Mostly for my Blake fans: Creepy Jennie Strikes AGAIN

Ok people.

I'm up late with the genealogy. I am frustrated by Bridget Kidney-Dwyer-etc and her husband Edward Blake and their niece Mollie Touhey. Is she Edward's niece or Bridget's? It would make things a lot easier if she were Edward's. Or not. I don't know. I find things and give them a try and then I put them aside again.

But anyway, this is about their son, one of the sons they left behind in Kansas City so they could go run a saloon in East St. Louis, where Edward would eventually shoot a man? His name is Edward D. Blake. If I knew what the D. stood for I'd probably be in better shape than I am now. Daniel? Seems likely. Anyway, he's the one who's married to the spooky great-great-grandmother of mine, Jennie Dawes. Jennie Freakin Dawes. Jennie Dawes who is about as elusive as Bridget of the Many Surnames.

Jennie was married to Leonhard Etter before she was married to Edward. Leonhard was a drunk and a swindler. They had a mess of kids, most of which died before they were one. They did live in the hole that was the near north side at the time. But Leonhard kicks the bucket and Jennie marries Edward.

I never found a marriage record in Missouri, which was super frustrating because Missouri is diligent about their marriage and death records of a certain age. They are free online to view and cheap to order if you want them. So not finding it was annoying. I extrapolated and triangulated a year of marriage--1896--based on a census record and their son, my great-grandfather, also an Edward, his date of birth.

Well, google is always a good second place to look for things and I found a summary of information on some site. It had Edward marrying (Mrs.) Jennie Etter in 1896 in Illinois. Which made me feel sheepish because, while they are stingier about getting copies, Illinois is awesome at marriage records. And death records after 1900 or so. I could have found it myself, but why? Why would I have tried to find it, when I knew they lived in St. Louis? For that matter, I felt even more justified in my ignorance because they didn't get married in East St. Louis, but in Chicago.

Another mystery for another day.

But here's the creepy part. They did indeed get married in 1896. In July 1896. ON JULY 6, 1896, to be exact.

You know what my anniversary is?

July 6, 1996.

I got married a hundred years to the day after Edward married the scariest person in my whole family tree.

I can't stop giggling.

Ten on Tuesday: 10 things in my fridge right now

RIGHT NOW:

1. two half gallons of Oberweis chocolate milk. One is almost empty.

2. A jar of homemade grape jelly.

3. Redi-wip.

4. Two tiny containers of apple butter, courtesy of school (did kids make it? I don't know).

5. Apples. Green ones.

6. Basil.

7. Basil pesto. Homemade.

8. Tortillas.

9. Olives, homemade pickles, pickled beets. Love me some brine.

As an afterthought, 10 things that AREN'T in my fridge:
1. Leftovers: they have all gone to work/school/breakfast, or went into the deer stew for dinner tonight (a bit of rice, a half cup of tomato sauce, etc).

2. Beer. We're just not beer drinkers.

3. Margarine. Bleah.

4. Mayo. I like mayo, nobody else in the house does. But I also like mustard on the same foods, so mayonnaise only appears if I need it as an ingredient. And then it waits in the fridge, eventually expiring and getting thrown out.

5. Bread. Bread in the fridge is gross.

6. Out of season fruit. As tempting as those strawberries might look, I know their time has passed....and will come again.

7. Lunchmeat. For the most part, I think lunchmeat is gross, too, with the possible exception of shaved chicken or turkey breast (or really really good salami). And school lunches don't stay cold enough for my kids to want lunchmeat in them.

8. Cheese. The remainder of our cheese went to kindergarten snack. It was my turn.

9. Salsa. I wish there was some salsa in the fridge, but alas, we are out. We have a couple of jars in the basement, and the salsa verde in the freezer, but no snacking salsa at the moment.

10. Cucumbers. Thank goodness that season is over. Whew.

Another scrap

I went back to genealogy as a hobby. It's getting towards autumn and it makes me nicely nostalgic and melancholy and those feelings go with genealogy in a way that they don't go with bike riding and gardening. Really.

I ran into my cousin Amanda on Saturday night. She and her husband had found my family tree online--they'd just signed up for ancestry.com as well and were amused/impressed by what I had so far. So that night I stayed up late and did a bit. Sunday night, too. But I'm at a point at which it's not so many aha moments anymore. Right now I'm extrapolating based on name, age, and date of entry when the Kidney/Dwyer sisters might have come to the US. I have a ten year span, of course the height of the famine diaspora, and there's no real way of knowing for sure what last name they used. Plus, it's not like the people putting them on boats in Liverpool or Cork had much to say about them besides a name and an approximate age. I don't know why I care about their passage to the US--it doesn't help me find records in Ireland, except maybe to narrow down dates. It's not like they list a former address on the steerage form.

But while I was tooling around this afternoon during naptime, dinner in the crock pot and the public rooms of the house passable, I was looking for records of Bridget Kidney Blake. I found a record in a city directory in East St. Louis, where she lived with her husband Edward. He ran a saloon, I know (they left their two sons, one of which is my great-great-grandfather, in Kansas City with her sister to go to East St. Louis during the railroad/stockyard boom). I found the listing in 1890, which was after his suicide in 1886 (gravestone here). It had an address: 310 Market Ave.

Then I took that information and looked it up on google maps. There was a street view. It's all fallow ground now, of course, not even a street sign marking it. I stared at it a moment and wondered where their bar was. Was it here? Closer to the center of town? So I went back to google and made several attempts to find information. You can't find that kind of information, at least I can't, on google. That will require trips to government offices or newspaper archives. I sighed. Then I put in "Edward Blake" saloon East St. Louis.

And I got something. An article in the New York times, dated October 29, 1886. A man named William Vanderough (later I found evidence that his name was really Vandervoort), an engineer for the Indianapolis & St. Louis Railroad, was in a saloon in East St. Louis. He got very drunk. He argued with the proprietor, Edward Blake, over his bill. Came at him, and Blake warned him to back off. He didn't, and Edward Blake took out his revolver and shot him.

He died of "traumatic peritonitis" in Mullanphy Hospital in St. Louis two days later. Lots of scrawled handwritten notes in the one-line death record that I can't read just yet. I'm going to try later with fewer distractions (after the kids are in bed).

I read this and my heart stopped. 1886? But that's the year Edward committed suicide. Wait. I went back to ancestry and looked at his own death certificate.

He took rat poison (arsenic in those days) 20 days after killing a man in his bar.

He was born in 1828 and married Bridget at age 30. He survived/escaped the potato famine. He had two sons and a wife and a niece who lived with them. He had something of a successful business. And then he shoots a drunk, possibly in self-defense, I mean, I can't find a record that he died in jail or something like that. And maybe that was just too much?

I looked a bit on Ancestry to see if William Vandervoort showed up in anyone's genealogy. I can't tell for sure--turns out Vandervoort isn't as rare as it seems like it should be. I think I have him in the 1880 census, though, in New York (which maybe explains why the Times took an interest?). No marriage record, no obituary per se.

It's 124 years later and I want to apologize. That's probably a crazy thing to think, but the whole story, fleshed out like this, is fascinating, tragic, and almost as if it's waiting for me to do something with. So if you know any New York Vandervoorts with railroad connections and a story of a murder, send them my way.

Ovary-achingly cute right here

Down at our trip to Cairo over Labor Day....

Eggplant Mush recipe link

Salon.com is where I found the eggplant mush recipe. It was really quite tasty. I'm sure I doubled the garlic, though. I often do. Here's the link, since I didn't doctor it enough to call it mine!

Sunchoke garlic soup

Yes, sunchokes are Jerusalem artichokes--aren't they the roots of sunflowers? I can't remember what I've been told. Soup was good tonight. So here's what I did:

4 T butter in soup pot (enough to handle at least 5 cups of broth plus other stuff...),
add 4 cloves of garlic, minced. Saute.
Add 1 pound or so sunchokes, chopped into about 1 inch pieces.
Saute about 5 minutes.
Add thyme (I added a tablespoon: we like thyme), salt, pepper.

Pour in 5 cups broth--I used chicken broth. Add a bay leaf. Bring to a boil and then simmer for about 30 minutes.

I then took a stick blender to it, although you could do it in batches in a regular blender.

Return to pan if you used a blender; either way, add about a 1/2 cup of cream or half and half.

We had it with a side salad and croutons. Tasted like a potato leek style of soup but not quite. It was good. And gone.

Food this Season

Deborah likes it when I talk about what we've made with our CSA stuff. Tonight I'm making something new, a garlic sunchoke soup. I'll let you know. Other late summer highlights:

*Concord grape jelly. Why did I never make this before? It is divine. The best jelly ever. And I say that as a dyed-in-the-berry strawberry and blackberry jam fan. But this is, ahem, jam packed with flavor and the perfect consistency, color, sweetness. Amazing. Yes, I processed it, Ann. I like being able to do that.

*Spaghetti with Match italian sausage, homemade sauce, goat cheese

*Cucumber-goat cheese "salads" for girls' lunch (above) with sliced sweet green pepper (and olives, which weren't from the CSA).

*Garlic bread. That's been what we've done with the loaves of bread of late. Spread with butter or olive oil (depending on how noble I'm feeling) and then spread with minced garlic from my garden. Eat the whole loaf, of course.

*That farmers market peanut butter goes so well on a croissant with that jelly.

*Grilled delicata squash with ozark seasoning (from Penzeys). It makes everything you grill taste like meat, I mean in a good way, that hearty savory flavor.

*More eggplant mush over pasta. Better than that sounds. Amazingly better.

*Frittatas, quiche, even humble scrambled eggs--it seems like a lot of eggs this month and half or so.

*Figs straight from the box.

*Bacon greens

*All the winter squash (butternut, acorn, pumpkin when it comes) I am crock-pot cooking, scraping into freezer containers, and saving for pumpkin pie. I've done three autumns of making kids eat it for dinner and I'm tired of the tears. Maeve and I love pumpkin pie and they freeze and travel well. There you go.

*But beets get served.

*Pickled beets, in fact, I've decided are one of the hidden blessings of belonging to a CSA. I was handed a quart jar and I've never looked back. Eat them with lettuce/spinach salads with carmelized pecans or walnuts...goat cheese or feta or some other soft crumbly cheese. Stick your face in.

*Spaghetti squash cooked and shredded and served with my red sauce was not a big hit. But the leftovers were combined with more red sauce and paste, ricotta and mozzarella, baked into two lasagnas (one in the freezer) and THAT was a big hit.

*Zucchini bread with almond extract by mistake. Yum.

*Peach cobbler, with lemon and almond extract, one of those dough on the bottom peaches on the top configurations that flips itself over, thanks to my neighbor's recipe. Hers does have a WHOLE STICK of butter, though, and so now that I have the idea, I might just use my (mother in law's) recipe and add the lemon and almond extract. And not die of a heart attack in January.

All right, I'm going to go try this sunchoke thing. If it works, many of my problems are solved (well, the one problem of having too many sunchokes).

More Quilts

Mostly works in progress, but here are a few more quilt photos for you. This first is one of the many Christmas quilts I'm working on, obviously still in process. That's a walking foot on the sewing machine, if it's odd looking to you. It keeps the top and bottom layers of fabric moving at the same rate--essential for straight-line machine quilting, sewing very long pieces of fabric together, or just because I'm fussy that way. Pieces on this are also being chain pieced together--assembly line style. This is going to be a simple red, green, and brown Christmas throw but with a nice big bow in the middle in a sparkly green fabric.This is a picture of our picnic at the balloon glow last week, in a bento-style box for the whole family. But it's sitting on one of the oldest extant quilts I've ever made, a denim utility blanket that I made before I left for college (that would be summer 1992). Actually, saying that, it IS the oldest extant quilt made by me in my collection or anyone else's. I had a couple before it, but they've fallen by the wayside (none of them were quilted, but were simply tied together with embroidery floss). Practice makes, well, better. I love this blanket. It has been re-backed twice, so the holes and tears you see on the front do not go all the way through, or even through to the current backing fabric. This means it is incredibly heavy and lovely. It has an exquisite patina of age and I'm not at all ashamed to say it is one of my very favorites.This next one is also in process, and only a bit is here. It is another Christmas throw (60x60"), made with a "jelly roll" of pre-cut 2 1/2 inch wide fabric, all from the same collection (in this case, Moda's "Merry and Bright"). I've had the jelly roll at least a year, waiting to see what I wanted to do with it. I've never done a log cabin style quilt before and jelly rolls make them easy--but one jelly roll doesn't go very far, so, like I said, it sat and waited. But a throw is perfectly sized for one. This is a pair of pillows I made for a friend on our block--and got paid for it, which is a nice thing--she'd been to a wedding and all the napkins were tied with these strips of muslin with a variety of things printed on them--quotes and birds, mostly. Missy saved a bunch of them at the end of the wedding and brought them to me to fashion into two pillows, which she's going to give to the bride. I thought they were lovely.This last one is another work in progress, another Christmas throw, this time a lone star going to my brother and his wife down in Texas. I finished the top (except the border) this afternoon and I'm sure there will be more photos coming.

Sick.

Leo has given me his cold. It's a doozy. He just fell asleep on my shoulder and we're going to go take a nap. More later when my head isn't made of lead.

Bad Mansard Map

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for this Sanborn map fragment.

Ten on Tuesday: 10 ways to have a happy birthday

1. Spend it with people you like.
2. Eat cake. Good cake, though. Like carrot cake or red velvet or anything from Sweet Art or turtle cake.
3. Throw in a bit of ice cream, too. Again with the quality.
4. Spend part of it alone doing something you love--and not cleaning the kitchen or working on a project for someone else.
5. Enjoy the weather. Of course, my birthday is in deep fall so that's a cinch.
6. Tell people. Hiding your birthday and then being disappointed that nobody did anything for you is bizarre.
7. Have flowers--if you suspect no one will give you flowers, give yourself flowers. I've come around on this one over the years (working with plants at church did me in). I used to just not care about flowers. But I do now.
8. Make a promise to yourself to keep over the next year--not just a resolution kind of thing or giving something up for Lent kind of thing. Promise yourself something good.
9. Don't schedule yearly doctor appointments on your birthday. Or dentist or tax attorney or license bureau or any of those things. Wait at least until tomorrow if you use your birthday as a milestone that way.
10. Try not to waste it in the car running errands. Go to the grocery store and pharmacy the day before. It will last longer if you aren't rushing about. Savor.

Ten On Tuesday: 3 reasons to watch Colin Firth movies

1. The Importance of Being Earnest.
2. As Jules put it, Darcy, Darcy, Darcy.
3. And to a lesser degree, Darcy.

An Open Letter

To Someone Who is Unlikely To Respond

Dear Target Guest,

I would like to apologize for my presence at Target yesterday. It was never my intention to waste 45 minutes at the store while waiting for a prescription for prednisone for my daughter. She had done so well all summer off the flovent but yesterday morning that all went to hell when she woke up with the persistent asthma cough that is her main symptom. She went to school, but she wound up not able to make it through the day because the cough was just too much.

The trip to the pediatrician wasn't on my to-do list either, but deemed necessary by the nurse who could hear Maeve over the phone. Crazy on albuterol, Maeve was a mess in the office. I knew the prednisone was only going to make these personality changes worse, but what could I do? She wasn't going to stop coughing on her own and we couldn't wait it out for the flovent she started that morning to catch up with her. So we had to go to Target.

She sat in the back of the cart coughing. I know, perhaps I should have found a neighbor or relative to keep her at home while I ran this errand, but it was on the way home from the pediatrician and we needed to get her on the steroid pretty quickly. And I will not accept responsibility for the wait at the pharmacy because many people needed medication and a half hour wait is not unreasonable. What was I to do? I needed to keep my son entertained as well as Maeve, so we walked the store.

I know she was coughing the whole time, exhausted, kind of aiming for her elbow. The strained anxious look on her face would say to any parent who had ever experienced a sick child, "I am having trouble breathing and calming down."

But I know that not everyone is a parent, although many people like to pretend that the phrase "it takes a village to raise a child" means that reprimanding children in public is their duty. Hell, I've done it sometimes. I remember telling children Sophia's age to, say, please move their cart or stop harassing my kids. I've always confronted children wandering alone in public places: where are your parents? So I can understand the draw towards this.

But telling the exhausted asthmatic sitting in the back of the shopping cart, hunched over and coughing, to "Cover your damned cough, kid," is beyond my limit of intervention. And that is what you said to Maeve as you rushed past on your way to the electronics section. The woman next to me, on her cell phone, looked over at me and then told her listener on the line, "Dang, this awful guy just yelled at this sick little girl." So at least I hadn't lost perspective. You were a jerk after all.

But what made the day just that extra bit of special was when we were heading over to the toy section to see if there was a Polly Pocket to cheer Maeve up, and you came around the corner. "OH MY GOD!" you yelled in anger and frustration at my almost-6 year old. You turned on your heel and headed the other direction. I watched you rush towards the front of the store, where you probably sexually harassed the checkout clerk and then later cut people off in traffic while pretending you couldn't see them.

So I'm sorry if we made your trip to Target less enjoyable. If it's any consolation, she isn't contagious and I didn't enjoy my trip to Target either, even before you arrived. But I have to wonder about your approach. Because, see, if you'd said to me, gently but with a chastising tone, "she should really cover that cough," I would have been shamed into making her obey. I would have felt bad because yeah, she should cover her cough. I would have told her, "You know what Maeve, he's right. Could you make sure to cough into your elbow, or even your bookbag?" But by yelling at her, all you made me want to do was follow you around and have her cough on you some more. Maybe get Leo to sneeze. He has a real cold after all.

Happy Flu Season,
Bridgett

Getting Old

Ok, ok, I'm not old. But I am in my mid-thirties and I now have a prescription toothpaste.

And a goiter. You can't see it (yet) but it's there.

On a positive note, I'm down 20 pounds since July (when I started working the problem). Only eleventy million to go. Well, not quite that many. I weigh once a week, and when I stepped on the scale this morning I stepped right back off because I was afraid Leo had messed with the little dial at the bottom and set it back to negative 4 or something like that instead of zero. But no.

So yeah, prescription toothpaste and a failing thyroid but I'm still fighting.

Getting it done

I got my hair cut yesterday.

I'm going to the dentist in 10 minutes.

Monday afternoon I have a gynecologist appointment, the first in 2 years (well, Leo is 19 months old, but the first "annual" in two years, which of course, makes it not an annual anymore, doesn't it?).

And I've been working on quilts and a few other tasks here at home--and the ones I can work on while distracting myself with TV have been accompanied by either "Hotel Babylon" or "Hoarders."

Hotel Babylon is a yummy BBC show about the lives of the folks who run a 5 star London hotel. And I am in love with the concierge. Whose name in real life is Dexter Fletcher. Talk about the best English name ever. So that's all good.

But Hoarders is a frightening snapshot of the lives of people who have gotten completely out of control because they are, obviously, hoarders. Animal hoarders, food hoarders, people who buy too much and can't let go, all sorts of problems.

And I want to make it clear here that I am not a hoarder. But I think my grandmother is probably a borderline case and I have inherited many of her positive and negative traits. And I can see the tipping point sometimes in these people's lives (not all of them, like the animal hoarders or the people who can't throw garbage away) and it freaks me out. Even more, Sophia's attachment to little junky things really freaks me out and it worries me about the future.

So I cleaned out under my bed today and organized my dresser drawers and made decisions about some of the stuff I own that I just own because people passed it my way (most of my stuff is like that, frankly, good and bad). It isn't that my house is unusable--far from it, in fact, all the living and sleeping areas of the house are comparable to other people's houses. But my closets and dresser drawers and basement and storage spaces are dangerously close to failing a "you are normal" test.

So anyway, I'm working on a few things. And watching Dexter Fletcher on Netflix.

Ten on Tuesday: 10 reasons to watch football

Are you kidding me??

1. You get a lot of knitting done.

2. It's fun to ask the same questions every year and not let the answers soak in so that you can ask them next year.

3. In person, in high school, it gets you seen with the in crowd. And maybe you get to go out afterward. To Whataburger or dancing or something.

4. And you get to see that guy in the tight pants.

5. Back in the present, on the television, you get to chalk up points for some chick flick extravaganza later. Gah, I sound like a stereotype, and usually I'm not a stereotypical female kind of gal but I HATE WATCHING FOOTBALL.

6. Occasionally, the idiot commentators will say something priceless. Like "commentate."

7. If it's Thanksgiving, you can sit won the couch with the menfolk, reading a magazine and not do any work.

8. Did I mention knitting? Umm. I guess handwork of all sorts, like applique blocks and embroidery, too.

9. You could learn a new handwork skill, like crochet or tatting.

10. Football is often so boring for kids to watch that it is a repellent. So, again, Thanksgiving and you can sit in the living room and not have kids drape over you asking questions. They've already run away to the back room to play with cousins.

Whew. Here's hoping next week's list is something like 10 reasons to watch Colin Firth movies.

Quote from Juliette Low

Needlework is good for all of us. You can think peacefully over all the worries of Europe while you are stitching. Sewing generally solves all the toughest problems, chiefly other people's.

Now there's a woman after my own heart.

Graham Feis

So Sophia had a good day Saturday morning. It was truly morning, too, with a ceili team dance at 8ish and walking out the door at noon. Not so bad.

Graham last year was out in Chesterfield, almost all the stages in one large room with chairs in the middle. It was a gauntlet. Impossible. So frustrating. Last year, too, Sophia didn't place in anything. She was disappointed but handled it well. But this year, after good success at Little Rock, An Samhra, and Gateway, I had a feeling she was starting to expect a place finish in a dance or two. So I reminded her of last year. "Yeah Mom, I know. At least we'll place in the ceili team."

It was downtown this year, the same place as St. Louis Irish Arts' feis, right by the ballpark. Parked in the same lot. Drank the same coffee.

Getting there, signed in, and attached to the team is always the hardest part for me. I don't want to be late and we need to have hair done and socks up and dress right and all that. Once I've handed her off to the teacher and sit down in one of the chairs, everything is fine.

The one weird thing about this feis, in my opinion, was the stage set up in Stages 1 and 2. It was lower than the chairs, which meant if you weren't sitting in the first two rows, you really only say girls' heads bobbing up and down. But I did like that there was this plastic separator between chairs and judges/stages. The girls could get to the check in desk and sit down to get ready to dance without eleventy-million parents and siblings and hooha going on around them. Compared to, say, Memphis??

So she danced her reel and it was a large group and I was so hoping she'd do well but I took advice from another mom from our school and we were going to check results at the end of the day. Smart mom. Since Sophia is a novice in her jig, and this feis was set up so that all the beginner dancers danced everything first (everything, all 7 dances) and THEN novice and prizewinner dancers started theirs (I love this setup, by the way), we had a big break before her slip jig. I got the aforementioned coffee and then chatted with two other moms in the vendor room. It was nice to be in a somewhat quiet place with no girls jumping around listening to their IPods and dodging people and so forth. I worked on the colonial ladies quilt blocks and we waited. And waited.

And then, once she got on stage for slip jig, the events just tumbled into each other. Once the "first feis" girls and beginner I dancers begin to disappear, beginner II goes rapidly. Slip jig, eh, it's her weakest dance. Single jig looked good. So she was feeling pretty good about things as she switched shoes and went over to check in for treble jig.

Both of our teachers were watching, and she messed up. She stopped after the right foot on the second step, and then realized her error. It was all over her face. But she finished and went back in line. Both teachers had encouraging things to say afterward, but she was upset. We went over to sit down at the other stage (both stages in one room but it's a big wide room) and she got her composure back. "Well, I already placed in that dance," she sighed. "And maybe messing up helps another girl place instead."

Where did she come from? She's so great.

Hornpipe was a huge group of girls, and immediately afterward, she danced her St. Patrick's Day. Recovered from the mess up, she declared that she WOULD be dancing her novice jig and changed her shoes. And she did dance it, but she looks like an advanced beginner dancer up there compared to the other girls, you know? They are all so sharp and she looks young, even though they're all the same age.

So we made our way down to the results room, chatting about what might be the results. "I think I placed in my St. Patrick's Day and my single jig," she decided. "The two girls who danced after me in the St. Patrick's Day weren't dancing the right dance. So I figured I probably placed." It would be great if she did because there was finally enough girls to move up (there have to be 5 on stage to have a place "count" to move up to novice).

We checked results and got the two medals--3rd in single jig and 3rd for the ceili team. We headed out to the car, happy, and called Mike. I started to fill him in on the details and realized we hadn't seen the results for St. Patrick's Day. I got off the phone and asked Sophia if she wanted me to turn around.

"That's ok," she shrugged, and then shook her head. "No, let's go back."

Well, it was good that we did--she placed 3rd out of 7 in St. Patrick's Day, too, which means starting in January she has 4 of her 7 dances at novice and the other 3 at advanced beginner. Still time before we have to think about a solo dress (not looking forward to that process or expense) and still another year with easier competition in reel, hornpipe, and slip jig.

So it was a good day--three good feiseanna in a row. She (and I) have recovered from the Memphis disaster. Looking forward to next year!

Why Is Maeve Smiling?

Why is Maeve so happy, sitting here in the dining room playing Monopoly?

Look more closely. Sophia is down to $61 and the railroad monopoly. Everything else she has is mortgaged. I'm already bankrupt, as is Bree who played with us. The two older girls got together at the very end to try to make one last push to defeating Maeve, but it wasn't going to happen. Sophia is bankrupt two turns after this photo. Maeve was only disappointed that she didn't land on the green properties I forfeited to the bank before Sophia was forced into a 2nd place finish.

Look at her face, as she watches them fail. The glee.

It was her first time playing Monopoly. Danger! Danger!

Our Housebuilding Adventure

More can be found on my flickr feed.

Girls help/child labor laws?

Leo thinks he's died and gone to heaven:

Maeve is ready for lunch:

Coffee cup:

Sheila's Breakfast Nook (before the complicated roof it needed):

Jeff lays out a pattern for more trusses on the floor of the living room:

Snapping a chalk line:

Sophia: Future Landscape Architect

Cutting the wrapping off the windows and doors:

Don't want those toy tractors, Mom, look at this:

Watermelon everywhere, even in his hair:

The day after we left:

Clove Hitch

An easy knot, made of two opposing half hitches. Used primarily for tying things to posts, such as hammocks and clotheslines or boats. Often it is the base of a stronger knot, like a rolling hitch, since a single strong tug on the end can bring it down. Which is a positive as well, since you can readjust the knot to account for slack in the rope, take it down easily, and it is simple to teach and reteach.

The mnemonic: loop end of rope around the tree, make an X with the standing rope (the rope in your hand). Around the tree one more time, fit the end under the X.

I always, always, have more end rope than this photo, which I found on Wikipedia.

What is Girl Scouting For?

Gail mentioned in a comment on my last entry that some scouts from her daughters' troops left scouting in frustration over the journeys, and that some of them were 2nd generation scouts. I thought to myself, "Yeah, Sophia is too..." and then I corrected myself.

Sophia is a 4th generation girl scout. I made it up to Cadettes, my mother was a brownie, and my grandmother mentioned to me at one point, "I was in 4-H and I was a girl scout, but I was a girl scout for much longer." She was born in 1917, so that's Girl Scouting: The Early Years right there. And I'm no expert, but I have 7 years experience as a girl and 4 years (starting #5) as a leader. No, wait--I had another year as a leader when I taught in the city schools. Thirteen years experience and 3rd generation and I think I have something to say.

So what is Girl Scouting for? Just my humble opinion, but GS is for girls. It is to provide a source of information and experiences for girls that they would not find at home, school, or on the playground.

Girl Scouting is for watching Kerri (not her real name or anyone else in this entry) make a table with her arm and bow, bring an arrow up and firing and hitting the target the first time. Seeing that look on her face, not enjoyment or happiness, but satisfaction.

Girl Scouting is for Hannah to try soy for the first time in a curry she made herself in a church basement kitchen. And declare, "it's not really that bad."

Girl Scouting is for experimenting in a safe, but not sterile, environment. It is for sleeping out of doors for the first time in your life next to a girl whose family camps 4 times a year around the country and you're both scared and then tomorrow, you'll both have to clean the ET ("environmental toilet") and later, after hopefully washing your hands, you'll learn how to make sausage gravy over a fire because that's what your troop decided it wanted for breakfast.

Girl Scouting is for riding home from a camping trip and hearing the leaders in front rehash the weekend and vent about the awful camp supervisor who made you pick up each and every hole punch circle on the ground. The wet ground.

Girl Scouting is for doing things with adult women who aren't your mom, who know things that might be interesting, who are authority figures but don't give you grades or make you clean your room.

Girl Scouting is for Bree negotiating with her mother about which camping trip she'll try on her own and which one her mother will go on with her.

Girl Scouting is for Antoinette, Paula, and Jamie to visit the country for the first time ever. For free.

Girl Scouting is for making soup. And collecting items for the food pantry. And singing songs. And getting along with girls you don't always spend time with. Or frankly, even like very much.

Girl Scouting is for learning leadership skills and arguing your case. And being a graceful loser. It's for voting and consensus building and remaining positive.

Girl Scouting is for planning events with two adults sitting a a table behind you shrugging and saying, "what do you want to do? How will we do it?"

Girl Scouting is for learning how to tie a clove hitch even though you don't yet understand why, and then being handed the clothesline at camp and the orders to find a place and hang it. You don't use a clove hitch but it stays up anyway. And Mrs. Wissinger sighs and says "maybe we'll work on the knots again later."

Girl Scouting is for three or four chaperones on a camping trip to sit up late at the pavilion waiting for girls to go to sleep, and enjoying each other's company.

Girl Scouting is for playing new games and going to interesting field trips and eating picnic lunches. Girl Scouting is learning how to use a compass and a knife and how to lay a fire. In the rain. Girl Scouting is for asking questions and having them answered. For learning to control yourself in conversations with a large group. For learning how to clean up after yourself. For learning how to have fun without anyone's feelings getting hurt. For learning how to fix your mistakes when that doesn't work out the way you meant, or maybe it was the way you meant but you know you shouldn't have.

Explain to me again how any of that happens in a $7 workbook.

One of those days: A rant in 5 acts

Prologue (Chorus): Ever have a day when you just wanted to curl into a ball and drink heavily/eat ice cream/whatever you do when you're freaking out because the day has gone so badly? That was today.

Act One (the set up): It's just the little things, the frustrations that add up. The feis this weekend has a snafu with Sophia's registration, and of course it's for the team dance so it's not like I can just tell her nevermind, you'll just skip it. The teacher has made an error and registered Maeve instead of Sophia for a ceili team (kaylee)--an 8 hand team of under ten-year-olds. Yeah. Maeve. So now I have to be at the feis an hour early and wait for the feisworx people to get their acts together and probably get charged $15 for my trouble on top of the entry fee itself. Not my error, remember.

Act Two (moving quickly, a bit of further action): my sign up meeting for girl scouts was chaos because there was nowhere for kids to be. Absolute chaos. And still I'm going to be chasing girls down to get registration forms to and from them. And my brownie leaders can't make registration night for the neighborhood.

Act Three (the big climax): While we're on the topic of girl scouts, can I just say I hate the journeys. There, I said it and I'm not going to apologize. Guess what--they expect every girl to have her own journey workbook. What? I've been getting by with a single Try-It book or Junior Badge book and helping girls pick things and do activities as a troop. I showed up today at the shop to look at the daisy journeys because I figured I'd have to do them eventually (they're starting to sound like gynecologist appointments, frankly, have to do them, don't want to). And when I saw the workbooks I said to the woman who runs the shop that she had to be kidding. She of course has no sense of humor and didn't take that well. I pointed out that some of my parents are working on very tight budgets and HOW IS GIRL SCOUTING SUPPOSED TO BE FOR EVERY GIRL IF WE EXPECT THEM TO PURCHASE THESE (crappy) BOOKS? I don't know where this all came from, probably some awful focus group of hair-and-nails moms-who-lunch or something. I'm so pissed about this and I know it isn't PC for me to be upset and write all this down like this but oh well. What a load of hooey and I'm going off the reservation, frankly. Not doing them. And I LOVE how they've made journeys mandatory for bronze awards starting next year. Guess what? We're going to have ours done by May, thank you very much. And yes, I realize there are probably work-arounds to make the journeys accessible to all kids, and you know what? Boo. Boo that we have to do it that way when we had a perfectly fine way of girl scouting already present. Sell more books, make more money? Gah I'M SO MAD.

You know, I have these antique girl scout books that Deborah passed my way, and others that I've picked up on my own, and things are so watered down now it's laughable. We're flaking out, ladies.

Act Four (everybody else dies or gets exposed for who they really are): What else can I complain about? I think Maeve might have the beginnings of a UTI, or maybe she's just mental in the evenings. Tonight and two nights ago she claimed she had to use the bathroom but couldn't. Or she just had but felt like she still needed to. So I guess I'm calling the doctor tomorrow if she has trouble in the morning. I'm wondering if she's just overworked and exhausted from school and isn't sleeping well and this is adding up to weird symptoms. Or maybe it's a UTI. Gah.

Act Five (picking up the fragments and marrying everybody off, right?): Mike worked late...Leo is back to being impossible...I just got a phone message I should have returned earlier and now it's too late.

Epilogue (a minor, but eloquent character sums it all up): But at least I can curl up on the couch now and watch Hotel Babylon. No ice cream in the house...collard greens probably won't do...sigh...

[all exeunt, curtain falls]

A little bit over my head and out of my depth

So the water isn't too deep but it's threatening to rise.

School....girl scouts....house....quilting....dentist...

School is kicking Maeve's butt. She's also back on the flovent because she started her asthma cough again this weekend (another sign that summer is ovah). I like being back in the saddle but did you know I volunteered to help with art in Sophia's room? And chaperone? Frankly, I would hardly ever say no to school requests like that. But still.

Girl scout sign up is tomorrow night. I'm a troop organizer which isn't as hard as that sounds (at least I hope). Tomorrow will be fine, but the paperwork, ai yi yi. And then my troop. I met with my co-leader last night to plan out our year and while I'm excited about our plans, every plan requires an adult plan. And archery in St. Louis? You know how hard it is to find somewhere? Forest Park is going to do it for us but it took 5 phone calls involving "you need to call John...you need to call Tom...you need to call Sauron..." And I'm still not sure if it will be ok. Just kind of hoping it will.

House: I washed a wool rug yesterday outside with cold water and mild soap and it worked really well. Shop-vac'd it damp-dry and left it out to dry the rest of the way. Forecast called for rain Thursday but I figured it would be done by then. Fluke rainstorm this afternoon. Now I'll have to start all over and hope it's done by Thursday! Great! And the house has obviously been lived out of for the past few days--we were in Cairo building a house, for instance, and I haven't unpacked or done laundry yet. Bleys spent the weekend separate from the other cats and did well, but now that they're back together, Jack is after him again. Sigh. The car is in the shop (regular maintenance) so I could use this time wisely.

Quilting: going well but there's just so much! I got 22 out of 27 Colonial Ladies done this weekend while people did manual labor. But now one is missing (hmm). And Bevin's quilt is double knit (why, oh why did people pick such miserable colors?) and my hands are coated in this sheen of polyester fibers.

Dentist tomorrow, which I had on my schedule for September 10. Anybody want a baby? I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I have a gynecologist appointment for next week, too, which I'm dreading not because it's the gynecologist (hey, three babies later, whatever) but because of the childcare issue. These appointments were made 6 months ago based on only a vague knowledge of other schedules that might help me (sister, mother, friends). And I think none of that is going to work out!

Children's liturgy, other school meetings, yard projects, I am considering, like Ann, concord grape jelly and maybe some jalapeno.....wow, summer sure ended fast, didn't it?

Ten On Tuesday: 10 things to do before the end of summer

Well, in my mind it is the end of summer. And this list isn't ideas for others: this is my to-do list for the end of the season...

1. Start switching out kids' clothes for fall wear. It's still warm during the day, but it's time to pull out shorts and t-shirts and move in the pants. Also, scour the two resale places like best (that aren't skeezy) for more play pants for Sophia.

2. Put away the swim gear. Suits go in a drawer in the bathroom and inflatable stuff goes to the basement in a plastic tub (we used to not use a plastic tub, but I found that we never reused the stuff if it sat in the basement exposed all winter). This week we also say goodbye to our old galvanized pool. It's going to the alley for bulk trash this coming weekend. I could do more body work on it but it's kind of a lost cause. One more winter upside down and there won't be a lip on the edge to repair anymore. Next year we're moving to one of those inflatable ones with the filter--same diameter, a bit deeper, easier to take care of and disassemble in the fall.

3. Plan my girl scout year for both my troops.

4. Upload all the summer photos to Flickr.

5. Get Children's Liturgy of the Word underway.

6. Wash the wool area rugs in the house. We have two wool rugs--the rest are synthetic--and the one in the living room really needs a cleaning. I'm going to do it myself on the back deck.

7. Build the two raised beds I want in place for next spring. Weed the yard and lay new mulch under the swingset (this fall we're building a "tree house" around and in the sturdy maple in the center of the yard--but that's a fall project).

8. Get Leo into a Music Together class for the fall. I've been writing back and forth with the woman in charge--we had to drop out last winter after a single class because of car trouble (ugh) and she said she'd prorate the fall...but I've been having to prove this to her via saved emails. I hate that.

9. Bike, bike, bike.

10. Take some frame-worthy photos of the kids. I noticed at my inlaws' this weekend that their photos of our kids are a year old. Oops.

Amusing Discovery

I have quite a bit of kitchen gear from a certain catalog company. Some I've bought, some has been gifts. Some of it I absolutely love and some of it is kind of ridiculously over-engineered. For instance, I love the stoneware bundt pan--every time I make a cake that can be a bundt, I use that pan. But I don't think I want the loaf pans because I use mine for meatloaf as often as for bread, and I'd really want to keep those separate if they were stoneware (like pizza stone, I mean, not like stoneware dishes).

And I love the little serving dish set I have--the little square dishes are perfect for kids' ketchup or applesauce or honey or other small amounts of dips. And the long skinny dishes look nice on a table together, each with different olives and pickles, that sort of thing. I don't have a lot of serving stuff, and very little of what I have matches anything else, so I like this set.

I am also a fan of the plastic bowls my mother-in-law got for me from the catalog; the scoops are on my "like" list. I don't have their knives or, really, many many other items, but some of them are, like I said, over-engineered.

The mandolin, for instance, is way too gadgety. Mike uses it but it makes me crazy because there's always a bit torn off the edge of anything I slice--which is fine for cabbage for slaw, but if I'm trying to crinkle-cut cucumbers for pickles, well, I give up and cut them straight with a knife. And the microplane grater, while a perfectly acceptable grater, bends in half and has a handle and only 4 inches of grater length, but it could stand up like a tripod or fold into a drawer or help you set up your tent when you camp--you know, it just did too much. Eventually I received a wood planer that works perfectly and is what it needs to be. And that's all.

There are other things over-engineered or more complicated than they need to be--my mother-in-law's can opener, for instance, is mystifying. It's key component is that it doesn't leave a sharp edge (I think). I don't know. I've never cut myself on a can I've opened with my Swing-Away (which, by the way, the first can opener in space as well, on Sky Lab). And, I don't know if they're still made in the USA, but mine was.

Anyway, another thing I have always really loved from this company is the cherry pitter. I use it for olives and cherries and it always works and has never broken and is not over engineered. It pops in the dishwasher and does what it needs to do. Neighbors have asked about it and I always said it was something you could get from one of those catalogs if you went to a party and didn't know what to buy. But then it wasn't in the catalog a few years ago when one of our neighbors had a party and we sat with the catalogs and flipped through. The consultant wasn't sure if they still made them. I suddenly doubted myself, but opening my gadget drawer, I saw the old box in the very back from the company, obviously an olive/cherry pitter on the label. Ah well, of course they would discontinue something I like (it's like that all over my life, frankly!).

Well, today the truck from the charity is coming by to pick up stuff to donate. Bags of old clothes and stuff from the basement sit on my porch. I always do a sweep of kitchen drawers to make sure there aren't duplicates of things I don't need or too much of this or that--and I thought, why do I still have that box in the back? I should throw the box away. So I pulled out the box and it was too hefty to be an empty box. I opened it, and there was a cherry/olive pitter. Nothing like the one I own. Nothing. It was shiny, for one thing, with a spring action that looked a bit fragile. It did open wider than mine, but I know mine works fine and I have no idea if this one would be one of those good things they make or one of those fussy kitchen gadgety kind of things they make. I tossed it in the donate bag, shaking my head at myself that I'd raved for years about my cherry pitter from them that wasn't even from them. I examined the pitter I kept, and there's no mark on it that shows a manufacturer. Nothing. Ah well.

Quilt Pictures

On a comment I made on Lali's blog (My Green Vermont), I mentioned that quilting is the thing I do that I feel expresses who I am--she had written about art and the drive to create. And her response to my comment was that she wished I took more photos for my blog showing the quilts I'd created.

She's right--I don't put many of them here. So here's one--Leo's baby quilt. It's the partner to Andrew's baby quilt, which I made in February of '09. This one I started last summer but finished this spring. I was going to hang it on the wall above Leo's bed, which is of course in my room and frankly, would look lovely against our dark wood and gold walls, but Leo likes the durned thing and so it's in his bed instead. I guess I'll have to make another for the wall.

Laid out across my bed

Somewhat from above--there is more border than is apparent here.

Detail of the zig zag border and, below, the different light colored fabric I used for the contrast--all the dark is the same (rather unattractive) dark paisley (but cut like this is useful in appearing to have a grain like stone), but I used several different light colored fabrics.

It's blurry, but it says Cassidy. Each corner has an initial and a name written in cursive (since he has 4 names, it's a nice balance). And below, part of the back. Like I've said before, I like to mix it up on the backs of quilts instead of just having a large expanse of white or whatever.

So that's quilt #1 from this year. Sheila and Bill's was #2; there are others, well, 10 right at the moment, in various stages of completion, from "just cut out the pieces" (my sister's) to "needs binding" (several--I hate binding).

More next week or as it comes to me--I'll take some of old ones I've put together, too.

Girl Scout Numbers

I'm the troop organizer at the school now. Being the "TO" means I hold a meeting at the beginning of the year to raise interest in scouting and to explain what it means to be a member of the girl scouts--and what it takes as an adult volunteer. Then through the year I update leaders and check in on how things are going. At the end of the year, I help plan and organize bridging and awards ceremonies. I'm looking forward to this job, frankly.

I suspect we will have my troop of juniors and two new troops at the school--a daisy troop of K-1st and a brownie troop of 2nd-3rd. If there is enough interest in either 1st grade or 3rd, we might split off a group and have three new troops, but since mine is the only sustaining (and thriving) troop right now, I doubt there will be enough adult participation to create 3.

I'm going to at least co-lead the daisies, although I might wind up being leader for now (but perhaps not forever). I am not directly involved in the brownie troop and have leaders already in place.

Today I met with the neighborhood registrar to get some sign up packets (forms, gloriious forms) and troop numbers to assign. My troop is 66, which is a great number. Troop 66, not far from Route 66. Two digits which means fewer numbers to purchase for the sash, and it rolls off the tongue easily. Imagine gathering them up after canoeing at camp and having to say, "Ok Troop Seventy-One-Forty-Eight". I like 66.

Melissa showed me my choices--she had about 8 unassigned troop numbers. No double digits left, but looking over her list, it was still ok. I chose 665 and 557, at least continuing the theme of double numbers. 731 is my back up in case a third troop arises.

We chatted for a moment and she asked if my junior troop was the one that Lisa's daughter belonged to, using her last name. Lisa, of course, is over at Clearview. I said no, but that I knew Lisa from the internet and had met a few times. "How strange that you would ask me that," I marveled. She explained that their daughters went to school together. Still though, it was one of those "St. Louis is too small" moments that I love.

I love new beginnings like this. Our school counselor/social worker person, Kristina, showed me the girl scout posters that arrived yesterday. She was so excited. Girl Scouting matches so many of our school's values. And it's one of those things that make a school seem like an established place. So here's to our new troops!

Raising Kids

Thanks to Lisa in this post. She refers back to a "Real Simple" article (we both wholeheartedly believe that "Real Simple" is neither real nor simple) regarding the cost of raising a child. They came to some astounding number, of course, over the course of 18 years, but monthly right now, they estimated $1100. Per child. And then Lisa, as shocked as I was by that figure, went to the USDA Cost of Raising a Child Calculator (what could be colder than that?) and found the following information about what goes into this calculator (totally ripped from her blog post):

Housing expenses consist of shelter (mortgage payments, property taxes, or rent; maintenance and repairs; and insurance), utilities (gas, electricity, fuel, cell/telephone, and water), and house furnishings and equipment (furniture, floor coverings, major appliances, and small appliances).

Food expenses consist of food and nonalcoholic beverages purchased at grocery, convenience, and specialty stores; dining at restaurants; and household expenditures on school meals.

Transportation expenses consist of the monthly payments on vehicle loans, down payments, gasoline and motor oil, maintenance and repairs, insurance, and public transportation (including airline fares).

Clothing expenses consist of children’s apparel such as diapers, shirts, pants, dresses, and suits; footwear; and clothing services such as dry cleaning, alterations, and repair.

Health care expenses consist of medical and dental services not covered by insurance, prescription drugs and medical supplies not covered by insurance, and health insurance premiums not paid by an employer or other organization. Medical services include those related to physical and mental health.

Child care and education expenses consist of day care tuition and supplies; baby-sitting; and elementary and high school tuition, books, fees, and supplies. Books, fees, and supplies may be for private or public schools.

Miscellaneous expenses consist of personal care items (haircuts, toothbrushes, etc.), entertainment (portable media players, sports equipment, televisions, computers, etc.), and reading materials (nonschool books, magazines, etc.).

So she worked hers out to more than she thought it would be: $755 per month (she gave a yearly total of both kids at $18,120 and I did the division).

I think might be lower, but I'm not sure. Here's my breakdown, from this month, but thinking about recurring bills and how they might have changed after children arrived:

Housing: we already owned our house and would have continued to do so, so it's ridiculous to put our mortgage payment here. I'd estimate our electricity costs have gone up (we're on budget billing) about $30 a month since they arrived, and I won't take into consideration what Ameren increased on their own. Our gas bill has gone down, by getting rid of the gas stove (not because of them) and because of our new HVAC system, but I won't list savings here either. Furniture and appliances? Hmm. All their furniture is hand-me-downs. I don't know what to say here. The pool was on freecycle and Ann gave us the swingset. We did rehab the attic for their room, but is it fair to include that here, since we would have rehabbed it either way? I'm not sure. The AC units in their room were given to us. I just think it isn't fair to put more than the increased electric here. $30.

Food: I could take our monthly food expenses and give them half (we spend about $110 weekly, so make that $450 and divide by two to get $225). We do belong to the CSA, which is pricey, but I rarely go to the regular grocery store except for non-perishables. It helps that we have deer, Soulard Market, and a bit of a garden.

Transportation: well, we might have gotten a smaller car when we replaced the van (we had the van pre-kids), but I don't know if we would have gotten a better deal than we did, buying used through Enterprise. Gas, sure. I can definitely put that here with treks out to the county for dance class and so forth. I fill up every 10 days for about $30 each time. That's three times a month, I'll attribute one of those full tanks to kids, how about? So that's $30.

Clothing: We spend very little on kids' clothes due to generous neighbors who pass things around, and gifts from relatives. Maeve's clothes are almost entirely given to her. Sophia is close to that. But I'll through $10 in here because I don't pass underwear down and there's always something--a pair of tights or swimming suit or a winter coat--that I can't find passed down. $10.

Medical: now this one fluctuates a lot. The year Leo was born we spent about $4K on healthcare with the way our insurance works. This year we've spent $632 and about 1/2 of that was kids (well-baby is covered 100% and I get a lot of thyroid work done). So $300 divided by 8 months this year is $37.50

Education: The girls' school is free and Leo doesn't attend school. The uniforms are hand-me-downs, gifts, and thrift store purchases. I spent $30 on supplies for both girls total, for the year. Lunches fit into the food budget. The school is 10 blocks away. We rarely have a babysitter and oftentimes it's a relative. Umm. That comes to less than $5.

Miscellaneous: As Lisa put it, the fun part. Sophia takes Irish Dance and Girl Scouts and Piano. Maeve will be starting Tae Kwon Do and Piano but hasn't yet. The portable DVD player? We've had it for almost 2 years, what do you think I should have that be worth? $10? We do belong to Netflix, although we would have anyway, but maybe we would have gone with 2 DVDs at a time instead of 3, so there's another $5. Maeve's haircuts are free and Sophia's are $9, every other months, so there's $4.50. Signing up Sophia for a feis, I'd say one every two months. Camping with girl scouts, birthday parties, Christmas spread over the year. I did the math on what I knew for sure and came up with a low number per month, but I added $200 to it to cover the birthday parties and hoo-ha I'm not thinking of. This will increase geometrically with time, I realize, but for right now: $295.

So right now, with a 4th grader, kindergartner, and 19 month old, we spend just over $630 a month on our kids. Divided by 2 (assuming that Leo just doesn't cost that much right now), I have $315/month/child. If I do divide it by 3, that's $210/month/child. Yes, we're lucky because of our school situation and because we live pretty darned cheaply and our kids don't have style-conscious peer pressure kinds of friends. SO LUCKY.

The deer helps a lot--we don't buy meat--Mike drives a 1999 car and the Mazda wasn't too expensive (and the van would have been replaced regardless of the kids. We have an awesome library system. We don't live in suburbia and go past tempting stores all the time--and besides dance, everything we do is really close by. Cloth diapers. Sophia has a handheld game thing, but she buys her own games with birthday money. You know? And I'm sure I'm forgetting something here, but that isn't the point.

The point is having this magazine blithely announce that it will cost $1100 a month, per child, to raise up a child right. And that's crazy talk--there's no way I could have figured in enough estimation to bring my totals up $800 per child (and that's not counting Leo). I don't understand it. Are we just insanely frugal (we are frugal, but not that frugal, we take vacations every other year or so (not included here), we have internet access and air conditioning and two cars and so forth. I don't rinse out and reuse ziploc bags or aluminum foil or anything like that. So I guess I just don't get it.