An excerpt from Abraham's new rap

I'm white.

Uh oh, I'm black.

There's no time

Drop your dime

on your face.

What they're into now

With the impending arrival of Halloween, we made our annual trek to Savers for a costume. This year, both boys wanted to be something scary. So here we have a preview of their new costumes while dancing to Outkast (also a new hobby).

There's some martial arts moves thrown in to boot.

Angelo's performance

We LoVermont!

We went to our annual camping trip in the Northeast Kingdom with Doug, Amy, Ashley, and Elliott. It was cold--down to 40 at night but the weather was dry, which is more than I can say for previous years. As always though, we had a nice time-campfires, horseshoes, eating and drinking.

We took a nice little kid friendly hike up Owls Head mountain and I went on the yearly run on the railroad bed, which besides being kind of pretty is ridiculously boring--just a straight road in the woods as far as the eye can see.

Here's Rickers pond. No adult swam due to the frigid temperatures.

Angelo does a little reading in the tent.

And climbing on the roof of the shelter.

And here's some trap making. You never know what you might need to catch out in the woods.

Grocery List

This morning I was telling Angelo he needed to remind Aaron to get some things at the store. He immediately asked to make a list and to my surprise, knows how to write many letters. List translation: Cat food, cat litter.

He further demonstrated his extreme intelligence by doing a move called "hands in boxers."

Touch a Truck

An event where a parking lot is filled with all kinds of trucks--moving trucks, fire trucks, tow trucks, etc. Kids are allowed to get in these vehicles, explore them, and to my dismay, even honk the horns. Abraham and Angelo were so excited to be there and spent a lot of time hanging out on the school bus (though Abe could do that 5 days a week if he really wanted to) and eating free ice cream from the ice cream truck at 10 AM. I learned that those fire truck/ambulance things have coffee makers in them (which we unfortunately couldn't use). Aaron had been gone the night before and we were out of coffee so I attended Touch a Truck having only had really old Foldgers that morning. As a result of the two events, I unsuccessfully feigned a good time because Abraham asked me twice if I had a good time and seemed skeptical when I mustered an "Oh sure!" After Touch a Truck, I dragged the children to Target and Depressing South Bay Plaza Stop n Shop to really top the day off right!

A Spring Performance

Here's the Spring Performance at Abraham's school--a showcase of what they have learned over the year. It was, of course, adorable. Apparently Abraham learned that even if he wore a nice looking shirt to school, he could remove it to reveal his paint yourself t-shirt underneath just in time for the performance.

The day's schedule

I stumbled upon this drawing of the day's activities--this was a Dad at home with two kids on a winter day. I believe and he was trying to psyche them both up to not ask to watch t.v. all day.

No more nursie

Seems kind of private to write about this here but it's so significant that I'm just going to do it. For 6 years straight, I've been either pregnant or lactating. And now I'm neither. Angelo refers to nursing as nursie-it's like a noun rather than a verb.

I just returned from a great solo trip to San Francisco for work and visiting. It just so happens that the trip coincides with Angelo turning 3, the age where we've decided you get no more nursie in our family. So Angelo and I have been talking about that--even though he's been in denial that he's two for about 5 months now always declaring, "but I'm 3 already!"--and I told him I was going to San Francisco and was going to leave nursie there. Who knows. This could mess him up later. Tonight at bedtime, Ange said, "Mom, next time when you go on a work trip to San Francisco, can you bring the nursie back with you because I really, really want it." Big brother Abraham was tired and trying to go to sleep but still managed to mumble some advice, "Ange you're big now so you don't nurse. It's going to be ok."

Tomorrow my baby turns three!

Religious Education?

Abraham has been asking me a lot about "God" lately. This thanks to a religious and verbal carpool mate. It first began as Abraham telling me "You know God makes the rain" and similar comments, which I ignored. It's not that I don't want to educate my kids about religion and it's not that I want them to feel the religious alienation I felt growing up as a Jewish Catholic in the South. It's just I was kind of hoping to not go there yet as I really didn't have my answers prepared.

Finally, I say to Abraham, "you know, not everyone believes in God. Some families do and some families don't. " Of course everything to a 5 year old is black and white and he doesn't grasp this. So asks me to tell his friend that "God isn't true." Not exactly the message I was going for.

Yesterday, in preparation for attending a Passover Seder I tried another angle. "You know how some songs can be the same song but sound different?" I could come up with no examples as this was a borrowed story from a friend who sings a lot more than I do. He pretended to go along with it. "Well, religion is kind of like that. Many people have different stories to explain things. "

Basically, we've had a lot of discussion and all Abraham has gleaned is that our family kind of sometimes believes in religion and sometimes kind of doesn't. God could be a man or a woman. He's going to emerge with an even murkier belief system than I have. Maybe the Easter Egg Hunt we're hosting this weekend will clear things up a bit.

Angelo's contribution to the discussion: "What's God?" To which both Abraham and I began to try and answer...

Family Dinner

Here's a strange photo taken by Abraham of a family dinner.

Back yard rink

Aaron and some dad friends built an ice skating rink in our back yard--after much internet research and many email exchanges. The back patio, which is almost completely enclosed and flat, was the perfect base for the plastic and wooden rink. They built the frame and then turned on the hose and hoped for the best. A couple of day of freezing cold weather and it worked! After three days, we had a back yard ice rink just in time for Abraham's 5th birthday. And we are some of the very few people who actually get excited when the temperature gets to the single digits.

Having ice so close to home does nothing to put the damper on Abraham (or Aaron's) obsession with hockey and skating but it is making some pretty darn good skaters out of both the kids. Angelo is permanently assigned to the position of goalie, a job he takes very seriously while Abraham mainly works on puck handling and taking shots. I get to skate in between "time periods" because that's when the figure skaters come on.

Here's the rink in action:

Important Discussion Among Brothers

Abraham: Ange, have you eaten cat food before?

Angelo: When I was a cat?

Abraham: No, when you were a baby.

Angelo: When I was a baby cat?

Poem composed by Angelo while sitting on the pot

Sleeping, dreaming.

Green flowers in my tummy.

Sleeping.

Learning about my school.

Reading about Max.

Learning about my house.

Christmas 2009

We had a Hanukah visit from Bubbe and Grandpop to kick off the season.



Angelo takes cookie making seriously:



We stayed here this year and spent a lot of time with friends. Aaron is perfecting his Cassoulet, which we first ate together in Toulouse and have been trying to recreate ever since. Our tradition is to spend about a week preparing Christmas Eve dinner and invite a couple of families over. This year there was an all night wooden rocket ship assembly that took place just after all the clean up from dinner. It almost broke up our marriage. Next year we won't drink so many dark and stormies until all toys are put together.

Christmas Day was spent hanging out at home while Aaron and I tried to sneak in naps. Then we went to see Fantastic Mr. Fox and out for Chinese Food.