end of 2009

The rest of Christmas was lovely: gifts under the tree on Christmas Eve, paella, gingerbread cookie decorating, sledding (Sam and Opa), swimming (Sam and Omi and Opa), fewer sleep interruptions (Frida and Sam), and roast goose on Christmas Day. Sam had a few solfege/ear training lessons with Omi and was picking out Do, Re, Mi on the piano before we left (and I loaded up a suitcase with a bunch of my old piano music to start playing again, gradually, on our brand-new (old, but nice) upright piano). On the day before we left, we met my friend Denean and her two younger kids (one Sam's age, the other almost 2) at the Como Conservatory for some nice warm humidity. Sam was briefly excited to see a real live sloth, having learned about sloths in a preschool unit on the rainforest. The trip back to MA was blissfully uneventful, and though it was sad to leave Omi and Opa, it was good to arrive home.

No more pics from MN, though, because I didn't bring the good digital camera, and the batteries were dead in the little one I did bring (and since there was plenty of general picture-taking I was too lazy to replace them). I did bring the videocamera, and when I'm done downloading video I'll post some clips.

Our new nanny started with us on the day after we got back, and she seems great: Beanie is regularly taking an ounce and a half (but not ever more) from bottles, and she (the nanny, that is) is very comfortable carrying her both in a sling and in the ergo, and has easily rocked her to sleep a couple of times. We'll see how she juggles both kids without me there... but I'm sure she'll get the hang of it.

Here's a map Sam drew of a race track he constructed yesterday evening, through the dining room and into the kitchen:



The dots are the race cars:



As they start out, they pass, on their left, a construction site. Then, rounding a corner, they encounter the Forest of Stools (all names, btw, are his):



and just as they make it out of that-- if they do!-- they have to navigate the Garden of Baby Toys:



after which it's a short shot to the Finish Line, designated by not exactly a checkered flag but instead a panda because it was the closest thing (black and white!) Sam could find.

Tonight we had a quiet New Year's Eve just the four of us, with a fabulous cheese fondue for the solid-food-eating among us (and a nice little snowfall, as well).



J's now reading Sam a great newly-borrowed library book on evolutionary transitions, including Tiktaalik, which Sam is excited about because, really, how could you not be, and Josh is excited about because he and I just read a fascinating book on similar topics this summer. And then, I think, we'll do the dishes and go to bed, maybe play a little Scrabble and drink some herbal tea. And, frankly, not feel like we're missing any excitement at all.

I've been reading The Happiness Project (both the blog and the newly-released book) and have been inspired to make a similar series of resolutions for myself this year. I won't be blogging about them except for this one: the author writes about her realization (or rather acceptance) of her love for children's literature, and her decision to start a book group devoted to it. A lightbulb went off for me: I would love to do the same-- I love to read children's and young-adult novels, and would love to chat about them with friends, both connecting with current friends/acquaintances over this hithertofore unknown mutual interest, and meeting new people with whom to do the same. But I don't want to post fliers in the children's floor of the public library and hear from random strangers. So: anyone know anyone fun and interesting in the area who'd like to read (or re-read) young adult novels and chat about them on a monthly-or-thereabouts basis? I should be clear that I am not interested in doing this in order to choose books for my kids, but simply because I enjoy them myself.

Happy New Year!

chocolate covered pretzels

Sam dipping and decorating with friends at their house yesterday:



Latest forecast: 48-60 HOURS of snow. I foresee lots of cookie baking, marshmallow toasting, Katamino playing, and snot sucking.

Hello from MN

We're visiting Omi and Opa in Minnesota. It's not any colder than it was in Massachusetts... but we're due for a foot or two (!!!) of snow in the next 3-ish days, so that should be interesting. It's been a travel-delay-a-palooza: our flight here was canceled and we were rebooked on a flight the next day (due to the East Coast's big snowstorm, though Sam had a BLAST sledding with J. at Fresh Pond), then our flight to Detroit was delayed so much that we missed our connection, and came *this close* to spending a night there, but made it standby onto a later flight. Whew! and Beanie only screamed for 15 or so minutes total, and here we are. She's got a cold, poor thing, so we are loving the NoseFrida (we left ours at home, silly parents, but my mom had bought us one for Christmas, and gave it to us early, and boy is it useful for sucking the snot out). Plan for tonight: marshmallow toasting over a nice fire, hot cocoa, and gingerbread cookie baking. Plan for tomorrow: more of the same, but substitute decorating for baking, and add paella (a recently-added Christmas Eve tradition of my mom's), tree-lighting (with real candles, making J. hover with the extinguisher for the entire 15 minutes they're lit) and gift-opening.

Hope you're having warm, bright, sweet, and relatively booger-free times, wherever you are and whatever you're celebrating...

poop

Because it's been too long since I last mentioned poop... what kind of baby blog is this?

Today I was at lunch with a colleague-friend, with Frida sitting on my knee entertaining herself by checking out the other folks in the cafe. I noticed Frida pooping, but figured I'd deal with it later. Nursed her. Noticed her sock felt a little wet-- had she spit up? Nope-- bright yellow with poop. Yep, her sock. She was still wearing a thick fleece bunting; I'd just taken her upper half out of it for comfort. Niiiiiice. Left fairly quickly, because trying to get her tidied up in a little cafe bathroom would have just made more of a mess. Now just hoping the (washed) bunting dries quickly enough to wear again outside in an hour...

o come...

Apropos nothing, Sam asked me yesterday: "What does adore mean?"
I said, "It's when you really, really love someone or something."
Sam: "Know what I adore?"
me: "No, what?"
Sam: "Frida."


He's been working a lot at school on following directions, listening, and doing things the first time when asked, and we've been working on those things at home a lot too. He's spacey the way certain other members of our family are spacey (ahem!), which is to say, he's often so absorbed in his own thoughts that he misses what others are saying to him. It's tough for him, but these are good skills to learn.

Our piano arrived today! And now we can barely turn around in our living room. I'm excited to start playing again, though-- haven't had a piano for 14 years. Sam's excited, too.

We've been opening gifts daily/nightly for Hanukah, and had latkes the first night (and Omi's dumplings last night-- a bit funny to eat fried pork dumplings for a Jewish holiday, but hey, they're fried!) Sam's gotten Katamino, which we're all enjoying (OK, not Beanie yet), some watercolors (expanded color options), and a cool t-shirt with a beetle screen-printed on it. Bean's gotten a couple of little wooden toys and a Bumbo (yay for Craig's List), which unlike her brother at 3.5 months,


she actually fits in at 4 months.



She's getting too long for a lot of her 3-6 month clothing, stretching her legs with irritation in her toe-confining sleepers, so it's time for another clothing rotation before we go to MN for next week (brr!).

Sam's home from kindergarten today with a cold he's been fighting all weekend. He was up a couple of times last night coughing and stuffy, so given that I was just planning to run errands anyway, we're hanging out at home. I'm sensing an approaching piano lesson...

And finally, at the risk of jinxing myself for the rest of time, a report of a successful late-afternoon in 2-child parenting: after picking Sam up from school on Friday, I needed to run three errands in Harvard Square. After finding parking (no small feat in itself), I bundled a bunting-clad Bean into the fleece sling and hefted a big bag of boxes to mail. First, because Sam hadn't had a post-school snack, we went to Burdick's chocolate shop for the best hot chocolate in the world (and a couple of gifts). We enjoyed our respective treats, and then headed back out into the darkening cold to the post office around the corner. On the way, Sam announced that he had to pee... but Chipotle's free bathroom was just a block away, and I managed to keep my cool even when Sam grabbed the nasty edge of the toilet. Back at the post office, the line was long but moving quickly, so we played a game of 20 questions while I juggled the Bean, Sam's coat, and the big bag of boxes, until I had to fill out a customs form. At the counter, I discovered that I needed to fill out the deluxe, longer customs form-- so, bouncing a now-impatient Bean, I started writing while Sam began the Whine of the Impatient Four Year Old... until I remembered the customs form clutched in his own hand. Handing him a pen, I suggested he fill one out too. "Oh! sure!" and he carefully wrote something like "PLZ RAP WF RED PPR" (please wrap with red paper), finishing just as I finished mailing 3 packages and buying stamps. He gravely handed it to the clerk, who just as gravely accepted it, and we were on our way. One extended stop-with-bonus-nursing-break later, and we were done, headed home for candle-lighting and latke-frying with no lost tempers or hats. And just one parking ticket.

haircut, pushups, bottles

Sam got a haircut tonight. This is how he looked a month ago, while enjoying a Fun Dip from his Halloween stash:


And tonight, enjoying a packet of organic (!) gummi bears, part of a Halloween gift from Omi:


It's a bit shorter in the front than I intended but otherwise probably the best haircut I've given him. Last year we tried a barber and it was just way too short all around. (And yes, I think it might have been a year since his last haircut-- by late spring it's curly enough that it doesn't really matter, and we kind of like it long, but this time of year with the dry air and the wearing of fleece hats, it gets so straight that the raggediness shows and it's time for a cut again.)

Meanwhile, Beanie is rolling from back to front, doing a pushup there (if she can get her lower arm out from under her),



and then getting tired and squawking because she's stuck. That, or falling asleep.

In the morning after I get her dressed, I prop her on a pillow and make the bed. The other day she was playing with her hands (another recent favorite activity) while I was doing so and folding laundry with her hanging out there:


Our new nanny did a trial week but ended up not being a great match, though she is kind and warm (and experienced); she got physically tired a lot because Bean is used to a lot of bouncing, rocking, and carrying, and since she's older (though not *that* old) and also has some sleep problems, she also got fairly tired by the end of the day, which was a bit hard for Sam, though she was funny and loving with him. (We *just* hired someone new who is very used to wearing babies and who seems to be more on our page in terms of childcare style; it's interesting the things one doesn't realize about one's style until one sees someone taking care of one's kids with a very different style, and finding it just doesn't work that well. Obviously it's a luxury to be able to be this flexible, and we're grateful for it; we're also grateful for the fact that Sam's first babysitter, when he was this age, was so similar in approach to what we were doing anyway that it didn't take much examination of styles on our part to make things work then (hi, M.!)

Anyway, I worked from home all week and we discovered that Bean HATES bottles. We finally got her used enough to them again to take an ounce or two at a time, but yeesh. She'd taken a couple of ounces 3-4 times before, so we got lazy about continuing practice. Whoops... Here's what I bought during one late-night Target run, having listened to two days of screaming Beanie angrily rejecting the two kinds we'd had before:


(She's now ok with both Avent and the Playtex drop-in kind, at least occasionally, when she's hungry but not too tired... so we'll keep working on it, and I'll donate the other, unused ones somewhere.)

Whew! What a week.

wingaersheek

We went to Wingaersheek Beach today, with Marte and Yair (J. worked, poor guy, having taken most of the past 3 days off). We had never been there before but had heard lots of good things. It was sunny and relatively warm (ca. 50 F) and after a series of cold rainy (or at least overcast) days, with a lot of indoor time, we were all itching to be outdoors.

It was low tide, and there was a big stretch of hard wet sand to run on



with funky wavy patterns in some of it.



The flat sand was good for writing on.



There were lots of big rocks to climb



and jump between



and jump off



with lots of tide pools to explore around and between the rocks.

Sam had a blast.



He fell asleep for most of the ride home (about an hour), and when he woke up, he said, "I really loved the beach. My favorite part was all the rocks."

The Bean slept the whole time, snug in a thick fleece bunting inside the ergo carrier. She woke up when we got back to the car, nursed, and promptly fell back to sleep for the car ride home.

In short: everything I'd hoped for. We have to go back soon with J.

recent pics

First, two of Beanie, since there haven't been any for a little while:



Thanksgiving:



And then Sam, on Thanksgiving:



Gratuitous pretty salad photo:



And from a playdate a couple weekends ago (with his piano lesson buddies, formerly preschool buddies). They were mysteriously quiet and occupied, with regular forays into the dining and living rooms from Sam's bedroom, for a long time, giggling and announcing that they were "stealers":

nanny

We have a new nanny! She is warm and loving and smart and experienced and chatty, and I think she will be great. She started this week with just a couple of mornings, and I'm going to work from home for most of next week to ease the transition. I still don't feel entirely ready to go back to work full-time, but having had 3 months of paid leave is more than most people get in this country, so I'm grateful to have had that. And I'm ready to start thinking and working again... I just wish I could do it for, say, 25 or 30 hours/week. I have enjoyed spending time with Sam after school, and getting a few projects done around the house that there won't be time for once I'm in the midst of analyzing data and designing stimuli and writing papers and coordinating research assistants. I'm still planning to duck out of work a couple hours early one day a week to do something special with Sam, and to work from home one morning a week to get a little solo time with Frida, so we'll see how that goes.

In the meantime Frida is grudgingly getting used to taking bottles (she's had about one a week from J., but has never been too thrilled about them) and going to sleep some way other than nursing.

F. and S.'s Grandma and Grandpa are arriving tomorrow morning to spend Thanksgiving in town (Aunt Sara and Uncle Dan are hosting); Aunt Liz is arriving tomorrow night. We're excited to see them! And I'm ready to start the winter holiday season... it gets dark shortly after 4 already, and I'm having a hard time facing the fact that the days will be getting shorter for another month before they start getting longer again. So being reminded, first, of gratitude, is a good way to head into the season.

Another email quote from Karla (Sam's babysitter)-- they have been spending a lot of afternoons in the Natural History Museum, when it's too dark or cold or rainy to hang out outside: When we grow up, Sam's going to be a paleontologist, and I'm going to be a lepidopterist/singer. We're going to go to conferences and he's going to present the dinosaur bones he's dug up; I get to sing about them. ("T-Reeeexxxx") Kids would be allowed into the conferences, but not dogs. The dogs may confuse the dinosaur bones with chew toys, and that's not good. Sam is learning to pronounce lepidopterist, slowly but surely :)

more re. Karla and veterans' day

Karla told me that Sam was very impressed with her hairstyle when she watched him this past Wednesday (bun/hairband combo); he said he likes to be able to see her face. Apparently he said: "I think your hair looks different because it's a holiday. Did you do it for today's holiday?"

veterans

according to Sam, veterans are "when you get in a fight, and you don't die."

I have no idea where he got this, and in a sense it's not incorrect, so for now I have let it be.

childcare

Sam's awesome babysitter Karla sent me this picture of them from the other afternoon:

her caption: "three monsters doing what monsters do best: making scary faces at the camera"
She picks him up two afternoons a week so I can run longer errands, get some work done, and/or just not subject Frida to the car (though she's getting a bit better about that, and only screams 25-ish % of the time). Sam adores her; she is one of few adults, and I think the only non-teacher, non-family-member, for whom he's performed the entire "peanut butter and jelly" song, enthusiastically, all 3 verses. (I'm hoping to videotape this soon, so stay tuned...)

We're beginning the process of interviewing potential nannies for Frida. I hope I can find someone as good as Karla... but she's a full-time undergrad and isn't looking for a full-time childcare position, sadly for us.

Omi was here most of last week... and so the basement is nearly tidy (other than the pile of stuff to get rid of; Craig's List seems to be chipping away at that, though) and the filing in the study is all caught up, and as always after her visits the house and garden look better all around. Most of the leaves are off the trees, except the Japanese maple outside the study windows... which is consequently getting extra light for its gorgeous red leaves to glow in.

I keep trying to get a picture of Frida's supersweet crinkly-eyed smile, but this is the closest I've come so far:

writing and laughing

Sam is writing. This afternoon he wrote this and showed it to me with the proudest smile, then asked if he spelled it right. This is always a tricky question, because sometimes he gets very upset if he's wrong. I told him it was right for "shoo, fly" and close for the kind of shoe that you wear, then told him that was spelled s-h-o-e. He filed this information but then apparently forgot it and illustrated the shoo (those are laces, by the way, viewed from the side so you just see them as dots):



Then this evening he was working intently on something while Omi and I were making dinner. This is what he came up with (the masking taped used to correct errors):



(in case you are puzzled: "I wish I had a dog.")

Again he asked if it was right. I said it was fantastic and a great sentence and very good writing, and that he was just missing an A and a D. He then tried again... and again... and again... and kept getting stuck on various bits, especially the repeated "A-D-A-D" (which makes sense as a place to get stuck). He was ENORMOUSLY frustrated. There were tears. He refused all gentle suggestions (e.g. to just squeeze a letter in between). He finally, with a bit of help from Omi, got it. And was enormously proud.



So, Sam is a perfectionist. This is related to him not wanting to draw for much of the past year because he couldn't make things come out "right". And I'm torn: I don't ever point out spelling errors unless he asks, but when he specifically asks if it's right? should I lie? I feel like I shouldn't, but pitching the tone of the feedback is tricky.

Frida-wise: she laughed for the first time last night when J. was nuzzling her belly alternating with saying an exaggerated "hi!!". So, like a superstitious pigeon, J. kept nuzzling and calling "hi!!" for the next 15 minutes, during which she "heh heh'd" at random intervals until it wore out (and he kept going for another several minutes of extinction). I'll try to post some video soon...

ghostie

Sam was a ghost. He and J. went trick-or-treating with a friend of Sam's from kindergarten (as well as said friend's older brother). Frida and I stayed home; she fussed all evening while I handed out candy, until she finally took a humongous poop and since then she's been quite calm. It's all about poop, until it's all about teething.





Also, please take vaccination seriously: . It's one thing to make a principled decision not to, but another entirely to not to do based on misinformation. (Note: that link corrects some misinformation that's being spread; I am not linking to more misinformation.)

Sam designed this one:

pumpkins

Sam, Frida and I finally found a pumpkin patch at the 3rd farm we drove to-- outdated website on the first and incorrect recommendation on the second. It was beautiful, though, and we had just enough time to wander unhurriedly through the fields and find two pumpkins, schlep them back up the hill-- no small feat w/Frida in the sling, once Sam announced that the smaller pumpkin he'd chosen for F. was too heavy for him-- and pay for them before zipping back home to meet Sam's babysitter so J. and I could go on a date. With Frida. But she mostly slept through it, and the rest of the time she didn't mind that we were talking over her head.

Frida's stats, as of Friday's 2-month checkup:

10 lbs 11 oz (tracking at 50th percentile, and also nearly 5 lbs less than Sam weighed at this age!!)

23" (at about the 75th percentile; I can't remember Sam's length at this age)

five pics of Beanie

From today. The place is a mess-- we had some painting done over the weekend to cover up woodwork that had lead in underlying paint layers. I've since come to the conclusion that de-leading certification is bunk, but I don't feel like posting about it now. We spent the weekend in Vermont, but it was sort of eh (cold, rainy, then sleeting/snowy on the way home; leaves mostly already off the trees). But at least we don't have to worry about any previously-flaking lead-positive paint, and that's something (and we'll go ahead with the certification for resale purposes).







Sam has been exceedingly obstreporous lately. It takes every ounce of patience and diplomacy either J or I have to deal with him sometimes, and then some. Four-and-a-half phase? Jealousy of the Bean coming out in unpredicted ways? Anyway... and then he will turn around and be so amazingly sweet and funny and charming, and somehow the reserves of patience are restored.

(Edited to add: In support of the jealousy idea, Sam said a couple of times today and yesterday that he likes it when Frida cries. Really? Why? I asked him, and he replied that he just likes it. I don't buy it for a second, though: when she starts to whimper in the car he sing-songs sweetly to her: "It's ok, baby, it's ok, Mommy's right there, and I'm right here, and we'll be home soon, it's ok". So... yeah. Jealous. And it's tough, because as she gets cuter, people coo over her more, and pay proportionally less attention to him-- and if they think to talk to him too, they mostly just ask his opinion about her and about being a big brother. And he just doesn't have the reserves of grace for that.)

yum

One nice thing about being on leave is that I've had the time (and general wherewithal) to cook more. Our veg. and meat farm shares have been inspiring, as have a couple of food blogs spun off of mom blogs that I follow. And it's gotten cooler, so roasting is appealing again. This past weekend (tonight included):

- corn, potato, red pepper and ham soup
(also made and froze kale and beef soup)

- roast pork (shoulder) glazed with this awesome yuzu & honey jelly that my mom gave us, with roasted brussels sprouts and baked sweet potatoes (it is pretty amazingly nice to hear one's four-year-old ask for "more brussels sprouts, please"-- and in fact, to like them oneself. I'd thought they were my last holdover of detested foods from my childhood, until I had some roasted while out to eat on Thursday evening, and was instantly converted)

- granola bars (with Sam)

- skillet roasted chicken on top of sliced bread, with roasted broccoli

And *all* the meat and veggies were from the shares.

I promise not to turn this into a food blog... but it's been fun. I really like that Sam knows where food comes from, both the growing and the preparation. We visited the farm where our meat comes from mid-summer, and sometimes talk about the various ingredients in our dinner and where they came from (Trader Joe's!) Sam also loves to help cook: shucking corn, peeling carrots, measuring oats and nuts and other granola ingredients. Tonight, unprompted, he asked who made the food. I asked him to guess, and he guessed, Daddy? (somewhat mystifyingly, given that J. had just gotten home and I'd been cooking for some time). When he learned that I'd made it, he thanked me (again, unprompted, though he'd heard both J. and me thank each other on multiple previous occasions I guess) and then asked J. to do the same. Heh.

monster bonanza continues

(Note the fist grip. Sam's teacher pointed out that he hasn't yet settled into a reliable grip. He is definitely right-handed, but holds the pen differently every time he grabs it. Something to work on in kindergarten...)

Philly, and monsters

This past weekend Frida and I went to Philadelphia. The center where I did my (first) postdoc was having a 10-year anniversary celebration and reunion, with a lot of the former postdocs, grad students, and residents gathering with the current faculty etc. for a day of talks and panels, followed by specific lab reunion dinners. I was hesitant to take her on a plane this young, but realized Amtrak is only marginally slower (and MUCH more comfortable, and also doesn't require a Saturday night stay). So we left Thursday afternoon on the train. Frida slept most of the way there in the sling, while I napped, analyzed some data, and read; she was awake for the last hour and smiled at the nice lady sitting next to me, who coo'd at her. That evening, I had a lovely, long, chatty dinner with a friend whom I hadn't seen in years (which Frida, again, slept through). At this point I'm thinking travel with a young infant is SO much easier than travel with, say, a toddler... she is portable, mostly sleeps, and has neither a drive to locomote on her own nor the sudden, unpredictable need for a bathroom. That night F. was a bit fussy (though not loud) so I didn't get to sleep until 3:30, and consequently was a bit tired at the meeting the next day. Still, it was good to see people and hear about what they're working on, and I only had to duck out of talks a couple of times that morning when Frida woke up or wanted to nurse. I did miss most of the afternoon panels (including the one I was most interested in), but then went out for a very nice beer/snack/chat with three of the postdocs with whom I overlapped at the Center-- at our old favorite happy hour hangout. We then went to a fantastic restaurant for dinner with my former mentor and other out-of-town alums of her lab. A friend/fellow-former-postdoc was there with her partner, and they took turns holding F. all night, so that I could enjoy my dinner-- it was great! (and lovely to catch up with them, too). All day long, Frida got a lot of "what an easy baby" comments, as she alternated between napping, nursing, and gazing around at all the faces/lights/movement with calm interest. I should have known I was being jinxed...

...because that night all hell broke loose: something I ate apparently didn't agree with Frida, and she screamed on and off for most of the night. She didn't have a fever but was obviously very uncomfortable, and I paced and shushed and rocked her all night, with just a couple of one-ish hour intervals of sleep. I was worried about her, but also concerned about the people in the next room over (I'd requested an isolated room, but who knows? there was a stairwell on one side, at least). Finally called the ped. shortly after 8AM, and she asked if there was someone in town who could check F. out... and fortunately, my friend's partner is a pediatrician. So they came over, Beth did an exam-- during which Frida of course lay there kicking and smiling beatifically-- and pronounced her just fine. Frida did begin to scream while they were there, and due to the sudden transition between calm and pained screaming, Beth thought that it was likely due to GI cramps of some sort-- painful but not dangerous, provided the rest of her outlook didn't change. Beth and Lesley then took F. to the park nearby so I could collect myself and have a shower. Of course, F. slept for the entire hour at the park with them. I was too tired to imagine meeting the lab for dim sum, so we caught an earlier train (during which, thankfully, F. slept the whole time-- I'd had nightmare visions of her screaming for hours and clearing out the train car). Whew! I remember going to a meeting with J., an hour's drive from Philly when Sam was a couple of months old. Then, I could never have imagined doing that alone; now, one infant feels easy most of the time. But I was definitely sweating Friday night in the hotel...

Meanwhile, Sam's prolific painting and drawing continues. A gallery of recent monsters:


and a close-up of one. They all have traits, too (e.g. the one who eats all of the candy in the house while you're sleeping). I can't remember this one's, but I like it. Its name is Toovil. Does anyone recognize this from a book? I can't tell if he's making it up all on his own or if it's inspired by a book he read at school...

art

For most of his preschool year, Sam didn't seem to like to paint, or color, or do most any kind of art. Art was almost always one of the activity options, but Sam would choose to build or model or just about anything else. Other kids' cubbies would be stuffed with colorings and paintings and drawings, but Sam rarely had any in his when I picked him up-- and when I did my parent-help shifts, I could rarely convince him to do whatever art project was available. Then for some reason in late summer he started painting when it was an option. I didn't get to see most of these as he did them because they disappeared into his "portfolio"... which we then received at the end of the preschool year. Here's one of the paintings:



We put all our favorites on the wall:



When he started kindergarten, Sam started painting right away. Here's an oogabooga monster:


And a slug carrying grapes in the rain (black slug, purple grapes, purple rain):



We had markers and crayons here, but no Sam-friendly paint (well, we have some fingerpaints, but neither Sam nor I really like finger painting... the smell, the mess, the ooky hands). So the other night when J. was heading to an office supply store for a binder, I asked him to pick up a set of watercolors for a rainy day. Today was that rainy day. Sam painted 10 watercolors, and is still going now with the markers (only because I stopped putting pieces of paper in front of him)... I think he's drawn about 15 spiders to decorate with for halloween. Here are some highlights. I don't even need to tell you what most of these are, but the brown one is an owl, and the abstract one is people dancing at a party. (Note too the stripe of blue sky in almost every one.)











I don't know if it's because his fine motor control finally got good enough that he's not frustrated by his efforts, or because we went so wild over the portfolio full of recent paintings, but it's like a painting bonanza around here (he did mention today that he likes to make me happy by painting, so we had to have a whole carefully-casual conversation about how I hope he paints because he wants to, not because it makes me happy, though if it makes him happy to paint then that makes me happy too; he said it makes him happy AND it makes me happy).

He's also declared that in addition to being a paleontologist, he will be an artist when he grows up. He can paint the bones that he digs up, he says with the "I've got it!" tone we hear a lot around here these days.

Also: first group piano lesson yesterday. Teaching 4 4-year-olds to play piano is a bit like herding cats, but he had fun and I think it will be a nice non-stressful way to get an introduction to making music. And: he's actually liking swimming classes this fall, as opposed to protesting about them and then just sort of going through them. Which is good, because swimming is the only non-negotiable lesson, at least until he can keep his head above water on his own for a minute or so (safety issue; soccer, gymnastics, piano, whatever-- it's all negotiable and dependent on his interest and motivation, just not swimming).

Nothing about the Bean this post; she's getting more sociable and filling out, and the swing we bought through Craig's List is a lifesaver... she will happily nap in it for hours at a time, which allows me to, you know, do a few dishes even if J. isn't home, and also to paint with Sam.

Happy New Year to those who are celebrating (and atoning).