Has it been two and a half weeks? One of them, at least, it rained. Our open house was a wash (*snicker*) that weekend, and we broke down and went to the Salomon Pond Mall in Marlboro. We had taken the kids to see the Curious George movie when it came to Maynard. We took them to see Ice Age in Marlboro. It rained for seven days. We have had regular visits to see the house none the less. So, regular cleaning up. Marcela and I now joke that we ought to make the weekend mop down a regular habit. It certainly leaves the place clean all of the time. Outside, in the yard, everything is returning and regrowing. The grass has come in thick since the rains. Violets are growing everywhere. Two weeks ago, after trying all day just to get a balance, Maxim mastered riding her bicycle without training wheels. You can imagine, she was thrilled and now cannot wait for warm nice days when she can ride back and forth on the right-of-way. Twice, now, we've ridden all the way downtown. Noah is being equally ambitious and has decided to begin the transition away from diapers. Hooray! He also continues his officious ways. When we visited Zach, Shanna, and Erik last weekend, Shanna sat down on the living room couch and started typing on the laptop that Zach had earlier been working on. "Hey!" Noah said stepping into the living room. "You're not supposed to play with that! That's Zachary's!" Maxim has incorporated two new phrases into her conversations. One, when she doesn't want to repeat something she has said before, "I went downtown on my bike, THE END," she will say. Or, adding her other favorite: "I went downtown on my bike, blah, blah, blah, THE END, ok?" We have managed to grill twice already this season. And we tried for a third last night, but the thunderstorms they warned about blew in just after the coals were ready. We had to open all the windows to blow off the steak smell from the house before the showing this morning. Spring drifts into summer; school starts again tomorrow for me. Six weeks.