on being firm

Things might have quickly devolved into an attitude meltdown. At one point, I threw up my hands and said, "Forget it. After the parent-teacher conference, I'm dropping you all off and I'M going for at hike at Mt. St. Francis. I wanted to walk on the lake before the warm weather melted the ice. With 48 predicted for today, and warmer the rest of the week, it was only a matter of time.

Elias wanted to go to Iroquois Park so we could do disc golf and basketball. I want the kids to enjoy the outdoors without always doing a sport. So, finally I put my foot down and said, "We're going to Mt. St. Francis, period. No more discussion." And that is what we did.

Elias tried to bribe me into going out for lunch. "If I don't complain, I get to pick where we go out for lunch, okay?" I said I didn't know. In the end, after making a bird-headed snow man in the middle of the lake, and hiking a couple miles, I convinced them they could choose anything they wanted from Whole Foods to cook up for a mid-afternoon "Linner." Or "Dunch."

The resulting meal was a feast. Julian mashed some lovely new potatoes with salt-pepper, milk and olive oil. I bought four "wild caught" Top Necked Clams, simmered them in Trader Joe's marinara sauce, served it on hot spaghetti noodles, and sprinkled with Parmesan. I also boiled some fresh organic broccoli.

Elias made rolled biscuit dough and we shaped the rolled dough around uncured hot dogs to bake in the 450 degree oven. The hot garlic mustard and organic ketchup perked up those pigs in a blanket. And we finished it off with extra bisquits, lathered with margarine and gobs of wild blueberry jam from Lake Adaquetangie. Yum!

--