Amelie- 13 months

At 13 months, Amelie is no longer the sweet quiet baby she once was. She's now an opinionated, strong-willed little girl with quite a scream. I don't know what happened, but maybe she realized she was going to have to speak up in order to get any attention in this house.  And speak up she does.  She points and yells every morning until someone takes her outside to see the horses, and then she starts waving at them when she sees them.  She repeats this as soon as we get home in the afternoon. Her favorite word is "Huh-Zaa!" which means "who's that?" or "what's that?". Her other favorite word is "Da" which can mean dog, done, dad, or any variety of things depending on the context. She tries very hard to talk and is so happy when someone finally understands her.  She's a good eater.  Her favorite is watermelon. She has started blowing on her food after seeing me do that with food that is hot. When she is done eating, she stares at me and very deliberately picks up any remaining food on her tray, and slowly holds it out over the side and drops each piece, one by one, on the floor, watching me the whole time. She makes little faces that are just full of attitude-- a strong precursor of teenage years to come.  Her favorite toys are her picnic basket, xylophone, and stacking cups. She loves hiking. She's a good sleeper, consistently sleeping through the night. She still mostly crawls, though she can walk for short periods-- her record is 9 steps. 

June/July Round up

Our neighbors across the field got horses. We keep carrots on hand now to tempt them over to our side of the field.  Amelie loves them-- she's always looking for them out the window and asking to go outside so she can wave to them. 

Hiking/ biking at 3 Sisters with wild irises.

Horses again

Amelie was so proud of herself when when she learned to stand up in her crib

Mark & Amelie

Looking out the window at the horses from her changing table

Baby fawn sleeping in front of the house

My friend Amy & her family stopped by while they were visiting from CA.  Amy was my very first roommate at MIT.

There was a big double rainbow that stretched across the whole sky.

New England

We rarely take non-climbing vacations, and now that my mom has moved away, visits to New England will probably be few and far between. However, there were three new babies among us (Amelie born in June 2013, Helen in December 2013, and Caleb in February 2014), so some time earlier this year Katie, Christina, and I (roommates from our study abroad semester in Italy) dreamed up the idea of getting together over the summer to meet the babies.  I used to go up to Cape Cod for 2 weeks every summer with the Rosenfelds (the benefits of being friends with an only child), so I thought it would be fun to go back there and relive my childhood. We found the house we used to rent in Harwichport, rode bikes on the Cape Cod Rail Trail, gathered shells on the beach, and ate lots of bakery doughnuts and ice cream. It wasn't quite the same experience as an adult with two toddlers... I didn't have hours of free time to while away playing cards and making friendship bracelets and riding my bike to the CVS for nail polish and candy... but it was still pretty fun. Christina's family's house was perfect for us, with lots of beds to accommodate everyone and lots of toys to entertain the kids. Katie's 7 year old twins Nicky and Owen were great playmates/babysitters for Logan, despite being a few years older, and it was nice to see the babies play together (in that grabbing at eachother's faces way that babies play).  We had a couple cloudy/rainy days and one perfect sunny day, but even the rain was kind of nice... we don't get much rain here and it was nice to fall asleep to the sound of rain.  We found time to catch up in the short snippets of time during naps or while washing dishes.  We also rode the ferry out to Nantucket and got to spend a day with the Smialowski's, the parents of my best friend Meaghan from childhood.  They gave us a tour of the island, including the old cobblestone streets and ship captains' houses, fed us all my old childhood favorites (the chicken salad!), doted on my children, and generally made us feel very welcome and at home.

 After Cape Cod, we drove down to Newtown, stopping to see my MIT field hockey friends Michelle & Katie on the way. Michelle has two kids about my kids' ages, and every toy a child could dream of, including a bouncy house in the basement. Logan thought it was the greatest. In Newtown we stayed with Aunt Susie. She's in the middle of selling her house, and despite potential showings she let us invade her home for 2 days. Logan had a ball swimming in her pool despite the rather cloudy weather. He reminded me of Andrew at that age-- always the first one in and last one out of the pool, no matter how cold. Fortunately he did not repeat Andrew's floater incident.  I took the family on a tour of Newtown which I think they thoroughly enjoyed.  We saw the flagpole (several times), Trinity, general store, town hall, ice cream shop, my schools, all the fields where Auntie Kenny played soccer, the diner, 2 town parks, the Governor's Horse Guard, Fairfield Hills. We spent an evening at Rowledge Pond with Uncle Andrew.  Captain Andrew and First Mate LoLo canoed around the pond, and Logan caught a fish on his first cast. Fortunately Andrew was there to take it off the hook, as the rest of us don't do that (that was always my Dad's job). I didn't go by our house. I decided it was better to just remember it as it was when it was ours. We ended our trip in New York City, with a picnic in Central Park with Eileen, Nicole, and Neha and their families, and then dinner with Meg & JD in Brooklyn. It was a whirlwind tour and we were glad to get home at the end, but its nice every once in a while to get to see all those old friends that I only get to talk with by phone and email these days.  After the airplane ride home we swore we would not fly again for a very long time, but alas we are taking our longest flight ever with kids in just 2 months... the things we do for fun. 

The crew in Cape Cod (minus Dan): Katie's mom Sally, Christina, Helen, Nicky, Brian, Katie, Caleb, Amelie, Owen, me, Mark, Logan, and Juneau.

Katie, Christina, & Helen on the beach.  Logan thought every shell was a treasure that Mom should carry for him.  We did find two starfish and a nice conch shell.

Christina & Helen

Amelie building sand castles at the beach next to the house.  She wasn't so sure about the sand-- she's her daddy's mountain girl.  That, and I figured out later, little sand flies were biting her.

Bike ride on the Cape Cod National Seashore

They were pretty content in the bike trailer.  The highlight was going through the tunnels and making train noises.

Dee & Logan at the beach.  Logan loved the game where you wait for the waves to come in and then run from them.  Except he was more inclined to run into them, and tried to drag Dee along with him.

Running into the waves

Nantucket beach

Joe, Logan, Me, Amelie, and Dee at the ferry

First Mate LoLo and Captain Andrew

Learning to thread the lure

Logan's big catch!

Andrew's big catch

Logan & Uncle Andrew

Miss Amelie watching the action from the shore

Amelie at the swimming pond

Picnic in Central Park. Amelie and Molly are about the same age, and found their shoes/feet quite tasty.

The best picture I managed... Nicole, Eileen, Logan, Serena, Molly, Amelie.  Logan's new thing is to kick his foot up and say "Ka-chow!" for pictures, so I get a lot of pictures of the bottom of his foot.

Amelie & Meg in Brooklyn

Logan- 3 1/2

At 3 1/2, Logan is very affectionate and cuddly-- he tells me he loves me at least ten times a day. He loves his sister, and is very nice to her.  He talks to her in a baby voice, pats her head. He says funny things like "That's a brilliant idea!", "I'm discouraged", and "of course" instead of yes.  He's quite a talker, except when it comes to me asking about his day.  If I ask him what he did today, all I get is "I don't know" or "I didn't watch TV all day" (which probably means he watched TV most of the day). He is a master negotiator when it comes to eating, picking up toys, and bedtime.  He goes to bed at 8pm but doesn't fall asleep until around 9 or 9:30, and the intervening hour is spent coming up with reasons to get out of bed.  "Mom I need water."  "Mom I need you to cover me with blankies." "Mom, I have a question." "Mom, can I just tell you something?" "Mom, we need to talk." "I just need a hug and a kiss."

He got potty trained three months after he turned three.  It seemed like an epic battle for those few months, and then one day he just decided to do it and it was done.  He loves to have races, and for a while he wanted everyone to be a winner.  Then Mark told him there could only be one winner, so then of course he wanted to be the winner and tell everyone else they were the loser.  Kenny taught him to say "Nice try" instead of "you're the loser!".  Good thing we have Kenny around, otherwise he might make a lot of enemies at preschool. He starts preschool next month.  I'm a little terrified.  He's been going to the same home daycare with just a few other kids his whole life.  He doesn't want to go to school. But I'm sure he'll do great. He's still shy, but these days he warms up in a few minutes instead of a few hours.

He loves trucks and planes and tools.  His favorite color is green. He can count to fourteen, and after that it goes awry.  "Thirteen, fourteen, sixteen, eleventeen..."He thinks that people that we fly to see-- like Grandma and Grandpa-- live in the sky. He's still figuring out time.  He thinks if he counts to ten, ten minutes have passed.  If he counts to 3, that means its 3pm and he can get up from his nap.  He doesn't really take a nap anymore, but we at least try to send him to his room for quiet time, mostly for our sanity.

He has a crush on a six year old girl named Alayna.  She's the daughter of a family friend-- her younger brother Jac is Logan's age.  We recently took them to the climbing gym together and Logan spent the whole time chasing Alayna around, wrestling with her on the crash pads, etc.  Alayna's mom reported that Logan asked Alayna to kiss him, but she would not because he was not her brother, so she gave him a hug instead.