Captain's Log: Stardate -313318.03576864535

Ivy learned some new tricks this month. She decided she'd had enough of playing the contented baby bit and shook things up by cutting a tooth and swinging toward nocturnalism. Once the jagged little thing was in she started behaving better. I started her on rice cereal last week. It's a bit early, but every night at dinner time she stared and salivated at our food like a starving castaway. So far she likes it, but only if I let her have a hand on the spoon while I feed her.

Calvin has discovered his "fast," and the only way to get him to perform menial tasks such as teeth brushing and putting on pajamas is to race him. Before said races he performs all manner of exercises (jogging place, pushups, etc.), and then he's off like a shot. His preferred form is flailing every party of his body for added speed (including his head).

Bryn started Kindergarten. She declared after the first day, "Well Mom, Kindergarten was a success." More importantly, she has a new career plan. She announced to us that when she's older she's going to become the Queen of Spain, so she can TOTALLY RULE and charter a voyage to Saturn to discover a new planet (in the spirit of Columbus).

I recently discovered a local indoor soccer pickup league that starts in November, which should be fun. I'm also reading a digital photography book and trying not to covet nicer cameras (come on y'all, stop putting such beautiful photos on your blogs). I successfully took all three children to the zoo this month by myself, and was so thrilled with the results that we went straight to the store. Let's just say that was a bad idea and leave it at that.

Peter is wrapping up his summer stint as a professional and heads back to school this week. He is not taking classes this semester in hopes of making headway with his dissertation. He borrowed Kit Kitridge: An American Girl from the library (for himself) and found himself on the verge of tears a couple of times, and the themes continue to haunt him. He said I could put that in the blog, so go ahead and give him a hard time about it.

A Mighty Duel

I walked through the hall and overheard the remnants of this conversation:
...
Bryn: Then I'll be a fire-breathing dragon and blow fire on you.

Calvin: Then I'll be a water truck and pour water on your fire.

Bryn: Then I'll be a camel and drink up the water.

Calvin: Then I'll be half desert and half outer space, so you'll start walking through me, but then you'll be in outer space and you'll just float.

Bryn: You know, let's just stick to being a cat and a dog.

Calvin: Okay.

I wish I'd heard the rest.

School's First Day of Bryn

Watch out world, here she comes.

Trepidatious Consternation

What could be causing such vexation in this normally sweet and complacent baby? Is it the hurricane forcasted to hit the East Coast and ruin this weekend? Is it the massive garbage patch in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that's twice the size of Texas?
Nope, it's just this kid watching over her. Oh how he loves him some baby. He likes to shriek at her while making lots of jumping and slapping noises. He likes to contort her limbs at unnatural angles and call it Pattycake. He especially loves to shove his smelly feet near her face and/or in her mouth. It's so delightful to see them interacting.

And now you can start to understand why this is the look I get when I leave her in her chair in the kitchen and ask Calvin to keep an eye on her:

Summer Cousins: Had us a blast

Kim and the children graced us with a visit this week. Despite the high temperatures, high humidity and zero air conditioning, we packed in as many fun memories as we could to help keep us warm through the cold winter months.

Activities Included:
*Swimming at the Cambridge free public swimming pool (a cultural adventure)
*Wingaersheek beach
*Library (Peter and Jake and Calvin)
*Girls' Night (Laura and Sarah and Megan)
*Restaurant Night (Kim, Cami, Laura, and Tim)
*Playstead Park Playgroup/ Melting Group
*Forest walks/walk to playground
*Trip to Maine
*Kid Party (Ivy, Calvin, Jacob, Bryn, and Matthew)

Good times, people.
The public pool and Wingaersheek Beach- we saw lots of cool wildlife: Sarah caught a hermit crab, Kim(?) found a sand dollar, Bryn found a dead crab, Calvin chased all over creation four ducks some lady had brought to the beach, Matthew found, opened, but refused to eat a clam, and Megan lectured us on animal rights and reminded us all to be more ethical (the same girl who terrorized every pigeon in Philadelphia when she was younger).
Our Fantastic Food from the Colonial Inn in Concord; menu found here.
Maine: York beach was in good form with high waves from the thunderstorm rolling in. Very dramatic.

Kid Party: watching Harold and the Purple Crayon with no grownups allowed--although we fully supported the idea of the kids locking themselves in a bedroom without us (planned exclusively by Bryn and Matthew in retaliation for the girl party Laura threw). Can you count all five kids?

Sarah's [private] post here

Basement Treasures

We cleaned out the basement last Saturday, and among the treasures we uncovered was an old set of tracks that was soot-damaged from the fire. We scrubbed them clean and added them to our current collection, and voila: we have two new branch loops.

Our kids have been playing with them for three days straight. Now that is a treasure, indeed.

I'll Be Peace

We had a spontaneous grand adventure this week thanks to our good friends the Sweeneys inviting us up to The Lake (aka Lake Winnipesaukee) this week. It was a Mothers-and-Children retreat, which may not sound like much of a retreat, but it actually turned out to be a fun, relaxing, and even peaceful trip.

We stayed in a lovely cottage on the lake and went swimming every day, mixed in with a little swinging, mini-golf, and sand playing. I was nervous about flying solo with my hat-trick of children for the first time, but all things considered, they did great and I didn't even throw any of them to the lake monster.

There was a floating dock in the middle of the lake to swim out to, and Bryn made approximately 500 trips a day there and back (with the aid of a life jacket).

Calvin also made some progress with his hydrophobia and consented to be dragged out to the floating dock on the raft. But not without a life jacket and the orange tube.

He also found a place to jump off the real dock and was quite proud of himself.

The water is about 2 inches deep in this spot.

Judge Ivy

With Paula leaving Idol, there's an empty chair. May I suggest a replacement judge: she is enthusiastic (even for lesser talent), works for milk and clean diapers (and I'll take the 5 million USD), and is cuter than Paris Hilton. Here's a sample of her work:

Self Affirmations

"I may be small, but I'm very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very funny."
-Calvin, last night as he was hanging upside down off the couch

Captain's Log: Stardate -314585.37

In our continuing mission to use this blog as family journal, I've decided to try out a monthly family re-cap in the style of a Yuletide greetings rundown (aka the Christmas Card).

Summertime has brought many changes for our family. Peter is back working for The Man full time and working at his thesis proposal in the nooks and cranny of his life. He bikes to work on dry days, so his bike is getting a bit dusty.

I'm slowly unfolding my post-pregnancy wings and started running a couple of weeks ago. The first time was brutal, I won't lie. But it's gotten progressively better, and my stink knee is holding up. I've also been contemplating arborcide, and am planning to invest in a weapon of small-scale destruction (a chainsaw).

Bryn completed a round of swimming lessons where she made huge progress. We had her at a neighbor's pool yesterday (someone she'll be going to school with) and she was jumping in and floating and swimming the dog-paddle like a pro. She's also gearing up to start kindergarten next month, and picked out a pink Red Sox backpack.

The bane of Calvin's existence is not being first. He tries so hard to race down the stairs and beat Bryn to the car, but she zooms by him every time. She also beats him out of the car because he is unable to undo his own seat buckle. Today we instituted a "Calvin's First" rule for the day, which seemed to placate him somewhat.

Both older kids have been spending excessive amounts of time on the computers, so we password protected them and keep them mostly locked. Now both kids spend excessive amounts of time trying to hack the security. With Bryn it is a bit like a game of Rumpelstiltskin password guessing, but Calvin actually managed to successfully log in by switching user accounts to an old account we had set up that was still unprotected.

Ivy is attempting to roll over (she can make it from her back to her side, and her side to her tummy, but hasn't put the maneuver together yet). She also giggles often, mostly at Bryn making horrible choking noises. She also enjoys the ever-popular ceiling fan. She's losing her hair (or maybe her head is getting bigger and the hair density is not keeping up) so it will be interesting to see what color it grows back as.