definite statement, I think the bow shows way more fashion flair.  Call me crazy.
We partied it up for our girl, with balloons and party platters, and grandparents and aunts and godparents. 

My friend Saskia made this beautiful cake, which tasted even better than it looked, and strictly followed the girl in charge's instructions:  chocolate, with a side of chocolate, filled with chocolate and frosted with chocolate.  Please.

The bestie was there to make the day perfect.  It wouldn't be a celebration without her and her mom -- they make any party more fun!

So, yeah!  My girl in charge is already making her lists and organizing her minions as she prepares to leave for Emory University in the fall, but we're not going to talk about that because I can only absorb so many of these  moments when my life swings on a hinge and everything changes.  I don't really understand how parents make it through life without sobbing every day.

But we do.



Remember: as far as anyone else knows, we're a nice, normal family!"



So back in April the tall boy came home for the Easter weekend, which was fabulous.  And he brought HER with him too, which was also fabulous.  The only concern for me was that we really like this girl -- so we have been trying very hard to keep her from finding out that we're not normal.


Good thing for us, she actually likes playing the kind of uber-nerd board game that lasts for hours, if not days.  This one involves trading things like hides and salt for grain and iron -- and then purchasing "civilizing" abilities like pottery and coin-making and philosophy.  It's not Monopoly, people. 


The Easter Bunny made an appearance, of course.  It addition to way too much chocolate, the baskets this year were filled with bubbles and squirt guns.  Of course, the sunny girl and the girl in charge immediately filled the squirt guns with bubble juice, and SHE joined right in as they all attacked the tall boy-- but the report is that the effect was less than thrilling.  Everybody got crayons too, because that's how the Easter Bunny rolls.


And here's what our pretty Easter dinner table looked like -- before it was loaded with ham and potatoes and spinach salad and asparagus and carrots and deviled eggs and French rolls and butter . . . and the husband made me move the lovely but inedible flowers.

SHE celebrated a birthday while she was with us, and we all went to the Easter Vigil Mass (and to a swell party afterward).  She met the grandparents, and Grandpa fell a little bit in love with her.

So -- all things considered, I think we still have her fooled.

Small pleasures: respite


We lost power for a little while last night, which is a rare thing for us around here.  We live in a community where the power lines are mostly underground, so wind and ice storms and falling trees don't cause major power outages the way they do in some other parts of the area. 


But last night some sort of mechanical something happened (that was the technical expanation given by the power company), and our whole neck of the woods went dark.  And silent.


The girl in charge and I both stumbled around in the dark, bereft without our DVD players and Facebooks and and good reading lights.  Meanwhile the sunny girl calmly went around the house lighting candles.


The husband was in his Scout leader element, wearing a spelunking lamp on his head while he put fresh batteries in a tent lantern. 


I found the "read in bed while your husband is sleeping" book light that my sister gave me for Christmas -- and kept on reading.

 
 
It was kind of nice.

Snapshot: Santa brought tickets!

Santa made this theater-loving family happy by bringing all of us tickets to see the fabulous Billy Elliot at the Kennedy Center.

Grandma Donna loved the tap-dancing the most, while the girl urchins rocked out to the "Angry Dance" and the tall boy and his dad (ardent Thatcherites) snickered in spite of their best efforts at "Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher;" the lyrics are hilarious but a little mean -- so you'll just have to Google them yourself. I loved all of it, and I know one thing for sure:

I'll never look at a tutu the same way again.