Weekend Recap

We had a really rare weekend last weekend where Tim actually had 3 days off in a row by coincidence.  I am pretty sure this hasn't happened since we have moved to this part of the country.  We tried to take advantage of it as much as possible by of course getting things done around the house.  We finally found some time to do a good cleaning, which was badly needed and of course we spent the day Saturday testing out potty training boot camp, which I must say was an abysmal failure of epic proportions.  What we have on our hands is a little dude who operates with a severe case of "My way or the highway."  While his persistence and conviction that his way is right may well serve him well later in life, until he gets the finer points of what is and is not socially acceptable, we'll have to keep fighting the battles that need to be fought and letting him figure out the rest.   So with his little "my way or the highway" thing going on, you can imagine that our potty training boot camp was an epic failure (or did I already say that part?).  I have read message boards that simply letting your non-interested potty trainee run around with out anything on from the waist down...that lasted 15 minutes, then "my way or the highway" man started complaining that he was naked and needed clothes on and that his rumpus was cold.  So I told him that he could have some big boy underwear, but he would need to keep them dry and to let us know when he felt like he had to go and we would help him out.  He lasted 6 hours of holding the pee, including through a 3 hour nap!!!  He is a stubborn one!  Just as we got out some games to play to pass the time, he forgot to hold it and then announced halfway through that he was going.  We comforted him, told him that everyone has accidents, and cleaned him up.  Half and hour later, he was outside grilling with Daddy and had a repeat performance.  After another clean up and some dinner, we headed upstairs for some potty sitting, where he proceeded to sit and fidget on the potty for almost 45 minutes.  He produced nothing, was too distracted to actually do anything and then when we finally cut him off and told him it was time for pajamas and bed, he screamed that he had to go.  Sound like manipulation much???  Oh yeah, we were seeing ourselves becoming huge victims here.  So we did the next step in our boot camp plan.  In the event o epic failure, bail out and run the other way.  I have actually read and heard from a couple of sources that the absolute best thing to do with a potty resistant little person is to stop caring, stop bringing it up, stop pressuring, and let them have control and tell you when they want to start the process.  So we packed up all the potty paraphrenalia, made a big production of putting it in the shed and told him he would have to tell us when he wanted to use the potty.  And that was that.  Incidentally, Wednesday night he randomly announced that he really needed to go right before his bath, forcing Tim to run to the shed to retrieve a potty chair.  He managed to hold it until the potty arrive and as soon as he sat down he peed in the potty like he had been doing it for years.  We've seen no repeat performances since, but at least we know he can physically do it now.

After such a failed day Saturday, we decided that out of the house was a better idea for Sunday, so we headed to one of the local beaches.  Now, keep in mind that a beach around here is lake shore, not ocean front property, so that is something to get used to for us.  Sylvan beach is perhaps not one of the first choice places to make a first impression of the lakes and the beach scene around the area.  Its not one of the nicer beaches we have been to, but perhaps my expectations are too high having grown up in Maine near the Atlantic.  Noah did have a great time playing in the sand and getting dirty.  We were all fine until a 4 foot long dead fish carcass washed up on the beach just down the beach from us!  Um, disgusting!!!  Thankfully, it was getting close to Noah's naptime, so we packed up and headed for home.  We'll have to do more research next time on where to find a clean, family-friendly beach around here.

I have to say at least we enjoyed each other's company and the down time we had for a change.   We all know down time is going to be a hot commodity soon!

It started off so innocently

Last we went up to Maine to relax for Father's day and to hopefully have some family fun. The initial plan was to leave Friday early afternoon to make it in time for a Portland Sea Dogs game. It was slated to be Noah's 2nd baseball game, and his first since he has started having an opinion about things. We have no pictures of this event, why, because it NEVER HAPPENED! Friday morning, the little man woke up throwing up (again!). We never managed to get breakfast in him, but the juice we got in came back to visit. By lunch time he was interested in some toast and juice and that all stayed where it belonged as he collapsed in a heap of sick exhaustion on the couch. Everything looked good when he woke up from his nap so we chanced it and packed up the car and headed out. All was well until the border of New Hampshire when I heard a terrible noise from the back seat...one I hope to never hear again. The end result was a big mess to say the least at 70 mph and a 45 minute clean-up attempt at the NH Welcome Center. An experience I could never experience again and it would be too soon!

Flash forward to Saturday morning and all is well with the world again. No sign of illness other than a less than stellar appetite and so we headed to the beach to do some relaxing. Tim dug a hole, Noah got in it, then Noah spent the rest of the day trying to fill it with the ocean. Thankfully, it wasn't until we were starting to think about packing up to head back for nap time when the worst possible thing happened...seaweed touched Noah!!!! The end of the world came and there was no more ocean for the little dude. He still wanted to play, he still wanted to fill up his bucket with water, but on the way down to the water, he dramatically steps around the bits washed up on the sand. And when he reached the edge of the water, he was to be picked up immediately. What a nut! While his reaction was certainly hilarious, I can say that I understand the creep factor.

We had a nice dinner out Saturday evening to celebrate Father's day with some great seafood, but by Sunday morning when we were supposed to head out to take Noah to the local amusement park, whatever Noah had on Friday was now firmly in my possession. Thankfully, the weather was beautiful and there were Memere & Pepere back-ups on hand to do the heavy lifting while I tried to find the life that had been sucked out of me.

Noah played with the hose in the driveway and helped to water Memere's plants.

It all started out so innocently. He "watered" Mommy's car...

Then he decided to try and figure out where the water comes out from

And you can see where this is going....

Yep, a hose spray in the face. It all happened so fast that just as the words "Noah, turn the nozzle around buddy" came out of my mouth, it was too late. He was not impressed, but it all started out so innocently.

All is well that end well though and since Tim offered for Noah to help him wash Mommy's car, every thing was right with the world again

And then Uncle Tim and Hunter took him for a ride in Mommy's old wagon. It doesn't get better than that!

Memorial day around town

Its been a long week around here what with the Noah health crisis, which is thankfully, quite finished. We now have a fully functioning 2 year old with his usual attitude and appetite. It may take him a while to get rid of the bruise on his hand from the IV and to gain back the weight I am sure he lost through all that mess, but we are back in business on that front at least. With that behind us, now I can try to catch up on some of the blog posts I have been wanting to write.

Over the Memorial day holiday weekend, although Tim has to work for most of it, he has Saturday off and so we had a little cookout with some family and decided to head into the city and enjoy the weather. One of my email newsletters informed me that the carousel on the Commons was open, so we decided that might be a fun thing to let Noah try out.

The little dude wasn't so sure what to think of the whole thing when the ride first started. He hid his little face in his arms and held on tight.

Eventually though, he decided that riding the horsey was indeed a lot of fun. He was waving and smiling at his peeps each and every time around. I think he was a little sad when it ended.

After the carousel, the initial idea was to head over to the playground on the other side of the Frog Pond, but given the holiday weekend, it seemed that everyone else had the same exact idea. The place was swarming with kids and much older kids...kids who weren't being tolerant (or careful) of the smallest members of the crowd. Within 5 minutes of arriving, Noah got hip checked while trying to cross a little bridge on the play structure and I had to grab him before he fell through the side and hit the ground 3 feet below. Never been so glad to have joined him that time up there! Needless to say, I had a few words for the little punk (I mean delightful, yet over excited little boy) that nearly tossed him over board. Also needless to say, we didn't stay for a repeat performance at the playground, so we decided to head to the Public Gardens across the street and go to check out the swan boats.

But first Memere thought it would be a good idea to get Noah a balloon hat. Of course his doggie hat was quite the hit and even managed to survive the kitties at home until it deflated due to natural causes (may it rest in peace!).

"Hey Mommy, check out what I has on my head!"

There were a couple of weddings at the Gardens when we were strolling through...I forgot how beautiful that side of the street is. I hope we get a chance to visit again before we head out of town. We watched the swan boats from the bridge and Noah went down below to walk under the bridge and get a better look at the boats. It was all very exciting you know! The highlight of the day, however, was Memere's supreme photography skills, which landed us an updated family picture that I am quite pleased about. Everyone is smiling and looking in the right direction...go us!

Incidentally, while Tim was working on Sunday and Monday, Noah and I spent the mornings at a local spray park where Noah continued his role as a target of random acts of violence. An unsupervised little girl, maybe 4 or 5 years old, came running up to Noah in the middle of the park and actually tackled him to the ground, as in full contact football tackle. she didn't stop at that either, once she got him down, she made it her mission to pin him down as hard as she could and not let him up. I was appalled and it took me and another helpful (but in no other way involved) mother to remove her death grip from poor Noah. In the meantime, Noah is alternating between stunned silence an screaming for help. Thankfully, the second little punk (I have no nice alternative names for her) didn't hurt him physically and Noah was physically no worse for the wear. He is, however, a bit scarred from the take down and he mentions it still, over a week later, with some concern. Hopefully it won't ruin our future trips to cool off at the playground.

My touching trucks!!!

So, since today was a sick day for the little dude and I was remarkably productive during the marathon nap, I figured I would take a bit of time this evening to try and play a bit of blog posting catch up. A couple of weekends ago there was a fundraising event for a nursery school I had never heard of in a small town about 40 miles outside of the city. Now, I realize thus far, this is bearing little relevance to our lives, but there is a connection, I promise.

This is Noah, you are familiar I am sure by now. I am sure you also are EXCEEDINGLY well aware that this child LOVES trucks. He is a man about his vehicles and he is nondiscriminatory I must say. If it has wheels and preferably makes LOTS of NOISE, then he is all about it. So back to Noah, did you know he liked trucks?????

Being his parents, we are well aware of this small fact. Noah LIKES trucks. He sings about how much he likes trucks, he lives for rides in the car so that he can scope out all of the different trucks on the road with us, his days revolve around when we can next take another walk so that he can visit the nearby construction sites, or see the trucks drive by. (I personally want to thank all of the sweet drivers of said trucks who have waved, beeped, or chatted with Noah as he drooled over your respective vehicle. Thank you for your patience and kindness, and for helping to make one little boys day over and over and over again).

Anyway, back to the 40 mile drive to support a nursery school we have never heard of (and still can't remember the name of even as I sit here typing). Their idea for a fundraiser was a beginning of summer festival complete with fried dough, a bouncy house, and a touch-a-truck event. I think Noah completely died and went to heaven!

He had a chance to sit in every.single.truck they had parked there. He waited in line patiently for his turn at each vehicle. He beeped every.single.horn he could get his hands on.

He sat in bucket loaders and admired the wheels

He looked extremely tiny in one of the largest front end loaders I have seen with my own eyes

But mostly, he was a two year old boy, marveling at the awesomeness of it all and loving every.single.minute!

Incidentally, after we came home, the event left such an impression on him that he said to me in his sweet little voice, "Mommy my see trucks, my touch trucks today, that was VERY nice!"

What's going on lately?

We've been busy dealing with the terrible twos around here lately. Most of the time life is fun, lots of toddler-type conversations about trucks and whatever else is occupying his mind. There is also the sass, the "NOOOOOO Mommy, DON'T DO DAT!" Its the defiance that gets, he will go from a sweet, even-tempered helper to a defiant little Tasmanian devil in no time flat.

Thankfully when we look back at pictures of these last few months, we don't have any of him red-faced and screaming in the time out chair, though what a picture that would make!

Instead, we have sweet pictures of the happy little helper boy putting away all of the silverware in the right spots.


And pictures of a sweet little dude going for a walk up the street with Daddy...


Running errands for Mommy and excitedly telling me what he brought home for me!


Thankfully, instead of sassy memories, we have couch forts


and hide-and-go seek in the laundry basket


and "help" folding the laundry


Even when there is sass and two-year old attitudes, behind the scowl there really is a sweet little man who is trying very hard, and hoping to make us happy.


So, we'll let him be two. We'll pick our battles carefully, fight the fights that need fighting and let the rest go by. I find myself on some days singing a song that we hear in Finding Nemo..."Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."

Is it spring already?

I am a bit out of order in my posting, but at least I am getting around to putting something up here for a change. In the Boston area we had a great weekend for weather. Saturday was nice, beautiful sunny and in the mid-50s. Since Tim had spent extra time at work this week taking care of the semi-annual inventory mess, he had a rare Saturday off. We decided to get out and enjoy the weather and headed to the Castle Island/Fort Independence area of the Harborwalk. There is a great walking path where Noah got to try out his tricycle that Santa brought him. We got to watch the planes take off from Logan. Since its such a busy airport, there certainly was no shortage of take offs happening. We saw a tug boat and a police boat, and a certain small person was very impressed.

There was also plenty of space to run and jump.

And of course what is an outing without a little vrooming of some cars?

Around the area there were a couple of playgrounds. Noah met a turtle and promptly poked it in the eyeball with a stick (so sweet, no?).

There was climbing and running and yelling in the talkie tube to Daddy.

And while he looks suspicious here, we had a great day outdoors after months of cold winter weather and it did everyone some good!

My play museums?

We have been trying to get out on the weekends and since the weather is too cold to be outside at the park, we have been taking advantage of our children's museum membership. Easily the best entertainment money we have spent all year! Two weeks ago we dropped by the Boston Children's Museum on Sunday morning. We hadn't checked the schedule of events prior to heading over, and we found out quickly that perhaps we should have. We still had a good time, but we spent a lot of time and effort fighting the crowds with a "Japanese New Year" festival they had scheduled. I looked it up in case you're wondering, there is no such thing as a specific Japanese New Year like the Chinese New Year, Japan celebrates the New Year on January 1st, just like here, but apparently they scheduled a Japanese heritage day and called it the Japanese New Year and we ended up on a collision course with hundreds of other families, it was chaotic!

We did squeeze in some fun though in between the crowds. Noah and I played in the kitchen and he baked some bread in the "very, very hot oven."

We made the mandatory stop to play in the water. This is easily Noah's favorite activity there, he could stay for hours just pouring water from one container to the next, it just never gets old.

After a good chance to play in the water, we dragged Noah away so we could all check out the traditional Japanese drumming show. I was worried that the noise level might be a bit too much for him, but Noah was absolutely captivated. I had to check a couple of times to make sure he was still breathing!! Not a peep out of him until the drummers stopped, and even then he asked for "more drumming pease."

A second favorite stop in the museum is to play with the golf balls. They have all kinds of ramps and chutes to send the balls down, and some how watching the balls go down the same paths over and over and over again is some sort of toddler crack. Note to self...perhaps we need to set up a ball chute in our house???

This weekend, as yet another escape out of the house for the day, we took a short road trip to Providence for the day. We left just a bit before nap time, hoping the little man would take a nap on the way down. It worked out perfectly, he woke up just as we were pulling into the parking garage for lunch. Lunch, however, was an epic failure, but the blame rests on the adults this time. We forgot the critical "need to know basis" rule of parenting and mentioned the museum before we had gotten him to eat something. Noah is the type of child that will easily blow off food for the chance to play with something fun, there are days where the food quantities ingested are so small that when I wonder how he is even nourished enough to have energy to play. Suffice it to say that the grilled cheese sandwich was barely even sampled and he spent the entire of the meal on either my or Tim's lap instead of in his booster. Oh well, our bad, in the future we will be sure to be much better about informing the little dude of only what is coming up immediately next. Right after lunch we hit the bookstore to grab a couple of truck themed books to add to the bedtime reading ritual. Books were found, the mall was exited and we were off to the museum.

I have to say, the Providence Children's museum is about 1/5th the size of Boston, but their exhibits easily held Noah's interest for just as long, if not longer, than some of the ones in town here. He was a major fan of the air tubes (stick a colored handkerchief in and watch it disappear and then fly out the top of the tube and land on Mommy's head...tons of fun was had).

And as is customary, it is always necessary to stop off and play in the water tables, even out of town, there are no exceptions!

They also had an adorable little area with rubber "rocks" and a bunch of trucks and bulldozers, which was obviously a really big hit as well. We stayed for at least a couple of hours and might have stayed longer if we weren't worried about getting home in time for dinner (another meal out after the lunch fiasco was not in the cards).

Since we've been back home, we've been fielding requests to go back and play at the museum, morning, noon, and night. He obviously had a great time this weekend and now that he is a bit older, much more mobile than last year, and understands more of what is going on in the exhibits, he is really getting a whole lot more out of our time there. We already have plans to head back to the one in town in a couple weeks to check out their new Curious George exhibit, which opens this Sunday. That may just send the little dude over the edge!

Let the snow fly

in a month or two!! Just kidding, we don't want any snow in the near future, but in the event that it does, we are all set to go!!! Saturday night we went out for a dinner at a Mexican place with an awesome kids menu and then hit up the local L.L. Bean store to buy Noah his winter duds. Incidentally, while out to dinner, the place was so family-friendly that they had run out of the traditional highchairs, so we reluctantly opted to try out a booster seat for Noah in the booth with us. Given that he has never sat in one of these before and he is a bit of a wiggler, I was worried that he wouldn't stay still in the seat and would fall out with out the straps holding him in. HE DID AMAZINGLY WELL!! There were no straps to secure him in the seat, but he stayed quite nicely until dinner was over and the plates were cleared. He wolfed down his hot dog and fries and helped himself to generous portions of Daddy's ranch dip! Such a good boy...not the healthiest of meals, but his behavior was solid gold! A stop at L.L. Bean resulted in snow pants, mittens, a winter parka, and an order for the matching hat which they didn't have in stock in the toddler size (only infants). The hat will arrive this week and with any luck will fit him for at least a couple of years. We opted for the size 3T gear since they weren't terribly big on him and with their additional rip-out seam, which gives the sleeves on the coat an additional inch and a half, we are hoping that we can get 2 years out of the coat at least...perhaps the snow pants as well if we are lucky. Even if the pants are too short, only having to replace the pants and boots next year would still be a huge savings! Let's hope for the best!

The weekend itself was pretty low-keyed, with some rainy day indoor activities and a non-existent nap on Saturday and a lot of backyard cleaning on Sunday. We finally got around to cutting the grass and raking the leaves one last time before the winter hits. Almost all of the leaves have fallen off the tree in our backyard, so we should be good to go now. We also cleaned up all of Noah's backyard toys, including his car, his wagon, the sand table, and his playhouse and put them all in the basement for the winter. Its a bit early I know, but with our crazy schedules, if we hadn't done it when we had the chance this weekend, we might have ended up in a panic the night before a snowstorm trying to get everything in. Its sad looking back there and not seeing all of the wee man things that remind me of how much fun we had back there all summer, but we have been heading to the park around lately more to get out for a walk in the nice fall weather, so they have been used less and less over the last few weeks. Hopefully Noah doesn't notice the missing items until it is too cold to be outside, for now, we'll just keep heading to the park so he can play there.

Monday was our first Mommy & Me swim class of the new session. I missed taking him, but we had to wait through the summer until the Monday morning classes came around again. There are other types of Monday classes, like tumbling and that sort of thing that I think we'll try out over the winter while waiting for our Monday swim class again. This class runs through the very end of November, which will give us a bit of a break just as we are getting into the birthday/Christmas season. Overall, Noah has fun in the class, but it took him a bit to warm up, literally and figuratively. His little lip shivered for a bit, so next week I may bring a shirt for him to wear along with the trunks! He clung for dear life to me for the first third of the class, not to sure of the idea of being in the water, but by the end he was kicking and laughing and playing with the toys and having a grand old time. Hopefully he can gain some more confidence in the water so when the next round of classes start, he'll be ready for the next toddler level where they start working on actual swimming skills!

Hopefully we'll have a quiet and more importantly, HEALTHY week since Friday we head to Maine for Halloween and some trick or treating in Memere & Pepere B.'s neighborhood. We had a great time there last year and hope for some good weather (not too cold please) and some tasty treats, which Noah can sample this year!!!

What an unfortunate piece of non-news!

Its not that I mean to neglect this blog. As much as I want to write something to leave memories and keep family and friends updated, there just isn't much to say at the moment. Noah is still talking up a storm, we are enjoying the upcoming fall weather, my mom and I went shopping last weekend and got most of Noah's fall and winter wardrobe (just the snow attire and another pair of shoes left - up to size 7 already!!!), work is still moving along for both of us, Noah is still loving Nana Lou, it's all pretty much the status quo. No new teeth have appeared in a while, seriously, Noah has to be the world's slowest teeth and hair growing toddler on the planet. He still has hardly any hair on top and I have just trimmed the back up a bit to keep the rat tail at bay. He is almost 21 months and still only has 12 teeth, the 4 front on top and bottom and the 4 first molars. No sign of the eye teeth in sight...I guess they'll come when they come! He now loves to color (and stays on the paper most of the time), he loves Playdoh (and hasn't eaten any yet), and is madly in love with his choo choo train. He will happily play with the train and push it around the tracks for close to an hour at a time at least a couple of times a day if we let him (which is awesome since we have picked out a train table and train set for his 2nd birthday present already!). The only other interesting tidbit around here is my job hunt, which I have decided not to talk about here this year. Suffice it to say, it has begun, applications have been submitted, assuredly more will be going out. I'll hear news when I hear it, I'll surely post an update if I get an offer after the first of the year, but I just can't vent about that part of my life here, its too touchy of a topic for me right now.

The big news of the last week is that 2/3 of the household has been sick (big surprise that Tim has escaped illness again...not that I wish it on him, but really...me EVERY TIME...kind of tired of it). Noah had a fever last Saturday night while we were in Maine and woke up unscathed and raring to go on Sunday. On Monday we developed a random cough that has been hanging around all week, but I really thought I was the one with the worst of it. I have had the full blown cold, drippy nose, hacking cough, laid out exhausted...all the fun stuff. I was glad to take one for the team until this Saturday night when I realized that I didn't get the worst of it after all. Poor Noah woke us up screaming at 1:30am or so, which resulted in me running in to find him covered in vomit. Not so good. He was very unhappy about not feeling well and being a mess (he kept crying and saying "MESS" almost simultaneously. I was equally unhappy about now being covered in vomit after picking up the poor screaming little man and having to clean up everything. I was hoping it was a one time gig, but I was wrong. Just as soon as we cleaned everything up and got settled back in the rocker to try and get back to sleep, the rest of the contents of his poor belly came back up all over my clean shirt, his clean pajamas, and the floor. The little man got himself good that time and ended up in the tub at 2am. By this point, there was no getting him back to sleep in the crib, so we put towels down in our bed and plopped him down there. He ended up throwing up a couple more times and we got him settled back in his crib by 6am, but what an unfortunate night for everyone! Of course being a toddler and not wanted to miss anything interesting, he was find by morning, no fever, and he's kept all food and drink down where it belongs since. Who knows that Saturday night was all about, I certainly could have skipped it, but at lea st it did stay around long!

Since there isn't much exciting going on around these parts, I figured a couple of pictures of the little dude would spruce up this post. The first just goes to show that even if things are boring, Noah can still be adorable! He is sporting his new Red Sox hat. He actually outgrew the toddler size one we got him a few months back. Please note, the toddler hats are sized for 18mos. to 4 YEARS. Yes, our son with the huge noggin is actually moved into the child sized hats for ages 4 to 8 years. Hopefully this one will last a while...please dear god let it last a while!!

Checking out his house now that I moved it on to the patio for the fall. It will stay cleaner off the grass and since cookout season is over, we won't miss the space it takes up over there!


Playing with "my buttis" in "my car." Yep dude, this one is YOUR car, and those certainly are YOUR buttons!

Sync my new car?

With the two old cars paid off recently and Tim's VW becoming smaller and smaller by the month, we decided it was finally time to invest in a new ride. We had done a lot of Internet research and narrowed the field down to just a few models that we were interested in looking at. We had a budget, a couple of key features, but most importantly, we were looking for cargo room. The criteria was if we could fit the jogging stroller in...if not, the car is not for us. On Friday after work, we headed over to the Nissan dealership to check out a couple of models, but clearly the dealer was not looking to sell us anything as they tried to low ball us on the trade and offered us a test drive in the very base model smallest SUV/crossover vehicle they sell. We hated the car from the moment we opened the doors, and left utterly discouraged and vowed to visit one more dealership before giving up for a few months to save more for a down payment.

Enter the Ford dealership a couple towns over. We rented an Escape a couple years ago on a trip and really enjoyed it. It had one of the largest amounts of cargo room for vehicles in that category and they were offering a couple of great deals. Originally, we were looking for a 2009 model, figuring they would be a bit cheaper, but because of all of the people turning in their clunkers for cash, all of the 2009 models in the state had apparently been sold over the course of the last week or so. We ended up picking up a 2010 blue Escape that we have already fallen in love with and we only picked it up this afternoon!

We drove off the lot with 4.9 miles on the odometer. By the time we got home from the dealership and a couple of errands, we are over 16 miles now, still not to shabby. This would be the first time I have ever seen an odometer that low on a car I can call my own! What a nice feeling knowing that everything is under warranty and there are no one else's potential problems lurking under the hood.

While technically this is going to be my car to drive back and forth to work, Tim will be getting plenty of time behind the wheel since I don't drive any where unless I can help it. And now that both of the cars are automatics, he can leave me with "my old car" for the day and head to work with the new one occasionally.

And in case you were wondering, Noah already approves of the new car and got a chance to play with all of the buttons and knobs in the front seat while Tim and I organized the cargo area. All we have to do now is figure out how to work all of the new fangled technology. I tried to tell the car to dial Tim and it yelled at me that I was using illogical commands, apparently I should have said "Call Tim." Can you just see it now, Noah in the back seat interrupting my random voice commands and the car getting all confused and yelling at me!?!? Yep, its coming...any day now!

Random Catch-up

We were busy last week, lots to do being back from vacation and all. There was house cleaning and laundry and the start of the new job search that is now beginning to brew. I have lots of thoughts to get out so they don't disappear into the depths of the forgotten, but since I am running a bit behind on posts lately, I am summarizing so as not to get behind on the excitement that is to come this week.

Tuesday was my first day back to work after vacation and Noah's first day back with Nana Lou. He said Nana Lou's name ("Nannie") about 65,000 times over the course of Monday and Tuesday morning during the hour period between when he wakes up and when we arrive at her doorstep. He was visibly excited to see her and gave her lots of love. He practically shoved my behind out the door and was off for a day of fun. I was a little worried that he would take a bit to readjust after being doted on by 5 adults all week, but nope, he was off and running with "Nannie" as if he had missed her desperately all week on vacation. It really is nice to see such a strong bond between them, it lets me know that he truly likes being there with her as much as we like him being there.

Tuesday we enjoyed the bottle of wine pictured below courtesy of one of the VERY nice manager's where Tim works. As they are preparing for inventory (which is now tomorrow!!), they have been cleaning out their back stock. In doing so, they have been unearthing a number of bottles of wine that are no longer sold as part of the regular inventory. This one here is a 1996 bottle of red table wine that was originally listed at $80. They decided to have a fire sale to try and get rid of all of the extra stock and marked it down to $15. Tim claimed one of the bottles and as he was checking out, one of the assistant managers grabbed the 3 bottles paid and told him to enjoy. A free, really nice bottle of wine...why thank you very much, we will ENJOY it! And we did!


Wednesday we were supposed to have a picnic in Boston Common with members of my lab (they were going to stay afterward for the annual Shakespeare in the Common production). Instead, there were threatening weather forecasts, so we moved the picnic to my advisor's house. If it would have been outside, it would have been perfect. But no restraints during dinner made Mommy crazy trying to keep the mess to a minimum inside their gorgeous (and very breakable/non-childproofed house). There was some epic screaming and a couple of impressive hissy fits that resulted in the first ever time I have ever been slightly embarrassed by my own offspring, but eventually his own cup of grapes and a couple of referees to ensure that the hot over and knife drawers remained off limits and we survived the ordeal. I was assured that people were too busy enjoying the food and their own conversations to notice the shrieking that was my child, but I think they were just being polite...the volume and intensity of it all was a bit too much to ignore people!

In coming back from vacation, one of our major chores was to clean up the backyard to make it suitable to play in. The grass got out of hand and the garden needed some serious attention. Thankfully, it seems to have fared quite well while we were away. Here is just a tiny portion of what we picked. The cherry tomatoes filled an entire gallon size zipper bag and were distributed to some of the tomato lovers in lab. The basil and larger tomatoes have been making their ways into some grilled fresh mozzarella sandwiches, and the cucumbers have been sliced and enjoyed fresh from the garden. I guess all of the horrible rain we were complaining about earlier in the year has really helped make this a banner crop after all!

This weekend was finally a hot one...and HOT it was. I know its not the south, but when it hits 92 degrees with high humidity, we just aren't used to it. So I did the best I could, filled up the kiddie pool and let Noah run amok in the backyard with the hose on trickle. He had a blast all afternoon! To top of the day, Daddy came home from work bearing gifts, chocolaty fudge pop-type gifts! Noah didn't quite know how to hold the stick at first, but that didn't stop him from enjoying every last bite. Towards the beginning of the popsicle, things weren't too bad, but after the heat started to melt it, Noah just couldn't keep up with the drips..


An this is why we eat fudge pops outside and preferably in a bathing suit. I just told him to go back and play with the hose and he cleaned himself off for me!


Sunday was another scorcher, so we did something that I have been itching to do since I found out we would be moving back to Boston, we played in the Frog Pond! I know, we are pathetic, we should have done this such a long time ago, but we never had a good time or excuse to head into the city for an afternoon to play. With Noah along for the ride now, we certainly make the time for afternoons of play! Noah seemed to have a great time splashing around and checking things out.


We spent a little over an hour playing in the water and then we dried off and checked out the Tadpole playground as well. It was an adorable area, but a bit too advanced for the little man, he kind of looked lost.

After grabbing some dinner, we headed home for the day and collapsed collectively on the living room floor soaking in the sweet air conditioning. I caught wind of a peach festival taking place in Andover next weekend, so perhaps we'll have a chance for another afternoon of fun!