Time for Partners

This winter/spring, Theo and I attended a music and art class through the city called Time for Partners (couldn't they have thought of a catchyer name?). It was a great time for the two of us. The art projects were great fun and very creative centered around a theme each week. The music class was pretty good though every single week was much the same making me want to run out of the room screaming for it all to stop. Can you tell I need a break from this class?!? Poor Gabriel may have to branch out to something else in another year.

Denise and Sam took the class with us making it fun for both kids and moms.

Hmm, What Was for Dinner?

The Beach!

Memorial Day dawned sunny and somewhat warm, so I decided to take Maddie and Theo to the beach. They were very excited. I do have a hard time with New England beaches. The ocean just seems in the wrong place, wrong color and wrong temperature. We tried a new beach closeish to Boston. We arrived to an empty expanse of sand, perfect for running, sand castle building, bathroom trips to a really beautiful facility and of course,

Snacks!

Rainy Day Biking

Nathan is indoctrinating the kids into cycling! Theo even wants a pair of bike shorts. Nathan has taken the kids out on some pretty long rides - Maddie's gone about 6 miles and Theo 3, which says a lot as he's pushing the bike with his feet on the street. It's a very fun activity for them. I, on the other hand, am not entirely cut out for family bike rides - yet. Theo is a bit crazy on the bike and with much shrieking and hollering (me to Theo as he's barreling down the street), I decided that this is a perfect Daddy/child activity. In the picture above, the cyclists got caught in a torrential downpour. Spirits were not dampened!

Wonderful Waban Weekend

We had a packed weekend with events in Waban. Our friends the Partingtons are departing to Connecticut. They are the type of people who make everyone feel welcome, always have an open door and a party going on, and have a daughter, Laine, in Maddie's class. They were having a goodbye party complete with amazing face painter and magician. Our night was capped off with a super fun dinner at our friends Kelly and Jeff's house. We'd bid on a dinner at the Angier fundraiser with Kelly and Jeff's neighbor and Angier parent, Atul Gawande. He's a surgeon, writer for the New Yorker and author of two very interesting books, Complications and Better. We invited other kindergarten parents and had a lovely evening.

The next day we walked to Waban Village Days. It's quite a small little fair but fun none the less. The kids enjoyed riding the small rides, their favorite being the viking ship.

Now that we are in the elementary school, it was great fun to bump into friends in the village.

Don't They Come with Filters?

Dear Theo. He is three and with that comes a lack of verbal filter as well as no volume control. Nathan and I are constantly reminding him to "use your inside voice." In the past 12 days, I've ended up having to take all three kids to the hospital twice for Theo to get his pinkie x-rayed after a fall in the backyard. He'd fallen, cried a bit and then got up to play again so I thought nothing of it. Well, over the next few days it swelled up and was quite painful if he brushed it against anything. So, I took him to the doctor who suggested we get an x-ray to make sure it wasn't broken, specifically on the growth plate. The first x-ray came back negative and the discoloration disappeared but the swelling and pain remained. Twelve days after the fall, we decided to get a second x-ray and this is where Theo's lack of filter came into play.

We walked to the hospital after dinner figuring it'd be a quick wait at radiology. Of course, they couldn't find our order so registration took a bit longer. The gentleman who was registering us was very kind. As I was talking to him, I hear Theo yammering away and catch the word "rumple," our word for passing gas. I look at him and smile which he takes as consent and proceeds to pass a very loud rumple. Great. He then looks at the older bald mustached gentleman with a strange eye condition where he frequently blinks and bulges his eyes and says, "Mama, that man looks like a monkey." Thankfully, the man was on the phone with our doctor and I pray did not overhear. Theo is a truly phenomenal mimic, his all time great being a full body mimic of Gabriel's few day old fontanel (soft spot). Two minutes pass and Theo looks at me mimicking the man's eyes and says, "My eyes don't do this. (blink, blink, blink)" Mortified, I send Maddie and Theo around the corner to find something, anything to do.

Anyhow, we survived the rest of the adventure to find out little buddy did in fact break his finger. He received high accolades for his great finger placement to resemble a cockatail during the x-ray, "better than most adults." And luckily the finger was healed enough that a splint wasn't necessary.

Hanging Out

I thought Maddie and Theo looked so cute, just talking and writing. I'm not sure why Theo has a napkin on his head...

On Boys

I continue to be fascinated by boys and what they are interested in, maybe because it is so foreign to me. Just today, I was reading stories to Theo. We were sitting cross legged on the floor in his room. Gabriel found a small school bus and proceeded to drive it around us the entire time I was reading a story! I remember when Maddie was probably 18 months, I thought she needed a car of some sort. I bought a cute wooden one and she hardly gave a it a glance. Gabriel is drawn to balls too. He'll crawl over to one, grab it and even crawl with it in his hand making a thump thump noise.


Theo clearly has my number. We returned home from walking Maddie to school and he asked to watch a show which doesn't normally happen in the morning. I said, no and proceeded to say no about six times in a row to his pleas. Finally, he said, "I say super please and you say, oh, alright." Now, I really thought I stand firm on my yeses and nos but apparently, I'm going to have to watch it!

Barnyard Babies

Can you tell we've been trying to fill our days? Nathan has been working a ton and also biking a lot which makes for long weekends. We went to a wonderful fair at a local private school. They had an exhibit called Barnyard Babies, with you guessed it, baby animals burritoed up for you to hold - kitties, bunnies, ducks, a pig, some puppies - it was super cute.

Maddie was so proud to put this little kitty to sleep. By this point, Theo was done with the animals and ready for a pony ride.

This wasn't the first time we'd experienced the Barnyard Babies. They were a part of Nathan's 5th reunion at HBS. Take a look at my baby girl.

A Package from Cousin Nicholas

Theo was so excited to get a package of hand me downs from his cousin Nicholas. He immediately put on the Tevas and started reading the books. Never mind that the books had been sent for me! Now Theo sometimes calls letters numbers. He flipped through each book and when asked what he thought of them said, "They sure had a lot of numbers."

40th Birthday Fun

Our friends, Daryl and Mike, turned forty within a month of each other. They threw a wonderful party at the Windsor Club with dancing and gambling. It was super fun.

Leslie, me, Daryl, Teyah and Kelly - Angier Moms

Nathan made it after a full day of work and the need to go back to the office after the party. We had a great time.

Happy May Day!

We decided to make May Day baskets and deliver them to our neighbors. We decorated the baskets and then the kids went around our yard picking flowers to put into them. They were very springy!

The neighbors loved the surprises and the kids received nice notes from most of them.