Remembering The Good For When I'll Need It

Cheer season is in full swing, which means I spend a significant amount of time waiting for Alexis to finish shooting school spirit out of her every pore. There's a big difference this year, though. I have company while I sit around and wait.

She really is the best. I tell her as much daily, right after I'm done whispering "cheerleading is dumb" 5000 times in her ear.

What?

I've paid my dues. I'm allowed to subtly try to steer one kid in another direction.

Recently Mila and I were hanging out in a picnic pavilion waiting for cheer practice to end when we were joined by a group of teen girls. They gathered around a table right behind us, completely oblivious to our existence.

Mila's current vocabulary is limited to "goo," "oooh," and something that sounds EXACTLY like "hi." It's all highly entertaining, but with only those few sounds and words, we often run out of chatter pretty quickly. Thus, we were sitting in a bubble of silence when the teens sat down. That meant we heard every word they said.

The conversation was exactly what you would expect from the high school girl sect. They were cattily discussing a party and who was invited and who better not show up. I now know that Kate is soooooooo annoying, Logan is a loser, and Liam better be at the party because OMG SO CUTE.

It's kind of pitiful how much those sorts of conversations sound the same as they did 20 years ago.

But then the conversation turned to the topic of mothers. The five girls were debating which one of them had the best mom versus the worst mom. One mom is "soooo mean" because she never lets her daughter do anything.

That sounds valid. Yup.

Another girl said her mom is "fine." She didn't elaborate, but the other girls seemed to agree.

Then came the winner of the mom lottery. The girls all agreed on the criteria and the results. The best mom was the mom who, "doesn't care what Bella does, like EVER."

As the whole conversation continued, Mila and I watched Alexis run across the field. Practice was over and she was ready to turn the page to the rest of the day. When she arrived, she leaned over and kissed Mila on the cheek. "Hi, mom!" she said.

"Here's your water bottle," I said.

"You are the best, mom!" she cheerily replied.

I bottled up that moment in my head. I'm going to need it in a few years when she thinks I'm the worst.

Mexican Chopped Salad with Cilantro Lime Dressing

I can't grow delphinium to save my life. Seriously. I plant them every year, and every year they die. I guess it's just not meant to be.

Lettuce, on the other hand, is apparently meant to be EVERYWHERE.

I planted lettuce from seed last year in one little 4' x 4' raised bed. It did really well. Too well, even, because the darn stuff dropped seeds all over the place. This year I'm completely overrun in lettuce, and I didn't plant any.

That has led to Alexis often making herself a salad for lunch after a walk through the yard. It's all sorts of quaint and adorable how she puts together different things. It's almost like we're legit crunchy over here.

Trust me; we're not.

We are enjoying salads, though.

Recently I dug through my memory bank in search of something I haven't had in a while. I finally remembered this little restaurant I used to go to in Houston when I worked on a project there about 10 years ago. It was a Mexican restaurant, but not really. I'd more call it faux-Mexican, but it was delicious. The burritos were outstanding, though mostly I ordered the Mexican Chopped Salad there.

I couldn't figure out the name of the place using Google, so I couldn't access a menu online. That meant I had to go off memory for what was in the salad. I think I nailed it, frankly. And if not? Oh well. This version is pretty darn good as well.

Mexican Chopped Salad (makes 4 side salads)

One bunch green leaf lettuce, cleaned and chopped
1/2 red pepper, chopped
1/2 cucumber, chopped
1 small red onion, chopped
1/2 cup corn (frozen or fresh -- it doesn't matter)
1/2 cup black beans, drained and rinsed thoroughly
8-10 grape tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup queso fresco
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons honey (more if you want sweeter dressing)
1 tablespoon cilantro
salt and pepper to taste

1. To make the dressing, place the olive oil, lime juice, honey, and cilantro in a small bowl. Mix them up using a fork or whisk.

2. Throw everything else in the list in a large bowl. Throw the dressing on top and toss it. That's it. You're done.

3. For what it's worth, I threw some of the leftovers from making the salad (such as the remainder of the can of black beans) into a skillet with some tofu and called it fajitas. Nobody questioned me, so it must have been good.

100

I don't know how it happened, but some how, some way, we've now done 100 sidewalk chalk portraits.

That's 100 adventures imagined by a little girl who is not nearly as little as she was when we started these in 2011.

A lot has changed in the time since these started. Life has evolved, real adventures have been chased, and a tiny little dream has come true.

With that dream come true, a new generation of Chalk Adventures has come to life.

Alexis says she has lots of ideas for adventures that she wants to tackle in the future, so our work isn't done just yet. We shall see what Mila thinks of the whole thing when she's old enough to have an opinion. Maybe she'll come up with 100 adventures of her own.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.

(You can see all of the Chalk Adventures over here.)