Vineyard 2011 (part 2)

Some things we did on days when we had a camera with us:
Our favorite hike, now well-known by Sam but also enjoyed by Frida:













Another beach:





Inspired by this blog post, I made a rock rainbow:



In addition: Frida ran around naked as much as possible. We ate fried seafood as often as possible. Sam and J. and I watched Star Wars, the original (after which Sam had a hard time sleeping: he arrived at our bedside at around 4:30 or 5AM, saying seriously, "I know it's before I'm supposed to come in your room [we have a not-before-7AM-unless-it's-an-emergency-or-nightmare rule], but I realized I wasn't really getting very much sleep," whereupon he was invited in with us and slept soundly for another few hours). Sam and J. played Battleship (it was at the house we rented); Sam and I played Set (we brought it with us). Frida peed in the potty a few times and ran around naked a bunch more. We serendipitously bumped into a daycare classmate of Frida's, with his older sister (age 5) and grandmother; the grandmother had taken the kids to the Vineyard for the week, to be joined by their parents halfway through. So in addition to hanging out at the nature center where we'd run into them, we met up with all of them on Friday evening for dinner. The kids had a blast, enjoying the kid-company; it's really notable how peer interactions are differently satisfying than adult ones, even for Sam, who's until not so long ago been much more interested in conversations with adults than with peers. And now we're back, hunkered down with batteries and water bottles. The kids and I, weather and Logan's status etc. permitting, are heading to MN on Monday to meet up with my brother and his family at our parents' house. Fingers crossed we can get there!

Vineyard 2011 (part 1)

We got back today from Martha's Vineyard! We had a lovely time, as always. More pics than words, now; I'm tired (we caught an early ferry, luckily switched from the one this evening we were supposed to be on; no bad weather here yet, just some rain, but it wouldn't have been a fun day worrying about it, and I'm not sure how long they kept ferries running in any case).

We arrived there on Saturday afternoon. On Sunday morning we went to the Agricultural Society Fair. Sam climbed the climbing tower again, this time with more success:



We also saw a dog show, a frog jumping contest, and a women's skillet throw. It was awesome. Also hot.

On Monday morning early, our friend A, whom J. lived with through grad school, came for the day (she lives in Toronto, but was on Cape Cod with her partner, and took an early ferry over and a late ferry back so we had the whole day together). We went out for brunch and then to the Arboretum. It's very hard to get a photo of Sam in which he doesn't look goofy (he is exactly like Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes).





But then, at the sculpture garden nearby in West Tisbury, J. caught this shot (both kids were sitting on a tree branch):



Frida is easier to photograph; she's not nearly so self-conscious yet (even with the mosquito bite which she'd scratched to scabbing, now healing on her cheek):







The sculpture garden/art museum folks had put together a great treasure hunt, with line drawings of a lot of their sculptures and a few fake-outs. Sam loved it, and got them all right, winning a bumper sticker and a lapel pin.



Then we drove to Aquinnah, checked out the view from up on the cliffs, and spent a couple of hours down at the beach:











More soon...

party pics

We had Frida's 2nd birthday party yesterday. Her friend Evelyn's father has a nice camera and is good at using it. I'll write more later (this week is extra hectic, with an office move and a rush to finish syllabi before going on vacation), but here are some beautiful pics courtesy of Martin. (We borrowed Frida's cousin Ezra's birthday party idea of a small "ball pit", borrowing the balls from them and using our new inflatable kiddie pool. It was a huge hit. The first two pics include friends of Frida's from daycare, first Charlotte then Evelyn.)

two butts!

Last night, having dinner out on the porch. Frida pointed to the Met hippo (thanks, Nean! we are still loving it all these years later) on her melamine plate.
"E'fant!"
"Nope, Frida, that's a hippo."
"hu'po!"
"yup"
"hu'po butt!"
"Yup, that's the hippo's butt"
"two butts! hu'po butt, Feeda butt!" (pointing demonstratively at each) "two butts!"

She has been very into pointing out pairs of things recently. "Two doggies!" "Two Feedas!" (spying a photo of herself) "two mommies!" (pointing out a mom in a book whom she thinks resembles me, and pointing at me with her other hand). Etc. Until yesterday, when she spontaneously started labeling threes, she was a two fanatic. The standard account, in developmental psychology, is that kids progress through "knowing" the numbers one, two, and three-- that is, they label those quantities accurately and also do not use the numbers inaccurately to refer to greater quantities. So, Frida would be a 2-knower if she correctly called all pairs "two" but didn't call, say, three of anything "two". But a friend of mine, a developmental psychologist who studies number understanding, thinks that getting pairs is a different thing-- that kids go through a stage when they label pairs correctly as "two" but then, when asked (in F's case only when asked) how many some larger quantity, say 3 or 4 or 5 is, also answer "two" because, in addition to understanding pairs, it's the largest number they're confident about. Anyway... I think Frida is now, properly, a two-knower, in that big numbers are "fee!" and three is also "fee!" but two is only ever "two". But until a little while ago, she passed through this cool stage in which she loved to point out pairs, and only ever did so correctly... but still didn't get two's position between one and three.