Seven Months of Baby Chandler

Chandler, the Mini-Mark:

Seven Months Fun Facts

• Mobility:  She can sit for about 20 seconds, then she lands smack on her face or the back of her head.  It is not pleasant.  She can get up onto her hands and knees.  Then she rocks back and forth, which brings us to....
• Sleeping: She still gets up several times a night.  Whenever I go into her room, Chandler is up on her hands and knees, rocking for all she's worth.
• Temperament: Despite the getting up several times a night, we'll keep her anyway.  She's a smiley, drooly mess that we adore.

Forty-Six Months of Preschooler Frances

One morning in Cookie Bite:

Forty-Six Months Fun Facts

• More miscommunications:  Frances and I were "jogging" in the Arboretum recently.  Another jogger passed us.  I said, "Oh, he passed us.  We need to train so we can jog faster."  "Yeah," said Frances, all seriousness, "because trains are fast!"  Another gem: "Mom, I like your pimples."  She has started trying to butter me up whenever I seem annoyed with her, but "Mom, I like your pimples" did not help.
• Frances, the reader:  Well, not really, but I've realized she can recognize the names of several of her classmates, "Nico" and "Luke" in particular.
• Biggest obsession: Lipstick, God help us.  Mimi,  my dear beloved mother, found her perfect shade of lipstick.  What to do with all her other lipsticks that aren't the perfect shade?  Send them to her daughter, that'd be me, who isn't known for buying herself lipstick.  About 15 tubes of lip gloss sat in our bathroom untouched for several months.  Then Frances found them.  She's in love.  Many mornings, she'll put some on before heading over to Montessori.  I'm sure that's what Maria Montessori had in mind.

Thirty Weeks

Dogfish, Our Dogfish

Mark had to return to Boston on Labor Day (boo), but the kids and I got to stay on with Mimi and Sir in Maine.  The weather was, um, intermittently damp.  When we got a clear day, we high-tailed it over to Dogfish Cove for a picnic.

We were a wee bit rusty on the necessities of a good picnic.  The s'mores ingredients made it in, naturally.  The hot dog roaster did not.  We decided to use good ol' fashioned sticks to cook the hot dogs.

Roasting hot dogs on sticks is harder than it looks in those Norman Rockwell-esque Boy Scouts pictures.  For one thing, the sticks impaling the hot dogs caught fire, just like the sticks in the fire that were supposed to be burning.  Then the sticks broke and the hot dogs fell in the pebbles.  Nothing a little salt water couldn't fix, luckily.  Then when Frances was eating her hot dog, she bit down on something hard. She handed the something to me, because examining regurgitated bits is part of the Mom job description. I had a flash of panic that it was a pig part that had escaped the grinding process, but it was just a bit of stick that had broken off during the roasting.  I cheerily told Frances not to worry about it, but I still may be done with hot dogs for a long while.

Frances, however, loves her hot dogs.  I think she ate three that day.  I might start to hope she'll have a BMI above four at her next doctor's appointment, but then I look at those skinny legs and know it isn't so.

No hot dogs for baby Chandler.  Maybe I'll raise her vegetarian.  Think Mark would go for that?

After lunch, it was time for a swim, for Frances at least.  I tried to get her to go nekkid so I wouldn't have to deal with a wet suit, but that offended her sense of modesty.  

I should have just picked one of the next five photos and skipped the rest, but I can't resist pictures of Sir and Frances holding hands.  Just can't resist.

This here is my favorite.

Not a bad day.  Kinda helps me hope we're not doing this parenting thing all wrong.

To my beloved readers

Just to warn you ahead of time, this post is not witty, clever, funny, or even educational.  It's just a bunch of photos I liked of my kids, taken while we hoped the rain would clear one morning in Maine.

Chandler did really well with Mimi's dog, Lena.

She did less well with feeding herself Cheerios, but it was fun to watch her try.  And did I mention it was raining?  Really, isn't the parents' entertainment what this parenting thing is all about?

Frances, being not cluelessly content like her sister, was less sure about the dogs.  She spent much of her week in Maine attached to an adult or asking an adult to run interference for her.

Lena is clearly ferocious.

My Girls, The Sailors

We squeezed in one more trip to Maine before Frances went back to school. (She actually missed the first three days of school because what's more important - three days of school or another trip to Maine? Exactly).  Sir and Mimi were there too, which means Chandler had her first ride on Sir's boat!

Like every child in the history of time and space, Chandler hated her life jacket.  Luckily, her favorite part of my body was never far away and we got through.

This kid, though, loved the sailing this year.  

She even went a couple times sans parents.  I thought for sure she'd change her mind at the last minute, but she just climbed on the boat, waved good-bye and didn't look back.  It made me feel useless in the best possible way.  Another solo sailor at the age of nine like her Sir?  I don't think I could take it.  Maybe 12.

Twenty-Nine Weeks

Fish gotta swim,

Birds gotta fly,

Girl's gotta crawl one of these days.

Can't help lovin' dat girl of mine!

More sporadic inadequacy shot indoors

Well, this project was shot indoors, but it was neither sporadic or inadequate. (Mark and Beka are still in the doghouse; now, how do I inflict punishment on someone living hundreds of miles away from me? Hmmm...).  It's my new Favorite Bread Recipe (everyone's got a Favorite Bread Recipe, right?)!  This is big, because I've been using the same bread recipe for years, decades, even.  This recipe is so easy.  Flour, yeast and water are combined...

... and sit around doing their magic bread thing for at least 12 hours.  The resulting dough is folded once or twice...

...then left to rise in a dish towel...

...until there's a nice round loaf.

After some more magic with a Dutch oven (or a Crock pot base and a sauce pan lid that happens to fit it), out comes this loveliness.

Happiness is a warm slice of bread in your hand.

Contact me for this recipe.  I wouldn't want the awful Beka to get hold of it without some grovelling.  (Aha!  Punishment inflicted!)

Lucky find

God bless those Christian Scientists

NB:  A good friend of mine (hi, Beka!) tells me the blog has been "sporadic and inadequate" of late.  Mark made the huge mistake of agreeing with her, but suggested that more out-of-doors pictures would help.  

Management sincerely apologizes (but not really) and hopes the following posting is up to everyone's demanding standards.  Management would use more explicit (and appropriate) language, but management's mother-in-law (hi, Vicki!) reads the blog and management doesn't wish to offend.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming:

A couple Sundays ago, Mark - who is, of course, never sporadic or inadequate in planning weekend activities -  suggested we visit the fountain in Christian Science Plaza.  Sure, I thought, let's go visit a fountain.  Frances, of course, arrived in her usual finery.

When we got there, Mark suggested to Frances that they go in the fountain.  Not what I was thinking, but as long as Mark was doing the dirty work, who am I to protest?  Frances has been increasingly modest, but when Dad offered to take her in the fountain, her finery came right off.  And, really, why would running around a public fountain in underwear be a bad idea?

"Is this a good idea?"

"Who knows? Here we go!"

My complacency with this fun in the fountain idea quickly turned against me.  Frances decided she wanted me to go in as well, leaving Mark to sit in the sun with Chandler.  

Away we go.

It was cold.  Really cold.

Whose (expletive deleted - hi, Vicki!) idea was this? Oh, yeah, it was Mark's idea, Mark who is now sitting in the sun.

Oh, well, anything for a good photo.

And Chandler sat in her stroller.  Next year, kiddo, you can lead the charge while I sit in the sun.

Still think those Christian Scientists are a tad loopy (poor Jim Henson), but their fountain ain't half bad.  Free, fun and easy - that's how I like my distractions.  Next year, I'll bring towels and warm socks for the T ride home, then it will be perfect.

Management sincerely (but not really) hopes no one found this posting "sporadic and inadequate."  If so, management sincerely (yes, really) suggests starting your own blog (hi, Beka!).