Scuppernongs and Muscadines

One of my favorite things about the South is getting to eat muscadine and scuppernong grapes at the end of the summer.  They are not available outside of the South and the season is fairly short, September to early October.  I love how the grapes are sweet and fruity and floral at the same time.  Usually, I like the dark purple muscadines the best, but this year, I think the golden green scuppernongs have won me over.  Penguin Girl and I have gone to Lockman Vineyard twice this month to pick the grapes right off the vine.  The first visit, I kept asking Penguin Girl if she was ready to go and she kept saying she wanted to pick more.  By the time she was done, we had almost 20 pounds of grapes!  That took a while to eat.  On our second visit, the grapes were more ripe so there were lots of bees buzzing around the vines.  Penguin Girl was intimidated by the bees so she didn't pick nearly as much.  We took a little over 10 pounds home.  The smaller haul worked out well because we needed to finish them faster since they were more ripe.  I'm hoping to squeeze in one more trip before the season is over.

How did this happen?

I am officially a soccer mom.  However, I'm a slacker soccer mom.  I got Penguin Girl out the door early so that we could get a reasonable parking spot for her 8:30am soccer game.  I was warned by another mom to do this if I didn't want to end up parking at the school next to the park and having a long hike to the field.  Although this is the first year that Penguin Girl is participating in an organized sport, I knew enough to bring a folding lawn chair.  I also brought a book.  I thought, we will be there for almost 90 minutes, I have had a tough week conferencing with each of my students, what a good opportunity to catch up with some leisure reading.  Apparently, that is not part of the program.

I started reading when the girls were warming up.  Right before the game started, I heard the mom next to me call her daughter over and say, "Ok, go have fun and play hard.  Remember, go out and take that ball away.  Don't wait for it to come to you.  You go and get it!  Take it away!"  (The girl did have the sense to ask if she should listen to her mom and try to take the ball from her teammates.)  I did not give Penguin Girl any sort of pep talk.  This woman could be counted on to shout, "Get it!  Get it!" each time her daughter got anywhere near the ball.  I did not cheer.  The mom on the other side of me grabbed my arm at one point to tell me that Penguin Girl just blocked the ball from going into the net.  Super.  It's not that I'm not interested in how my kid is playing.  I just don't need to watch every second she's on the field.  She's having fun whether I am watching or not.

I saw Penguin Girl score a very slick goal and gave her two thumbs up.  She said she scored twice but I think the second time that she's counting may have been when she kicked the ball into an opposing player and it bounced around and then rolled into the net.  Her team, the Fireballs (the girls voted on that), won 8-5.

She got a job!

Today on the way home from school, I took Penguin Girl to mall.  Normally I try to avoid the mall because retail is for chumps.  But I forgot that she's supposed to have some dance slippers for the Chinese dance class that is being offered after school once a week starting tomorrow.  I heard the Payless at the mall carries them.  As soon as we walked into the mall, a woman approached us and asked if Penguin Girl would like to participate in a marketing survey about cartoon characters and earn $7.  I left it up to her.  She said yes and about 10 minutes later, she walked out with $7.  Her first paying job!

I'm taking one of the dollars to put in a frame for her.  How dorky is that!

A Really Big Day

Last summer, Penguin Girl was terrified of the water.  I had Ms. R come three times a week to give Penguin Girl lessons in our neighbor's pool.  It took at least half the summer before she could get through a lesson without breaking out in tears.  This summer, she has come so far that she has been spending a lot of time during lessons learning the breast stroke and butterfly.  Amazing.  Finally, Car Guy convinced Penguin Girl to try to do the swim test at the aquatics center.  To pass the test, you have to swim 25 meters freestyle and then you are rewarded with a blue wrist band.  The band tells the lifeguards that you have passed the test and are entitled to use the giant waterslide that runs into the outdoor pool.  It also lets you use the Olympic sized pool rather than the shallow lap pool where lessons are held, but that's nothing compared to access to the big slide.

Penguin Girl did it!  She passed on her first try.  She was nervous about having to swim in the big pool because it's so deep but she said it was easy to swim the 25 yards.  But now there are only 2 more weekends left when the outdoor pool will be open.  She will have to pack a lot of sliding into that time.