It’s not nearly as charming as it sounds, I assure you. Oh, it doesn’t even sound charming? Agreed. You’d think it must have succeeded once or twice to be so persistent, but as far as I know, it hasn’t. I do see an uptick in these requests after they’ve been around their other, parent, though. I guess that is the perk of not living with your kids: you can avoid their constant attempts to impoverish you while simultaneously annoying the other parent.

Anyway, it is no surprise to me that my kids are money-hungry. It was, however, a surprise to come home to this:

Don’t tell the health department.

I do love the drive by service.

But the big deal was this

Yes, I am NOW aware that there was some dust on my lens. Melissa is also an angel!

Roommate reunion! I had lots of lovely roommates in college, but these are some of my favorites! Kate and I were in from opposite coasts and all four of us happened to have a few of the same free hours. We descended on Jamie’s super cute house to…play cards! Kate’s husband thought we were joking about that, but we showed him. Jamie gave us a refresher course on one of our favorite games and it was a blast, not just because I was leading when we had to stop.

Mormon Bridge/Damn it to Hell
o Deal cards: first hand is one card, successive rounds go up to seven and then back down to one.
o Flip the top card on the deck to get the trump suit.
o Everyone bets on how many hands they will win, using their hand to guess
o Person to the left of the dealer starts, playing card of his choice (on larger hands)—subsequent players must follow lead suit if they can
o Player with highest card in the leading suit OR trump suit wins hand
o Players get scores of +10 for each hand they win that they bid to win
o -10 for each hand you were wrong about

Next trip: Uno!

Took a Duck Tour

It was pretty good. I am not typically a tour kind of person, but this was a nice little orientation and, of course, my kids enjoyed the road and river aspect of the ride. I thought the driver made a great historical presentation (duck puns notwithstanding) but PJ informed me that he worked really hard to ignore all the “facts” she kept saying.

Saw the Liberty Bell

You can see how excited my kids are about their freedom: Republicans in the making, I’m sure.

Visited the Insectarium
You can’t really tell from the website, but this is a baby museum. Have you ever seen a museum collection that wasn’t much more than a private collection? This is about one step beyond a collection of dead butterflies in someone’s basement. It is located above an exterminator’s shop well outside of the museum district. Yet it was one of Amos’ main draws to the city, so we went. On one floor, there were dead bugs and a super-gross model kitchen overrun with live cockroaches; not special exotic ones, just the kind that live in apartments. The top floor had live bugs in tanks and some you could hold, but why would you WANT to?!

Blitz of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

By the way: it seems that many more people come to reenact a Rocky run than to see art.

Please Touch
Although my GPS clearly DID NOT want us to visit, we did anyway. Although the price caught me off guard (no more reciprocity, whah!) and the fact that we visited on Saturday morning (ahhhh!) it really is a great museum.

Wild Rumpus at Smith Playhouse and Playground
LOVED this stop. We stayed WAY TOO LONG.

Also, PJ was VERY excited to inform me that MOST of the kids there had “skin like mine.” By which he means, they were black kids. So far, he is by far my most sensitive kid on this front: he often discusses race with me and likes to make those observations. He was ecstatic about playing here. It makes me think we need to hit some different playgrounds back home.

One more time at the Art Museum
How do you get kids to return to someplace they hated the day before? Promise them we will see the armor, of course!

One sweet security guard did not seem to loathe us and he performed a special knighting ceremony for Sir PJ. It made his day.

See you next time!

The End.

Included:
1–Mentos–an aunt in Kenya introduced my kids to these, and they LOVE them
2–Yan Yams and Koalas
3–Fruit Roll-Ups and pink lemonade Bunny snacks; my kids have declared jelly-beans “disgusting”
4–A punching balloon
5–Fresh sidewalk chalk
6–A new toothbrush–I never miss a holiday!
7–A new water bottle
8–Something sporty: scooter for Amos, soccer gear for PJ, and workout clothes/bike helmet for Lily–we are ALL ready for them to get outside!
9–Star Wars Guess Who–something to play together on a Sunday
10–A sling-shot. This is a special family item and I started to get worried about giving them to my kids until I had a brilliant idea: They each get a pack of ping-pong balls or practice golf balls (basically tiny wiffle balls) to go with them. Since non of their friends have sling-shots, I am hopeful they will feel satisfied to shoot with this light-weight ammunition. I have made each of them a soda-bottle target for practice.

Because it was one of my favorite childhood memories, I created a scavenger hunt to the baskets. I hope this hunt will be long enough and fun enough to let me sleep in a bit. One of the clues is located in the sandbox, which I have newly filled with water gel beads. I am crossing my fingers that will entertain them for a while!

But it really bugs me too.

Jon Stewart tries to get at it here with Marco Rubio

who does not engage.

What bugs is that many conservatives do not seem to feel an issue is legitimate until they have personal experience of it. And as a professional policy-maker, I just think IT IS YOUR JOB to actually think through issues that do not touch you or your immediate family but that do affect your constituents and neighbors. It is unlikely, for example, that your daughter is going to come out as an illegal immigrant. Or that your son would come out as a medically uninsured person. Or that your wife comes out as a poor working parent who has a hard time paying for childcare with the poor salary she can earn. Or that your brother will not receive adequate care as a military veteran, serving in a war you voted for but have not sacrificed for or even paid for. Or that your sister will come out as a black person who suffers from prejudice and discrimination. Or that your father will come out as a student with special needs in a school district which cannot afford to serve him. Or that your mother will have a hard time repaying her student loans. Or that your grandchild will suffer from chronic hunger. Because those are all real issues in the US today, and yet, they don’t touch a ruling class of wealthy people, and let’s face it, politicians are almost always wealthy. So, here and there, they might have a gay person born into their families and decide to make that issue a legitimate one. But what about the rest of us?