Quickly...

...because Blogger just ate my post. Sheesh.
This is from this morning - both kids are enjoying the reading corner that we set up in Sam's room:

Finally - a day of rest.

It's nice once in a while, you know.
A rainy, nasty, foggy day that you can't do any work. Even if you want to.
We went to church and then just spent the rest of the day hanging around the house. We watched some old WGI videos. We made dinner. We took naps. All in all, it was just a really nice day.
I think we need it in preparation for the crazier weeks ahead.

Sam continues to be more and more verbal. He has a lot of words now - "Mama, Dada, cat, dog, down, no, please, juice, eat, banana, hot." He is also learning about echos. Where is the best place for a one year old to learn about echos you might ask?
Church.
You know - big building, decent acoustics, relatively quiet, lots of people (who don't happen to be his mother and father) to smile at his mischievous ways.
In a word? PERFECT!
Sigh.
Sam is learning the words to "Old MacDonald." But so far, all he has mastered is the "E-I-E-I-O" part.
To prove he had it mastered, he sang it all through the sermon.
Sigh. Again.
Luckily we sit near the back. And we will continue to. And that's all I have to say about that.

For some reason (probably because we were watching old Bishop Kearney videos today), after dinner I recited part of "The Raven". Caroline was enthralled and asked me to recite it again. Wanting to be sure I was saying things right, I went and got a copy of the poem.
She just sat and listened to it. It was neat. I figure it's probably not too far off from all the Dr Seuss we read with all the rhyming and alliteration. Just a subject matter that's a little bit darker. I think she enjoyed saying "Nevermore," the most, though. Sam even sat and listened for while. But we weren't fast enough with the camera to get photographic evidence. Maybe next time.

And Rest.

Jim is upstairs trying to corral the urchins into the bathtub. After all the playing in the yard, sidewalk chalk, pizza and chicken wings a bath in definitely in order.
It goes like this: I hear one of the kids say something. Then you hear all sorts of footsteps (you wouldn't believe it was only two children up there. Really). This is followed by a THUD and then I hear Jim raising his voice. After about four or five cycles it becomes rather predictable.
We had such a wonderful day today. Naps didn't happen, but we're hoping the kids just crash and sleep off their sugar high. Pat and Erica came out to visit. I think we ran them ragged. =-)
We topped off the night with homemade chicken wings and pizza.
Here is a recap:
We just sat outside and relaxed:

Caroline worked on her throwing arm. She is now decidedly right handed. Sigh.

We're working on her batting stance.


Sam flirted with Erica. It was adorable.

It was nice to sit and talk. You can see how much work we have to do in the back yard courtesy of the storm, so there won't be too many more nice days where we're not working outdoors.

We played on the slide:

And on the swings:

We drew with sidewalk chalk:

We did some modern dance moves:

And THEN we had dessert!


The ruckus continued after dessert, too:

And nobody wanted to see Uncle Pat and Aunt Erica go. In fact, Caroline had her yak-pack ready for the trip back to Albany:

Finally, Sam got a chance to show off the pj's he has that are worthy of his nickname, "Samurai". Friends of ours got the kimono jammies for him while visiting Japan (Thanks, Mike and Ryoko)! They look great:

Another Note:
Driving by the Worcester Art Museum recently, we've been intrigued by the banner holding this image draped across the front of the building:
Then I saw it in the Telegram and Gazette today with an explanation:
In top photo, careful processing of data from solar-powered space probes gives this ultraviolet image of the sun something approaching “true color,” although the sun is too bright to view directly. In 2004, Cassini captured images that were assembled into the most detailed view of Saturn ever seen, middle photo. Bottom view of Central and South America was taken by a mission to Mercury. (Courtesy of Worcester Art Museum)

I know where we're going soon.
I honestly anticipate us needing to forcibly extricate Caroline from the museum after we see it.
She has been obsessed with anything having to do with the moon, stars or planets. This is good, seeing that Sam is moving into a dinosaur phase - MUCH less fighting over toys.
We have found all sorts of stuff on line. We've pretended we're astronauts, we've dressed like astronauts, we've ridden in rockets, we've looked at the Milky Way. She even sat through a documentary on Neil Armstrong.
So, needless to say, our "lessons" recently have been about space. I'm learning a lot. It's fun.

But now it's time to turn the lights out.
And rest.
Good night.

Finally

Okay - so there won't be more St Patrick's Day pictures. I looked at them and decided they really weren't blog-worthy.
Actually, my attention is divided because I'm doing this and watching Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. It's hysterical. Definitely needed it after today.
Here are some recent pictures - Sam has really taken to tubbie time.


We went to the Ecotarium yesterday and Sam was busy "ROARING" at the dinosaur. The kid has no fear whatsoever.

He's inside now, but still pointing and roaring at the T-Rex:

Here's a funny family-style picture:

He's still not too sure about riding the train with Mama.

Despite her half-smirk, Caroline did have fun riding with Dada:

St Patrick's Day (almost)

A better post will (hopefully) be up tonight. But in the meantime - I think we've got MORE than our money's worth from these shamrock deely-boppers:

Sunday Night

9:30 already?
Where did the weekend go?
We did get to enjoy the beautiful weather today. We went up to Cascade Park and hiked around a bit. Caroline insisted on climbing on almost every rock we saw, so instead of an hour of hiking, it turned into more like an hour and a half. But it was so nice out we (almost) didn't mind.
This winter has just been so long. And I know it's not over yet.
Sigh.
Here is Caroline doing her Bionic Woman impersonation:
Dada and Sam on the trail:
Here is the Cascade Waterfall. The area took a ton of damage from the Ice Storm in December. I'm sure it will be much more impressive when all the trees are cleared out:
Remember when I told you she had to climb on every rock she saw?
I wasn't kidding.

We got to play some soccer in the backyard. It was more like playing "keep the ball away from the retaining wall so we don't have to chase it down the street," - but it was still fun.

He can't reach the pedals yet, but Sam loves riding Caroline's tricycle.
We had fun playing in the driveway, too.


Oh - and I'm putting this in the "I'm still trying to figure out if I'm a bad mother for doing this" category. Caroline was super curious the other day about giraffes. She wanted to know what sound they make. I didn't have a clue (we later found out that they make no sounds because they don't have vocal cords).
So, when she asked what sounds a walrus made (I didn't have a clue about that one, either) wanting my child to think I was at least somewhat intelligent, I answered "cuckoo ca-choo."
Who knew she would believe me?
I am finding out now that I was wrong about that one, too. It's" goo goo goo joob".
Again, who knew?!?!
I am still learning.
But I don't have the heart to correct her now.

I'm Batman

Here's Sam - hanging out in the best little boy pajamas EVER.

Blog Dedicated to To New U2 Album Lyrics

And other random collections of things regarding the new album...

RAV4 Article

An article about our new vehicle, which I fear will be called "The Big Red Car"...

About Worcester.

How interesting that this article should appear in the Telegram today.


Private roads are something I have never understood. I think it's something someone that has lived here for a long time simply comes to accept, but for a relative newcomer, it's just plain old weird. There are 1000 streets in the second largest city in New England that aren't even paved? I don't get it. I don't think it says much for the city of Worcester, either. Some of the streets are downright dangerous. And a real detriment to the property value (not that we need any more of those). And don't get me started that these streets don't show up on maps.
I understand that it's not a problem with an easy solution, but it's one of those things that should just be fixed. It makes the city look trashy. How are we going to draw people to the city if the roads look like they belong in the Arkansas backwoods?

Out of the Mouths...

More Caroline-isms:
Today I was doing some spring cleaning and came across a picture of Jim and me taken about ten years ago. All I can say is - WOW. We look so young! I didn't realize how much having kids ages you!
Anyway...Caroline saw the picture . She then said, "Mama? Was that taken when you were a lady?" I told her I supposed it was, since I was wearing a dress. I then asked her, "Caroline - if I was a lady then, what am I now?" Her reply? "You're not a lady. You're my Mama."
Oh, how my identity has changed. =-)

Caroline isn't much of a girly-girl. She doesn't care for dolls. When she does play with "her babies", it's usually a bear or some other animal that she wraps up and cares for. Recently, she has taken to carrying around a stuffed snake. She feeds the snake with a bottle. She washes the snake. She puts lotion on the snake and reads books to it. I think we might have a future zoologist on our hands. She has also found some of Jim's old books and has really taken to the Charlie Brown's Super Book of Questions series. I think we have four of them, but she has been totally fixated on the book about space. On Neil Armstrong and walking on the moon, in particular. She's just fascinated. It's interesting for us, too. Since the book was published in the mid to late seventies, there are questions like "Will there ever be a woman in space?" and "What will the space shuttle be like?". We're trying to fill her in on the past thirty of so years of space exploration. I think because it's not in the book, she doesn't totally believe us - so maybe it's a good thing that she's stuck in 1969!
She usually ends up falling asleep reading the books to herself. Here is a picture of her, the book and her menagerie (including Soapy, Kelley Kitty, Cupcake Bear and Lisa the Snake):
Sam is getting very into reading. He will bring a book over to me, say "READ!" and then try to climb on my lap. He then tries to close the book and rip it out of my hands multiple times while we're reading - but seems to enjoy himself. If it's a book that's familiar, he'll even "read" it with me. It's really cute. Sometimes, he sounds pretty close to what the words really are. I'm so glad he's enjoying books more.
Here are Sam and Dada taking a read before bed:

A dear friend and I just happened to have children of the opposite gender at the same time, so we do a lot of trading with the kids clothes. Sara sent up a gown that her niece wore in her wedding for Caroline to wear. Needless to say, Caroline LOVES IT (even if it is a little big). It was a fight to get her out of it and I had to hide the gown in my closet because I think she'll try to put it on when she's not supposed to. You can tell by the pictures that Caroline absolutely felt gorgeous wearing it this morning:



We've been listening to a lot of West Side Story lately. The kids love the music and we do our best to dance. Today, though, I was a bit surprised. I usually "edit" the music so that we just listen to the songs we can dance to or that are fun to sing. So we never make it through the entire musical. But I was busy while the music was playing this morning and the CD played to the ending song. Caroline burst into tears and said, "Mama I don't like this song. It's sad." I tried to explain to her that it was sad, but hopeful (I don't even understand that all the time - so I failed miserably trying to explain it to a three year old). It never, ever occurred to me that she would be able to pick up on the emotions of the music and the lyrics. I don't know why. They're written about basic human emotions, after all. I guess I just have these moments when I realize that my children are human (and I don't think that sounds the way I would like it to). And it still blows my mind.
I suppose I have a lot to learn.