Amelia at 10 Months

Cooling Off in Downtown Memphis

It's been pushing 100 degrees here (the heat index is well over that) for about two weeks. Time to chill out! On one of their last days off before school starts again, Molly and Rebecca went with me to Mud Island, down on the Mississippi River. There's a museum there about riverboats and stuff, but we were going to walk the River Walk and play in the fountain. No learning, just wetness. At the end, when the mission had been accomplished, I said to Rebecca, "I guess I should have put your swimsuits on for this adventure." She replied, "Actually, it was more fun to swim in our clothes!"

riding on the monorail over the river to the island


posing in front of the desoto bridge


before mommy announced it was okay to get clothes wet!


in the River Walk, with the real river as a backdrop


now the clothes are fully wet!


drippysplishysplashy


if that doesn't cool you off, what will?

Date Night

Last night, Peter and I had a date. It's still hard to fathom that our first one was over 17 years ago--Beale Street music fest 1991. The kids were having a blast with Granna and Papa, so we caught a late afternoon movie and had dinner. The movie wasn't great (Mamma Mia!--a little too much Abba, a little too much Pierce Brosnan "singing"), but it was nice to hang out without strollers or potty breaks. We browsed at a grocery store afterwards (look, what you like to do on a date evolves with time, okay?) then went to dinner at The Grove Grill. Always good to eat at a place without kids menus and high chairs. Turns out another Memphian likes the casual fine dining at The Grove--we shared a dining room with Morgan Freeman! Peter decided it would be fun to entertain me with his Morgan Freeman impersonation throughout the meal, even though I could hear the real thing two tables over. Nothing like Morgan in stereo surround sound. I fought the urge to rush him and beg for a picture together with my camera phone and an autograph on a Wendy's napkin in my purse. We--and everyone else in the restaurant--left him and his dining companions alone, giving them the peace that he must enjoy in a smaller city like Memphis. After dinner, we shopped briefly for clothes to finish out the tax-free weekend. Shopping for groceries and clothes are always harder with 3 kiddos in tow, so we were able to just casually walk the aisles and have grown-up talk. Maybe we need to plan these more often....

Everybody's Goin' To China

My sister is in China now, visiting friends from college and other past lives. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers, that she remains safe and happy. She'll be gone from her Thailand home for about 3 weeks. While she's there, the Olympics will start. Also while she's there, her home country of Thailand will receive two special visitors en route to China, W and Laura Bush. Laura's been pretty vocal in bringing attention to the political/humanitarian crisis in Burma and the refugees with whom Meredith works. Mer's Mae Tao Clinic will host Mrs. Bush (not W--he's just going to Bangkok) in early August, which is great from a publicity standpoint and great because she is donating thousands of much-needed mosquito nets. Mer will miss this visit since she will be in China. After the Bushes do a little Thai tour, they will go on to China for the opening of the Olympics.

I am not going to China. But I might just order a little take-out at some point next week and eat with chop sticks. And that's pretty much the same thing.

Safe travels, sweet sister!

What Every Parent Should Know

Last week I had two days with kids in daycare and no work scheduled. I spent one day doing laundry and getting my eyes dilated. On the other day, I did a full Kid Clothes Inventory and spent my morning at the big kids consignment sale at the Agricenter, a semi-annual event full of moms elbowing each other for the best bargains. (Actually, it's not that bad.) There are some amazing deals to be had, but one fellow shopper and I exchanged a brief conversation about the insane price of some children's clothing. As she thumbed past a cute--but not that cute--outfit for a 6-year-old, she bemoaned the $80 price tag--now half off on consignment. Here are a few clothing do's and don't's I have come to live by as I raise Girl Child Number 3:
1. Do not buy white. I am truly at a loss as to why clothing for children is even made in white. If you plan to let them wear it once, fine. But you can count on dirt, mustard, tomato sauce, snot, pee, markers, etc., marring it within approximately one hour of wear.
2. Do not pay a lot for shoes. And by "a lot," I mean more than $20, preferably less than $10. Kids are hard on shoes. Playgrounds and sidewalks are hard on shoes.
3. Do not buy expensive accessories. The handmade expensive bows are all cutesy, but they will get lost. Or broken.
4. Learn which clothes will hold up as hand-me-downs. If you have three daughters, you will need to let them share. Fashion--at least in my opinion--is not that important when they are under age 3, so who cares about trends? Go with what you like and what looks great after 571 washes.
5. Look at the tags. If it says "dry clean only" or "hand wash," pass on it. You will not have the time or money to do these things. Also, at 11 pm when you switch the washer stuff to the dryer, you will not remember to remove the "lay flat to dry" item.
6. Dresses with puffy stuff underneath are hard to clean and hard to maintain. There has been more torn netting-looking material in my house than I care to admit.
7. If outfits have matching pieces, store them together. That way, when Dad or Grandpa goes to pick out clothes, he will have better luck.
8. Fight the fights that are worth fighting. If she wants to wear a tiara to the neighbor's house, let her. If she wants to wear ballet shoes to the playground, draw the line.
9. Ask your older kid if she likes it BEFORE you buy it. If she doesn't, she won't wear it. No, she really, truly won't wear it--see #8.
10. Do not buy a dress at a consignment store for $80. That's just stupid.

Splish Splash Fun

No summer would be complete without swimming lessons. Every night for two weeks, we carpooled to the University of Memphis for Swim School with two of our very favorite friends, Sage and Autumn. The improvements were certainly notable, but perhaps most exciting, the fear of the water (other than to wade and splash) seems to have dissipated. They're both willing to try new things in the water. My favorite Rebecca moment: watching from the bleachers, I saw the teacher step back from the side in the 5-feet-deep part, clearly urging Rebecca to jump in to her. Rebecca responded by visibly waving her hands to get the teacher to move even further from the wall. She then promptly leapt in and swam at full force to the teacher! My favorite Molly moment: while holding onto the kickboard, Molly swam out to the middle of the very big pool, got distracted and turned her head back, letting the kickboard float away in the process. Without even realizing she was swimming just fine on her own, she frantically tried to recover the board. I pointed this out to her later, to which she replied, "Well, yeah, I can swim. Duh, Mom." Guess I could have saved that swim school tuition money...

Welcome Travis!

We have a new nephew! Travis has recently turned 6, and his new forever family includes Peter's sister Jennifer and her husband Rob--and all of us! We are just tickled BLUE (after all these Marsh girls--7 granddaughters in all for Nana and Pa--we now have a little boy!).

They live in Oregon, so we're all trying to think of when and where we can meet Travis to welcome him into the family. For now, we're all trying to figure out what in the world to buy for little boys...

Congratulations, Jennifer and Rob! Travis, we love you already!