October & November
This is going to be another combined post – I never got around to posting October before we left for our month of vacation! At the beginning of October, Jared and Margaret came for a visit. We spent our Saturday at a street fair in Back Bay (where you rode a pony and loved it) and lunching at the Barking Crab. The next day, we did some rather muddy apple picking and had cider donuts and ice cream. You had another haircut – the first where you sat in the chair by yourself. Ra and Papa came up for Touch-a-Truck Day at the Arsenal Mall (which you loved, of course) and to watch Daddy run in the Boston Half Marathon. We spent a long weekend down in NY with Grammie and Pop Pop where we visited Antonella in the city, got to go 50 feet up in a fire truck ladder, and drove out east to a little farm stand with animals and a tractor race track. We did a make-up class for Junior Gym in “Homemade Art” where the project was to paint with pudding paint. Once you saw one of the other kids taste it, all you wanted to do was eat spoonfuls of the paint so I’m not sure I would call it a real art success. For Halloween, I made you an owl costume by sewing real and felt feathers to a brown hooded sweatshirt. (I was surprised that, for the most part, you were willing to wear the hood!) To celebrate, we went to a spooky storyteller at the library, went out to dinner with Amelia, Madeline, Avery, William, Alexander and their parents at Aura, did some trick-or-treating at the Prudential mall and on actual Halloween, went to a party at Zac’s house followed by the Charlestown costume parade and trick-or-treating. Speaking of trick-or-treating, it was most certainly not your favorite thing. You liked seeing everyone in their costumes but wanted no part of asking strangers for candy. I have to admit, we were a little disappointed by this as we had hoped to eat your whole candy stash.
In November, we went to visit your future pre-school, Charlestown Nursery School. You weren’t in the best spirits that morning so I was worried it would be meltdown-city, but as soon as we got there and you saw all the toys, you made yourself right at home and didn’t want to leave. Let’s hope you have the same reaction next fall! We submitted our early decision application and took off the next day for the Florida Keys. You, me and Daddy spent a week splashing in the pool, finding beautiful beaches to play at and eating lots of fish sandwiches. You LOVED the pool and would have spent every second in there if we had let you. (Every morning, we had to have long conversations about how we were going to eat pancakes and THEN go in the pool, otherwise you would lose it at breakfast.) You got more and more daring as the week went on, jumping in and going underwater whether we were next to you or not. You’re becoming more and more of a picky eater and I think you survived most of the week on pancakes, hot dogs and pasta with butter, so hopefully we can get some more vegetables in you now that we’re home! After our week in the sun, we flew home to Boston on Monday night and flew back out to Arizona on Wednesday. I was nervous about the long flight with you by myself, but you did ok – reading books and watching videos for awhile, then getting a little fidgety when you couldn’t fall asleep but finally sleeping for the last couple of hours. We did lots of fun things in Arizona – went to the train park where you rode the train and carousel, went to Rawhide where you LOVED the petting zoo, went to a zoo down in Tuscan (“black bear!” “big-horned sheep!” “bobcats!” “prairie (pause) dogs!”) and another wild life park with zebras, lions and tigers, threw balls in Grammie and Pop Pop’s pool, and saw Happy Feet Two at the movies. We celebrated Thanksgiving with Grandma, A. Celeste, U. Greg, Alana, Carol and Shelly, Jared and Margaret and Ashlyn, and Grammie made lots of delicious food, but you wouldn’t eat anything except two monkey drinks. The flight home was a breeze – you slept from the time the plane took off until they turned the lights on for landing. Apparently red eye flights are the way to go!
Your teething issues continued through most of October until the bottom left eye tooth popped through on 10/4 and the top left eye tooth came through on 10/21, then there was a brief break and the teething got much worse with what I imagine are your two-year molars. “No no no!” has become your favorite phrase, even when really the answer you mean is yes, and we’re definitely in a big tantrum phase. I’m hoping things get a little better in the next month or so when your teeth aren’t bothering you so much. On a brighter note, you’ve started to say “thank you” and “bless you” unprompted, which is very cute. You’re really putting things together, saying two and three word phrases now. You’re still working on your colors – everything is yellow these days (with an occasional orange) and you often say, “No!” if we correct you. You started singing along to songs, first by silently moving your mouth during music then by picking up and repeating certain words in a song. The first time you did this was on the drive down to NY where you started singing along to a chorus which kept repeating, “Rescue Me.” The Black Keys are most definitely your favorite band and you always sing the “dada dada da” part in Howlin’ for You. Your dancing is getting better and sometimes you take dance breaks in class if you notice music is playing. You love to be tickled and always ask for more (or “dit dit” while you make the more sign). You created a game after the bath where I have to say, “Stop!” then, “Go!” and you run to daddy and throw yourself into the towel over and over. You often point to things in rapid fire form so we name them for you and you do this funny little clench your fists and shake thing when you get really excited or sometimes just to make us laugh. You point out jeeps everywhere we go and mini coopers are “race cars.” You saw a truck pulling a house in Arizona and still talk about the “house truck, WOW!” every once in awhile. Your current favorite food by far is Danimals yogurt drinks (or “monkey drinks”) and you drink at least four a day. When there is a scary part in a movie, you think it’s hysterical but you are definitely frightened of Santa Claus (which doesn’t bode well for this year’s picture).You continue to try to make us laugh, pretending to eat my hair and say “Mmmm!” or saying, “Thank you, airplane!” or, “All done pool!” and then cracking up. You’re quite a character.
