Neil's Visit Day 2

On Tuesday, we started the day by visiting The Map Shop, which is exactly as it sounds. What a neat store (for those who like maps)! Grampa gifted the children with a really neat (not cartoon-ish) children's atlas and a puzzle of the map of the United States.

Then we crossed the street to visit a local farmer's market that meets on Tuesdays. It was a fun experience for the kids, but Neil and I were scoffing a bit, as most of the sellers were hawking conventional groceries. I'm accustomed to the farmer's market in the small town where I grew up, in which all the sellers are local farmers, Joe from down on rural Hwy 87, Mike from the next rural town over, and so forth. So imagine my dismay when I was reaching for grapes at our local farmer's market to see them labeled "from Mexico." Of course, then my stepdad reminded me, "you don't really have grape and banana crops here in North Carolina, right?" Anyway, it was a fun experience for the kids but not a place I'd drove across town to buy local produce.

Then we inaugurated the water slide I had bought last winter, new at a consignment sale. Unfortunately, after Grampa got it all set up, we noticed that our hose isn't fully functioning, in that Chris and I had to cut off the metal screw-thingy at the end of it last summer (I forget why). So the hose wouldn't screw into the slide, causing Grampa to have to stand there dutifully and spray the water for the kids the whole time. Plus we discovered that at two and four, the kids were a little young to get the concept of running, diving, and sliding on their tummies. They had fun nonetheless.

For my friends who know how much I "love" spiders, I must share this vignette: A few mornings ago, John came rushing to me: "Mama, there is a spider web THIS BIG in the bathroom!" He spread his arms as far as they could go and I thought, 'yeah, whatever, it's some tiny web.' So I replied that it was okay, just go brush your teeth anyway. Which John did.

Then I escorted Mary into the bathroom where John said cheerfully, "I brushed my teeth without getting in the spider web!" Now I was beginning to wonder.

I looked at the sink and saw that overnight a spider had run a huge web stringing from the lights above the mirror down to the front of the sink, in a big, three-dimensional triangle. The spider sat smack in the middle of the web at my head height. John was standing there on his stool, brushing his teeth, reaching the brush around the web to the running water behind it.

Of course, I began shrieking just a little bit, admonished the children to step back, and launched into action. That spider met a watery death and his web was dispatched.

EDIT to this blog post: I thought Mary was being particularly undemanding and well-mannered while I wrote this blog post. She was so quiet five feet away behind my back in the kitchen! But when I finished and turned around, I discovered that she had emptied my sugar bowl, which I had just refilled yesterday with 3/4-cup of sugar. Some of the sugar was on the floor, but most of it was gone, and her face was encrusted with the glorious crystals. I wonder how much that child ate! Apparently I have not grown sufficient "eyes in the back of my head" yet!