George Washington's Breakfast

A few days ago we read Jean Fritz's book George Washington's Breakfast, and after we learned that he usually had three johnny cakes and three cups of tea for breakfast, Nadia has been dying to make johnny cakes. According to our curriculum, we were supposed to make that recipe three weeks from now (next week we're supposed to make hasty pudding), but I certainly don't feel obligated to follow our curriculum to the T so she helped me make some this evening. The recipes said to either put apple butter or molasses on them. I figured the apple butter would go over better, and since our apple butter was made the colonial way (over a fire no less), that seemed the most appropriate. I am not sure if I've ever had them before, but I was expecting to like them since I love most things made with cornmeal, but I actually wasn't a big fan. One or two bites was enough for me. I preferred to have tuna noodle for dinner. I didn't verbalize my opinion, but it turned out Nadia felt the same way. She did however enjoy her very first cup of hot tea that Paul made her. In contrast, Ian wasn't keen on the tea, but he thought the johnny cakes were the best thing ever (his exact words!). He ate his plate full and then also finished Nadia's johnny cake! We've been having a lot of fun learning about George Washington this week. Paul thinks he's the best President our country has had to this point in history. Last week our chapter book correlated with our study of Ben Franklin (I read them Ben and Me by Robert Lawson). This week's chapter book, The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz, correlates to the time period of Washington but doesn't have much to do with him in particular.

I could have titled this post "shopping spree." This morning I set a new record for the longest time I spent with my three kids at the mall (by a long shot). I have spent that much time walking around yard sales with them, but I have never shopped with them indoors for that length of time. Prior to going I promised a treat to Nadia and Ian if they were good shoppers (and also helped me with Oliver). They had their choice of a sharing pretzel sticks from Auntie Anne's or a ride on the indoor carousel or ice cream from Dairy Queen. I think if Oliver had a vote he would have picked the carousel, but the other two picked Dairy Queen, and Oliver did enjoy sharing an ice cream sundae with me. Nadia had a Dilly bar, and Ian had a cup of chocolate ice cream. He won't eat hard ice cream so only has ice cream a few times a year. The kids definitely earned their ice cream treat because I had them all over the mall while the van was having the annual inspection done at the Toyota dealership. I used a $10 off $25 coupon at JCPenney and the same type of coupon at Bon Ton. I bought things in six different stores. I was nervous about Oliver having an accident, but he stayed dry and used the froggy potty in the van before we drove back home.

I very rarely buy new shoes for the kids. It's hard to pay retail when I'm used to paying $1-3 per pair of shoes for them at a consignment shop or yard sale. However I had been stocking up on size 13 shoes for Nadia because she wore size 12 last winter, but her feet only grew a 1/2 size. The size 12 shoes hurt her feet, but the size 13 shoes fall right off her feet. I do have a size 12 1/2 black patent pair for Sundays and a size 12 1/2 pair of sneakers for her, but she's accustomed to having far more than two pair of shoes (although that's typcially all Ian has). I "splurged" and paid $16 for a pair of brown leather flats for her in size 12 1/2. Once her feet grow a little more she'll have LOTS of shoes to pick from because I bought quite a few in size 13.

Potty training Oliver has led me to make two purchases for myself. First, I bought myself a new camera bag on Amazon a few weeks ago because I typically would put my camera in his diaper bag. Secondly, I decided to get myself a new purse. 20 years ago I used to own a variety of purses to coordinate with different color shoes (brown, black, white, off-white, etc.). I gradually transitioned to two purses a year and then down to just using one all year round. More than six years ago I bought myself a slightly larger purse (still would be considered small according to many women) that was big enough to hold a diaper in the instance I didn't want to bring a diaper bag. I have been using that purse since that time. The purse is still in fine shape, but since I don't need to carry a diaper any more, I wanted to go back to my preferred smaller size purse. The first purses I looked at today set me in serious sticker shock (they were between $100-200 each!), but I eventually found one I liked for less than $25. I let Nadia pick which color purse I bought.

Another item I got myself was a new pair of sneakers. I can't recall the last time I bought the ones I've been wearing. I'm pretty sure it's been more than six years. Shopping with three young kids causes one to be as efficient as possible. I found myself rushing into the shoe store and scanning the wall and picking one (that was on sale) as quickly as possible. When I got home I threw my lawn mowing sneakers away as my old sneakers will now be my lawn mowing ones. All in all we had a very successful shopping trip, and the van passed inspection.