Baklava and the Case of the Missing Socks

Yesterday evening we went outside to play after dinner. Phoebe wanted to play with the big kids in the cul-de-sac, but I told her she needed to stay in the yard with me because she's still little.

"I think I'm a big kid now!" she insisted.

And I did eventually relent and let her go play with the kids (I had a meeting to go to), but not before we played a few games together to let the big kids play without having to worry about her. 

Lately when I ask her to smile for the camera, she feels the need to physically check whether or not she's smiling. So she's always reaching up just to make sure she's grinning and showing her beautiful teeth:

Here she is drawing on the wall:

And here she is realizing that Mommy's camera and microphone were off, so no one in the meeting was going to give her any attention (what a rip-off):

And here I am, sitting so that I can keep an eye on the little kids and still (somewhat) pay attention to my meeting:

The "meeting" was a poetry lecture/workshop. Today we had a lecture on various traditional forms. We wrote a triolet together and then were challenged to take that triolet and rewrite it mimicking a nonce poem of Robert Frost's ('Fire and Ice'). At least, I think that was the challenge. To be frank, sometimes the "somewhat" was stronger than the "paying" or my "somewhat paying" attention to the lecture.

Here I am inside now, having been called in for dessert by Miriam:

We made spanakopita for dinner (obviously Daddy was working late because a spinach and feta meal would not be his favourite thing) and then because we had leftover (and defrosted) filo dough, Miriam suggested we also make baklava. We've been meaning to for a while...we just haven't ever quite gotten around to it. We used pistachio because I like pistachio baklava better than walnut and I was in charge of chopping the nuts.

It turned out looking okay...and tasted amazing!

I finished up my poem while ushering the kids through pyjamas and teeth. Here's Robert Frost's poem:

Fire and Ice 

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

And here's the poem I wrote (the first few lines come from the first two lines of the triolet we wrote together in the workshop: "I try to fly a paper crane/off to the wind I toss its wings" but I modified them a bit, as we were supposed to do):

Peace Crane Project

I try to fly a paper crane—off
to the wind, I toss. Its wings
catch and lift, then sputter, cough.
A paper bird, though thrown aloft,
will never flutter, never sing,
and yet endowed in every crease
is hope tomorrow’s dawn will bring
some peace.
So we keep folding.

It's not perfect, but it was a fun exercise.

*****

When Andrew came home last night, he excitedly asked me about laundry (because he'd noticed that someone had, perhaps, done some laundry (specifically, the sheets I'd used to cover the garden a a few nights ago when temperatures were supposed to drop below freezing had been removed from the laundry room floor—because I'd finally washed them and put them away)).

Had I done any laundry today? he wanted to know. Did I happen to do any "kid" laundry? Did I happen come upon his missing socks?!

You see, he took off a pair of socks the other night (Wednesday) before we left for a walk. He wanted to wear his flip-flops on the walk, but had been wearing socks inside the house. So he just took them off and left them on his office floor, thinking that he'd put them back on again when we came home.

But when we came home, his socks were missing. 

He was running all around the house in a panic, trying to to find them—and to no avail!

"Benjamin must have picked them up while he was tidying the floors!" Andrew decided.

"Maybe," I said. "He could have put them in one of the kids' laundry baskets. There's no telling."

Those socks were nowhere. 

And I did do some kid laundry yesterday. But I did not find any of Andrew's socks in the mix. 

Feeling somewhat morose over the loss of a pair of socks, Andrew slumped off to his office and—for whatever reason—looked up.

"Hey! I found my socks!" he cheered.

Rachel had sneakily placed his socks on the blades of his fan! She left a little "ransom" note for him to find as well. But since he wasn't home at all yesterday (until around 11:00 pm), the note didn't really help him find his socks...and since no one really goes into his office during the day, the note just sat there alerting no one to the location of the missing socks.