Fashion trends

Having watched a bunch of Project Runway shows recently, Aaron and I are choosing to call Abraham fashion forward. Here's a recap of the past few months and what Abraham has been wearing. Each trend tends to last for at least a week. Sometimes the trend can be broken by clothing items becoming dirty and not cycled in and out of the washer quickly enough, sometimes something better catches his eye and on the rare occasion, parental feet are put down. These outfits or items are also often accompanied by various pieces of "gear"--knee and elbow pads, a cape, gladiator helment, an eye patch, pink wings, a sword and on the rare occasion all of these. Footwear is a different issue completely. And that's for a later post.

1.) tiger printed tiger shirt (sleeves cut off to be "up sleeves"). The day I purchased a second of these shirts, it was suddenly no longer a must-wear. It still gets pulled out and worn on occasion though.
2.) "up shorts"--all shorts must come above the knee. We have a pair of blue OP's, a thrift store handmedown from cousin Finn. They don't make "up shorts" for boys in 2008 so I had to locate our back up pair from the girls section at H&M.
3.) Soccer uniform--black mesh shorts, high socks, shirt with #9 on it.
4.) Black tiger muscle tee. This was often worn with a large cowboy hat for some reason.
5.) 5 shirts. Didn't matter which 5-the layers of shirts were what was important. This nonsense had to be stopped on day 2 as it was just too hot. Who knows why he wanted to wear so many shirts but the first day he showed up at school with all the shirts on, his teacher said he looked like he had grown over the weekend.
6.) Overalls. Abraham became interested in these upon spying some that were too small for him in his closet. After trying to cram himself into the too small overalls over and over again, my friend Amanda came to the rescue with some handmedowns from her tall children. She's such a kind soul that she also purchased him a pair that actually fit him well. Those were instantly dismissed though for not being "up enough" and he religiously wore the skimpy ones for weeks.
7.) Batman. Abraham spied this very low brow outfit at our neighbors. It came from Toys R Us--a store I have fortunately never set foot in except to purchase this outfit. This ensemble includes a shirt, shorts and a cape that velcros on. This is my least favorite of Abraham's looks as the costume is really polyester sleepwear and is , of course, treated with a toxic flame retardant. I sure hope this one is out of rotation soon.

My Children Live Secret Lives

We have been fortunate enough to be part of a nanny share since Abraham was 11 months old. Angella watches one of our kids plus another twice a week. Her strategy is to stay away from home as much as possible so even in the winter months they leave J.P. by train at 9 AM and often don't make it home again until 5:30. They sleep and eat on the go. They meet Ave, another nanny and Caroline, the little girl she looks after and together they go to museums, parks, ride boats and more. Abraham has become set in his ways with Angella. On the days he goes with her, he insists that she bring Jamaican rice and peas for lunch. He's also become good at extracting several sugar-based snacks out of her. He has further manipulated the situation to where he doesn't nap at all while out with Angella--except that sometimes he passes out on the way home on the T around 4:30 or 5. This means our child is delivered sugared out and ready for a late night at home. But for the most part, this arrangement has worked well. Angella seamlessly took Angelo into the mix this Winter and now watches him two times a week. Abraham goes to school and therefore only goes with Angella when school is out.

I know little of what goes on on Angella days. I trust her implicitly and therefore request little detail of their daily activities. When I received a disc of photographs Angella had taken, I did get a little window into the secret lives of my children.

Not sure where this picture is taken. But I do know that Caroline is the little girl in the photo with Abraham.


Again, I haven't a clue where Abe is or what he's doing here.


No idea where this is or who is playing with Angelo here. He looks like he's keeping himself pretty busy, though.


Angelo and unknown playmate-apparent a Boston Childrens Museum employee.

Abraham graduates from his first year of preschool

At Hollow Reed, the hippy preschool Abraham attends, they have an end of the year "awards" ceremony. All the kids pile on one side of the room and the parents on the other. Each teacher introduces the kids in her class one by one and gives them a homemade award as well as says a few words about each kid. Abraham's teacher is really a wonderful and patient person but not the most articulate. Still, she seemed genuinely attached to each kid as she spoke about them. Though it was hard to hear over the noise--not the least of which was the parents talking amongst themselves--Teacher Robin described Abraham as well as the other kids in the class as "lover of nature" and "a creative soul" but the unique descriptions my son received were "good sense of humor" and "independent." I suppose those are good traits...that he inherited from his mother.

The rest of the ceremony was cute but I had guilted Aaron into coming and he spent the whole time chasing Angelo around the classrooms while Abraham sat on my lap in the hot room continuously asking if we could go and buy his shoes yet.(I had promised him a trip to Foot Locker for some black chuck taylors as the ones I had ordered on the internet the day before did not fit and were a huge disappointment.) I have to remember not to order shoes on the internet for him again.

Angelo is trying to communicate

I am feeling somewhat amiss in that I am not teaching Angelo sign language. We do a couple of signs--more, I love you (something we made up with Abraham and that he still does every night before bed and when we drop him off at school), the standard wheels on the bus hand motion, and a couple more. He seems to really want to communicate with his hands and his eyes light up when he does a sign and he sees us react. Of course, he's trying desperately to talk too. Most animals are placed in two categories: dog and duck. It actually kind of makes sense to me. Last week he was working on saying "walk" and "truck" and the "guh" sounds. He will also imitate many sounds we make. Mostly though, he says "yay, yay, yay!" while crawling naked up the steps.

Here Angelo has something important to say to a carrot.

Dangerous games

Each kid is into things that could get them hurt without close adult supervision.

Angelo likes to empty the dishwasher and then climb on top of it...


And big brother....

A dropped cupcake at a fun block party

It was sad but all turned out alright. After Aaron's attempts to revive the dropped cupcake, Abraham received a new one.

Father and son

Brothers: An attempt to get a good picture of the two of them

I am always amazed at how much these two seem to like each other. They're new routine is to crawl up the steps naked after their bath and then roll around the room diving into pillows on the bed and generally getting crazy right before bed. I am not sure which one loves this more. They both crack up the entire time. Of course, this doesn't help at all at getting them to bed at a normal time. Our neighbor who has kids 6 and 8 said they whole street was jealous of Abraham and his late bedtime. I don't really know how the whole street would when Abraham goes to bed...except that I guess the houses are closer together than we realized. Whoops.

First Sprinkler Park Action of the Summer

I know we are going to get so sick of the place come August but it was pretty exciting to hit the Green Street Sprinkler park for the first time this summer. Of course, Abraham still does not like the water and spends his time acting like he's running through the sprinklers the whole time shouting, "I'm getting wet!" Angelo crawled right into the freezing cold water and seemed to enjoy himself even though he was wearing a pink Dora swim diaper.

There weren't any kids playing basketball in the courts so it was a perfect place for Abraham to practice his skootering and for Angelo to chase a ball around.