Discoveries

DeCordova Park

This afternoon we went to DeCordova Park in Lincoln. What a great park. Perfect for uppity women!

We checked on the "letterbox" that Mira and Josh created for their 9th anniversary - some nice notes in the guestbook.

We are all getting over various colds. Felt much better today. Henry has been trained (again: at day care) to cough instinctively into his elbow rather than his hand to minimize the spread of germs. (Very impressive, this day care.)

Later he and Abi ran around the sculpture park carrying mini-trees.

Arlington Diner

Mira and Josh and Abi came over for supper on Friday and met us for brunch today. Henry and Abi have a great rapport - they enjoy many of the same jokes, make up rhymes together and stuff, and really play off each other. Here they are waiting for our table for 8 at the Arlington Diner.

Later, it was time for Anya and Nick to hit the road. Here Abi gives a hug goodbye to her first-cousin-once-removed while her future second cousin gets in the way.

Post typed by Henry - exegesis, anyone?

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Play structure

I chose this weekend to assemble a play structure our friends Vladik and Lenochka in DC had given Henry for his birthday back in June. Comes with a basketball net.

Just the right height for building self-esteem...

..and entertaining guests.

Lay-up shot for the camera.

Family portrait

Okay, now everyone hold still...

Anya, Nick, and Kidney Bean

Anya and Nick came to visit us this weekend. It was a lot of fun to see them. Anya is being a really good sport about it - she seems to have a lot of energy for someone who's eight months pregnant. Henry got a big kick out of the whole thing.

Nick, practicing his daddying skills on the Spy Pond rolly slide.

Learning from the expert...

Collage

Self-framing art!

They used some kind of gluey paper, along with sequins, felt, glitter. That's "Henry's little table" in the background.

Playing

The day care regime has really begun to socialize Henry. These pix were taken Oct 9, before I left for Cairo. He went to the closet, pulled out a toy train track we didn't realize he had (I had probably hidden it there along with lots of our friend Anthony's hand-me-down toys), and began to play.

He is now interested in playing with toys, and has a much longer attention span than before.

I think he and I jointly discovered that his name train letters fit on the track. That was fun.

Best part of all - when we told him to was time to sit down for supper, he said: "Okay, then I need to put away my train." He took apart the track, put the pieces in the box, and carried it back to his closet! As Ken told someone on the phone that night: "It was weird. Tomorrow I'm going to go to the daycare and demand my wolf-child back."

Picnic weather

A picnic on the back porch (lucky kid!)...

The kid-sized table with chairs is a big favorite.

All this attention from Dad and Grandma. No wonder Henry looks so pleased with himself.

More from Grandma Ann

Halloween is coming up. Ann brought a bat towel that will probably be an integral part of Henry's costume this year...

He said he wanted to be a "spider-bug creature," but maybe he'll just go as a bat?

Naked, all too naked

I just got back from nine days in Cairo, presenting a paper and reviewing shows at the festival of experimental theatre there. Meanwhile, Ann came to town to hang out with Henry. Thank goodness -- she was a huge help to Ken, and I didn't feel so guilty about what turned out to be a very useful (though tiring) business trip.
It sounds like they had fun in my absence. Back in Wisconsin, Ann sent Ken some photos and wrote:

Thanks for the fun week. I laugh a lot when I think of H singing "naked all
too naked" through the tubes in Home Depot.

In fact, does there seem to be something of a nudity theme here?

Dinner party

Saturday night we went to a dinner party hosted by our friends Amahl and Nidal. No photos, but this souvenir.

(Ken was chatting with one of the other guests, an anthropologist acquaintance of mine who now has a three-year-old, while the kids were drawing at the table after supper. The grownups started comparing syllabi and trading bibliography for their upcoming courses... in crayon! Who said you can't raise a family and be an academic?)

In Thoreau's cabin

As I said, very industrious.

Right off the parking lot they have a replica of Thoreau's cabin. (In New York this would be "Charming totally private studio w wood floor, brick fireplace, tons of natural light." In Wisconsin it would be a chicken coop.)

Signing the guest book...

Walden Pond

A sunny Saturday, so we decided to seize the moment and go spend a couple of hours at Walden Pond.

We didn't pose Henry like this - it must be something about the site that makes people spontaneously want to pick up sticks and carry them around.

It was beautiful, but not much space to walk, and lots of people everywhere. A nice lady (who was there with about four or five teenage girls) took our picture.

Artypants

Henry's latest productions from Deb's house. (Ken insisted the photo looked better upside down, so here it is.) I really like the one on the bottom here. Love the colors, and it seems to have some kind of glittery soft fabric glued to it.

They use water-soluble paint. We know, because this morning it was kind of damp out and Ken was taking these out of the stroller-back pocket and I heard: "Help! There's art on my pants!"