Henry-speak

Mom, I'm making brick dust. Do you know how to make it? Well, let me tell you! You put the brick pieces in a container and shake them around, and the dust comes off. The dust is what bricks are made of, and when the dust comes off the brick gets a tiny bit smaller. I'm saving the dust in my fort for when I need it later.

Mom, do real zebras in real life talk? Well, how do they, like, grow up without talking?

Why do I have a belly-button? If I was inside you, and you were inside Gran... where did the first Mommy's belly-button come from? Who was she inside?

I'm so excited for Christmas, Mom. Guess what I'm going to get? I'm going to get a small Lego set with four guys. Aggie can have two of the guys, and I can have two of the guys. Aggie can have one cool guy, and one uncool-- one not cool guy. And I can have one cool guy, and another cool guy. See, that's fair!

Agatha-speak

Morning:

Get Aggie out! (Pointing to air conditioner) Turn that off, pease. Go see Mommy. Mommy, good nap! I had good nap. Mommy all done, mommy all done rest. Put coze on. Mommy get dress. Go downsairs, make hot cockie.

Food:

I want summa dat. Yeah, couscous right dere. Feta chee right now! Inna Daddy-bowl. No, inna Henny-bowl. Poon! No poon. You're welcome!

Daily activities:

Less go, Henny schoo! Inna car! I take phone. Buckle in. I do buckle! I make "kick".

Time for water play! Get out tool [pool]! Take off diaper. Aggie go down side, whee! I can't do.

Henny, where are you? Tha-tha-AgaTHA!

Nighttime:

Put peejay on. Readabook, readabook! Seeya later, Daddy. I ready go inna crib. I ready go night-night. Aggie all done.

Happy Father's Day

Summertime

poolside dining

(the hit of the party)

We spend a lot of our time and money acquiring wholesome food. This is true all year round, but it's especially true for the six months of the year that are the growing season here in lush Lancaster County. Every Saturday morning we go out to an Amish farm and buy our milk and eggs, then our organic/bulk food items at a health food store on the farm. Every Friday morning I "go to market," which is what people actually say here: the year-round market downtown that is mostly locally grown but also has imported fruits and vegetables, a dairy, deli, sausage, grass-fed beef, chicken-- pretty much everything but ketchup and toilet paper. Then once a week we pick up our farm share at an organic co-op farm, where there's also usually some pick-your-own items. And we have our own vegetable plot, which Michael tries to visit at least a couple of times a week. And on top of that we go to the orchards to pick fruit in season. Then I still need to go to the supermarket for ketchup and toilet paper. Yesterday was a good example: out to breakfast, milk farm, health-foods store, across the county to the vegetable co-op where we picked blueberries and black raspberries, then south to the orchard to pick sour pie cherries. It's great and we eat very well, but sometimes I wonder what my grandmother would say... she was a big fan of frozen bread dough! Having grown up and lived for years on farms, she had a great appreciation for convenience, for the simplification of household duties rather than the elaboration of them (honestly: SEVEN different stops to gather our food? and that doesn't include beer or wine, each of which must be purchased at a separate store). After a long, hot, sticky day, we had a date night Saturday while my mom sat with our sleeping kids. And what did we do? We went out to our garden plot, where Michael weeded while I sat and watched the fireflies.

picking blueberries with friend Leo

toddler intrigue

Michael in his beautiful, lush garden plot

New York, New York

enjoying the view

able to leap tall buildings in a single bound...

We just returned from a great trip to New York City. We drove, and it was painless both ways-- just about three hours, right through the Lincoln Tunnel, and up 10th avenue. Michael dropped us at the hotel and parked the car for the duration of the trip. We'd stayed at this hotel before, because it is has small suites-- a separate bedroom and living room, and a small kitchen-- perfect for traveling with kids. It's old and charming, has a fabulous location on the Upper West Side, and is remarkably affordable and slightly shabby. But since we were last there they had redecorated it, and it was so pretty! Beautiful sea-green paint everywhere and nice new furniture. (Also, unfortunately, lots of shiny metallics and glass; Agatha had a run-in with a glass end table and got a bruised cheek.) And huge-- we had our own room with a king-size bed, Henry slept on the fold-out in the living room, and the closets were so huge that we put Agatha's crib into one and she had her own dark and quiet room. As a result, we all slept very well, which is the key to happiness for our family. We were only a couple of blocks from the Natural History Museum and Central Park. Michael and I each had research business, so while one parent was off at the NY Public Library (me) or the Met (Michael), the other took the kids to the park and/or the museum. We got a family membership at the museum so that we could keep going back-- I think we went there about five times! It has huge dinosaur skeletons and dioramas and a giant blue whale suspended from the ceiling, among many, many, many other things. Tuesday morning the kids and I went all through "The Rambles" in Central Park, and it was a stunning, crisp, blue-sky day-- unfortunately Michael had the camera at the Met, so I don't have any photo evidence. But we saw turtles in the lake, and Henry scrambled up a tall cascade of boulders with a stream running through it. We ate well, of course. Henry discovered that he loves shrimp and all kinds of sashimi, and Agatha ate a huge sushi roll filled with glowing red salmon roe. ("Aggie want that! Aggie want that!") We rode the subway for fun, ate cupcakes from the special cupcake bakery, drank "coconut champagne" from Gray's Papaya (Henry: "It's weird! and good!"), and bought trinkets from the DinoStore in the museum (glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs, rock candy, and tiny rubber butterflies). I even shopped a little!

At first it was very stressful keeping tabs on Henry; he's used to a lot more freedom than he can have in Manhattan, and we had to repeatedly explain that he was not allowed to run ahead of us or leave the hotel room ("why not?" he asked in complete bafflement). And if you think it's bad taking two kids to the supermarket in your town, imagine doing it in a packed, gourmet grocery story in Manhattan at 5 pm. No! I do not recommend it! We compensated by going often to the park where he could run and explore more. Agatha was completely easy and adaptable, as usual, and rode in the backpack happily most of the time.

One puzzle: Henry wore his Superman t-shirt two days, and every third person seemed to comment on it ("Hey, Superman, are you going to share that cupcake with your sister?"). This only rarely happens in Lancaster. Why? Do New Yorkers love Superman? It can't be that they aren't used to children, because the Upper West Side is crawling with them. Are they just chatty and extroverted people? I don't know, but Henry noticed it-- the second morning, when we left the hotel and had walked for about two minutes without anyone commenting, he said, "Why isn't anyone saying 'hey Superman,' Mom?" We also met up with some of our former students who live in New York, and had a lovely time with them. So, a big, big success. New York!

Red Rose Run and the last day of school

determination

Henry's last day of school was yesterday, and we're all ready for a little break from our normal routine. Thanks to Aunt Kirsti's advice, we have been making further progress with Henry's behavior issues, and we hope that the break from school and a new routine will help too. The biggest insight from Kirsti has been that time-outs should be quiet--no yelling. This might seem obvious, but other experts say you should just ignore the yelling as bids for attention. That worked when he was younger, but right now the main problem is that he's letting himself get out of control on occasion, and yelling for a few minutes during a time out meant that he wasn't calming down and resetting. So yesterday, having agreed in advance that the penalty for naughty behavior and not listening to mama would be a two-minute, quiet time out, it took about 20 minutes until he was finally calm enough to actually do the two minutes quietly (and, probably, until he realized that we were serious about enforcing this quiet break for out-of-control behavior). But then he did... and it was really helpful. Today we had to do it again, but it was much shorter, and the rest of the day was great. So, thanks Kirsti!

This morning was the Red Rose Run, a 5 mile run (for grown-ups). Loyal readers might remember that Henry backed out of running the last kids' race, in April, and since then he's been determined to run in the next one, which was today. It was a longer race-- half a mile! He and Michael have been training for it by taking regular laps around the block, and he's gotten where he can run the entire circuit without stopping. He was so excited for it today, but we almost blew it-- they sent the race off early and we nearly missed the start, and in the hubbub he again got cold feet. "I don't want to run! I don't like these kids!" he said, lower lip trembling. "How about if Daddy runs with you?" I said, and suddenly he steeled himself, marched up to the starting line, and got into the ready position. The horn sounded, and he was off! Michael ran along beside and behind him, and said that once he decided to do it he was completely confident, and he ran the entire way without stopping. He did finish last, but all the other kids had about 4 years on him! We were so, so, so proud of him that he conquered his nerves (he doesn't really like chaos or large groups of kids) and did something that he really, really wanted to do. And he was so proud of himself!

After the triumphant finish (he high-fived our minor-league baseball mascot, Cylo, as he crossed the finish line, but I was so excited I forgot to take a picture).

By the way, Michael did great too! He had his best time for this race. Tomorrow, we are off to New York City for four days, with the kids. Michael and I will each do a little research work, and we'll enjoy the city (I hope). Wish us luck!

Hop on Pop

Henry just read all of "Hop on Pop" to me tonight, at bedtime. He was certainly helped by his intimate knowledge of the book, but whenever he paraphrased I asked him to try again and he carefully read each word as written. Well, all but the last two pages-- he was pooped out by then and said, "Mama, why don't you read these because I want you to have a chance to read some." (Hmmm. Sounds like a future lawyer, politician, or boss. Or Tom Sawyer.) He told me he was going to have to practice his reading a LOT this summer because next year he will be in kindergarten and the teachers are going to want him to read a LOT more.