Fall 2016 Highlights

We've been busy moving and settling into our new place, but we managed to make time for rest and relaxation and fun as well! Here are some highlights of the past two months.

School started for Marcus on the Thursday after Labor Day. He's in the third grade with Mr. Amara and is doing great in school.

Meanwhile, Samantha had an exciting kindergarten orientation day, where she got to meet her teachers, hear a story and do an art project on the rainbow rug, and check out the playground that her classroom opens onto.

Then Samantha started kindergarten (K1) the following Monday. She has Ms. Hogan as her classroom teacher, and she is in the Mozart orchestra before school, playing the cello. She loves all the specials--dance, art, music--and orchestra is her favorite part of the day. Last week on Friday Ms. Hogan led the class in singing "If you're happy and love Fridays shout 'Hurray!'" and Samantha raised her hand and said she doesn't love Fridays because she loves school so much she's sad for it to be the weekend.

Samantha got to take the schoolbus home with Marcus for two days before we moved, and now Robert brings her and Marcus into school by subway and I bring them home. She's become an expert Starbucks orderer if they're running early in the mornings.

On the first day of school, she had her normal breakfast at home but was enchanted to realize that the school breakfast was a bagel and cream cheese, with milk.

 

We've gone to quite a few festivals and outings this fall, too.

Honkfest, watching the abbreviated parade in the rain near Porter Square--the kids still got hot dogs from one float, and I cheerfully yelled "SHE WAS A VBAC!" at a group of midwives, pointing at Helen.

The North Cambridge Ribfest--Samantha got a cool balloon turtle, and this year we came armed with containers to bring extra ribs home (lunchbox-style containers with multiple compartments worked nicely).

On the same day, I took Samantha to the Boston Book Festival in Copley (hi, Pete the Cat!) and Robert took Marcus to a Harry Potter event at a historic house in Dudley Square.

Apple-picking--the day started with a fall festival and bbq at Verrill Farms, where the kids, with Sean and Robert, participated in a speed corn-shucking contest, and then it ended with supper at Basho Express, Marcus's favorite.

Gender identity workshop with Wee the People, a social justice and activism organization for kids--they had a play, then activities divided by age groups about "popping stereotypes" (Marcus loved getting to pop the balloons), then a storyhour, with snacks.

Of course, there was also the Big E, another two-day extravaganza!

 

Meanwhile, Helen is seven months old. She got her two bottom teeth almost the day she turned six months, and a top tooth poked through just a few days ago now. She's .67 meters tall (I love that that's how the doctor's office reports it) and weighs over 16 and a half pounds. She babbles a lot, "dadadada" and "babababa," and she can pull herself up to standing. She's looked like she was about to crawl for over a month now, but standing is just much more fun, so she spends a bit of time rocking back and forth in the crawl position and then shifts to pulling herself up.

She's had a good amount of socialization, even though we skipped apple-picking and the Big E due to her intense love (not) of cars: we've been hanging out with baby Lydia, who was born the same day at Helen; we had a visit from baby Freeman from the Cape; and on Fridays I bring her to Mama and Me for a group with six other babies right around her age (and a Wellesley, Simmons, and a Bryn Mawr mama, actually).

Helen has started eating table foods, with congee and miso soup among her first tastes, and meat and broccoli and the squash and spinach from a handpie at Ula's bakery among her favorites. Really, she eats everything, though (napkins too...) and is a delight to watch feed herself.

 

Meanwhile, Samantha learned to ride a pedal bike with no training wheels (though she still needs practice braking), and we've spent a lot of time together enjoying some of the last bits of good weather before the winter.

 

Yesterday, on Election Day, we took the kids to vote bright and early right on our corner. The line stretched down our block almost to our house. There was an excited feeling in the air, and everyone felt that this would be a historic day. The kids were wearing their "A woman's place is in the House, the Senate, and the Oval Office" tee shirts. At night when I kissed the kids goodnight I told them they'd wake up to find the first woman president had been elected. Obviously, that's not what happened, but I think Marcus for sure, and even Samantha, will remember this day for a long time.

 

Obligatory peaceful sleeping baby shots to conclude the page:

 

 

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Created: 11/6/16. Last Modified: 11/6/16.