Clambake

There is nothing like the smell of freshly cooked steamahs, live-boiled lobstahs, and freshly urethaned gym floors. Despite the monsoon wrecking our beach day, we still had a great lunch and fun time chatting with new and old friends.

Are you looking at me? Are YOU looking at me?

I like the suspicious look Calvin is giving the lobster.

Bryn asked if lobsters had brains, so Chris took it upon himself to dissect his lobster's head to show her. As he hacked away the exoskeleton and ripped through the flesh, Bryn exclaimed, "Ewww," and I asked her if the dissecting was too much for her. She said, "no, I just have corn husk in my front teeth," and continued watching the dissection with enthusiastic curiosity.

Poor Laura mistook her lobster for a prince

The family yearbook

That was just too much fun. Bryn's picture turned out some other good ones:


Now go waste good chunks of your day at www.yearbookyourself.com .

Ahhh, Honesty.

I served stuffed Manicotti tonight, and while Calvin made a valiant effort to try it, he didn't make much of a dent in his Manicottus. At the end of dinner, he looked at me and sweetly and sincerely said, "Thank you for that yucky dinner, Mom."

Peter's other home

Yesterday the kids and I met Peter for lunch at his office. I'm so in love with the building he's located in. I know it's had it's problems and criticisms, but I'm smitten. The kids liked the cool mirror effects on parts of the building and played with it like a fun house for a few minutes. Bryn called it the "most craziest building ever."
Incidentally, I left my camera in the car, so these photos were all shamelessly pulled off a google image search of his building

It's the new PBJ

I went into the kitchen and found Bryn happily eating this concoction:


She ate 3/4 of it, and then got tired of it so we spread the rest out on the balcony and watched the birds and the squirrels eat it right up.

Dang those doctors

Poor Calvin is absolutely convinced that the last time he was in for a doctor's checkup and the doctor used an Otoscope to check his ears that the doctor was actually putting holes in Calvin's ears, and he (Calvin) has the evidence to prove it (sure enough, there are two holes in his ears: his ear canals).

At random times during the last couple of months he will grow quiet, put his hands over his ears and ask in a small scared voice, "why the doctor put holes in my ears?" And despite our many assurances that the doctor, in fact, was just checking them to make sure they were healthy, and also that we all have matching lovely holes in our ears, the issue keeps resurfacing.

I guess now I understand better why some kids are terrified of the doctor.

Project Wall Letters

It seemed so simple when I dreamed it up. Print out some big fat letters, trace them onto foam board, cut them out, and cover them with all the cute scrapbooking paper I am otherwise inept at using. Simple right? Ha.

It turns out that cutting out foam board is not as easy as it looks. It's kind of like sheetrock: two thin solid layers on the outsides and a flaky crumbly layer inside. Maybe I lacked proper tools; I used a Stanley knife and a kitchen steak knife. I was tempted to try my jigsaw, but I was afraid it would shred the interior styrofoam.

But I persevered (=finally quit procrastinating), and a few months later and thanks to Courtney's scrap night, here is the finished project. In case your wondering, I used masking tape to adhere them to the wall.

Wicked Calvin of the East

I went to check on Calvin last night before I went to bed, and had to laugh when I found him sleeping in this position. Remind you of anything?

Eco Tarium and Tarium we did

Report from Bryn and Calvin:

• The train: so so fun
• The tunnel: dark but fun
• The giant inflated dino: big and fun to jump on
• Imitating a lecturer: oh so fun
• Petting (well, examining) sea creatures: delightfully fun
• The Planetarium Show: so NOT FUN. In the words of both of them: "talking planets are scary." Note to self: introduce kids to a screen just a bit larger than our 20" monitor before taking them into a planetarium with spinning effects and objects seeming to fly right at them.
• The manual treadmill: best ever and fought over by all (sorry- not pictured)

Overall rating: super way to spend a day!

Musings of a 4 year-old at 2:30am

One of the most unglamorous parts of child care is night wakings. It's so frustrating to try to soothe a screaming baby in the wee hours of the morning when you don't even know what they want. Thankfully, they get older and learn the art of communicating.

We've all been a bit under the weather lately, and Bryn got the croup for a couple of nights ("the horse," as she calls it). One night was particularly bad for her, and she woke up crying and whimpering for the 4th time at 2:30am. I went into her, and here is what she told me after I asked her what was wrong:

[amid sniffling and sobbing]
"I'm having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad night. In the first place, I just had a bad dream. In the second place, I keep waking up. And worst of all, my face is all covered with booger juice and tears."

Even though we were up in the middle of the night, I was grateful that she could finally (and even eloquently) spell out the details of her complaints instead of just screaming and crying.

Up a creek

We decided it was a good day to canoe the Concord River. We packed a lunch and away we went for some good fun. Calvin and Bryn were mildly good, but suffered from a severe case of paddle envy.

About halfway through they both decided to use their hands as paddles and it became something of a spectacle trying to keep the canoe from tipping. But we had a good time, and even got over to the Old North Bridge afterward for a history lesson.

One our traditions is to go birding on Labor Day. From the boat we were able to spot this Great Blue Heron catching it's lunch (okay, it practically ran into us), so I'll put a check mark on that tradition kept.