February and March 2017

In the last month, Marcus finished up a round of Saturday gymnastics classes at my university's gym (he's an excellent tumbler, he got much better at the rings, and he learned to do a little leap on the balance beam, but he's still working on cartwheels).

Samantha continues piano lessons with Miss Alyssa where she's starting to read bass clef too and is playing hands together, as well as learning music theory and chord progressions.

Helen is almost walking and almost talking, generally very busy and very happy.

We went to the American Academy of the Sciences Family Science Days at Hynes one weekend, and a family playdate at the ICA another, and a rock-climbing birthday party at the Kroc Center for a school friend (Aria) still another.

 

During some of the spring-like days we had in February, we went to the park, and Samantha pushed Helen endlessly on the baby swings.

The kids are both doing well in school and orchestra and also love their once-a-week pottery afterschool class. During February school break, they came to the day camp at my university, with swimming lessons and ice skating and all sorts of other fun.

We also went to the MIT Museum, and, on a lovely warm February day, for a walk down Newbury Street for all you can eat sushi with Sarah and Sean, then Greek fried dough, then rose-shaped gelato (Helen's first ice cream--she was a fan).

Rie and Steve spent 48 hours in Boston on a whirlwind East Coast visit, and they came over for dinner one night to see our house and spend a little time with Marcus and Samantha.

At home, Samantha spends a lot of time drawing (this multi-scene composition shows a butterfly playing the harp, at center, and someone doing a headstand at right), and Helen loves playing with her toys.

On my spring break, I worked one day to get a bunch of things taken care of and other things planned, but then I took the rest of the week off to spend with my baby. We went to the MSPCA animal-baby playgroup, and another day we went to the Children's Museum so Helen could do the baby things (a music class by Little Groove, and the under-three-year-old room) without big kids getting in her hair.

Robert took a long lunch to meet us at the museum, then have lunch in Chinatown (Helen slept through the whole thing), then get happy hour bubble teas, then watch the 3-D printer in the park that's churning out red plastic roosters. Another day, with the kids, I went back and it was clearly in a sadder state, but I hear it's been fixed again since then.

Helen loves playing at Grandma and Pop-pop's house on the occasional day when her daycare is closed and I have a random meeting.

Another weekend, Robert took the big kids to an owl festival in Canton, where Marcus knew the answer to all of the questions they asked (apparently those Guardians of Ga'hoole books were full of actual owl information--who knew?).

We also went to the Children's Museum with the big kids one Sunday after church and then had lunch at Bon Me and walked back through Chinatown, with a stop in the playground.

 

Then, on a mid March snowday, the kids helped me dye a silk-blend wrap with food coloring, I baked bread in between stints shoveling outside, Samantha created lots of art with tape and watercolors and crayons (mixed media, of course), and we watched "The Last Unicorn" for the first time. (Marcus was sold!)

Robert was in San Diego for that storm, but when he came back there was still plenty of snow to deal with. The kids helped!

This past Sunday, we went to a pop-up build-your-own ball run event in an empty store front in Roslindale Square. The kids had a lot of fun (Helen, again, slept through nearly all of it), and then we had brunch at Redd's afterwards (pancakes, chicken waffle avocado sandwich, poutine, and a spinach dip omelet with grits--yum!).

Finally, the kids' orchestra concert at the end of March was fantastic.

 

 

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Created: 3/21/17. Last Modified: 3/21/17.