"A Week in the Life": Friday
1. Woken by loud crash (child climbing on box of train tracks to pull contraband from shelves). Child decides to climb over his waffle breakfast. Child shows me that the banana looks like the moon. I drink two cups of coffee with soy creamer.
2. Rush off to get to the delightful Music Together class our friend Maggie teaches. Zeke loves to get his groove on, and I must say, has quite a lovely little singing voice.
3. When Zeke realizes Maggie's homeschooled kiddos are hanging out in the next room, he opts to hang out with them for the next 45 minutes or so, discovering all the wonders of the iPod Touch. He also steals and eats one of their apples.
4. We arrive home to wash the gargantuan piles of laundry. I'm thinkin' the fireman hat is not so much machine washable.
5. Lunch! Eating the day after Yom Kippur seems downright thrilling. I made paninis with Dubliner Irish cheese on sprouted sourdough wheat. We also scarfed down an organic pear from the box we get delivered by Spud.
6. Is there anything you can't do with a silicone baking cup? Today, I filled ours up with high pigment watercolors. Zeke and I painted several pictures in the backyard sunshine.
7. The afternoon feels very civilized, until Zeke runs off with the big water glass and chucks it into the driveway, where it shatters into so very very many pieces.
8. After Zeke absconds with the glass shard filled broom, he must intuit that I need a freakin' break, because he settles down to build legos on the back porch. He builds while I take a luxurious four (maybe five?) minute rest on the outdoor couch.
9. In the afternoon, we go to "Home School Fridays!", which this week is conveniently located at our neighbor, Mara's, house. When we arrive, Zoe is sewing a Halloween shirt of her own design. Zeke creates his own collage project with a glue stick and some oak leaves.
10. Zoe gives Zeke a tiny baby sling and a little bear to carry. Zeke is quite enamored with it. He can be endearingly loving and compassionate!
11. Mara teaches us how to make ghosts by creating a form and covering it with starch soaked cloth. Ours is small and looks like R2 D2 in a sheet. Malcolm's, however, is enormous and looks awesome. When they dry, the ghosts will be free standing.
12. Les enfants get restless, so we walk to the park. The kids are all busying themselves with a variety of death defying new ways to use the playground equipment. Zach shows up to say hi, which was great, but then, the un-napped (and desperatly missing his siblings) one, bit Malcolm on the knuckles. We decided it was time to go home, and Zeke had a full scale meltdown.
12. The meltdown ended promptly with the serving of dinner. I made a variation on my Grandmother Theresa's pasta fazool (which in southern Italian peasant dialect means "pasta with beans"). She made hers with elbow macaroni, white beans, escarole, a little broth, and lots of garlic. We would cover it with a snow of freshly grated Parmesan, and it was terrifically soothing. I make mine with whole wheat pasta, swiss chard, crushed garlic, olive olive oil, some of the cooking liquid from the veggies and pasta, chopped tomato, and garbanzo beans. I add little discs of mozzarella directly to the bowl, so that they just begin to melt a little, right before you take your first bite. Dinner went fine, until the milk was spilled...twice. But as they say, there's no use crying...
13. Ezekiel asked to call Malcolm to check on him and say sorry. He also called his big brother Forest, and his great-grandfather, Ernie. For some reason, in this picture, he kind of looks like a long lost member of the Dandy Warhols calling from one hell of a party.
14. Zeke and Papa drive to the video store to exchange the Stanley Kubrick shirt I got Papa for a different size. I stay home and light Shabbat candles. Zach rents The Diving Bell and the Butterfly for later. The boys bring home ice cream and day old brioche.
15. Zeke gets bathed and ready for bed, while I try to upload today's pics and post this monster blog. I am interrupted to help the bedtime process. Boy, I would really really like to watch that movie some time tonight....
16. Seriously thinking that next weeks project should involve far less photography and far fewer words.
Pasta fazool. I recall a joke about that from one of the old Superman movies... If you wanted to pass on or perhaps post a recipe for that? I'm looking for new and interesting ways to take advantage of my lack of resources...
Posted by: Patrick Allison | October 13, 2008 at 03:07 PM