Tried a salad recipe from a book I am reading with much interest and enjoyment–Helen Nearing’s “Simple Food for the Good Life.”
It was lettuce and fresh dandelion leaves salad.
Irene said, “MUM, I am so HUMILIATED! I am not a RABBIT.
Family Life–The Mathiases Play Balderdash
We played a family game of Balderdash yesterday. A bit like pictionary, pick a word, everyone gives a feigned definition while the picker gives a real one. 3 points for a correct guess, 1 if someone else guesses yours.
After a slow start, Irene, 10, got the hang of dictionary sounding definitions.
Scrivello, A antique builder’s tool, resembling a screw. Both parents voted for her. Zoe, “2 points for Irene.”
Roy, indignantly, “Hey, I said builder’s tool”
Zoe, sweetly, “Yes, but Irene wrote it.”
Both parents crowed over Irene’s genius, and apropos of nothing, of course, claimed she took after them.
Then we looked at Zoe, stricken, “You’re brilliant, Zoe. You are a classic late bloomer.”
She shrugged, steadily inching up the leaderboard while we argued over genetics.
And Zoe won!!
The Meek Inherit the Earth
Love Affair: My techie daughter, Irene!
An intense love affair has been unravelling in our household and before our eyes over the last few months.
This is not Irene’s first love affair–that was probably chess, or Microsoft Publisher, or Adobe Photoshop or Power Point–but it is an intense one.
This affair is with her Ipod Touch.
After months of resistance–could I contribute to the death of an intellectual life?–I capitulated, but only if she used it for noble educational endeavours–listening to books on tape, she does that, corresponding with grandmothers etc, listening to French on it (I’m in love with French and a bossy mummy!) playing vocab games like scrabble and boggle, and anything serious I could think of.
Let’s blame Amazon’s single click ordering.
And as one might expect from an Apple product, it was elegant.
It sweetened the relentless culture of our trip to France. She looked at road maps, read about the places we were travelling to, downloaded games, played boggle and scrabble with Zoe on it, checked to see if we had free wi-fi in cities (we often did) and generally entranced her.
She updated her Facebook, wrote to her grandmother, cousins and her friend Phoebe on it.
It is the current love of her life. It does pretty much everything she requires a piece of technology to do. Isn’t it amazing how one can love, and be totally absorbed by a tiny sleek piece of technology. She is captivated with it, and I have used my will-power not to touch it!!
Now, I am debating–should I buy one for Zoe, or will this spell the death of the intellectual life?
In which I Succumb to Family Games
We’ve used the last week of the Easter holidays to play lots of Family Games –Whist, Rummy, Go Fish and Cheat. Articulate and Taboo
. Roy and I were together for the former and steam-rollered the children. To our astonishment, they won at Taboo. As I overheard Zoe tell Irene beforehand, “It will be okay, Mum and Dad don’t even know how to do Bendy Bob. Or to draw!”
When they were younger, I preferred to read to them rather than play games–a bit of fanatic about learning–but Irene in particular, loves family games!
In which Irene Invents GarlicBreadMen
Irene made the most beautifully shaped gingerbread men.
Funny thing though, they smelled and tasted of GARLIC.
“Irene, did you not wash the spoons and chopping board before using them?”
“I did.” Dreadful thought.
“Show me the puree you used.”
“Dad squeezed it for me.”
Fatal words. I looked at the tube. Intense garlic puree!
Sweet garlic “gingerbread” men don’t taste too bad when they are warm, but I will leave it to Roy and Irene to finish them up.