never too old for a bubble bath

We've moved into our new house in Wellesley, and word got out that Mom and Dad's bath tub has jets :)

the Beauty in our Backyard

I just wanted to show everyone some of the amazing things right here in our back yard so far this spring/summer: 

 

 

Tactless Trip

Allow me to introduce you to Trip. Age 7, #3 in the family line-up. Trip unfortunately suffers from many of the complexities of being a middle child. While not the only one in the middle, he most-definitely embodies the stereotype moreso than his fellow middle sibling, Gale. 

Now, Trip is an incredibly intelligent child. He's developed a newfound love for reading, loves to invent and construct things, and is a wiz at lego assembly (often even without reading the "constructions"). However, I have come to learn over the past few days that Trip, like many children, lacks an important social skill- tact. 

Below are some first-hand accounts of some of Trip's moments of tactlessness over the past few days: 

Incident #1- I took Trip and Teddy to the grocery store one rainy morning, and Trip asked if he could push the cart. Normally, I do not allow the children to push the cart for a few reasons. One of the reasons being, it usually causes argument over whose turn it is to push. But the biggest reason being, you really should have a driver's license to operate a shopping cart at the Nantucket Stop and Shop in the summertime. On this particular day, however, Trip asked particularly sweetly, and I for some reason decided to allow him to give it a try. While entering the store, I was giving him the usual list of "be carefuls," and I said, "Most of all, be careful not to bump into anyone." Very loudly, at an abnormal indoor volume, Trip turns to me in response and says, "You mean like that old lady right there?!?!" 

If looks could kill, poor Trip would no longer be with us... I scuttled us away from the elderly woman in the front, never to be seen again. 

Incident #2- Later in the evening, the boys and I were wandering around town, when the father of one of the kids from Teddy's school stops and says hello. Trip asked me, "Who's that?" I said, "That's Max's dad, you know Teddy's friend from school?" And while Max's dad is still within very obvious earshot, Trip inquires (again, with not a smidge of a whisper), "Oh yeah, you mean that really annoying kid!" Max's dad turned around and smiled a grim smile, while I made an apologetic face and ushered the boys off quickly. 

Incident #3- Waiting outside of the library for it to open one morning, Trip and Teddy are climbing the trees in the garden, and there is a mother there playing catch with her very young daughter, while simultaneously typing on her blackberry and taking notes on a notepad. The woman unintentionally overthrows the ball about twenty feet past her daughter and says, "Go get it, sweetie!" Somewhere in Trip's brain, he decided it would be appropriate to say (although thankfully not directly to the woman herself, but to me), "She's not a dog!" No one knows if the woman was paying enough attention to hear Trip's comment, because I grabbed both boys and ran away from the library as quickly as I could (noticing a trend?). 

These are just three of many many Tactless Trip moments, they just stood out because they all happened to occur within the same 24 hours.