The Duchess Turns Seven

See that Hansel-and-Gretel cottage cake? Guess who made it allllmost all by herself?

D1 is growing by leaps and bounds. She has moved on to reading long books with small print, preferably books of fairy tales. She likes to draw, preferably princesses. And she likes to cook, preferably birthday cakes. She can get everybody ready to go, in the car and buckled while I am still trying to remember where I left my purse.

It's great to have a big girl.

This is no fair

My weird aunt died suddenly last Tuesday. She was the person who taught me music and Shakespeare and baking fabulous cookies, who introduced me to Gilbert and Sullivan and science fiction and Magic: The Gathering and Sandra Boynton and personality analysis. We used to debate and analyze for hours, and more recently we instead stayed up far too late playing strange card games.

I'm glad she's out of pain, but I'm going to miss her terribly.

Style and 5 year old boys

I hate FDA-approved (or whoever it is that approves it) pajama fabric, all synthetic and treated and ooky feeling. I just don't see that my children are in greater danger of spontaneous combustion while sleeping than while playing. So instead Her Majesty makes them lovely untreated flannel pajamas for winter and for the summer I just pick up a few extra t-shirts and some knit shorts at the thrift store.

This week I got some pieces for D2 and was rather pleased that I managed to coordinate them. I found a pair of orange shorts and a grayish-green shirt with a bright orange tiger printed on it. Then I found some navy shorts and a periwinkle Gap t-shirt with "GAP" in navy.

Tonight D2 wanted to wear his new pajamas. He found the orange shorts, so I dug around and found the tiger shirt.

"That doesn't match!" he complained.

"Yes, it does," I said. "See, there's orange here to match the orange on the shorts."

"But not very *much* orange."

So I tried digging out the other pair. "See, they're both blue."

"But it's not the *same* blue. "

"Well what are you going to wear then?" I asked.

He took the orange shorts and the blue shirt and went and put them on. I don't get it.

Exploring

Some pictures (courtesy D1, which is why she's in none of them) of the kids in our new yard. I've only had to rescue two boys out of the laurel bushes so far.