Ride On

Oliver loves visitors. As mentioned many times previously, when Oliver gets up in the morning there is no time for snuggling, no time for a quiet book in bed -he is up, out of bed, and wanting to play. This gets magnified about a bazillion times when we have overnight guests, or when visitors are expected. Therefore, last weekend when Oliver was told that his great grandmother, GG, and Anna would be coming for the weekend (and that Papa and Le Le would be dropping them off), he was ready to go even before I closed my eyes to go to sleep the night before.
The weather on Saturday was the perfect day for sitting inside with tea, my Snuggy (a wonderful gift from Tim and Carolyn (although one size fits all is a bit of a stretch)), and watching movies or reading a book - ah, to dream. Let me begin again, the weather on Saturday was cold and wet - the perfect day for bike riding and puddle stomping. GG was a wonderful sport and splashed along with us. She did her best to try and keep Oliver dry and clean, and he did his very best to get wet and very muddy. Despite her best efforts, Oliver won out.
Of course the day was not all wet and muddy. There was some time dry time spent reading stories
Some time snuggling with Anna,
And some wet, but clean, time spent with the infamous fire boat.
We hope GG will visit us again soon - and we promise to at least attempt some warmer and cleaner activities.

A Boatload (literally) of Crap

This past weekend Oliver was given a fantastic boat by his great grandmother. The boat is a fire boat that has a tank you can fill with water and a hose that squirts the water (a surprising far distance). Oliver adores this boat. Since getting the boat he has been (at least for for the several minutes following his bath or shower) very clean. Every night he eats dinner and begs to go upstairs and take a bath with his boat - a bath so long that the water usually requires having warm water added. Oliver has also been taking marathon morning showers as well. (Several of my friends bring toys and books into the bathroom and their children read and play while they take showers - I tried this a couple times with Oliver - ah no. He unrolled an entire roll of toilet paper and papered the bathroom, put anything and everything he could find in the toilet, scaled the dresser in the bathroom...all of this in the two seconds it took to wash my hair. If Davis isn't around Oliver now showers with me, or I don't shower.) Since getting the boat he has been getting in the shower when Davis gets in, staying in while I am in there, and then staying in while I get ready (don't worry - I get ready in the bathroom). The entire time he's in there he is filling the boat's tank with water and spraying down the shower with the hose. This morning, as I was drying my hair, I was thinking how much I love the boat - how I can get a few extra minutes to get ready (I don't have to do an all out sprint to get ready - a race to be ready before Oliver declares he's done with the shower). Just as I am thinking this Oliver starts yelling "poop!" over and over again. I quickly grab him from the shower and observe one little poop on the shower floor. Awesome. I clean him up, get him dressed and send him over to Jessica's for the day. I then return to the scene of the crime. I went expecting to scoop up the one little poop and then clean the shower. Right. You know what my little monster did? He stuffed the tank of his boat, full (as in FULL) of poop. Double awesome. A plastic knife, bleach, and several minutes later and the boat was back to its pre-poop state.

Happy Thursday! Hope your day is crap-free.

Mrs. Mallard

Mrs. Mallard, of Make Way for Ducklings claim, was loving, thoughtful, protective and, perhaps, a bit crazy. She had all the qualities (including the crazy quality) of an amazing mother. In fact, I would even go so far as to say Mrs. Mallard was a supermom - I have enough trouble keeping track of one little "duck" in Boston, I can't imagine keeping track of eight!

One learns never to get between a mom and her baby/babies (I'm talking mama bear and her cubs, mama lion and her cubs...). When I became a mom this took on a new meaning - I immediately understood the need/desire to "protect" my little one, to make him happy, and to make sure he was well care for. I also no longer saw Mrs. Mallard as a crazy duck traipsing through the city with babies. Instead I saw her as a wonderful, independent mom, trying to find a better place for her babies (I still do question Mr. Mallard's commitment - off exploring?!)

I bring all of this up because we, fittingly, spent Mother's Day with my mom and grandmother at the Make Way for Ducklings Parade in Boston. The "parade" is actually all the little ones dressed in full duck regalia (or in Oliver's case, a duck hat) following the Harvard Marching Band along the path Mrs. Mallard took - through Beacon Hill to the Public Garden.

Oliver fell asleep on the way to the parade, but woke up (or was woken up by his Aunt Elizabeth (still not clear)) just as the parade was about to begin.
Still fuzzy from sleep he was plopped on Papa's shoulders and given a quacker. Amazingly the quacker stayed in his mouth most of the parade.

The parade ended in the Public Garden. Oliver spent a bit of time feeding the ducks, but then it was up onto Uncle Jon' shoulders. Oliver is big into riding things and pretending they are horses. He tends to hold on very tightly and yell "Neigh, Neigh, Neigh." In top form Oliver not only yanked Jon's hair with full force, but also would kick Jon to make him go faster every time Jon slowed down. Perhaps we have a budding jockey on our hands?

Bulldozer

I have been remiss in introducing the newest member of our family - Bulldozer.

Lucky

This past Friday I left my boys and headed to the Cape to spend the night celebrating Sarah's upcoming marriage. Spending the evening with several if my closest girlfriends (who I do not see often enough) was wonderful. We spent the evening reminiscing, remembering fun times together, and remember other times that we wish we had left forgotten. We also enjoyed looking ahead - getting a tour of the place Sarah is getting married (breathtaking), talking about our kids, work, and about nothing at all. On my drive home I was flooded with more and more memories - from college, from our times together in Boston, our vacations... I also started to think about where we have all been since we met and what we've all done - we've gone to graduate school, gotten new jobs, gotten engaged, gotten married, had children, moved (some have even gone so far as to move to Canada)... even with all of these big events we are still in touch, we still try to squeeze in visits with each other here and there, and every time we do it seems as though we just pick up where we left off. I know I am lucky to have such amazingly wonderful friends - I look forward to all of our future adventure together.

I am also lucky because I have two wonderful boys, Davis and Oliver. As you Oliver is not a wonderful sleeper and he tends to be an even worse sleeper when I am not around. So, although I know Davis and Oliver have lots of fun together when I am not there, I know that the nights are rough. While I know they didn't get much sleep Friday night, I know Davis and Oliver had a fantastic time together. I know this not only because of the stories I heard once I got home, but also because of the pictures I received while I was gone.

Enjoying the beautiful weather.


I am not a big fan of lamb, so the boys decided to take advantage of my absence and have it for dinner. I am not sure where Oliver's fork is, but it appears that he was a big fan of the dinner Davis made (these pictures are actually pretty gross, but Oliver does look very happy).

Splashing in the bath.