Popsicles

Today I picked Simon up from school first and then we went to pick up Eli at Yaya's house. I was talking to Pam and Simon was pulling on me saying "I want to go home now" and being very whiny. I was mostly ignoring him and then he suddenly said "please can we get a donut on the way home?" I said no and he made a very sad face and was insistent that he really needed a donut. Pam whispered something in his ear and he said to me "please Mommy, I love you very much" and he gave me a kiss. I felt so bad saying no, but knew it would be such a big pain to find parking and then schlep both kids in to Dunkin Donuts. Luckily, David was already on his way home and mentioned that he was stopping at the dry cleaner so I asked him to stop to get a donut for Simon. Simon said he wanted a vanilla one. When David got home, Simon, Eli and I were eating vegetable soup for dinner. David presented Simon with 3 donuts, none of which were actually vanilla, but Simon liked all of them. He gave them out to each of us (poor Eli just watched and I think was a little put off that he didn't get any) and then we each took a bite and rotated. Simon dropped some donut in his soup which must have tasted good because he ate 2 big bowls full. Eli ate a full bowl of soup too. I wonder if I can return all the baby food that we bought recently! Apparently he ate some pasta today at Yaya's house. Pam said their new form of amusement is to put some pieces of food in front of Eli and watch him try to eat it himself. He can pick it up, but he either puts the wrong fingers in his mouth or he just puts the food on his face. David was feeding him some fruit puffs and finally Eli got smart and just brought his face down to David's hand and picked it up with his mouth!
After dinner, it was still warm enough outside to bring back our old tradition of eating popsicles on the porch. We ate popsicles that have been in the freezer since last summer, but they were actually still good. Eli loves popsicles!
While we were still outside, Papu came over on his way to a meeting to have some dinner--he also really liked the soup (it was so easy--2 sweet potatoes, 1 bunch of broccoli, 1 pkg of parsnips, and 1 bag of that maneschewitz minestrone soup mix with the beans, water to cover-bring to a boil and then simmer for 45 minutes to an hour. I then blended it with the hand-blender to make it easier for Eli to eat). Simon showed Papu his new bike and even let Papu ride it. The batteries had died on the camera, but I got a picture with my phone--it's not so clear, but you get the idea!