Birthday presents

Although Ben opened a few presents on earlier days, and on Sunday too, we celebrated his birthday the most explicitly on Saturday (so he wasn't tired out from school). He enjoyed the cake and ice cream and especially the presents. He got nice clothes and buckets and shovels from Roy and Roberta, and a whole range of things from Aunt Greta and family, most notably a headphone with monkeys on the ears, which he loves to wear to listen to Dan Zanes on his mom's ipod. He got a bunch of things from Dodo, but his favorite was a duck that sings "if you're happy and you know it". He sings along and claps his hands with it. He also took it for a ride on the back of his new ride-on firetruck (from his parents), which he insists on taking to bed with him every night. He is also fond of a new collection of "guys," including some little goats he carefully feeds milk to. It also included a little guy with a charcoal grill and hot dogs, "just like Grandpa and Jan."

Picnic!

Ben loves picnics. On Friday after school (his last day in the Rainbow Room; poor Sara was in tears because she loves the kids so), where they had cupcakes for Ben's birthday and cookies for Rhys', Ben went to our local park, Cabot Park, for a Chinese food picnic with Mama, Daddoo, Dodo, and Liam and his family. Ben and Liam thought this was the most fun ever (at least since the party at Bella's). As well as eating their noodles, they ran around, got buckets out of the sandbox to be firehats, and did somersaults and "fleeps" (Ben carefully distinguished between these, because Liam calls his flips, and Ben calls his somersaults). (Ben wore his new swan boat T-shirt, a present from Dodo.)

Ben is two!

On Friday, the 22nd of August, Ben turned two. He ended up celebrating it over several days, especially because his great aunt Joanne (Dodo to Ben) came to visit. On Thursday, Dodo was here and Ben doesn't go to school, so we all went on an outing to the Public Garden in Boston. Ben is a very big fan of "Make Way for Ducklings," so he was thrilled about the idea of going on a swan boat. He also thought it was very cool to see the statue of the ducklings and their mama, which is about twice life size, so toddlers can sit on their backs. We had a picnic, played in the grass, and took a little walk, and a wonderful time was had by all. Ben keeps talking about it and "Ducklings" is back on the top of the book request list.

Party at Bella's!

There was a party at Bella's to celebrate the end of the school year and say thank you to the Rainbow Room teachers. A wonderful time was had by all. Ben loves going to Bella's, especially because she has a nice yard with a jeep and a lawnmower, which were also very popular with the other kids. They took turns, though, and worked on gassing them up and pushing each other in the jeep (usually without steering, though. Ben pushed the jeep into bushes and the picnic table. Their teacher Sara helped after Ben steered himself and Rudi into the picnic table.) and played with all the other fun things. They also had pizza and watermelon and cookies and brownies.

Bye-bye Crystal lake

Sunday was the last day Crystal Lake was open until next June. We all went both Saturday and Sunday after nap. We will all miss it.

Broadmoor

On Sunday, it was a beautiful day and Ben went with his parents to Broadmoor Wildlife Sanctuary in Natick, two towns west. To our great surprise and Ben's great joy, we ran into Liam and Tom there completely by accident. Liam had been about ready to go, but with a playmate to climb rocks with, show turtles to, and cut trees down with, he got a second wind. Ben had lots of fun with Liam, and went for a nice walk with his parents through the woods and on wooden bridges over the pond. He also saw a very interesting waterfall where the mill used to be. There were amazing mushrooms growing at Broadmoor, and lots of animals, most notably turtles, which would pop their heads up from under the algae and sometimes climb out for some sun. Ben is starting in the Turtle Room in September, so turtles are of extra interest.

weaving

Mama has been doing a lot of weaving (compared to the one scarf she wove in the whole last year) because she's signed up for the oloompics and is weaving a little every day. Ben thinks this is great fun, and orders his mama to weave. He also likes to help (although climbing in the loom does make the weaving a little difficult). Mama has just warped up a new scarf for Ben that he will weave with her.

Concord

On Saturday, we went out to Concord for a change of pace. We took a walk through the cemetery in the center of town, which includes the graves of Louisa May Alcott, Emerson, Thoreau, and the author of "Five Little Peppers and How they Grew." Then we went to a great toy store in the center of town, picked up some picnic things, and had a nice picnic in a town park next to the playground. Ben thought it was a great morning.

Green Gebi

Ben is a big fan of spaghetti al pesto, even when we mix the pesto with spinach puree in order to feed him a little more vegetables. However, he doesn't like having messy hands, so he asks us to wash them from time to time between handfuls.

Scope!

Andy finished building his first telescope from scratch, including the mirror. He took it up to the Stellafane meeting and it won second place for optics! It's a fabulous telescope, and Ben thinks it is fascinating.