Let It Snow

On Saturday night while two to three inches of snow all of the older neighborhood kids went sledding at nine o’ clock at night. The first snow fall of the season is always an exciting time!

At nine o’ clock the following morning, the  tops of the telephone, mailboxes, and tree branches are all coated with snow giving the streets a look that could grace the cover of a postcard.

 At first Matthew is afraid to go sledding down our backyard slope.  After a few rides with me, he takes a few more rides with Bob. Matthew asks us to go again and again. Not too long after, he is ready to sled on his own. He takes turn after turn, and instead of being startled, he laughs the couple of times that he wipes out. We spend all morning sledding until lunchtime. And what a fun morning it was!

Leaves & Sand

It’s November but we’re at a lake anyway. It’s warm enough for a picnic outdoors but cold enough to wear our coats. Leaving the warm spinach and cheese pastries, grapes, and sippy cup treat of chocolate milk behind, Matthew negotiates the rocky sand to get a closer look at the water.


“What is that?” he asks, pointing to rock.
“A rock,” I answer him.
“What is that?”
“A rock.”
“What is,” he pauses, searching for the right word, “on the rock?”
“It’s just the color gray,” I say with an air of impatience in my voice.
“Gway. This a gway rock,” Matthew tests the new word out on his tongue like ribbon candy.

The beach has an abandoned look about it, no buoys in the water to mark the swimming area or sailboats on the water. We spot a forgotten fishing lure, purple sand shovel, and child size water shoe tangled in the rocks and sand. We have the beach to pretty much to ourselves, except for a couple walking their dog in the distance.

Matthew drags a long stick behind him as we walk along the shoreline to another rocky patch. Bob and I settle down on a large rock and Matthew plops down close to the water and holds the stick in the water. “I’m fishing,” he explains to us.

 I’m thankful for a lot of things this Thanksgiving, especially for my imaginative boy and kind husband.

Cupcakes, Jellyfish, and Basketball (part 2)

“I’m ready!” Matthew announced, dressed in his Patriots jersey and sweatpants with a football print under a pocket. For day two of Bob’s birthday weekend we were going to the Patriots Hall of Fame and Providence College basketball game.

The museum exceeded my expectations. It was far more interactive than I imagined. I thought that it would be all glass enclosures and trivia facts, which there was a good amount of, but there was a lot to do. We attempted to reenact the infamous Vinatieri snow kick, listened to game calls from inside a helmet, tried on team uniforms, climbed onto the duck tours parade float, and felt what it was like to join in a huddle. The two highlights of the trip had to be Bob getting stuck inside of the padded jersey he tried on, and the room that played tapes of Super Bowl wins and sprayed confetti into the air.o.

Next on the agenda was a quick stop at the North Pole. Well okay, at a store nearby that had a winter wonderland already set up in their basement level complete with a Santa and Mrs. Claus. We stopped by in time to catch the tree lightning ceremony.

Matthew did not nap on our drive to Providence as we hoped that he would. We stayed for the first half of the basketball game before Matthew started to get sleepy.

  It was a long day, but also a very fun day.

Cupcakes, Jellyfish, and Basketball

Last week was Bob’s birthday and to celebrate Matthew and I baked him Cookie Monster cupcakes. I hid them under our bed in a container and left notes hidden around the house to lead him to it. My plan went off with just a couple of hitches, one being that Matthew kept telling him that I made yummy cupcakes, and two being that Bob didn’t actually see my first note on the garage door, that is until I directed him to it after he asked me where these cupcakes were that Matthew mentioned to him.

The following day we took the day off from work and Matt to the aquarium and children’s museum. There once was a time that our birthday weekends were spent together in a favorite hotel of ours, but it was years before we had Matthew or a mortgage. Still, we have fun together wherever we go.

“Ooohh, those are scary!” Matthew says and backs away from a tank of jellyfish. Moments later he is sticking his face close to a tank of sharks, turtles, and schools of fish swimming by. His fears are as unpredictable as the tides.

Next we stop at a tide pool tank with starfish, hermit crabs, and urchins to pick up.


As we were leaving, I asked what everyone’s favorite part of the aquarium was. Matthew replied, “We took an elevator.” Bob and I agreed that it was the new sea lion exhibit. The sea lion exhibit was built outside of the dimly lit aquarium, with walls of glass that overlook a harbor full of salty blue water and sailboats. “I want to give a hug?” Matthew asked while looking at a sea lion inches away from him behind a glass wall.

After lunch, we walked over to the children’s museum where we spent the rest of the afternoon exhibit hopping and doing a craft project together in the art room.

Playing Farm

.

“Play farm?” Matthew asks me, as I change him from his octopus feetsie pajamas into his sport ball feetsie pajamas at his request. “Please?”

“Ok,” I agree, even though I think it is the most boring game on earth to play with him.




“Farm” – Game 1

“Help! Hurry, hurry!” Matthew coaches me to say. I hold onto a Little People girl and repeat my lines in a high voice. He drives a Tonka fire truck over to his toy farm and a fireman “rescues” the animals one by one.

“Farm” – Game 2

“Wait, come back!” Matthew calls to his toy school bus. I am in charge of loading the animals on and off a school bus. I must remember to say, “Here is your money” and mime handing money to the driver.

“Farm” – Game 3

The fireman falls off the ladder and has to be taken away in the ambulance. Matthew then takes out his toy doctor’s kit, gives him a pretend exam, and tells him he is all better. Rule of thumb: Game 1 may lead to game 3 but game 2 must be played alone.

These games are cute for the first forty three times.

For breakfast I make scrambled eggs and homemade biscuits and jam. Matthew loves to play in the kitchen, so while I cooked, I let him mix cinnamon, nutmeg, dry pasta noodles, and cups of water together in a plastic bowl for the fun of it.

“Yummy,” Matthew compliments after taking a bite off the plate that I prepared. It makes me so happy when he enjoys a meal, even scrambled eggs.

The next task of the morning was to move Pepper’s cage inside for the winter.

We made her a little nook of her own in the basement with decorated walls of Matt’s artwork at his suggestion.


“Mommy? Mama? Mommy?” Matthew calls while climbing back upstairs.

“Yes..?”

“Play Farm? Please?”

Matthew Goes To The Hospital

On Tuesday Matthew had a minor surgery that had been planned for a couple of weeks. It almost didn’t happen because he came down with a cold the weekend before. A nurse took his temperature and measured his oxygen level, which were both fine, and then the anesthesiologist did an exam before giving the okay to proceed.


The surgeon came by to say hello and drew a smiley face on his right hand to mark the side that he was having his surgery on. Matt was on his very best behavior, as all these new people kept giving him presents, like the marking pen, a quilt to keep that was on his crib like hospital bed, red slipper socks, not to mention lots of attention, like the med student who played peek a boo with him.

“Is he your first child? Is he your only child?” The doctors and nurses asked, making small talk, before promising to take good care of him. Matthew was then given a drink with an unfamiliar medical name that I can’t recall, but it was something like baby valium. Matthew became elated to change into his elephant and clown gown and lie in his hospital crib-bed. He bumped his head on the side of the crib, “Oh no, I need a doctor,” he cutely moaned.

“Do you have any final questions for me?” the nurse asked us.

“Can he bring his blankie?” I asked.

“Of course,” the nurse granted permission.

The surgery was relatively common and safe so Bob and I felt more that we wanted it over with instead of worried. At least we thought we felt that way until we watched him get wheeled away in a gurney and we felt tears in our eyes.

We waited for an hour until the surgeon came out and let us know that everything went great. Matthew was sleeping off the anesthesia so we waited another thirty minutes until a nurse came and brought us to the recovery room when he was waking up.

My first thought was that Matthew smelled like medicine instead of himself. His left arm was bandaged with gauze where the IV was attached. The nurse asked me hold him even thought he was writhing in pain and asking to lie on the floor. She gave him more medicine which took the edge off of his pain. His eventually drank some juice and watched a little bit of television. Once we were discharged Matthew seemed to enjoy the wheelchair ride to the car.

That afternoon he was sore and cranky until bedtime. When we tried to give him some Tylenol he said he wanted to throw it in the trash. Bob handed him apple juice in a cup but he said he wanted mommy to hand it to him instead. Each time his head slumped down on the pillows he yelped for help. He settled in our bedroom watching a week worth of Calliou episodes, recorded in preparation for the occasion. We read him his favorite truck books, and let him eat dry toast, popsicles, and banana slices in bed. When he started asking for chocolate milk and cookies we knew that he was on the mend.

That night after he was tucked into bed, Bob and I put together two tupperware boxes of train tracks that were handed down to us. It took up the entire living room floor once we were finished. In the morning Matthew seemed less crabby and more mobile. When I carried him to the living room his eyes lit up. He more or less demolished the perfect bridges and some of the trains fell off the tracks but he still loved it.

Late in the morning our friends Michelle and Zach stopped by, bearing gifts and a plate of cookies. They only planned on staying a couple minutes but the boys wanted to play longer, so we got to sneak in a little play date.

For the rest of the day Bob and I took turns from working from home and keeping an eye on our little patient. Matthew took a long nap in the afternoon. For dinner he asked for cupcakes, but we said no.

Plane To The Moon

Written By Bob

Matt and I always have a wonderful time hanging out together at night while Laurie is at work. There are times however, when communication issues get in the way. Matt might not know the exact word to describe what he wants and instead throw himself on the floor in a tantrum of frustration. Perhaps I will ask him to do something and he will immediately say “NO!” without even listening to me, even if what I just asked him to do was to eat a bag of M&M’s. Or, I will be too occupied with cleaning up the house or checking in on the sports scores to listen to him as attentively as I should.

One recent night when we got home from work/day care, I decided the theme for the night would be communication. That sounds about as exciting as some of the Effective Communication seminars I have taken at work. But I figured that if I listened to him better, and he listened to me better, we could eliminate some of the meltdowns that inevitably happen with a toddler.

I’d been having a problem with Matt refusing to come in from the car when we got home. This day, he lay on the bench in the basement that we sit on to take off our shoes and cried that he “wanted to stay” (stay at day care? in the car? I didn’t know). He received a two minute time out for not listening, and when it was over instead of just going back to our nightly routine, I made a point of explaining to him why he received the timeout, and that he needed to do what I asked of him. I think he got the point, because soon thereafter he picked up all the raisins he dropped under his chair at dinner without even being asked. Granted, it was so he could eat his beloved raisins but still… he was trying.

After dinner, I decided we would just chat. Matt is always talking when we’re home together but often times the busyness of life keeps me from listening as closely as I should. And since he’s a toddler and still mastering the art of speaking, it does require careful listening to completely understand him. I was curious what exactly was on the mind of this little chatterbox.

I asked him what he wanted Santa Claus to bring him under the tree and he replied “No, Grandma coming soon with presents for Matthew.” Even Matt had noticed that his grandmother has a habit of buying “Christmas presents” for him but then being unable to wait and giving them to him on Thanksgiving, or in October, or in July. We talked more about Christmas and to my surprise, he remembered that we had the tree in the living room the year before. He also asked if we could take a plane to the moon for Christmas. That might be one gift that Grandma can’t deliver!

When Matt later asked if I wanted to read books, I immediately dropped what I was doing in the kitchen to read with him. Normally, I’ll tell him to wait till later if I’m busy, but since he was being so good I wanted to reward him. We read all his favorite books and Matt even “read” one to me called Digger Man, the first book that he has memorized. I was so proud of him, and glad I sat down with him and listened.

As I tucked him into bed, he reminded me that we forgot to check for the moon, a ritual we have started so he knows it is time for bedtime. When “the moon is in the trees” (still coming up over the horizon), it is time to get pajamas on and play a bit more before bed, and once its up over the trees, its time for bed. “Dada, I check the moon again?” he asked me from his crib. “Awww, moon not in the trees!” he said disappointed, knowing that it meant it was time for bed, and that another fun night had come to an end!

This blog is brought to you by the letter P

P is for Painting

It is chilly outside on Saturday, and yet the rain pouring down is warm, typical of the weather this time of year. In the kitchen Matthew paints on large pieces of paper. “This is a school bus going to the bank,” he let me know, while drawing squiggly lines from a yellow blob to a green and pink blob. In Matt’s ideal world everyone travels by school bus, even to the bank in the age of on-line banking.

“I need to take my socks off, Mama,” Matthew declares, putting down his paint brush long enough to tug off his navy blue socks one at a time. He wriggles his bare feet and then reaches for the bottle of black paint.

“All better?” I ask my little artist, covered in smudges of paint.

“Yes,” he replies and makes wide swirls of black on the paper, “This is Pepper.” He swooshes the brush a mug of water and then dips it into the yellow paint, “She is waiting for the school bus.”

P is for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Sunday is warm and the rain has stopped. The fresh smell of leaves and the sound of acorns falling from the trees rush through our open windows. In the kitchen Matthew and I make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.*
“Okay Matt, you are in charge of the chocolate chips,” I hand him the bag, “Put as many in the bowl as you want.” Instead of tossing them in by the handful, he cautiously adds them one at a time. It feels like hours before he adds enough to put chocolate chip in the name of the cookie.


* The recipe is really simple. Take one box of spice cake mix, combine it with a can of pumpkin pie mix, and add as many chocolate chips as you want. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.


P is for Patriots

Bob and I were both Patriots fans before we met. We were fans before the new stadium, before Tom Brady, and before they won a Super Bowl. After the Patriots won their second Super Bowl, Bob, his brother Mike, and I skipped work/school to see the victory parade in Boston. Mike was shorter than me then and now he is taller than Bob. That was also the day we learned about his uncanny sense of direction as he was the one who guided us through the roads that were crowded with 1.5 million people (quite literally), earning him the nickname “Mike Quest”. That day a stranger stopped Bob and I to ask if she could take our picture, for no reason other than we looked so happy and cute together. It was odd, but years later I engraved the words 1 in 1.5 million into Bob’s wedding ring.

Matthew 101

Matthew 101 : Translations

-A-
A clue – a paw print, Blues Clues or otherwise
Acorns – sometimes acorns and also popcorn

-B-
Babies- old movies of himself on the computer
Boogies- the act of wiping his nose with a tissue just so he can flush it down the toilet
Boom booms- thunder storms

-C-
Carry you- asking you to carry him
Cream cream- ice cream

-D-
Da- the
Dass- dance

-E-
Eh-eh-ence – Ambulance
Eatin the poop- something Bob taught him to say, and I am not amused
Ems – M&M’s

-F-
Fishies- band-Aids with fish on them (there are also Band-Aids called “hats” and “batman”)
Firetruck cat- Dalmation

-H-
Happy Cake- pie or birthday cake
Hot- fireplaces

-M-
Mailmantruck- mail truck
Monkey- his uncle Mike
Moss- anything football related, was taught as in “Randy Moss”,
My trains- daycare, he loves the train table there

-N-
Nigh nights- bedtime

-O-
Oosee popsihangin: orange popscicle
Otay- okay

-P-
Papa’s bulldoza- all bulldozers since getting to sit in one at his papa’s house
Peacocks, ahhh!- peacocks
Pockets- cd carrier

-U-
Up- help

-Y-
Yellow- Lion
Yummy Cakes- anything he likes to eat but doesn’t know the name of

Quotable Quotes:“Trace my eyes.”
“Where it go?”
“Monkey broke it!”
“Good morning Pepper..is Pepper clean?”
“You weren’t watching!”
“What happened?”
“A big mess.”
“Big hug!”
“The moon is behind the trees.”
“Look at that!”
“Dada, the dragon get you when you sleeping."

The Pow Wow

A teenager with almond colored skin and shoulder length dark hair takes out an earplug from his iPod to give me directions. He tells me to continue on the road, which is roughly the width of a driveway, and to turn right at the barn up ahead. In the distance, I can hear drums beating. I thank him and follow his directions, which lead to a field where other cars are parked. Matthew and I have never been to a Pow Wow before, so when I see a couple carrying lawn chairs I grab a blanket from my trunk and toss it in the bottom of the stroller.

We follow the sound of drums back down the narrow road and to another field. A circle is marked by blocks of hay, which some children and adults are already sitting by in anticipation for the Pow Wow to begin. Just outside the circle, four women sit in their own circle playing the drums. There are vendors selling handcrafted jewelry, musical instruments, art, and other goods. Matthew and I settled on our blanket in the tent where Grandmother, a woman with white hair in a braid that went all the way down her back, told stories. We heard one about the origin of strawberries.

Next, we sought out a dream catcher. I did not want one that was too large, and Matthew did not want one that was too feathery. We settled on small one with just four feathers on the bottom. I noticed Matthew admiring the wooden flutes and so we got one of those too. It was then time for the Pow Wow to begin and so we went and found a spot to sit near the circle.

The first dance was the grass dance. This we were told was a ceremonial dance to flatten the grass for the other dancers. The second dance was the Grand Entry Dance led by the head veteran, a man called Thundering Buffalo, and volunteer veteran attendees. There was a flag ceremony and a flag song to follow. We learned that the dancers enter circle from an east entry and danced clockwise to follow the sun. Following the Grand Entry Dance was more drumming, dancing and singing. Both inside and outside the circle people of all ages and nationalities celebrated Native American heritage. It was as beautiful as it sounds.

Later at home, Matthew could not wait to show off his new Pow Wow moves to Bob. I ‘played’ the flute and thumped the couch with my hand while he danced in circles in our living room. When he was finished we hung the dream catcher above his bed and tucked him in for a late afternoon nap.

Blog News

Hello,

Starting this fall I will be updating my blog twice a week instead of once.

Look forward to a new blog on Tuesdays and Thursdays starting this upcoming week.

Thanks for reading!

Laurie

Fare Thee Well, Summer

Saturday marked the first day of our second annual at-home vacation. It poured rain outside all day. Pepper had her first vet appointment and was given a clean bill of health. Matthew and I spent the morning baking peach pies with homemade crust.

Sunday was more excitable by all means. In the morning Pepper aka “runaway bunny” escaped from our fenced in yard. Now she is only allowed to roam the yard on her leash and harness. We went to Bob’s parents house for a family party celebrating; his parents new house, his brother moving to college, his aunt’s birthday, our wedding anniversary later this month, and not one, but both of his grandmother’s birthdays. The cake simply said “Congratulations.”
Matthew got to eat M&M’s for lunch, play football, and catch frogs in the backyard. He slept the hour and a half drive home after the party ended.

On Monday I thought I was just going to get my oil changed but it turned into a grand inquisition. The mechanic asked me, “What kind of oil do you use?”, “When is the last time you had your transmission oil changed?”, “Look at this air filter, do you see what I mean about Ford and these cars?” Normally, I go to places where I can read a magazine and nod when told what needs to be done. Bob claims that said places are overpriced and told me about this place. Thankfully he was with me and having known to study my old car repair receipts beforehand he was able to answer the questions for me. I know that you wouldn’t believe me if I told you that I was the one who taught him how to change a tire many years ago.

We took Matt to the park and then to the lake. Where the lifeguard chairs usually are there was a sign warning us that the waters were unguarded. Translation: Summer is over, folks. Matt waded in the water, dug holes in the sand, and then we had a picnic lunch. On the way back to the car we saw the fall leaf on the ground.
In the nighttime Bob and I went out alone on a date to dinner and then to see (500) days of Summer, which is a really great movie if you haven’t seen it. On the way home I complained that our staycation was already going by too fast and we should really move to someplace more boring to drag it out more.

On Tuesday we went to the EcotariumWe rode the train, looked at exhibits, and had a picnic lunch by a stream. Then we took Matt to story time at Barnes And Noble where he mostly played with a train table there. That evening we had an end of summer celebration dinner with grilled haddock and veggie kabobs.

Then after dinner I took Pepper for a walk and at night Matt and I laid in bed reading all his favorite bedtime stories, ignoring the minutes ticking past his bedtime. “Hop. Pop. Hop on Pop,” he recited when I finally carried him to his crib, “Red, Red, they call me Red.”

On Wednesday we played t-ball in the park.Matthew loved running around real bases and sitting on the bench in the dugout to cheer. We saw friends of ours at the park for the second time that week. “I still think this week is going by too fast,” I told Bob on our way home.

On Thursday we went to the ocean for what is probably the last time this summer. The older kids are back in school so it was nearly empty and the shore was lined with shells and sea glass not yet picked over. Matthew and I pretended to be pirates collecting treasure. Not that he has much reference to pirates outside of the Backyardigans. Maybe to him that is what we were pretending to be. We filled an empty grape bag with all our ‘treasure’ to bring home with us. After another afternoon or wading, digging holes in the sand, and a picnic we headed up to the boardwalk to walk around before heading home. On Friday we went to a U pick farm. Bob asked me to note that it was his first time ever going. Matthew and I usually go two to three times a month so we showed him the ropes. We picked raspberries and then played on the playground where Matt climbed to the top of a child sized rock wall for the first time. That night we had a family game night and played Cootie.

Saturday was the last official day of our at-home vacation. Matthew and I missed the beach so we built a sandcastle in his plastic turtle shaped sandbox.

On a whim we decided to attend a fair that was a couple towns over from us and spent a few hours there. There were kiddie rides there which seem to be a prerequisite for vacations these days.
That evening we painted leaves, pumpkins, and acorns that I cut out of construction paper. . Once our masterpieces of work dried we hung them on our glass deck door. In doing so we said goodbye to summer.

About A Bunny

Our family has adopted a four-month-old Giant Flemish rabbit that we named Pepper.

 I stopped off at a pet store to stock up on bunny supplies and treats. They gave me a lesson on litter box training and printed me out a sheet of cliff notes for basic rabbit care.



The following day Matthew came along with me to a family owned farm to pick up the bunny that we decided to name Pepper. In his lap Matthew holds a willow ball ready to give her as a greeting present. A few days prior the breeder had emailed me pictures. In a sea of steel gray, white with black polka dots, and nestle brown, Pepper stood out to me as the only bun with an all black coat. She almost blended into the background as the pictures were taken in the evening.

When we pulled up to the farm Matthew became shy, “Carry you? Carry you?” he asked me before remembering  to say instead, “Carry me?” We met the breeder, some ducklings, and then a pen full of dozens of bunnies of all different ages and breeds. Up close I saw that Pepper had a couple tufts of brown fur. She was scooped into a wooden box that looked sort of like a lobster trap.

“Mine?” Matthew piped up, pointing to the lobster trap box.

“Yes, we get to take her home,” I told him and watched his eyes light up with excitement.

At home we let Pepper out in the yard to play.
.

During my research online I learned that rabbits can actually be scared to death. Lucky for us Pepper seems to be a mellow rabbit. Moments after her arrival in our home, she ate carrot sticks out of Matthew’s hand and didn’t seem bothered when he sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to her, rather loudly, four times in a row. Watching them together made me certain that Pepper was the right choice for our family.

Davis Farmland

“Wow Mama,” Matthew marvels at the sight of a cow head painted on the side of a building with two air conditioner boxes for eyes. I have been meaning to take him here, to Davis Farmland, all summer. Davis Farmland is a park with playgrounds, playhouses, a water spray park, a huge corn maze, and animals.

When we walk into the farm there is a pen of kittens for adoption on our right and a pen of rabbits for petting on our left. Matthew makes a beeline to sit on an out of service tractor in the distance ahead.

After several minutes of pretend tractor driving, I coerced him off the tractor and back on the path that leads to the water spray park.

Along the way we stop at a bull pen of calves being bottled fed. A bucket of brushes are near the fence for guests to brush their fur. “The cows are eating?” Matthew asks me.

“Yeah they’re-“ I pause because when I look over I see that he is using the cow brush on his own head. I show him that they are for brushing the cows and Matthew brushes between their eyes, and their hooves. The calves seem to give me a sideways look to each other, as this boy brushes the tips of their ears and hooves again. As we are leaving their pen Matthew gives them each a shy hug, “bye buddies.”

By now the sun is uncomfortably hot so I hurry Matt along the path and change Matthew into his bathing suit to spend the next hour at the water park.

Now cooled off we trek to a playground with lots of tunnels to climb in that lead to slides. “Happy, happy, happy, happy,” Matt sings from inside the tunnels. He finds that painting a wooden play house with a bucket of water and a wall sized paintbrush fun, which is a play idea I plan on copying at our home. Next we loop back past our cow buddies and over to the field of more farm animals, llamas, pigs, goats, and sheep. Matthew is at ease with all the animals, petting them solemnly at first and then laughing when they lick his hand.

By noon the farm is crowded and we only have a half hour before we must go. We eat a quick lunch at the “Herd Rock” café before heading home. Matthew doesn’t seem to notice we are heading back towards the car because he is excited to point out the buses that he sees in the parking lot. Anyway, almost as soon as we drive away Matthew falls sound asleep in his car seat.

Books And Baseball

I love a good library book sale. I realize that I say that the same way some people might speak of steak. Feel free to replace the word “book” with “steak” for the rest of this paragraph if it helps you better understand. I love that there never seems to be enough room for all the orphaned books lined haphazardly in cardboard boxes on top of and under rows of card tables. Then there is this careful dance between neighbors and strangers leaning over one another to take a book, or excusing oneself to crawl below the table to leaf through a box of books that caught their eye.

At this particular book sale, on a hot and sticky morning in August, I am making out like a bandit. The brown paper shopping bag that I’m carrying is stuffed with a bunch of novels for myself, an old issue of Craft magazine that I haven’t read, some classic books of my childhood, Corduroy, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny for Matthew, and a dessert cookbook that has something to do with Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. As I am shoving in a John Feinstein book that I think Bob will enjoy, my bag starts to tear giving me the cue that it is time for me to go, otherwise I could very well spend the day there.

When I arrive at home it starts to rain hard even though the sun is still shinning. Bob approves of my book choices for him and starts to flip through the beginning pages of the Feinstein one. Matthew snuggles up next to me with a Thomas the Tank Engine book that I knew he would have picked out himself. On the inside of the front cover there is a handwritten note, “Dear Ryan, Merry Xmas 2004! Your cousins…” Yet another reason I love library books sales, for the little surprises of owning a book secondhand.

Aside from being bookworms our family has other pastimes, namely sports. We took Matthew to his first professional baseball game, Worcester Tornadoes vs. the Brocton Rox, in the evening. Matthew held our hands in the parking lot but once he heard the crowd cheer, we arrived at the first inning, he let go to clap his hands too. When we sat down in our seats, he looked at the field and said, “Baseball cards?”

I would need to remember the cuteness of that moment to center me when he later drove his matchbox fire tuck through a melted puddle of ice cream on the ground and then licked it.

“So who won the game?” A co-worker asks a couple days later after I mention, well, shamelessly brag that that Matthew stayed through all nine innings of the game.

“Umm…” I can’t remember.

What I can remember is that it was the night that Matthew learned the baseball chant, “Charge!” I also remember that it started to lightly rain in the ninth inning but the fireworks show scheduled for after the game still went off without a hitch. That night Bob, Matthew, and I sat in the rain on a warm summer night watching fireworks in the distance.

I would have to say that we won the game.

Delightful Summer

At first we only see their shadows zipping across the baseball bases, which are drawn in chalk on the driveway. Above us black and blue dragonflies circle our heads like little helicopters.

“I catch them!” Matthew shrieks and chases them up and down the driveway.





We planted a vegetable garden and pumpkin patch. To decorate we washed off the rocks that we dug up and painted them to look like bugs.

In early July our town library hosted a “truck day” and Matthew had a ball. He got to sit in a real fire truck, repair line truck, and a police cruiser.

We picked fruit from a local farm all summer, eating almost all the blueberries that we picked during the drive home each trip.

I also became fanatical about a cookbook called The Toddler Café. I learned to cook with all sorts of new-to-me ingredients like nori sheets, beets, um I meant “rocks from outer space” and hoisin sauce. On one night that I was preparing dinner Bob misheard me say hoisin sauce and thought that I said poison sauce.

We got to swim in lakes, the ocean, and my godmother’s pool, which is neat because it’s shaped like a kidney bean.


Bob surprised me with tickets to RENT for my birthday in July. It was the best performance of the show I had ever seen, and yes, I say that every time.
We have a toad living in our backyard, and find him sitting the same old tree stump nearly every day. I named it Old Green Thumbs with the hope I’ll become less frightened by it by summer’s end.

“Mama?” Matthew asked me very seriously one quiet afternoon that we were outside eating popsicles on our deck, “Do peacocks poop?”

We started a new summer tradition of taking a bike ride each morning after breakfast. With Matthew strapped into the toddler seat, I peddle us through the quiet and busy streets of our town and together we count the cars or birds that pass us by.
And now;

“Look at me, Mama!” Matthew holds his arms out the side like wings, and runs along the driveway with the dragonflies still swirling overhead. A true summer delight.