Minty Fresh Kitchen

A little more mint in our lives? Can't hurt. We still need more in the realm of Mouse Deterrent. So I am switching to Peppermint Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap for ALL my general household cleaning. Previously this was Toby's bath soap so Natalie came into the kitchen after her nap and remarked, "It smells like somebody's been washing a dog." I scrubbed down all the kitchen counters with it. According to the article linked to above, you can also use it as a dishwashing soap which I am also going to try, simply because I am out of my regular kind and this would save me a trip to the store! How environmentally friendly of me. ;-)

We also invented a new kind of mousetrap. I have nearly a dozen quart Mason jars which I use during the school year to hold nuts, dried fruits, and crackers and simply scoop them out into small containers when I'm packing the lunches. I had them all lined up on the counter, ready to be washed, when I thought: I bet a mouse that got into this wouldn't be able to get back out. So I have them all open and lined up along the counter where a mouse could jump up onto the open jar top and climb in (to get the chocolate chips which I cunningly placed inside). Then -- hopefully -- he or she will find that it is impossible to get out. I wonder if tomorrow morning I will have a line of jars of mice?

Today we had a wonderful day. I ditched the idea of doing back to school shopping (washcloths, cloth napkins, film, boxes of tissues, a Thermos for each girl) because I can easily do that online and why drag the children from store to store? So instead we went for a walk on the beach. Today was a very mild day, not as hot as it has been and partly cloudy, so we walked from South Beach down to the Chestnut Cabin and went into the little SCA Museum to look at all the fossils people have found locally from Calvert Cliffs. Then we walked back. It was probably a mile and a half all told. The children spent a good deal of time in the water (no jellyfish today -- hooray!) fighting with the waves. I think that the beach is SOOOO much better for children than the pool because you have the will of the water. Like the value of playing in a running stream for the kindergarten child. Natalie was lying down in the water and feeling it lift her up. Leah was running around composing songs about being a mermaid and talking about how much fun it was to be in the water but actually she was out of the water and just talking about it. So funny. Becca was obsessed with the waves. She is only 4 and I was on high alert for a wave to knock her over and cause her to lose her balance so that she wouldn't be able to stand up. She was lying full down in the water and it was crashing over her and lifting her up. And she kept backing up closer and closer to the Bay and yelling Farther Farther! And she never freaked out, even when I was running to get her out. She just went back in, like a kid who falls off a horse. She would say, I'm really wet and then dash back to the water and scoot back so far into the waves while lying on her tummy that I couldn't believe she was so brave and wanted to go so far in. Farther Farther! Mom, I'm a water girl!

After showers, lunch, naps (nice loooong naps), the girls did bike riding in the yard and blowing bubbles. It was a wonderfully sweet simple summer day.