New (temporary) pets!

Our butterfly Garden

Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui)

The 5 caterpillars arrived Sunday 7/7/12

Here they are crawling around, putting their silk on the walls so it was easier to climb and eating their peanut butter-like stuff from the bottom of the jar

You can see the other 4 still in their cocoon as this one emerged 

to become the first butterfly in our garden Monday (7/16/12) morning

This morning (7/18/12) the last one to get into his/her cocoon finally joined the rest

You can see we put an orange and flowers at the bottom and balled up pieces of paper towel all soaked in sugar water.  I think the last to hatch is hyperactive because there is one (I never noticed before) who is just itching to get out every time I feed them.  We will let them go in about a week and a half, into our community garden (pictures to come!).  One butterfly has a bent wing and another one seems to keep "chasing" the others. . . maybe a male?  Mia and Gavin (and, well, Gogo too) really like watching them--the latter 2 try to swat at them too!

Mia is 3 and A HALF years old

Half way between 3 and 4 

full of love and a dash (or two) of sass

Mia, let me tell you a story of one evening when I was helping my mom in the kitchen.  Well perhaps that is my recollection, I am not sure your Bubbe would call it helping.  We were getting into one of our unfortunately typical tiffs about who-knows-what.  I'm sure I was being a smarty pants and driving her bonkers.  Well anyway, she looked me right into the eyes and said the following, "I hope that when you grow up you have a daughter juuuuuuuuuuuuuust like you".  She was smiling in that mom-knows-all smiles, which drove ME bonkers.  And I replied, "I hope so too because I am great".  Well let me tell you something.  The apple did not fall far from the tree.  You already assert yourself beyond your years and you are not even a quarter of the age I was in that altercation I had with my mom.  Regardless, you love me with every ounce of your willfull cute self and every contradiction you make ("I want to do it on my own (next breath) no yooooou put on my shirt for me mommy").  I know these phases are the seeds, which will blossom you into independence and every child tests her parents boundaries.  You remind me to strive for patience, pick my battles, see the hilarity in a situation regardless of our shared reactive frustration.  I want to be a better person so you will have not only a better mommy but a better role model to grow towards.  I love you and, fortunately, there is nothing you can ever do to change that fact.

Proud Mia, an expert blueberry picker in Chestertown, MD 

Preschool

The move to Highlands, NJ seemed okay for Mia but the daycare we chose for them (First Steps Preschool) was no where as laid back as St. Mary's Nursery School in Philly. In fact, I'm not sure anywhere is.  At first Steps, Ms. Janina is Mia's teacher and she even has a little teacher's desk in the room.  Mia is in the 4-5 yr old room because she can write her name, identify and sound out her letters, knows colors and numbers etc.  Maybe this was a bad plan though because the stress of moving seemed to make Mia have a few more accidents than usual and this was quite embarrassing for her in a room of older kids. Unlike SMNS where you can eat whenever, join or not join activities and there is no nap time or unless kids want/need it, First Steps is very school-like.  There are times when you play and times when you sing and times when you do art and times when you go outside.    We wish there was a more reasonably-priced less structured, open-minded school but the schools like that are close to $1K/mo!  Mia says she likes it though and reports that Isabella is her closest friend. Regardless, we don't hate it there (or we wouldn't send her) and Mia is doing great tracing lines (see below) and she is excellent at cutting out shapes too (the bucket and shovel seen below were cut out by her).

 

Lessons

Along these lines, Mia was always asking for gymnastics lessons but we couldn't afford it so she was psyched when we signed her up.  We also wanted her to take swimming lessons (for safety reasons) for 5 weeks, which she was also excited about given her love of water.  But neither of these turned out the way we had hoped.  The gymnastics class we had to sign her up for was later at night (5:55-6:40pm) because the other times interfered with daycare or swimming.  Since Mia no longer naps during the day (likely because the daycare has them go down too early:  12:30pm) she fell asleep in the car on the way to gymnastics and was an emotional wreck when we got there and woke her up.  The swimming didn't work out because they were too aggressive (dropping the kids in the water on the 2nd day) and betrayed her trust (tricking her into the water).  I am glad we stopped those lessons.  Maybe we'll try something when she is 4 yrs old (like an art class) but for now we are happy to have more time for unstructured family play.  

Creativity

Mia takes after her father by continuing to love to paint (we just did tonight at her request) and by enjoying building with legos and other fine motor skills.  However, her creativity extends far beyond the paper.  Mia recently tried to convince us to give her ice cream by telling us, "my teeth are warm, do you think you can give me something to help them".  Catching on Dave said, "a cold carrot" and Mia, looking pensively, replied, "no, something more like a treat".  We know she knew just what she had in mind.  Boy, such creativity almost deserves an ice cream!  On the day we went to Highlands, NJ to sign our lease with Arnie we arrived and Mia had to pee really bad from the 2 hr road trip.  After returning from the bathroom (probably a bit dehydrated) Mia said, "pee pee is yellow like the morning sun".  This encapsulates perfectly some of the reasons I wanted to have children.  What a fresh perspective, fresh like a dose of newly excreted urine.  

OK for those of you who skip to the pictures here are some odds and ends we've taken of Mia in the recent months:

"Nudie" fun in the community garden with bubbles

Not all moments are Kodak moments

Nothing quite like watermelon on a hot day after a rainstorm

Window love for daddy

Playing in the kitchen with your kitchen (and brother)

imaginative play is still high on your list of loves

A visit to The Lipchocks in Chestertown, MD

Best buddies picking up as if they never left off (we are now 3-4 hrs away vs 3-4 mins)

Mia's first non-cousin sleepover  

They are giddy with excitement after we tell them they are going to sleep in the same room.

Trip to the farmers market Saturday morning:

 

Just hanging outside at Simon's new playground/swing set

(Not pictured:  a balance bike ride around the block)

An amazing dinner (Mexican lasana) Saturday night

Board games Sunday morning in PJs

Blueberry picking later on Sunday once we finally got out the door 

(it isn't easy to get a 3 month old, 14 month old and two 3 year olds out the door)

Mia

Gavin

Peek-a-boo 

 Although not the best photo, I love how this one captures how truly stifling the heat was but yet how proud these kiddos were of their berries.  We left for NJ after this, eating our share of berries on the drive home.  

Gavin's first ice cream cone. . . all on his own!

Now here is where Mia and Gavin differ quite a bit:  Mia was somewhat of a serious baby and although she didn't mind others, she typically didn't go out of her way to gain their attention.  Gavin on the other hand is a big goof.  He is always smiling and saying "hiiiii" to others and being super social.  When Mia had her first ice cream, she was all smiles.  Not so for Mr. Man here.  He was as serious as can be with that first ice cream cone.  There was a job to do and he was going to do it (and faster than me I might add, yes- he finished his ice cream before I did!).

Hmmm, what is this delectable-looking cold thing, which the parental units have placed in my hands?

They all seem to be holding one as well. 

Let me take another sample of its yummy goodness.

I'm not sure why Daddy keeps saying he has to clean it up, to me it seems he is eating my yummy cone-of-goodness.  Tricky guy!

Apologies Maxwell Coffee, but THIS is the epitome of "Good to the last drop" (Dave called this his breathing mask technique of eating the cone)

He enjoyed holding the cone there "no hands" style.  He has been known to do this with corn on the cob too, which is always hilarious.

Here's a shot of the whole family (minus the camera-mom): 

 Gavin = vanilla, Hazels = chocolate, Mom = twist

 *Although this occurred on the fourth of July, there were too many pictures I liked to try to embed this within all the amusement park pictures.

Fourth of July 2012

I got off of work early July 3rd so we had a Fourth of July cookout a little early.

Veggie burgers, veggie kabobs and corn on the cob

No summer evening would be complete without the porch swing, which we missed in Philly with no where to hang it, though Mia used to use it in Binghamton and does occasionally here too (50 lb limit!).

Dinner Deck

On the actual Fourth of July, we ate dinner early and headed to the Keansburg amusement park where they were to have fireworks at 9:30pm.  Mia we weren't worried about staying awake but Gavin we expected would be sleeping.  Sleep, he did not- he soaked up every minute of the evening.

(not bad eh?)

at around 40" (3.25'), Mia was able to go on several rides though not all.  You had to be at least 32" to ride, since Gavin doesn't walk yet, we didn't even bother measuring him against the board and we were nervous he'd just lean over when he was done and his heavy head would send him toppling. So he mainly watched but thoroughly enjoyed his first ice cream cone (in another post).

                                 

Mia rode several rides on her own (Forklift seen here)

                                 

(Train)

But she also wanted to go on a few with daddy and mommy

                                                 

Log Flume

                                     

Hot air balloon Ferris wheel

                                      

Then she surprised us and went on a couple that seemed rather scary to us for her:

                                      

This froggy ride took her all the way to the top and instead of dropping straight down like in the grown-up version it made little jump/drops all the way down

This one was called the Happy Swing and literally made motions like a playground swing: up and back.

But the scariest by far (in Mia's opinion) was the Himalayas.  My BFF, Vicki, and I used to love going on them in Santa's Enchanted Forest (check this out when you're in Miami- Meg:  http://www.santasenchantedforest.com/) First it went forward (very fast) and then backward (just as fast)!

Here are Mia and Gavin monkeying around:     

                                                                   

   At around 9pm we were all hungry again since we had had an early dinner.  So we got a couple slices of pizza and then headed to the beach to wait for the fireworks. 

Given that they were 15 mins late the kids were restless but sand play helped.  Despite all the fatigue and loud noises Mia loved the display and Gavin was just a riot:  pointing, saying "ooooh" and "iiiiiight" (his word for light) and signing "more" and just having the hugest grin.  I couldn't decide which was more rewarding to watch him or the fireworks (and I REALLY love fireworks).  But after seeing Vicki's video clip of the fireworks finale' in Boston I have decided that next year we are going to celebrate 7/4 over there if at all possible.