The Market

Today it was just Kasen and I because Ken was snowboarding with his buddies. I actually encouraged him to go - sometimes you just need to get out of the house! That morning Kasen had a big bowl of rice and beans and what he calls "market soup" ("Mom's Chicken Soup"from the soup bar at Whole Foods, it's his favorite) for breakfast. He got a little bored so I had suggested that we take a trip to McDonald's to get a happy meal of Chicken Nuggets and fries - he was totally on board for that. However, on the ride home I was terrified that he would fall asleep (it was already noon, and he woken up around 7am) as he was nodding off in the car seat. I said to him Kasen, we have to eat our lunch first! Kasen normally naps around 1:30pm to 2pm - typically 7 to 8 hours after he wakes up.


He ate all of his fries. And two nuggets. It may not sound like alot, but given the fact that I have struggled to get Kasen to eat meat willingly for most of his existence I was rejoicing.:) After we finished lunch there was an open house listing in Dedham that I had discussed with Ken the night before that we'd go check out - Kasen and I went together. Gorgeous house, fantastic neighborhood, but I grapple with the fact that the education system isn't the best, taxes are incredibly high (it's 3X the value of the average house in Dedham) and it's private sewer and runs on oil. Really, it isn't Wellesley, and given that I care about education (if I'm paying taxes, I may as well stretch my dollar to get the best I can possibly get in terms of public goods, right?) it was a main sticking factor. Later that night we listed all of the important aspects of home buying and ranked them, 1-10, and added up the score for both houses. Building our home in Wellesley still won, by a margin. Oh well. Until we are told no by the Board, forward and onward.

In the cart at Market Basket Waltham

After visiting the house with Kasen, he didn't want to go home, so I asked him where he wanted to go. He said to the market! I asked which market - and he wanted to go to Market Basket. The closest Market Basket to us is in Waltham - it's huge, and shiny, and new and oh, I forgot to mention that everyone and their mom goes to that one too! It's always busy. Regardless we had a great time - we even found a giant easter egg filled with candy (Kasen has a strange obsession/fascination with eggs...which I find funny because he is allergic to them). Kasen loves the market, and we picked up extra items that we can't get anywhere else. Market Basket is always friendlier on our wallet than any of the other markets. Hats off to you, Artie T.!


That night we made a delicious beef back rib stew with some french bread. I winged it, but it tasted amazing - if you know me, I don't normally cook but it was enough to impress my hungry husband who had been out snowboarding all day. That alone is praise enough because he never compliments anyone on their cooking unless it's reaaally good. My recipe to follow!

After dinner, Kasen voluntarily donned the Mammoth beanie I managed to convince one of the park workers to give us several years ago. The beanie is not available for sale and is only "given" to the mountain workers. It is one of our favorite beanies given its really bright day glo blue, orange, and yellow colors. What a mini hipster.