lately: enjoying the fall

I've been doing my best to enjoy all the fall weather we're having right now. This means especially on Saturdays, when I make Sam and Oliver go out and find fun fall things to do around town like I mentioned before. During the week, we do some fun things on our own (we took a little hike in the woods today!) and if I didn't hate the idea of a "fall bucket list", that would be what I'd call it. I love fall. I love the leaves, the cold weather, the sweaters and scarves and boots, getting blankets back out, drinking hot chocolate, looking forward to all the holidays to come. I want to let Oliver enjoy it all, too, so I'm trying hard to look for the fun in every season (but especially fall). 

We've been enjoying watching the leaves turn and walking in the crunchy leaves that have already fallen. It's a new neighborhood for us, and we're still learning our favorite walks, and the best places to visit for beautiful views. I miss our old town, sometimes, and the ease of walking around with lots of sidewalks, playgrounds, and old streets. 

The leaves are just beginning to turn. It's not quite peak leaf season, I think, but it will probably be here in a week or two. Some days it still gets too warm for sweaters and scarves, although the mornings are almost always delicious chilly. Even I can mostly enjoy that midday sun, though, and how easy is is to play outside right now. No heavy coats or snow getting in our way. 

So our rainy Saturday excursion. My mom had driven up for a few errands and asked if Oliver and I wanted to come along. It was a good excuse to get out the house on a rainy day, when we were a little bored and looking for something to do. Oliver go to wear his raincoat for the first time, and put those boots from last spring to good use again. It was pretty empty, probably due to the drizzly rain, so it was fun for Oliver to run and splash, and fun for me not to care. 

 

Maine

Right now, I'm spending a week in Maine with my family, while Sam is working. It's sneaky of me, getting an extra holiday in after we already had one. We took our first family holiday back in late June, the three of us, for the first time, spurred on by my friend's wedding in Scotland. So now Sam is working, Oliver and I are spending time with my parents and siblings, and hoping that Maine is a bit cooler than Boston.

It has been so hot this last week that everything just feels like too much effort. You get hot and sweaty just stepping outside. The only escape is swimming, something that luckily Oliver has decided to love, as long as it isn't in an indoor pool. We've had so much fun visiting our local lake and playing in the water and sand. If tomorrow is hot, we're off to the beach, and I'm excited to show Oliver the Atlantic ocean again. I think he might be a bit more interested in it now.

We're renting this strange little house in the middle of the woods. It is pretty cool; tiny, but full of interesting arts-and-crafts details. My room leads on to the back porch that looks out into the woods and then off to the ocean. It's gorgeous. There's a fire pit outside and lots of sticks and room to run. Perfect for Oliver.

This afternoon we visited a local fair, and Oliver was in heaven. There were horses and sheep and cows and trucks and tractors. All his favorite things in one spot. We watched several hitching competitions, where people drive their horses hitched up in various ways (unicorn and four horses and other things) and he loved it. I grew up riding horses and I miss it. It made me want to start again. We even watched what they called the Redneck Truck Pull, which is when people have their trucks pull heavy things, or something. It got a bit boring, especially when the first competitor we saw was unable to hitch their truck up to the weights, and then kept failing to put the truck into four-wheel drive.

Back at the house, we've had delicious food, and lots of time for reading. I just started the Sea Lady by Margaret Drabble. I always find time to read, but it's even easier here, with Oliver surrounded by people who love nothing more than getting a chance to take him to look at the water, or play with his trains. The porch wraps around the house, and it's long and perfect for a toddler to run down, especially after three hours in the car. There's an outdoor fireplace on it, perfect for fires when it gets just slightly chilly at night (like it did last night; so far, tonight doesn't seem so cold, sadly). We're surrounded by trees and quiet and nature.

upcoming

We've never had a real family vacation, just the three of us. In fact, Sam and I have never had a vacation just the two of us (except right after we got married, I guess). But next week we're actually doing our first real, proper, actual vacation and going back to the UK for two weeks. My friend from uni is getting married in Scotland, so we'll be visiting Scotland (for the very first time for Sam and Oliver).

Lately we've enjoying the summery weather, especially the days that aren't too hot, making lists of things to do and see while we're away, and what we need to bring, and wondering how we're going to survive a 7 hour flight with a not-quite-two-year-old. What are the chances that he sleeps through the whole thing? (Slim to none, I'd say.)

Summer in Massachusetts means lots of bug spray and sunscreen, fans on all day and shorts and t-shirts and trying to make Oliver keep his hat on. We love going to our local pond and playing in the sand, though we haven't gone into the water that many times, so far.

 We love our peonies and teaching Oliver to smell the flowers, and visiting Grandma and Grandpa so that Oliver can ride his tricycle. His legs don't quite reach, so dad has to push him if he's ever going to go anyway. See below, also entitled, the benefits to a house on a dead-end street.

 
We love our sandbox and swings and Oliver would be happiest if we could spend all day, every day outside, regardless of the weather. It turns out that weather in Massachusetts can be a bit crap. I kept saying it would be hard winter, spending so much time inside, but it turns out that it's only early June, and I keep saying, "it's too hot to play outside". But we do it anyway, and then complain. (At least, I do.) The most important part is keeping out of the sun in the middle of the day, but that lines up nicely with Oliver's nap.

Most evenings, when Sam gets home from work, we walk to the park and play. Oliver has learned to love it all, even the slide, which he used to be a little unsure of. If one of us goes down with him, though, he's overjoyed. Sometimes he'll even do it alone.

He loves to have us walk to the park in his wagon. It's the wagon my siblings and I had growing up, and my dad fixed it up so that now we can use it with Oliver. It's so much fun, except sometimes he gets too excited to stay sitting down. He's in a major toddler vehicle craze right now, so he loves waving to trucks and cars and buses that go past. He runs to the window to look whenever we're inside and he hears a particularly loud one. I'm so excited to take him on a plane (for a little bit, at least), and see how he likes it. Plus the long train rides we have planned. Yeah, I'm sure it's all going to go so smoothly.

He's just so happy and sweet, still. He's still stubborn and bossy, and knows what he wants, but lately he's been so much fun. He's eating all kinds of new things, sleeping better, and having so much fun playing with his trains, stuffed fox, books, trucks, and all the things outside. I love the age he's at right now.

end of summer

I know that the end of August isn't actually the end of summer, but it feels like it.  This week wasn't nearly as fun as our visit to Cape Cod, and mostly it was a little sad, as we said goodbye to my sister and realized that August is somehow already almost over.  I swear it just started.

On Monday, I went with my brother and sister into Boston to meet up with my aunt and cousins and have dim sum.  It was delicious, of course, and we had a lot of fun, even when a waitress stopped and scolded me for letting Oliver chew on a chop stick.  She kept miming him stabbing himself in the throat, and I guess a chopstick does look scary in his tiny hands, but he chews on long things all the time and is fine, so I usually let it go.  He ate a tiny bit there, like some shrimp and dumpling wrappers and a mushroom, but mostly just liked looking around at the crowd and noise.  Afterwards we had to wait forever for the T, and Oliver started to get a little impatient, but mostly he was so well-behaved and loved riding on the train.

On Tuesday, we had a quiet day and only left the house to go the library, one of Oliver's favorite places to visit.  He doesn't sit through many books, but he loves turning the pages and playing with the book on his own, so maybe we will get there eventually.  He also loves standing on the little window seats in the children's section and walking around and watching the children play.  The library has been really busy all summer; he loves that there are always kid on the playground outside, too, to watch while he swings.  Wednesday was my sister's last day, so we had Indian food and I tried to help her pack.  She hates packing.  I did my best to show her how Oliver can take steps on his own, because she hadn't seen it before, and we spent a long time playing on the floor with him and watching him teeter around.

On Thursday, I took Oliver on a 2,5 hour walk, because he fell asleep in the stroller and I wanted to let the nap continue.  On Friday, Oliver and I visited my aunt in the hospital, where we were able to go on a long walk and then sit and watch Oliver push his stroller around.  He was thrilled with that.  He also got lots of attention from patients and doctors alike, so he was happy.

On Saturday, we had dinner with friends in the evening and enjoyed talking about books and cultural differences and religion and learned about our friend's favorite writer, Ghassan Kanafani.  Today we had a quiet day, made cookies and visited Sam's parents for dinner.  Even though this summer has been really fun, I am not a hot weather person, and I'm really excited for cold days and fall walks and bright leaves.  I mean, isn't autumn just indisputably the best season?

cape cod

Summer is drawing to a close.  My sister goes back to university soon, and my brother will follow a few weeks after her.  Then the days will get shorter and colder (hooray) and all this summertime stuff will just seem so far away.  I spent the week in the cape with my family, while Sam worked and visited his parents (since his dad just had surgery).  We missed him, but it was really fun to spend lots of time with my parents and siblings (and aunts and cousins, who came up for a day).  We visited the beach countless times, Oliver took his first wobbly steps one afternoon (not yet repeated), and nobody got sunburned.

Right now I'm listening to Sam play with Oliver in his crib and Oliver is giggling hysterically, the way he does when he is with his favorite people and they are giving him their full attention.  And so, the highlights of the last week:

- Taking Oliver to the beach and watching him play in the sand, stare at the waves, and laugh when we went swimming (in the warmer water on the bay side - he hated the freezing cold ocean at Nauset Beach).  

- Playing with cousins who adore Oliver when they came to visit on Thursday.  Oliver doesn't have any first cousins yet, but my little cousins love him and are so excited to play with him.  They are really sweet and spent the day trying to do everything for him, from holding his hands and helping him walk around to pushing his stroller as we walked to and from the beach.  Just another example of how lucky Oliver is, with so many people who dote on him

- Going to an arcade on Tuesday when we visited Hyannis.  It was really hot, we were sweaty and walking around was sort of tiring in the humid, damp weather, so we stopped briefly at this sort of depressing arcade to revisit our glory days of play ski ball.  I was still the best, Oliver watched in fascination, and we gave all the tickets we won away to a little boy who didn't seem to have very many.  

- Watching sunsets at various beaches almost every night.  Poor Oliver almost never got put to bed on time, because we'd go to the beach around 6, when you didn't have to pay for parking anymore, and then end up staying for several hours.  But the sky!  It was glorious.  One night we bought things like fish and chips and ate sitting on the soft sand, listening to the waves crash, watching the seals out in the water, and eventually ending up jumping in the waves ourselves.

- Visiting Provincetown, seeing the sights, eating dumplings on the beach as the sun set.

Our last night there we visited Marconi beach, played in the sand, looked for rocks and once again marveled at all the seals.  They were everywhere in the water, playing in the waves and peering out at us while we watched them.  We all agreed that something about their faces seemed friendly and dog like, until you see them on land and realize how huge they really are.  On Saturday, we drove him, bemoaning the crazy traffic (one downside to the cape) and making a quick stop at IKEA for meatballs and a few small things.  Who can resist the joys of IKEA?  It was the perfect end to a holiday week. 

philadelphia

Since moving back, we've been surrounded by family.  It's a little surreal, actually, and sometimes it makes us want to put another ocean in between us again (just kidding).  Both of our families live within 30 minutes of us and Oliver gets to see his grandparents as often as they like.  So of course this was the summer for a family reunion in Philadelphia, because have do we see family enough?  Apparently not.  Maybe next summer there will be a reunion with Sam's family, but this time it was for my mother's mother's side of the family.  Going back several generations, in fact, with all sorts of strange offshoots and stranger relatives.  We stayed right in the center of the city, in order to be close to my grandmother's cousin who was hosting (I think I got the relationship right), and drove five hours each way with a 10 month old.  Crazy!  But Oliver was actually great on the car rides.  The only miserable part was trying to get him to sleep in the hotel room, but enough time has passed that I can now declare it a successful trip.  (But I was almost in tears one morning, hiding in a pitch dark hotel room as he sobbed for an hour and a half before napping for a measly thirty minutes. Why, why, why, Oliver, why?)

After that, I realized why people hate traveling with babies, and decided to throw his schedule out the window.  Which is a pretty big deal for me, because right now I might be just a tiny bit obsessed with his schedule.  Instead, I put him in his stroller, grabbed everything we needed for the day, lathered him in plenty of sunscreen (it was hot) and we spent the day exploring the city.  He did eventually take a second nap, in his stroller, so we're calling schedule-ignoring a success.  Oliver was also charming and happy all day, which was a relief, because a miserable baby means a miserable trip.

My grandmother's cousin lives in a gorgeous house in downtown Philadelphia.  It had this rooftop garden that was unreal.  There were gorgeous views, plants everywhere, and it made city living look incredibly appealing.  We spent the day visiting Reading Terminal Market and Independence Hall and viewing historical sites like the Liberty Bell and Constitutional Hall.  Saturday morning I woke up early with Oliver and went on a long walk around Rittenhouse Square; he loved seeing all the people out walking their dogs and enjoying the slightly cooler morning weather, and sat as upright as he could, staring out at the city.

We took a quick, free tour of the historical places on Sunday afternoon, and Oliver (who hadn't had a morning nap) was remarkably good.  We took turns letting him walk around and giving him random things (like our map) to play with, and at one point I found a quiet corner to nurse him in.

Our last morning there we had a little swim in the hotel pool, which Oliver took a few minutes to warm up to.  Once I started letting him float (holding him up just a little) he started to love it, and was giggling a lot.  The drive home was great, with Oliver sleeping for almost 3 hours.  When he woke up, we were somewhere in Connecticut, so we stopped at a diner for lunch and to give Oliver a short break from his car seat.  So life lessons from this trip?  It's OK to let go of his schedule from time to time, and all the uncertainties of traveling with a baby are usually worth it.

mother's day

Oh, what?  It's almost Father's Day?  Oops.  But mother's day was really fun, so let's just pretend it wasn't like a month ago.  And by 'really fun' I mean, it was just a normal day, pretty much.  Sam played with Oliver when he woke up at 7 so I got to sleep in, and then after church my sister took some family pictures of us.  Basically our first!  Sam and I tried to take one in the hospital after Oliver was born.  Just one, that's all I wanted, but that was definitely too much to ask.  Picture taking is always a stressful thing in our very non-photogenic family, but my sister did a great job, and we ended up with some pictures that I love.  I even got some printed out, so I'm counting it as a mother's day win.

May was hot and humid for us, so we took these pictures in my parent's backyard in the evening, and we hit a sweet spot while spring things were in bloom and it didn't look too much like a jungle outside (as it sort of does now).  Oliver was drooling on his overalls, I didn't really know what to wear, and I got annoyed with Sam at one point, but still, at least we have a family picture I like now.

Having a baby is definitely one of the best things I've ever done.  Oliver might be a sort of terrible sleeper sometimes, but other than that he the best baby in the world.  He is so cheerful and cute and eager to explore everything.  I love the way he grabs our hands and sets off in various directions, like nothing could be more thrilling than finally discovering what is hidden under the piano or behind that one armchair.  He isn't the cuddliest baby, so I love those rare moments when he puts his head down on my shoulder (sometimes just to give it an experimental suck, but I'll take it) or grabs my face in his hands and tries to eat my chin. I can't wait for all the years to come, and to see him turn even more into a little boy (but that's all, no getting TOO old, Oliver).

nyc

The best part about this week was that it ended with a trip to NYC on Friday to Saturday. We had delicious food and so much fun, despite the cold weather and the fact that a Saturday evening snowstorm meant it look us 6 hours to drive home instead of a little over 3.

It was a good week, though. Last weekend we had more snow (surprise) and so we were snowed in with Sam's parents. We played some games and enjoyed the snow from inside. We also had a fun little breakfast trip to a local diner one morning. We came home on Monday and my brother arrived that day, too, visiting on his week off from university in Toronto. He was suitably and gratifiyingly impressed by all our snow. It is really fun to see him with Oliver. We had a quiet week spending time with him. On Wednesday I went to my first ever yoga class and actually really enjoyed it. I felt all sore the next day but I think I'll go back because it makes a nice complement to all the running I do (or used to do and will hopefully start up again when the snow melts and the sidewalks are useable).

On Thursday, my aunt drove down from Vermont for a weekend visit. We got up early on Friday to drive down to NYC. Oliver was so well-behaved on the drive, so we only stopped once, at a fortuitously located IKEA in Conmecticut. I fed Oliver while everyone else looked around, and then we got $1 cinnamon buns just for fun. In NYC, we had a lot of fun. It was surreal to be somewhere with barely any snow, and I kept commenting on how easy it was to push the stroller along giant sidewalks totally devoid of snow. We had amazing Vietnamese food for lunch; I had a lemongrass pork banh mi that was absolutely perfect. Then we did lots of walking around in the freezing cold, eventually ending up on Wall St and then visiting the 9/11 memorial. It was sad and awful and real and pretty weird to leave and realize that 9/11 was so long ago (14 years!) and what a terrible thing it was. It was really late by then - around 9 - as we made our way back to my great-aunt's where we were staying, so we just stopped quickly at this awesome Japanese place for dinner. We shared a Kobe beef burger and two sushi rolls at this place that was sort of fast food/cafeteria esque, but delicious and beautiful. It reminded me a little of places I ate in London, especially this one Japanese place on Tottenham Court road, near UCL. We got some hot chocolate mix on the way home and then has that back at that apartment before going to bed.

On Saturday, we had breakfast at a bagel place near the apartment (on the Upper East Side) that were delicious and felt very New Yorky. It was a bit warmer so we took the subway down to Soho to walk around there. We ended up going to Union Square and visiting the farmer's market there, where we bought hot apple cider to drink. We wandered around and looked in some fun stores and eventually ended up in Chinatown. We were looking for a place to have dim sum, and ended up at a tiny restaurant that served amazing food (but not dim sum style). It was sort of starting to snow by then so wea made our way back to our car and then began the long, long six hour drive home on horrible roads. There were so many accidents on the way that it was really scary, and we stopped twice so I could feed Oliver, but we made it eventually. Then we had Indian food as my brother's last meal before be flew back to Toronto early this morning.