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Yesterday, we were grocery shopping. Increasingly, Kestrel and Aurora want to help, so I send them to get single items that are within my line of sight. “Please go find me four heads of broccoli,” I say, handing them a bag. They bound off, Kestrel holding the bag open and letting Aurora select the ones she can reach. It takes a bit longer, but at this stage even, my kids are getting good at selecting produce.

Kestrel is, as I’ve mentioned before, an eater. He’s the only kid you’ll ever meet who put pickled garlic on his birthday wish-list when he was four. His tastes are entirely unconventional for a kid, and I think that’s because, due to his gluten issues, we never got him hooked on the “variation on a theme of wheat and cheese” diet that most American kids eat.

So, I’m telling you that, because Kes adores brussels sprouts. Adores them. I swirl olive oil in the pan, put the cut in half sprouts down on the flat side, sprinkle with salt, and leave on low heat until they carmelize on the bottom. Then steam for just long enough to make the rest of the sprout tender, then serve with salt and pepper. Kes considers them a special treat, and will request them.

I handed him a bag, and asked him to walk around the produce section, to see if he could find brussels sprouts. Off he went, just as Aurora asked me some complex question, and when I looked up from answering her, he was gone. I mean… nowhere to be seen in the produce section. Gone. Utterly.

Full-on mama panic. I immediately move to the corner of the produce department where I can see all the doors to the front of the store, and stand there a moment, willing my heart to slow down a bit. Deep breath, then I go ahead and yell for him. “Kestrel!” I holler. “Mama, where are you?” he yells back. Whew. Relief. But he’s coming from inside the store, not the produce section. “Where did you go?” I ask. “Mama, I couldn’t find the sprouts, so I asked someone who works here, and do you know what he did? He took me all the way over to the pretzels!”

I feel bad for the poor store employee. It’s a Mexican grocery store, and most of the folks there barely speak English (which is part of the joy of going there; you get the music of the language in your ears). And really, how could you expect an adult, who doesn’t really speak the language, trying to parse that the little boy in front of him is truly, eagerly, seeking out the brussels sprouts?

No wonder they ended up in the crackers.

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As I mentioned on my other blog, The Excellent Adventure, we’re moving to Texas. Which, if we were land people, wouldn’t be that big a deal. Seeing as how we’re sailors/cruisers, it means moving 1,500 miles by land by going roughly 5,000 nautical miles, past Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, though Panama, past Nicaragua again, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, the Yucatan, wave to Cuba on the way by, then across the Gulf of Mexico to Galveston, TX.

Just showing the kids the map and talking about the route was amazing.

There is so much here to cover. I don’t even know where to start. And the kids aren’t helping me narrow it down… they’re fascinated by all of it. The geography! The navigation! The weather! The cultures! I’m learning, they’re learning right along with me, and it’s like we’re all drinking from firehoses.

It says a lot about what we’re planning to do that it took me a few minutes to find a map that covered our whole route. Rowan wants to see pyramids, and he wants to zipline, so that’s stops in Costa Rica and Yucatan. I had to explain why stopping in Guatemala and Nicaragua might not be such great ideas, which led to a discussion of politics, national sovereignty, imperalism, communism, capitalism…. just a simple question about “what about the orange country, mama?” hares off for hours. Or, y’know, until they get bored and opt for Scooby-Doo again.

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• @CandlemarkGleam Never did daily. Worst I've seen lately is @Capstone pubs. My nine year old is horrified by the typos. #editingtrenches #
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