4, 3...

Hi Jesse! The last couple of days have been full but good. I didn't take out the camera today, but I have a few snapshots of yesterday to share with you. We ate fresh ham and cheese baguette sandwiches along with beautiful strawberries and cucumber from market for lunch, and after school the boys had brioche with tiny mugs of chocolat chaud. Nothing seemed noteworthy about it, then it hit me with a bit of a jolt mid-snack, how very French.

Showing "4 more days" over lunch on Friday. You will notice a freshly filled bug jar on the table. The boys had added two giant snails to it just before we ate, and by the time lunch was over the jar was disgusting...you couldn't see through the glass for the slime. Bon appétit to us...

Later, I was prepping dinner when Josiah tapped me on the shoulder. Goggled and gloved and with a big expectant grin he said, "Can I do some science?!" How could I say no? He headed outdoors—my requirement—with vinegar, baking soda, and a selection of other random items from the cupboards, and William asked to join in. I overheard Josiah quickly and generously telling Will that he could choose either the gloves or the goggles, and they commenced various mixtures and activities from there. I asked later what they'd learned. "Baking soda and vinegar make the best bubbles," Josiah told me, "and lemon juice is good too." William said, "If you add fizzy water and shake it up, that's fun!" Then Josiah added, "But honey just makes everything sticky and yellow." Important life lessons.  :)

They decided to trade gear. Josiah was using a clothespin
to tighten the non-adjustable goggle strap for William. 

 My mad scientists!

Regretfully, it took a bit of a mad mommy to get everything cleaned up at the end...

As for today's highlights (sans photos, sorry):

• coming down for breakfast for the second day in a row to find William already playing outdoors in the courtyard, with a jacket over his PJ top, sneakers on his feet, and nothing from waist to ankles!!! (Yesterday I was trying to tell myself it was a sign of a perfectly good, laid-back mom, but today's repeat event points squarely at a parenting fail...)
• having a language lesson with Maëva this morning while the boys made a pillow jumping pit
• getting down a football that managed to land and perch on the very top of the front courtyard wall (a good 15 feet up...ladder + mop handle eventually did the trick...not that I can be unhappy about enormous privacy walls when our youngest steps out half nude!)
• making a little streusel coffee cake that all three of us enjoyed with decaf tea mid-afternoon
• walking to SuperU Express and getting soaked in unexpected rain on the return walk
• reading aloud the chapter in Pippi Longstocking where Pippi entertains two burglers...she dances something called the schottische with one burgler while the other plays music on a comb...so we looked up a how to do the dance and re-enacted the scene. I was Pippi, Josiah danced with me, and William badly slobbered up a comb. We changed up roles several times and were all on the floor in tears with laughter before long!

There were a few lowlights as well in the form of fights and squabbles, and hitting the one-week mark without you here is definitely a bummer, Jesse. But only three days to go. We're going to make it!