Green, Clean, Earth

We hiked a nature trail, which promised to include the sights of a cranberry bog, but was really more so in the construction phase of making a cranberry bog. This made it all the more special to Matt.

“Look at that! An excavator. No, it’s a backhoe,” he analyzed each piece of yellow machinery with all the patience and attention to detail as a bird watcher.

We walked over small wooden bridges, passed turtles sunbathing on logs in the lake, and made up a game of stomping on top of crunchy sounding pine cones in order to distract Matt from picking up every one he saw.

Dinner that night was burgers, a hot dog for Matt, and fries on the bench of an outside mall. The stars had just started to come out as we finished eating.

We also hiked a trail at the Ecotarium. We ate lunch on a dock near a waterfall while fish swan below us in the shallow waters. It would have been more Zen like if I had not come along.
 

 I was so worried the whole time that he would fall into the slimy fish water. While Bob and Matt fed leftover bread crusts and counted the fish together, I paced.

Finally, when the boys had their fill of fish we continued to walk the rest of the trail. We saw caution signs about fragile ecosystems and open waters. We stopped at a Japanese-style water pavilion and Matt threw rocks into the water.It was an enjoyable weekend in the outdoors.

Vermont Winter Weekend Part 2

"No, No, No!” Matthew greeted the notion of swimming with Sarah and I. He squirms while I put on his bathing suit and shirt.

“I’m staying home,” he says planting his (bare) feet firmly on the ground while I put on our jackets.

“Will you come to keep us company?” I ask him.

“I don’t like swimming.”

“Suit yourself,” I shrug. For a moment I worry that he will call my bluff of leaving without him, but in the end he follows us out the door.

“I'll just watch," he concedes.

At the pool there are windows peeking out to the night sky and a number of toys floating in the water. I buckle Matt in a swim vest and he sits on the edge of the pool tossing a ball back and forth with us. A little while later he moves to the top stair to sit and play with a plastic airplane.

“Want to come for a little swim,” I coax holding my arms open. He grabs a hold of me so tightly that my skin under his fingers starts to turn white. Not letting go I guide him to the direction of Sarah who grabs hold of him before I let go. It’s no wonder he doesn’t like to swim. He lacks the natural instinct to stay afloat. When I loosen my hold he simply accepts the fact he is sinking, flailing his arms and legs in such a way that is much harder than swimming.

Matthew enjoyed the rest of the time in the pool, just as long as he was holding on to the side or in the arms or Sarah and I. We stayed in the water until I noticed that his teeth were chattering and it was time to go.



After dinner that evening he wanted to go to bed, but first wanted to make a tent to sleep in. He also felt the need to made snow angels on the white carpeted bedroom floor.

“Want to talk about trains with me?” he asked when I had settled into bed.

And then I am not sure what happened because I fell asleep first.

Vermont Winter Weekend Part 1

“I’m not in my own bed!” Matthew wakes up startled before the sun is up.

“We are in Vermont,” I remind him.

“Are we going home in the morning?” he asks.

“I think we will stay for a couple days,” I whisper, thinking of the three hour drive we made here some hours ago.

“Oh, okay,” he yawns deeply and then drifts back off to sleep.

Later that morning we ate a delicious pancake breakfast made by Sarah, our hostess with the mostess for the weekend. Then we drove, over a covered bridge, and on muddy roads to Sugarbush Farms.

Sugarbush Farms is a cheese lover’s paradise. Their slogan is “At the end of a scenic Vermont road lies a cheese lover’s paradise” if you don’t take my word for it. We walked
a nature trail and saw how maple trees were tapped and we visited the sugar house and saw how maple syrup was made. The highlight of the trip, in our opinion, was the actual tasting of the cheese and maple syrups. The instructor was very kind and gracious with her time and samples. No one minded that Matt played with all the cows and tractors in the toy shop, in fact they went as far to assure me that it was what all the kids who visited did. Plus there was Max, a nine-year-old loveable black lab lying in the middle of things soaking up the attention from a very smitten almost three-year-old.

Next we did a little shopping around Woodstock.We saw more dogs, some even inside the stores.

Matthew chose toe to take his afternoon nap on the floor of our guest room camp out style and gave the bed to a stuffed bear. I assured him that more adventures await him for when he wakes up.

Preschool Visit

“My toes hurt,” Matt announces inside the car. 

“Have you seen my dog? Where is my dog?” Matthew has solved his toe problems by removing his shoes and putting his socks on his hands as puppets. That is probably the second funniest thing he has done on a grocery shopping trip. The first would be when after we thought for one heart stopping moment that we lost him, but then spotted him hiding on the bottom shelf of the paper towels.

We are on our way to check out a preschool. Matthew is very excited about school. He knows that his favorite storybook characters all go to school as well as his two best friends at daycare. “We are going to school to get shots!” he cheers. He also knows that the only two times he has been inside of a school has been to get H1N1 vaccines.

The preschool is set up exactly the way that I hoped it would be. Cubbies with names assigned to them, art smocks hung up on the wall, toys organized by category, small tables with colorful chairs, and full book shelves low enough for children to reach and read. Matt made a beeline for the train table, where he stayed while the adults chatted and asked questions.

The teacher told us about the classroom size, rates, daily activities, and showed us the school yard with a big fenced in playground. The school was everything we were looking for and as an added bonus close enough to our home that we could bike ride there on the warmer days. When it was time to go Matthew didn’t want to leave. Already he can’t wait to start school in the fall.