Ahoy from Cape Cod!

We've been so busy these past two weeks that it's been hard to find the time to sit down and blog it all.  So maybe I'll start with today and work backward? 

My college roomate Missy and her husband Ted just so happen to be spending the week with Ted's family about a mile down the road from the house we're renting in Monument Beach.  Talk about serendipity!  They invited us on a little boat ride out to Bassett's island to swim and relax for the afternoon. 

It was HEAVEN.  The kids were wearing permagrins on the boat and Marc and I had fun reminiscing about growing up on and around boats.  It really is like you're in another world where the cares of the day just disappear with the wind rushing by and the waves bouncing you along and the salty sea air in your face.

And the VIEWS!!  I got to test out my new camera and fell instantly in love.

We took off across the protected bay [ast Pocasset and Cataumet and anchored on Bassett's Island.  The kids would have made their sea-loving grandfathers proud because they loved every second of it!

The best part of Bassett's island, off of Cataumet, is that the water is WARM.  Practically unheard of in New England, to find a warm water beach - but that's why we came to Buzzard's Bay, because the barest edge of the gulf stream come by this way and make the water bearable, whereas on the inner cape, or the south shore, the water is usually bitterly cold even in August!

Even the fussiest water-snob among us fell in love!

The kids had the best time walking out on a sandbar that went nearly across the bay. 

And they had a blast catching baby minnows with Ted's patented technique:  he waits until they school in the little rivulets of water created by the incoming tide.  Then he kicks the water with the side of his foot so that the fish get tossed onto the sand, and then he scoops them up gently into a pail of water.   I can't say that Ben and Molly were terribly gentle with their captive fishies...but I can vouch that no fish were murdered during the operation and all fish were released back into the ocean at the end of the day.

We also found loads of shells to bring back to Illinois.  Scallop shells and slipper shells were the most prevalent, with some of the shells being worn so thin they looked like mother-of-pearl.

And then it was time to say goodbye and head back. Missy was kind enough to take a picture of us, and to pose for one with me..

Who ever knew that the girl we all stared at that first day of freshman year in college (because she was undeniably the prettiest among us) would turn out to be one of the friends I'd treasure twenty years later. 

Lucky me!

On the ride back, Jack got to drive - he was in heaven at the helm!

It was a perfect afternoon, filled with so much fun that Drew fell fast asleep on the ride back.  We kept getting him and Ben confused because not only do they look alike...they ACT alike!  Third children, second boys...full of the dickens they are.  But cute as can be - I swear God does that so we won't give them away for all the trouble they give us!

We said goodbye to our friends at the dock and ended the afternoon with some incredible ice cream from the Whistle Stop Ice Cream Shop which is just a block away from the house.  Ben got vanilla, Molly got cookies 'n cream, and Jack got his own creation which I think included every candy in the store...he charmed the girls behind the counter into it! 

We walked back dripping ice cream the whole way, and then everyone got showers and pajamas and we had Kung Fu Panda movie night for the kids while Mom and Dad enjoyed a glass of wine watching the sun set from the front porch.

It just doesn't get much better than that!

Over the River and through the woods...

Or, more appropriately, around Lake Michigan and across the Berkshires...regardless of how you want to re-word the tune, we headed out last week on the road trip to beat all road trips, which isn't saying much since the only other 'road trip' we've taken was 8 hours long.

18 hours from our house to Nana's.  Not counting stops.  We started out after dinner and headed east on Route 80.  And then we just kept driving!

Within an hour or two we'd crossed our first state line...

And our passengers were fast asleep for the night.

By the time daybreak came, we'd crossed Indiana, a corner of Pennsylvania and were into New York.

Marc and I watched the sun rise over Lake Erie.

The crew dozed on - this is seriously the best we could have hoped for!  They slept away over half the ride!

We stopped for breakfast and then lunch, when we started to see some things we'd forgotten about...

TREES!!

HILLS!!

Model Ts?  Seriously, there must have been a convention...they were everywhere!!

And then the sign we'd all been waiting for!

HALLELUIA!!!!

Now that we've done it, I can say that the first 1000 miles were easy...it was the last 200 that were hard!  Once we saw this sign, we were ready to BE THERE already...sadly, we had to cross the entire state before our favorite yellow colonial came into view...Nana's House! 

It was definitely worth the ride.

The Tasmanian Devil and the Tooth Fairy

Oh my gosh, seriously?  I swear, parenting Ben is like being the trainer for the Tasmanian Devil.  Someday if he reads this, and I'm in the looney bin, I hope he understands what put me there.

This morning is a great example, but mind you, this is just one snippet of the type of stuff I deal with every day. 

I set my alarm and woke up early to take a shower before the kids woke up.  But Ben must have figured out my plan because as I was hopping into the shower, the door creaked open and there he was in his Batman pajamas, with his binky in his mouth and his Lion in his hand.  I suggested he lie down in my bed while he waited the seven minutes it was going to take me to shower.  I could do it in five, but our water pressure stinks, so half of those minutes are just to rinse off.

Off he padded, and I said a small prayer that he listened to me.

Two minutes later he was back with Jack's hair pomade in hand.  It's the super sticky stuff that you only need the teeny tiniest bit of to make your spikes stick up all day.  Ben was unscrewing the top of the jar saying "Mama, I sink I need just a little bit of this for my hair".

We've been down this road before and I knew what he meant was "I need a really giant handful of this glue to wipe all over my head, body and anything else I come into contact with before you catch me".

I was soaking wet so I had to try and stop him using only words...my work was cut out for me.  I used my calmest "no problem" voice and told him that it wasn't good for his hair so I would get him his own hair gel when I got out in five minutes.  I asked him to please put the jar on the counter and go lie down in my bed to wait for me. 

Of course he didn't, that goes without saying.

So I used my patented count to three threat (with a time out at the end) and he put the jar on the counter on TWO.  Disaster averted, and off he padded again.

Please Lord, just let him lie down in my bed for the FOUR remaining minutes of my shower?

One minute later when I'm beginning to rinse my shampoo suds out I hear him again "Ummm, Mama?  What does this thing do?" 

I open one eye to peek at what he's got and sure enough...it's a razor.

A FREAKING RAZOR!!!!!

In all honesty, that was all my fault. I'd shaved my legs in the tub the night before and left the spent Intuition cartridge in its case waiting for me to bring it down to the kitchen trash to make sure that a certain little person didn't find it in my bathroom trash.   But he was too stinking quick for me.

Covered in suds I snatched the razor away from him before he sliced his finger open, and told him, in no uncertain terms, that he'd better go lie down in my bed for the TWO LOUSY MINUTES I needed to finish.

Off he went, still sucking on his binky.

With one minute left, as I'm putting conditioner in my hair, I hear Jack yelling at Ben (not an unusual occurrence) but with the shower on it took me a few seconds to decipher..

"Ben, stop blah blah bla, you're going to hurt yourself!!"

"Mommmmmm!  Ben is hitting me with his pillow pet!"
(no, that can't be right, I think)

"Mom!  Ben is sticking his finger into the electrical outlet!!"

Bingo!  That's more believable!

I start out softly, but within seconds am shrieking like a madwoman,

"Benjamin Jay Mallett if you do not get in here right this minute...That's it!  I'm counting to three and you're going to get a time out!  One, twooooooo, THREE!!"  Get in here Benjamin!  Get in here because if I have to come out there soaking wet and get you then so help me God you're getting a spanking!!!"

Oh yeah.  The ultimate throwdown.  The spanking threat, only reserved for the most egregious of offenses.  And all before 7:30am.  Good times.

Finally he came and told me I was yelling too loud.  So I gritted my teeth and in the softest voice I could muster I said "Sit on the rug Benjamin."

"No." he said.

"Sit on the RUG, Benjamin."

"Nope."

"SIT on the RUG, NOW, Benjamin"

"Ummm, lalalalalala" he sung while making silly gestures with his hand as if to say "I can't heeeaaarr youuuuu".

"If you don't sit down on that rug right now, Benjamin, you are getting a spanking."

"Lalalallaallalalalalalal" (giggle).

I had no choice.  I'd thrown down the gauntlet.  I'd given him every opportunity to comply, and he did what he does every day, which is the 3 year old equivalent of spitting in my face.  In fact, some days he actually DOES spit in my face. 

So Ben earned himself a lovely, sopping wet, pre-breakfast spank on the bottom.

And then, blessedly, he finally sat down on the rug for the fourteen seconds of shower I had left.

SEVEN MINUTES.  SEVEN.

_______________________________________________________________

In other news, Jack had three teeth pulled last week.  I'll edit this and post a picture later, but he's awfully cute without them!

Here I am, back before bed, to show off the teeth, or "wigglies" as Jack's dentist, Dr. Dave calls them.  With pediatric dentistry in the new millennium, terms like lidocaine swab, novocaine injection and tooth extraction are not used.  Instead they swab "special cleaner" and then "spray you" with "water".  Then they "measure" your "wigglies" and sometimes they are just so darn WIGGLY that they just pop out!

Jack was onto them, and their tricksy ways...but he rolled with it and came out smiling and laughing.  I swear, it's like a cult there.  A really, really GOOD cult though.  Led by a happy, Jeff Goldblum-esque guy named Dr. Dave, and run by a group of women who eat the ideology for breakfast.  Even when I booked the appointment, it was to have his "wigglies' taken care of.  I kid you not!

Here he is in all his glory, with missing wigglies and a peeling nose.

One of those is his "extra" tooth...I'm guessing it's the one that looks like a small carrot, but I could be wrong.

And now, I am off to write my to-do list and procrastinate some more.  T minus seventeen hours until the ship leaves for Massachusetts!!

The Taste of Summer is GREEK!!

It seems that nearly every summer I fall head over heels in love with a flavor.  One year it was fizzy italian pink lemonade, which I drank like it was going out of style.  Another it was a spinach and strawberry salad with poppyseed dressing.  Another year it was goat cheese.  On anything.  There was the summer of Boar's Head horseradish spread, the summer of fajitas, the summer of cherry sangria, and so on.

This summer is no exception.  It started with a Mother's Day lunch I made from storebought stuff at Whole Foods.  I had zero time and my sister-in-law on the way, so I grabbed a bunch of things from the olive bar, some lettuce, a jar of roasted red peppers, a packet of garlic vinaigrette dressing, some feta cheese and some fig crackers.  Holey YUM it was good!  After we licked our plates clean, Ulia told me that she liked to toss the same kinds of things with cooked pasta...so you can guess how I've been eating my pasta this summer!

The other day we had a going away party for our neighbors and someone brought a dip that rocked my WORLD.  I am posting about it now, only because I'm eating it now  and it's too delicious to keep it to myself.

Carrie Foley's

Rockin' 7 Layer Greek Dip

LAYER 1

On a platter spread a brick of cream cheese

(this is easier said than done - in the future I might try whipped Neufchatel)

LAYER 2

On top of this spread a container of your favorite hummus

(mine is Joseph's Garlic Lovers and nothing else will do)

On top of this, layer

LAYER 3

Sliced kalamata olives

LAYER 4

Diced Roasted Red Peppers

LAYER 5

Sliced pepperoncini

LAYER 6

Diced red onion

LAYER 7

Crumbled Feta cheese

Don't say I didn't warn you when you've eaten the whole platter :)  Greece may have it's problems these days, but one of them is not bored tastebuds.  Opa!!

God Bless America! (aka, the longest post in the history of this blog)

Fourth of July was an AMAZING weekend this year.  Which is good, because it needed to be, so we wouldn't feel homesick for our annual Egan cookout or Revere Beach Mallett tradition.

We spent Friday night at the pool with friends and neighbors, with drinks for the grownups and swimming for the kiddos, until finally Ben could take it no more and we had to head home to put our little buddy to bed. 

On Saturday, one of the hottest days of the summer so far, our neighbors had a pool party which we thoroughly enjoyed since in the past, WE were always the ones having the pool party instead of being invited to one! 

Molly showed her national and Red Sox pride with an awesome bow from Bow Sox Bows.  My friend Sandy hooked us up with a box full of gorgeous bows!

It was all Marc could do to hold Ben still for a picture before he got his floaties on and jumped into the pool.  No sooner had I turned around to put my camera away from this picture, when I turned back around to see a soaking wet, fully clothed Marc.   When Ben jumped in, he held his slippy, sunscreened arms up over his head and his floaties slipped off!  With Hasselhoff-like reflexes, Marc jumped in and saved the day.  He repeated the Baywatch performance later, when he fished a two year old out after he jumped in with no life jacket on.  Our Hero!

As if the pool wasn't enough fun, one of our neighbors brought their new ATVs that they'd bought for their lake house ("lake house" is the midwestern equivalent to "beach house" in New England).  Jack got the first ride, and was in HEAVEN. 

Someone else was very jealous. 

We tried the old "donut distraction" routine...

But it didnt' work.

Finally, one of the guys offered to give him a little ride - just enough to make him happy, but save me the heart attack.

I still had a heart attack.

It happened that we'd booked a babysitter for the night, way before we knew there was a party to go to.  We just needed to get out!  So as the late afternoon exhaustion set in, we ordered pizza delivery from the pool, took (dragged!) the kids home, threw them in the tub, put them in pajamas, fed them the pizza and popped in a movie.  Our babysitter, Anum, arrived a few minutes later and Marc and I headed back to the party for the evening without our entourage.  For once, our timing was perfect!

It turned out that some of the guys had gone to Indiana earlier in the week to get contraband fireworks and planned a pretty amazing spectacle.  So Marc went back home and got Jack so he wouldn't miss it.  That's parenthood for ya!  Even when you enact the escape clause you still can't turn it off!

The fireworks were pretty stinking amazing by backyard standards...

It might have been a little too much for our sensitive kid.  But I think getting out after dark, and without Molly and Ben in tow, made it worth it for him. 

And the sparklers!  He was a big fan of the sparklers.

Here he is two-fisting them.  And my favorite shot of the night, though it wasn't of my child, is this one...

That's Molly's friend Olivia, who collapsed in a heap of tears shortly after this picture because the poor thing was so tired!  She was a trooper though and made it through far longer than our kids would have.

We spent Sunday regrouping, and on Monday, Independence Day, we got to march in a parade with Jack's Cub Scout Pack.  I thought it was just a little 'neighborhood parade' but it turned out to be attended by the Mayor and followed by a huge block party.  It was covered by the local paper and Jack, who was standing in front of the Mayor during the flag ceremony, made it onto the front page!!

The parade reminded me so much of my own childhood - all the good, happy, thoughts I can conjure up - of decorated bikes and neighborhood games, and that time my dad and Uncle John got some fireworks from goodness knows where, and we watched them in the dark while we sat on the hood of the station wagon way past our bedtime.  I think that was for a family party though, not sure if it was the fourth.

As if that weren't enough, we got to enjoy the afternoon with our favorite local Egans (okay, our ONLY local Egans!) and snuggle our favorite baby cousin (again, he's our ONLY baby cousin?  But even if he wasn't, he'd still be our favorite!) 

With all the food we had you would have thought we were feeding an army, but no...it was just us! 

And let me tell you, it was YUMMY! 



 We even had Auntie Ulia's octopus dip!  Before you faint and think my children have turned a corner in their culinary repertoire, I mean THIS kind of octopus...

She spoils us!!

Seriously?  Homemade mint chocolate chip Oreo crust ice cream pie?

SPOILS US!!

Uncle Paul got in on the action and decorated a flag cake for us.  Can you say S-P-O-I-L-E-D??

We are so lucky they like us :)  And we like them right back.

At the end of the day, we shared a few sparklers with our neighbors, the Nelsons.

Then we joined them on tthe 18th hole of Naperbrook Golf Course and watched the Bolingbrook fireworks.  Watching the kids squeal with delight, I couldn't help but hope that when they grow up they'll think back to this time and remember it as magical. 

Naperville is a city, but the area we live in, with it's large, close knit neighborhoods, feels so much more like a small town.  Just right for our little family, especially on a special holiday like the Fourth of July. 

Happy Independence Day to all,

and to all a good night!