Henry: 18 months

Last week, Henry turned eighteen months old. He is a walking, climbing, talking machine. Henry's long list of words include outside, up, down, baby, Mama, Daddy, Baba, no, night night, other one (which he uses to switch sides when nursing), choo choo, and apple. He also makes sounds for airplanes, cows, cats, ducks, horses, pigs, bunnies, and monkeys. He likes swimming, sitting outside, popsicles, pasta, books about animals, balloons, and drawing with markers. He does not like when his sister takes things from him.

In these pictures, Henry is sporting his first black eye, which he received after falling off of a picnic table.

Unfortunately, we might not be able to capture much more of Henry's sweet smile, as he has learned how to "smile" for the camera.

A real family vacation - New England

We are back from what I consider to be our first real traditional family vacation. There was a lot of driving with kids, a lot of outdoorsiness, and occassional napping. We even had a bout of 'rhea, which made it seem even more memorable.

Our first stop was to see friends in Newburyport, Mass., a small and very New Englandy town that has lots of boats, a real market square, many mom+pop stores, lots of Colonial-era buildings still in use, and lots of dropped R's.

Henry loved the boats. He called them 'choo choos.' Anything with a motor is a choo choo to Henry, except a bus, which is a 'DAAAAAH!'

Elizabeth genuinely loved using the laser pointer with/on our friends' kitties. Made me think we should get a cat, especially because we have noticed evidence of mice in almost all rooms of our house. I found one on Elizabeth's pillow once.

But, after breakfast, a walk around town, and a few minutes of choo-chooing at boats and frustrating cats, we were on our way to the North Woods of Maine. 

Heading North



Even Billy (babydoll) came along to identify choo-choos




Sisyphus the cat

 Here we are. Maine. It's impossible to overstate how much we loved having our own sandy beach on a no-wave pond. It was so shallow that it wasn't cold, even in early July. There were mussels to examine, fish to try to catch (to no avail), a beaver dam and a lazy river to explore, geese to chase (yes, we had our own wild goose chase), wild blueberries to pick, and smores to eat. There was nothing to iron, mow, or sign. There was no Internet. It was a week of quality time (remember that phrase?).

We went with another fearless family of five, the Lezama's. Here are Kate and Ricardo (mom and dad) crossing the lazy and extraordinarily mucky river. We had some super cute pictures of all five kids eating popsicles, but blogger apparently ate them.

Here is a smattering of photos from our trip.

Since the Lezama's had to leave a day early, we had Friday to ourselves to enjoy the pond.



Greek god pose. Henry is not impressed.



Asleep in a canoe. H skipped nap and was quiet from the get-go, only smiling when I asked if he was going night-night. He has since earned the title: Mr. Night-Night

On our way out of the woods we stopped by a somewhat sad wildlife park that included bears that you could feed by purchasing food pellets. We didn't have quarters, so we picked dropped pellets off the ground and threw them in. Henry subsequently wanted to feed all the animals, which led to him throwing stones at lots of wildlife.

He really is the smiliest baby

Hot town, summer in the city

We spent the first week of July at home, resting ... in anticipation of our upcoming (and fabulous!) trip to the backwoods of Maine. How backwoods? Well, it bordered on what is called the Unorganized Territory of Maine, which was surprising to me in two ways. First, I didn't know we had any unorganized territories. Second, why is this label needed? What purpose does it serve? If it is needed for some weird reason, why call it 'unorganized.' That seems particularly pejorative. I think 'unincorporated' would be fine. 

We also had visitors from Germany this week, who, unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures of. But they (second cousin once removed Dustin and his friend Sven) hope they enjoyed our 100-degree heat index. They're now enjoying the Wild West with second cousin Uwe.

Anyway, here we are at home during the very hot first week of July.

Henry has been trying on women's fashions ... like Kate's shoes

And like this beautiful sun hat

Our garden was picking up steam until we left it unattended during a hot and dry week

This was our best blueberry. Most were small and tart

These were picked to thin out the bunch; they're all different colors. The purple ones (not shown here) are my favorite

These are now red and in our kitchen (or bellies)

These peppers are now yellow and outside

future yum!

We have an ear now the size of E's foot

A good use of time on a hot day

Checking our gear for holes

Chef Boy Henry (pronounced on-REE)

Patriotic apparel

Dancing at the park to an oldies band

NYC's Fourth of July fireworks as seen from Bay Ridge