Firsts and Lasts

It was a weekend of beginnings and endings, momentous and mundane.

Our first family bike ride in which Eliza rode under her own two-wheeled power. No training wheels. This girl is finally free to fly, and she's not looking back. And oh boy, is she proud.

(Knock knock, who's there? "Don't." Don't who? "Don't hassle me about her flip flops! Mea culpa! Mea culpa!") 

Our last time -- well, for the next six weeks or so -- to eat Sunday lunch at the Good Luck Grill with Nonnie and Opa and the family. The grandparents are headed to England for their annual stint at Cambridge University. One of these years -- and I say this every year -- we are so going to visit them. Oh, and an important detail? They left us their ice cream maker. It's shiny, enormous, and brimming with possibilities.

My first time to make these:

I followed the idiot-proof directions from NotMartha and made one for me, one for a friend. Y'all, I'll tell you something. When I do these kinds of crafts, I feel like Martha Stewart.

That is, Martha Stewart after she's had three glasses of wine and a couple of Valium. My fingers feel slow, clumsy and inextricably smeared with Fabri-Tac glue, rather than deft, clever and clean. Also, I have help. Four- and six-year-old help. As they sweetly, eagerly pelt me with questions and offers, sweat beads my brow, snappishness hovers in the offing, and I find myself muttering Charlotte Mason's motto: "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life." I think the discipline is mostly for me. The children get the atmosphere and the life. :-)

And of course, the most anticipated "last" of the weekend: The LOST series finale.

I'll just go on record as saying that as someone who values character evolution and relationships over mythology and shock value in a story, I found the ending quite satisfying.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Internet debates, feel free to rage on without me.