The 22 Best Moments from December

This December was a wonderful, crazy month. Auric is beginning to talk so much more and over all, is acting like a little kid. Click here for a short movie that showcases some of his new words. With this, Thora is finding more to love about him. And we get a lot of moments like the one above, when they are expressing their affection for one another so joyfully. However, with his growing cuteness and ability to participate and show his personality, come more opportunities for him to steal the scene, which as we know, Thora will not tolerate. So there is growing a natural, although painful, environment of sibling rivalries. We have years to come of dealing with that. So I love photos like the one above, that allow me to focus on the moments that are blissful and hilarious.

A Visit From Family

This December saw a long-awaited visit with the Geneva Pococks, Sean's brother's family who live in France, right outside of Geneva, Switzerland. On their annual trip to Iowa, where Julie's family lives, they stopped over in Boston for 5 days and we all had a great time. Here, the kids mellow out with some pizza and an episode of the Electric Company circa 1970. Aedan (6) and Chloe (3) were in great spirits considering they'd been traveling ALL DAY before reaching us.

The next day, Sunday, we all spent in and around Harvard Square. We ate lunch at the Border Cafe, a mexican place that happily takes big families with lots of strollers and gear!

Coleman (4 months) gets some attention from his older brother, Aedan, while sitting in Brendan's lap.

This is Thora's 3rd visit with her cousins, but only the second one that she remembers. The first happened in the fall of 2007 when she was just 5 months old and we traveled to France to watch some of the Rugby World Cup. They were reunited a year ago, in January 2010 in Eugene, OR and hit it off. This trip solidified their relationships. And it was a particular joy to see Thora and Chloe, just a month apart in age, be so fond of one another.

These photos come from a particularly cute scene. Julie and I watched on while, across the huge table, Thora and Chloe talked intently, confidentially, raucously with each other, like girlfriends who have known each other forever. What could they be talking about? It seemed so beyond their years, the way they concentrated so completely on taking in the other's half of the conversation.

Upon closer inspection, it became clear that the content of their deep conversation was the ABC's. Perhaps they were discussing the differences between the ending ("Won't you sing along with me?" versus, "Next time won't you sing with me?"). Click here for a short video of this great moment.

Whatever it was, to them, it was captivating and hilarious, relevant and silly. More likely, it was just an excuse to share ideas with someone so much like herself.

Below is one of the few shots when we've got 80% of their family in the frame at one time. I thought this merited inclusion!

Later, we walked to the Cambridge Common and played at the playground there. Thora and Chloe loved this swing that goes in all directions. They thought it was hilarious to barely hang on, so that their bodies flopped around, giving themselves the illusion of flying off at any moment.

Later, while the temperatures dropped, and the sun set, Julie met an old friend at a coffee shop while the rest of us wandered around Harvard's campus and then back home.

Aedan gets a ride on Uncle Sean's shoulders

We had to make a couple trips each night to get their family back to their hotel room across the river, and so Chloe and Thora enjoyed a few more moments together, this time preparing food in Thora's kitchen.

Later in the trip, we all descended upon the Science Museum. And as expected, the kids had a blast. This enormous Lite Brite-esque toy is great for kids. But it particularly aligns with Auric's love of putting objects into containers. Here, these pegs make very satisfying thonking sounds as they slip into the holes.

At home, Auric loves his shape sorter, but when he tires of using the shapes, he loves to slide dominoes into the shape sorter. And he'll sort small things into all sorts of big things. He'll sort dominoes into his new sorting recycling truck, or into a slit that I cut into the top of a shoebox; he'll sort his toothbrush through the small holes in the step stool in the bathroom; he'll sort one of my stray hair clips down through the top of my small bedside lamp, to watch it fall back onto the base of the lamp. Our kids look so much alike; it's fun to be reminded how truly different they are.

Here is the one and only moment that their whole family is in the camera's frame at the same time! Julie and Brendan are sitting on a bench at the back, Brendan holding Coleman. And in the foreground, Aedan, Chloe, and Thora build in the K'Nex exhibit in the museum.

Then, with a few minutes left before the museum closed, we took them to Thora's favorite areas, namely the reflecting light and science in the playground exhibits.

More Weddings

Thora's fascinations with weddings has not diminished. She still marries Zach at least once a week and is constantly planning it. We went through a few weeks when she would plead for me to show her my wedding shoes, and the jewelry I wore at my wedding, and finally she asked to see my wedding dress. I pulled it out, lifted up all the layers of dry cleaning plastic, and let her see the white, silky fabric. Then one night, she asked if we could both wear wedding dresses, she would wear her red dress and I could put on my dress. And I thought, "Why not? It's just hanging in the closet? Why not get some use out of it?" So we fancied ourselves up, Thora wearing my only other pair of high heels, the long, red dress that makes her feel queenly, and my bridal veil, while I wore my wedding dress and shoes. She particularly liked orchestrating the drama of presenting me to my Prince Charming, Sean, as he cooked our dinner. "Tell her how beautiful she is, Daddy," she ordered.

This was such a bittersweet moment. Perhaps you can see the tears in the corner of my eyes. It was impossible not to reflect on our wedding day 8 years before and all that has happened since, the two wonderful children we have now, the life we've made together. I couldn't help but acknowledge how much she would've enjoyed our wedding. It's fun to think of having done things (like have kids) in a different order so that she could've been around for all the pomp and pageantry of it.

Winter Fun

One snowy day, Thora and her friend Zach made and decorated sugar cookies. This food coloring took days to come off!

Afterwards, they burned off some of that sugar in the park, (they ate an incredible amount of icing), throwing snowballs at each other and making snow angels.

The Month of Singin' In The Rain

Here's a great shot of the four kids, Auric, Ellie, Zach, and Thora, one cold afternoon, as we all enjoyed Thora's current favorite movie, Singin' in the Rain.

Thora absolutely loves this movie. The dresses, the singing and dancing: it is a perfect fit for her! She can do some great impressions of Lina Lamont's squeaky, nasally voice: "What's the big idea?!?" Click here for some Gene Kelly-inspired tap dancing. I found this great reference book called, The Best Old Movies for Families, written by Boston Globe movie critic and parent, Ty Burr. I'm encouraged and excitedly await the future of great movies we get to watch with her.

Thora's had quite a bit of fun sledding after the big snow storm we had at the end of the month. Here she is with her friend, Ally. And below, she's sledding with Zach.

10 Best Moments from November

I'm only a month behind, but it feels like it's been ages since November. We are almost a week into our first snow-bound, deep-freeze of the winter, and already these photos of us back in November seem like a different lifetime ago. I can hardly remember life before snow, pushing the double stroller down the middle of the residential streets because I can't get it through the piled up snow on the corners, the interminable bundling and unbundling, the soggy rug by the front door where our wet, snowy boots are in various stages of drying. The other day, when we ventured out amidst the snow storm that canceled our Christmas trip back home to Chicago, I walked with Thora and Auric (on my hip) to the grocery store at the end of our street. Thora was crying as the wind hurled tiny flecks of snow into our faces, saying, "I want it to be summer again!" Oh, don't we all! But anyway, that's December. Back to November, when we had mild temperatures, crunchy leaves, and lots of fun. For a look at all the photos, click here.

The month started with a visit from our old friends, the Hendersons. Sean worked with Kelly back in NYC and we've stayed in touch, visiting one another regularly. They made the trip up to Boston and we all thoroughly enjoyed catching up. The twin girls (7) are great. They included Thora in their play, particularly liking to dress her up. Here they are having just styled Thora in her dress-up clothes. Thora has a unique sense of style, to be sure. But Tai and Sydney really took it to a whole new level of glamour!

Tai and Sydney, the stylists, and Thora as the over-photographed starlet.

Thora could be girly with the older girls, but also silly and rowdy with Drew (4). One of the games they thoroughly enjoyed was running and hiding from Toilet Hands (Auric). Sadly, our new walker has earned that nickname from the many (!) occasions wherein he gleefully splashes around in the toilet water (thankfully, always recently flushed). Thora still tells friends about the time that her and Drew were running from Toilet Hands. (Usually we were all talking about something else, and Thora felt the need to turn the conversation in this direction.)

Drew and Thora have managed to get both of their bodies into a toy designed for a single baby. Good Times!

All Things Wedding!

In our house right now, Thora is infatuated with one thing, and that is weddings. This is a natural spin-off of her recent fascination with princesses. Brides are modern day princesses for a day. They wear the lavish dresses that princesses are seen wearing, on every page, in her fairy tale books. And to her parents' great delight and amusement, she has acted out these weddings with her best friend, Zach. Thankfully, he likes to get married as much as she does. It happens at least once a week these days. Here they are in the middle of their second wedding ceremony.

Whereas most of the time, Thora can hardly contain her 3 year-old energy and wackiness, when it's time to get married, she has the focus of a zen master. She is all business, concentrating wholly on the preparations, the exchange of rings, reciting the vows, all of it. These days, getting married to Zach is the best possible outcome to each and every day. In the morning, she asks, "Is it a school day today?" Regardless of my answer, she asks, "Are we going to see Zach today?" And I tell her. And then, again, seemingly regardless of the answer, she says something like, "Oh yea! I need to make the dresses so we can get married!" Click here for a short video that reveals how wedding preparations permeate our activities.

The Bride and Groom comparing rings.

This fascination with weddings reached a high point over Thanksgiving break, when Sean took Thora to Oregon to spend the weekend with his folks and to see the Duke basketball team play Oregon in Portland. (More about that later.) At one point they stopped in a Hudson News for a drink and snack during a layover and Thora, for the first time, noticed that not only is there such a thing as a bridal magazine, in fact there are handfuls of them! Sean said that she stood there, speechless, taking it all in. (Thora? Speechless? I know.) When telling me the story, he said, "How to describe it? 'Mesmerized' is not a strong enough word." Then, when she regained her power of speech, in a voice still deep in the trance, she began pointing, saying, "I want that one... and that one... and that one..." While kind of horrifying to have a 3 year-old girl already obsessed with being a bride, it is still cute and pretty hilarious. And we're glad to know that we now have a secret weapon up our sleeves: to avoid a meltdown during a restaurant dinner, supply her with a bridal magazine, and she'll likely sit, quietly, for an hour!

Thanksgiving

Yes, we split the family in two for the holiday. And strange as that sounds, there was a decent reason, and his name is Auric. We would've all stayed home together. But Sean read that Duke, his alma mater, was going to play Oregon in basketball over the Thanksgiving break. This is very rare occurrence, since they're not in the same conference and wouldn't have reason to play one another, unless they met in the NCAA tournament. So, he felt like this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance. And it's hard for him to pass up seeing Duke play live, if it looks like it's a reasonable possibility.

So then came the issue of getting us all to Oregon for Thanksgiving. And now we're back to Auric. While he frequently answers to the name Easiest Baby on Planet Earth, there is currently one situation where that is not true, and that is the long-distance flight. As a new walker, he just cannot sit still. And as a "lap" ticket, he is not particularly fun to fly cross-country with. And then there's the adjusting to the new time change and then back again, which is hard to do over a 4-day weekend. We were not thrilled with the idea of traveling with such an uncooperative and high-maintenance traveler over the busiest travel weekend of the year, but Sean did think taking Thora to the game, going on a special trip alone with her, might be fun. While Thora can be high-maintenance in a lot of ways ("Thora, why are you putting that in your mouth?!? You're almost 4!"), she is a very easy flyer these days, especially given her lengthening attention span and her love of a few good movies (Mary Poppins, for one). And so we decided that while sad to be apart, the best choice for all of us was to split up for the holiday.

Upon hearing that Auric and I might spend the weekend alone, we were immediately invited to accompany our great friends, the Sheas (Zach's family), down to Zach's grandparents' house in Connecticut where Auric and I were given the warmest and most generous of welcomes. (Side note: Thora doesn't really know that we spent Thanksgiving with Zach without her, so don't go telling her.) Here is Auric and his friend Ellie, with the grown-up Sheas, Hilary and Dave.

Meanwhile, Thora was in Oregon with her dad and grandparents. On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, they traveled up to Portland to watch Duke beat Oregon. Thora enjoyed the first half and seemed to enjoy being there, getting to eat concession food, taking in the spectacle that is an arena sporting event, etc. But the game couldn't hold her attention for much beyond the start of the second half, and the portable dvd player and Mary Poppins had to be brought in as courtside entertainment.

Otherwise, our November days were spent as they often are: Thora at school in the mornings and then meeting up with friends in the afternoons. Here we were taking advantage of the some of the last mild days of fall, before winter set in.

Auric clearly doesn't see himself as a baby. He sees himself as his sister's peer. Here he is longing to keep up with her.

These are his best friends, Etta, a wonderful, talkative girl who is just a few weeks older than him, and in front, Ellie, the darling littlest one of the crew.

Best Moments from October 2010

October has been an exciting and busy month for us. For a look at all the photos from this month, click here. Here are some of the highlights.

Thora's First Real Crush

It's also been the month that she's explored the complicated internal realm of a crush. She's had crushes before. She used to get this mesmerized look about her when she was around "fancy" ladies, women with long hair, who wore makeup and dresses and jewelry. If we knew them and were friendly with them, she'd often ask me to ask the object of her infatuation if she would let Thora sit on her lap or carry her. Most recently, she fell for our new friend Greg, the dad to one of Auric's playmates. I could get her to do almost anything if the promise of seeing Greg was on the horizon. But in retrospect, these crushes were small compared to the emotions she's been showing us recently.

This month, we've talked more about her former teacher, Rich, than perhaps anything else. Rich was a student teacher for her class over the summer. And although her teachers announced that his summer teaching job with their school had come to an end, it was confusing for her to have him leave. What has proven even more confusing, and perhaps what launched this crush into the intense state it's in now, is his periodic returns to fill in for absent or vacationing teachers. But even prior to his surprise return, we spent most of our time talking about him unceasingly at home. For example, Thora will ask things like, "Do you think Rich would like to be all cozy with me under these blankets?" or "What would Rich say if he had a tummy ache and I was there." In all of these scenarios--and they go on for a mind-numbing 5-10 minutes at a stretch--Thora seems to want me to portray Rich as only needing and wanting her, to send all others away so that they can be alone.

It's been kind of painful to watch, actually, since the intense emotions she feels for Rich has brought along with it a new sense of self-consciousness, something I thought was years away. Whenever she talks about Rich at home, and is momentarily and acutely possessed by these strange-feeling emotions, she talks in this strange, shy, pinched voice. It's like she knows these feelings are intimate and private and to share them is to reveal something very vulnerable about herself. And then after a few days of this, Rich was suddenly back at school. It was most painful to witness her body going rigid upon seeing Rich there at one of the tables with some of the other kids, just like none of this was happening. Isn't it just like the person who is oblivious to your crush to go on with life as if all this torment isn't happening to you?!? She acts just like a love-struck teenager. She can't go near him when he's there. And when I timidly made the suggestion that she might sit with him and talk with him since she likes him so much, she conveyed the simple impossibility of it. With a quick shake of her head, she told me that being near him, that talking to him was just out of the question. It broke my heart the recent morning she said to me, "Don't tell Rich we talk about him." I reassured her that we would never do anything like that, and she followed that up with "And tell Daddy not to tell Rich too." We may have crested the peak of this crush--our "Can we talk about Rich" sessions seem to be ebbing--and are hopefully on the slope away from this fixation. She seems to be relatively unscathed by her first crush; however, I can't help but recognize that our baby is only 3 and there are many more hearts out there that will cause hers to ache. I just hope--admittedly selfishly--that she does more of the heartbreaking.

Thora regularly works her dress-up clothes into her regular rotation.

Speaking of love, it reminds me. Thora got married. How could I have not led with that?

They'd just been pronounced husband and wife.

If there is a boy in her life who has been true and loyal to her since the day they could walk, it's been Zach. And a few weekends ago, they were wed. The grown ups were finishing dinner at Zach's house, and the kids disappeared down in the basement where the dress-up clothes are. Zach's mom went down there to check on them, and when they were ready, escorted them upstairs in their wedding attire (Cleopatra dress for Thora, Zach in his upcoming Halloween costume, and bunny ears for both) and told us that they wanted to get married. It was a sweet, hilarious moment. I let Thora borrow my wedding ring, something she's always wanted to do and what I've always said is off-limits. Zach got his daddy's ring and we had a little ceremony for them. Since then, Thora asked me one afternoon, "Where's Zach? I want him to get here so we can get married again." Young love...

Thora, the Performer

Thora is still a performer. And one day at the museum, we found the perfect outlet for her: this colored light exhibit that projects three silhouettes from three foot lights onto a white wall. Here she gets to dance and strut and pose while watching the many larger-than-life Thoras do so as well.



In fact, she got so into this exhibit that she began to create a song and dance number. Here's a short video of this moment. It actually had been going on for awhile before I realized that it wasn't ending any time soon and that I still had time to pull out the camera and capture it.




Another favorite exhibit at the museum is racing the blinking lights. Thora still loves to run.


Thora Looks in the Mirror and Sees a Princess

Thora's love of all things Fairy Princess has increased recently. For a long time she's imagined herself as a princess. But recently, she's become fixated on the various Disney Princesses--to my dismay. She's only read abbreviated stories of Cinderella and Belle, but at school she's seen a few of the other girls' princess products, specifically a sheet for one of the napping cots that is decorated with Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Cinderella. So despite my hopes that we were going to bypass the phase of All Things Disney Princess, her interest appears to be unavoidable. I'm now asked to draw the various princesses. A hilarious moment was the recent pre-dinner tantrum that exploded because Daddy! Didn't! Draw! The! Princess! Right! Sigh.


In an effort to hold off against the Disney Marketing Machine, we got Thora some wings. She is a fairy princess or a princess butterfly or a butterfly princess, depending on the mood. She regularly wears these to the park and to friends' houses, to the point that they are already falling apart. But regardless of how long they last, they give her so much pleasure now. She asks me as we're walking through town, "Do you think that lady is surprised to see a butterfly? Do you think she wants wings like mine?" Her sense of herself as someone that people notice, as someone that people should be noticing, is really honed. This girl was born to perform, I think.


The Classes

Thora and Zach get ready for their first gymnastics class.

This was also the month of The Classes. Thora started gymnastics this month. It's fun for the kids. They do circuits on the various equipment, like the balance beam and the long trampoline, practicing a variety of balance and posture skills as well as rolls and handstands. Thora loves going. It allows her to be physical and burn some of that 3 year-old energy, while still practicing the skills of listening to directions and control of her body.

Thora also started tae kwon do this month. And this past Saturday, she earned her first stripe! We're so proud of her determination and patience with this sport. Here's a, albeit unfortunately low-quality, video of Thora doing some moves in her class. In the first clip, Thora is in the front row, towards the right. But you might be better off finding her in the mirror, where her reflection is just to the left of Instructor Amy's reflection.


We'd heard that Tae Kwon Do is good for kids' sense of self-discipline, while at the same time giving them a physical activity and something to improve their confidence. This martial arts school came highly recommended to us as one that's great for youth classes. And it totally lives up to the hype. This instructor is exceptional at keeping the kids focused and positive, while knowing that they are youngsters who have to be wild occasionally, to break up the extended moments focus. We are proud that Thora was invited to join this class for 4-6 year olds. She is at times overly confident with her neighborhood friends, perhaps because she's taller than almost everyone and is pretty coordinated and well-spoken. So, it's good for her to be around older kids who are so much more coordinated and articulate. For the most part, she gets good behavior modeled for her by the older kids. And she really looks up to her instructor, Miss Amy. And because this question comes up a lot, they make the point repeatedly that tae kwon do is to be done only the studio and at home when they're practicing with their parents. That it's not to be tried out on friends at the playground or on little brothers.

And finally, Thora continues on with her swimming lessons. After a summer full of swimming in the local pools and reservoirs, we started her back in with lessons (in addition to the ones she takes once a week with her school).

Thora on the "Tot Dock" with her fellow swimmer before class.

In the first session back, she was put in the Intermediate Beavers class. We checked in with her teacher midway through to get her feedback on where she thought Thora would be for the next session, so that we could enroll before the classes filled up. And she told us, that while Thora can swim on her own, in order to move up to the Advanced class, most of the other skills she'll need to be able to do relatively on her own as well, with minimal spotting by the instructor. We were anticipating keeping her in the Intermediate level for another session. So we were surprised to read Thora's report card on the last day, graduating her from the Intermediate class and encouraging her, "if she's up for the challenge" to move up to the Advanced class. We are very proud of our little girl and her big achievements. She's been in the Advanced class for 3 weeks and is doing well. She can do much of the skills, like floating on her back or using a kickboard, while just barely supported by Instructor Ashley. Similarly, in her swim class at school, Thora tells us that for the first part of each class, she swims with the flotation aid on, but that her instructor Dana has her remove it and she'll swim a good chunk of the time with no flotation aid!

Auric is in his second session of swimming lessons too. He doesn't do much but get comfortable in the water. But he's doing well. He's a great kicker, snapping his legs out simultaneously like a frog. It's a strong and funny kick. And when I help him up onto the edge to do jumps into the pool, I have to be careful to keep him close because he often tries to climb away to play with something that's caught his eye.

Auric also started another class this month: a Mommy and Me music class. This is the same class that I took with Thora back when she was this age. Auric loves it. When we arrive at the building he gets all excited, knowing what we're about to do. When I play songs from the cd for the class, his gets alert immediately as he recognizes the music.


When we're there, he is very engaged, playing with all sorts of different instruments, shakers, bells, and drums. Last week, the instructor pulled out the big, rainbow parachute and he sat staring up at it for about 10 seconds, taking it all in, before pointing excitedly at it, his face beaming, like he was saying, "Are you seeing this!?!" It's great fun to be there with him. The only trouble is that he likes to crawl and is very speedy. So I spend some of each class following him around, scooping him back up and bringing him back to the group. The class is held in a dance studio, so the front wall is a floor-to-ceiling mirror. That is just too irresistible sometimes.


At Home


Here's Auric playing with some of his favorite toys. He LOVES those cubes. And in playing with him, one sees how much he loves to nest things, stack things, and drop things into larger containers. He is so fun to watch. He'll get a few of those cubes linked together and then over and over he'll drop a small toy down into the middle and say one of his favorite words, "Uh-oh," and then fish it out again. In this photo, you can also see his little musical keyboard. He likes music, loves to dig out the rattles and bells to shake along to music, and he likes to dance.

Speaking of... speaking, Auric's vocabulary is really starting to grow! He is starting to use recognizable sounds for words. "MMM" is moo; "Yow yow," is meow; "grunt grunt" is woof woof, for dog; he will roar when you ask him what a lion says; he will do a pretty good impression of an elephant, accompanied with the raised arm for the trunk; he will make a siren sound to indicate a firetruck. And of course, there's always his first word, "Guh" which is truck. You can see almost all of those words by clicking here for this video. He loves to point at things and says some version of "gibberish gibberish ... dish." He uses this word, "dish" or a version of it, to mean "this." He'll point at ceiling lights, small details on fabric, at the sky and say "dish, dish" and we'll tell him what we think he's pointing at. His signing more and more now too. He waves his hand in the air for airplane, he'll put his fingertips together for more, he'll squeeze his hands open and shut for milk. And he's proving to be a great mimic. When Thora is having a moment and can't control all that 3 year-old energy, and roars, Auric mimics her right back. It's hilarious--and sometimes scary--to see him take it all in, all of Thora's emotional displays. On an hourly basis, I say something to the effect of "Pay no attention to that girl throwing a tantrum," in the voice of OZ. But he loves his sister something fierce. She is the most wonderful thing in his eyes. And so he can't look away.

And most of the time, she loves him right back.


She loves that he can balance better now--she thinks that gives her license to wrestle with him--and that he can chase her (on his hands and knees, of course). She can tell that he loves attention from her and so she gives it. Sadly, like most sibling goofiness, it's great until someone gets hurt (usually Auric, although she's gotten her hair pulled more times than I can count). You can see that she can't wait for him to be her peer.



Here he is quite pleased with himself having pulled himself up to stand and look out the back door. He'll be walking soon, I think. But for now, he still crawls like a speed-demon around the house and occasionally walks around holding onto furniture. Check out this great short video of Auric crawling around the perimeter of a kids' movement class at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.


This month also marked my second half-marathon this year. I completed the 13.1 mile, 2-loop course in 1:50:39, a personal best. The course was flat and favorable in that the downhill section was paired with a tail wind for the second half of each loop, e.i. miles 4-6 and 10-12. It finished around the dirt warning track in the baseball stadium for the Lowell Spinners, the single-A minor league team for the Red Sox. That last tenth of a mile felt really long, coming in at the back corner of left field, seeing the finish line over at first, but having to run the long way around the outfield. However, it was a fun and festive way to finish the race. My dad came along as my cheering section--he and my step-mom, Cathy were visiting that weekend--and it was great to see him up in the stands.



And from that same day that I captured the video of Auric above, here are a few more great moments. We met our friends at the Institute of Contemporary Art. On the last Saturday in the month it hosts a free family fun day, with lots of kids activities. Here we are, enjoying the great space.

Thora and Zach look out onto the water.

Auric and Ellie take in the sights, too.

Auric loved crawling the perimeter of this big room, following the path of the heating vents.

The following is for Sean and I, to help us remember the passing months. Thora bonded with "Doggy" and "Lamby" and they became her sleepmates this month. She's enjoyed reading along with Lilly's Pink Plastic Purse and Brave Irene--we have the cd audio books from the library for both of these books. She also likes the new Charlie and Lola books I've gotten from the library--a favorite of her cousins. Auric still likes anything truck-related and also likes those sliding window or lift-a-flap books. He also really likes it when there's a peep hole in the page that tempts him to find out what's on the next page, like in peekaboo, puppy! or Windows to Color.

10 Best Moments of Halloween 2010

This year's Halloween was one to remember. (For a look at all the Halloween photos, click here.) It started out with this gem of a jack-o-lantern. And of course, I'm not referring to the plain, old, regular sugar pumpkin that I carved, but rather the Crying Jack-o-Lantern that Thora designed, the only pumpkin with tears that I saw in the whole neighborhood. "Why does it have tears?" you ask. I wish I had an answer for you. Except that when we were drawing pumpkin faces on paper prior to the carving, Thora thought that it had to have tears, even though she couldn't explain why. She kept asking me, me, "Why is it crying, Mommy?" So I had to come up with what seemed like a hundred reasons for a crying pumpkin that she wished into existence! I hoped that when it came time to do the carving, I could get away with just its scared expressions. But, no, Thora demanded that our pumpkin cry.

In fact, I have to confess that at first I was pretty self-conscious of the Crying Pumpkin; that's why I carved it a little friend, a little pumpkin that would make it feel less scared in the dark, spooky nights leading up to Halloween. I worried that people would be troubled seeing our pumpkin with tears, or whisper about the house from which, now that they thought about it, always seemed to be haunted by the cries of a little girl. Perhaps the little girl in that house, they would surely think, was trying to communicate to her neighbors, the horrors to which her mean parents subject her. And what better way to do that than a spooky, crying pumpkin. In fact, if approached about Thora's message, I might suggest that that is the expression of her parents, when forced to endure some of her recent dinnertime meltdowns.




All joking aside, I'm glad to have such a distinctive pumpkin to remember, and such an imaginative little girl who feels no need yet to follow the crowd. Here she is re-enacting what the pumpkin is thinking, something like "Ohh, it's sooo spooky that it's making me cry!"




Here she is dressed in her costume. She was a ladybug this year, something that made both daughter and parents very happy. She had latched onto the idea of being a unicorn, when I thought it would be a good idea to let her leaf through the Pottery Barn Kids catalog that came a few months ago. When I went to look for it online, I realized that I hadn't noticed it's hefty price tag, and more immediately, saw that it was sold out. Yikes. What I thought of was Thora's love of wings. Her friend Zach has a pair of wings in his dress-up clothes and it's what she loves the most. I made her a deal. If she would go as a ladybug (the dress, arm warmers, and hair clips we already owned) I would buy her not one, but two different pairs of wings. It took no time for her agree that two sets of wings would be better than a full body costume that she'd likely never wear again.



Auric went as The Happy Lion. We borrowed the costume and he contributed the Happy, despite missing his afternoon nap due to the festivities. He is just that happy.



Auric is really into what's going on in the sky. He searches the sky for airplanes and helicopters mostly. But when he sees the moon in the daytime, he's adamant about pointing it out. He'll point out birds and sometimes he just wants us all to notice the clouds in the sky. Inside, he's noticed that there are ceiling lights above him almost all the time. He points all these out.



And he's getting closer to walking every day. He is such a speedy crawler--seriously, you cannot look away before he has crawled to the top of a staircase (gated, of course) or into the bathroom and has lifted up the toilet lid and is swishing his hand around gleefully in the toilet water! What fun he has! But recently, within the last couple weeks, he loves to push his push car around the house or at the park, or to walk--balancing with just one hand--with his mom or dad. He'll get there one day. It's just exciting to see that in fact he might actually want to be a bi-ped like the rest of his family.



Here's Thora with her fellow ladybug, Ellie, her best friend, Zach, and their dad, Dave. We enjoyed some of the city's free outdoor Halloween fun (parlor games, jewelry-making, and a magician who had Thora captivated!) before we met up with our friends for a pizza party and trick-or-treating.



Auric being cute at the pizza party.



Thora and a bunch of her friends had a great time playing and then getting ready for the real purpose of the evening--CANDY. Even though Thora doesn't eat candy really at all, especially now that she no longer gets M&Ms for potty-training victories, she still knows that candy is something to be coveted, and that walking around the neighborhood at night, ringing on neighbors doors and getting candy, getting up close to the decorations that we've been appreciating for the last couple weeks, that all of that is a special treat.



Thora and her friend Olive joined forces and were inseparable during the trick-or-treating. It was adorable. They held hands the entire time, helping each other up and down stairs, and walking hand in hand down the sidewalks. The only time they let go was to open their bags and to pluck out the best looking candy from the mix in the bowl. They lasted the longest out of the whole bunch, but were cold and tired by the end. It was a very Happy Halloween.