Wow, what a weekend. Poor Vi has been suffering since Wednesday and we're still not out of the woods. It's been a challenging several days, but also included a major revelation. I'm wishing all of you and your little ones excellent health! Meanwhile, here are some handy/fun ideas to consider in this week's Weekly Blueprint:

February 13: Pack Valentine's for school. If Valentine's prep has fallen off your radar, don't fret! Check out these free, fast, and adorable robot printables. And if you're volunteering in your kid's class for Valentine's, arm yourself with a few of these cute classroom party ideas.
February 14: Hug or call someone you love. I'm planning on recording a short Valentine's video greeting from the girls to email to the grandparents.

February 16: Bring your baby to enjoy some art.

February 16: Katherine Stone educates on perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.

February 17: The Mitten, brought to life.

February 17: Come garner great ideas during a live chat I'm leading on taking 10 minutes for yourself every day.

February 17: A technicolor singalong.

February 17-25: Perfect for Bugs Bunny fans.

At your leisure: Print and hang some new family photos. (Personal goal: get photos of Violet on the wall before her first birthday next month!)

At your leisure: Engage in some preventative medicine -- whatever works for you, whether it's a yoga class, upping your vitamin C, or going to bed an hour earlier.

At your leisure: Make some comfort food. Like this easy, cream macaroni and cheese.

At your leisure: And if you've been having a tough go of things as we have, make a yummy sweet treat. I think it's time for me to make these peanut butter bliss cookies.

Today, Lindsey (also of A Design So Vast) recommends a welcome addition and workshop series:

The famed Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum recently opened a new addition to the existing, ornate, historical space. The modern, Renzo Piano-designed addition -- a 70,000 square foot temple of light and glass -- holds space to showcase art by current and former members of the museum's artist-in-residence program, an impressive performance hall, and a gleaming new studio. It is in this latter space that the museum is holding weekly Education Studio workshops. Visitors of all ages are welcome to participate in workshops, which are drop-in and held on Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 4:30pm, and included in the price of museum admission.
I recently took my 9-year-old daughter to one such workshop and she thoroughly enjoyed building a three-dimensional freeform building out of a variety of materials. Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult, and I think the workshops are most suitable for children 6 and up. The workshops are themed, such as this weekend's Cupid's Arrow, during which attendees will visit the Titian room to observe Cupids in art before making their own Cupid's arrow with dowels, features, and paints, and The Uncommon Canvas (March 17-18), when participants, inspired by contemporary artist Victoria Morton's works (in the Special Exhibition gallery) will create multilayered pieces of their own from materials such as scrap fabric, tissue, and acrylics.

For a slightly older child, the Gardner is an enchanting place. My daughter was captivated by the internal garden and the story of a fascinating, eccentric woman whose personal selections and assortments have never been altered. Combining a visit with a workshop in the bright new space made for a wonderful weekend morning.

Editor's Note: Unfortunately I couldn't find direct links for the Education Studio workshops. I recommend calling advance of your visit to confirm programming.

Friends, how are you all doing? Staying healthy? Perhaps it's simply a function of having one more family member in the mix, but it feels as if this has been the season of plague, with one, more, or all of us sick at some point or another. I'm actually a little relieved that our plans to have company this weekend have fallen through so we can take it easy and get everyone healthy. I hope you all have a wonderful, plague-free weekend; here are 15 picks for your consideration!
1. Chinese New Year celebrations, among many other kid-friendly activities. (Boston)

2. I think this claymation workshop sounds so cool! (Boston)

3. An event for teens to connect with community service opportunities. (Chestnut Hill)

4. Enjoy a contemporary classical rendering of The Tortoise and the Hare and The Pied Piper at this family concert. (Boston)

5. A battle of the teen bands to benefit Children's Hospital. (Boston)

6. Bundle up for a winter family fun safari hike. (Milton)

7. Learn how to turn every movement into dance. (Boston)

8. Rock the lunar New Year in Quincy. (Quincy)

9. Celebrate the release of Bari Koral's new album. (Natick)

10. Chinese New Year in the Square. (Cambridge)

11. A family show by Laura Veirs & the Tumble Bees. (Cambridge)

12. Lowell Winterfest continues. (Lowell)

13. Get your sci-fi on. (Somerville)

14. A place to find travel inspiration. (Boston)

15. Yes to chocolate and ice sculptures. (Salem)

Image credit: HarvardSquare.com

Even though the process can become messier and the results less perfect, I love baking with kids. It makes for a fun project (just this week we had a friend of Laurel's over for a baking play date -- so fun!), offers yummy rewards, and you can choose to work in some math teaching if you like. Laurel and I recently tried a new (to us) cookie recipe from Lori Longbotham's Luscious Lemon Desserts that was just delightful; a lovely twist on basic sugar cookies. Below I've edited the steps and added notes to offer some shortcuts and tips, as well as ideas for incorporating kids into the process. Enjoy!

+ + + + +

Old-Fashioned Lemon Sugar Cookies
Makes 4 dozen cookies

• 1 2/3 cups sugar (split)
• 2 teaspoons pure lemon oil (split)
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/3 cup finely grated lemon zest (approximately 6 lemons worth)
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter 2 large non-stick baking sheets. (I recommend using Silpat mats. You don't need to spray or butter the mat and the cookie bottoms always come out perfect.)
2. Stir together 2/3 cup sugar + 1 teaspoon lemon oil in a small bowl. Set aside.
3. Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. (I never sift anything and it seems to work out fine. Laurel is old enough to measure out ingredients but with younger kids you can hand them the measured out ingredients to dump and mix in the bowl.)
4. Using a hand or standing mixer, beat the butter, remaining 1 cup of sugar, remaining 1 teaspoon of lemon oil, and lemon zest until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat until well blended. Add the flour mixture and lemon juice and beat until just blended. (Experienced and steady-handed kids can be tasked to work the hand mixer or turn on the standing mixer and keep an eye on consistency. If you are using a standing mixer, make sure you lock the mixer in the down position before your kid turns it on. Just in case!
5. Form balls with tablespoonfuls of dough. Roll them in the sugar-lemon oil mixture (from step 2) to coat well and place about 3 inches apart on baking sheets. Flatten each ball with the bottom of a glass until about 2 inches round and 3/8 inch thick. Sprinkle each one with a pinch of the sugar-lemon oil mixture. (Laurel and I split the dough. I followed the steps here -- except that I forgot the final sprinkling step -- and she rolled out her dough on a floured surface and cut it with cookie cutters. This dough was much softer than traditional sugar cookie dough so it was harder to roll out and cut, but Laurel was determined! One thing that helped was to use shapes with simple patterns/edges. Both versions were delicious!)
6. Bake, one sheet at a time, for 8-10 minutes until edges are lightly browned. Remove from baking sheet and cool on a wire rack. (I popped the sheets in two at a time and kept an eye on them. It worked fine!)

Image credit: Suat Eman via FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I walked downstairs this morning, poured a cup of coffee, and turned around to see this.

The part I'm most confused about? What's under the chairs. On one side is a white doll's dress and on the other side is a towel.

I can't believe Violet turns one next month. I also can't believe she ever used to lie immobile on her back. During the night, she migrates around her crib a lot, which has made blanket coverage impossible and (I think) contributed to interrupted sleep. Now, sleep sacks as a temperature solution are not a new concept to me, but I hadn't bothered with them for Violet since with Laurel, the zip-front openings weren't the most convenient for middle of the night diaper changes.
But now there's gunapod -- a super cozy fleece sleep sack that you can access from every direction (and inspired right here in Boston). It features the classic front zipper, plus side zip openings that run all the way around, plus button snaps on the top. So, you can open just the bottom to let baby's feet hang out or change a diaper. You can unsnap the top if your baby is standing in his/her crib demanding to get out and it's time to get changed for the day anyway. You can even unzip the side to do a stealth diaper check while you nurse. (We have done all three of these things; the latter I found particularly handy.)

The first couple of times I used the gunapod I was thrilled to find Vi's hands and feet toasty warm in the morning -- I sleep easier knowing I don't have to check her blanket situation in the middle of the night. And while Vi's sleep has been a little up and down the last few months as we've dealt with new foods, colds, blanket problems, and whatever other baby matters interrupt sleep, it dawned on me the other day that her sleep has been more consistent the last couple of weeks since we started using the gunapod. This, of course, is not a guarantee that your baby will start sleeping through the night if they use a gunapod (I wish it were that easy, my friends!), but we're at least able to address the cold-in-the-middle-of-the-night factor. Plus, I've found that getting Vi into the gunapod at night provides a nice bedtime cue, particularly since I recently dropped our bedtime nursing. I prep her bottle, get her in the sleep sack, we cuddle up, and she feeds. And then blissfully enjoy a good night's sleep.

Last night on the way home from a two-hour meeting all the way across town, I called my sister in the hopes she would cheer me up. I'd had a really rough day and was feeling really insecure about my writing.

(Editor's Note: This is going to be my memory of the conversation and therefore probably not what she said at all. But isn't that how life goes? And if we didn't go with it a little we'd have zero material, so bear with me. Also, it was really nice of her to cheer me up when I totally called HER and interrupted her evening with my hunger-fueled angst. Thank you, Sister Little.)

She started telling me about this series of books she was reading by Isaac Asimov and how the first couple of books he wrote in this series were almost exactly alike and therefore really boring but how the last one was written twenty years later and it was so amazing it changed her life and she wants to have his cryogenetically preserved babies.

Okay, I made the last part up.

And I was all, "I'm feeling like a suck writer and you tell me how Isaac Asimov is so awesome he changed your whole worldview with one novel?"

And then she was all, "Well, you shouldn't compare yourself to the greats."

(pause for souls to be crushed and angels to fall from heaven)

In the pause, she may have heard my psyche keening for its hold on perspective. 

<insert uncomfortable silence>

And then she said something like, "This is sort of like when you told me about how giving birth completed you right after I broke up with my boyfriend, isn't it?"

And I was all, "YES."

(!!!)

But then she reversed and started distracting me with how eventually -- as Asimov went on to write forty gazillion books -- he decided to bring all his fake worlds in line with the same planets and everything. And so then, there I was -- standing in my kitchen starving to death because it was eight at night and I'd just gotten home from the world's longest meeting and hadn't eaten since noon -- listening to my sister wax on about Asimov's genius and I started thinking about Asimov standing in his kitchen in the eighties and making that newfangled microwave popcorn and stressing the fuck out because OMG THE PLANETS ARE ALL NAMED DIFFERENT THINGS. And maybe even the great Asimov pulled his hair out and drank some extra wine and stressed over HOW THAT THING HE COMPLETELY MADE UP WASN'T QUITE RIGHT.

And every time I'm sure that it doesn't matter a bit whether or not I try to make my completely fake world right, I should remember that Asimov getting his completely fake world right changed my sister's whole life.

And so it's worth a shot.

Today, Paige (also of Mudroom Boston) shares a beloved book, good for Valentine's Day or any day:

"Mr. Hatch was tall and thin and he did not smile." And so begins the story of Mr. Hatch, a lonesome man who leads a gray and dreary life. He leaves his house at precisely 6:30am for his job at the shoelace factory every day, sits alone and eats his cheese and mustard sandwich for lunch every day, and stops at the grocery store for a fresh turkey wing for dinner every day. And then one day, a day unlike every other day, the postman changes Mr. Hatch's world when he delivers a giant heart-shaped box of chocolates, complete with a special Valentine's note. "Somebody loves you," the note says. But who?
In Eileen Spinelli's Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch (our favorite Valentine story that we read year-round), we get a peek into how someone's whole life can change with one simple expression of love. As soon as Mr. Hatch reads that note, his world becomes more colorful and expressive -- captured perfectly by illustrator Paul Yalowitz -- as he begins wearing polka dot ties, helps out neighbors in need, throws backyard parties complete with homemade brownies, and laughs like he's never laughed before.

But just when we think all is right in Mr. Hatch's life, the postman returns to admit that he delivered the box to the wrong address, and suddenly Mr. Hatch's new found joy disappears (as does the color from Yalowitz's illustrations). And just when you want to jump into the pages of Mr. Hatch's world and say, "but WE love you, Mr. Hatch," the many people whose lives he touched in those few brief days of happiness band together and show Mr. Hatch exactly what he means to them.

Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch is a story that has brings tears of empathy and joy. With its simply written story and expressive pictures, not only does it teach that saying "I love you" can change someone's life, but that opening up to other people can change your life, too -- an important lesson for kids and grownups alike.

Beloved, the little angel and I clomped down the sidewalk. It had snowed just a little bit, and what was there had already melted, but the air contained that combination of humidity and cold that tickles your nose and reminds me of the Rocky Mountains. I just wanted to be outside in it a little longer, so I whined for a trek down a neighborhood path that winds behind houses and essentially goes nowhere. I knew it went nowhere because we'd been down it before, but we were only a few blocks from home and I was stalling.

We'd only gone past four or five houses when the path became covered in the mud resulting from less than an inch of snow. I watched the little angel tromp through it in her snow boots and wished I'd been more thoughtful of my own footwear. I own snow boots, too. Why weren't they on my feet?

"This was a really bad idea," I said. "I'm sorry. We're getting all muddy."

She didn't even turn around. She just yelled, "Mommy, are you an explorer or are you a fashion model?"

I swallowed. "I'm an explorer! I'M AN EXPLORER!"

---

Win a Sony streaming device that will turn your TV into a smart TV on Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews!