First day in Italy

Greetings from Italy! We arrived in Rome on Wednesday morning. Henry immediately had his first "spremuta" (fresh orange juice -- yummy).

Having not slept enough (though he did get several hours on the plane), the first afternoon of sightseeing was partly lost on him.

First evening: contemplating the Pantheon...

...while eating bright-blue gelato (the flavor he picked out for Ken to buy for him was embarrassingly titled "Viagra").

Waldo Park tube slide

Just got back from Waldo Park. As usual, we have to drag Henry out the door screaming, then end up spending close to three hours at the park playing soccer, taking naps in the grass, playing on the swings, chasing butterflies, and finally (when it's time to leave) turning our attention to the playground equipment.
Henry is at the age where climbing up the slide seems much more fun than sliding down. But how did he do it?

Aha! (Seems Ken is at that age too.)

Awww.

Would it be fair to say Daddy is getting a little tired of this game now?

Electric slide

Menotomy Rocks afternoon

No more Friday day care. We dragged Henry out to Menotomy Rocks Park in Arlington; he didn't want to go at first, then after taking a walk around the (very posh) surrounding neighborhood allowed as how he might go in after all; then, of course, didn't want to leave. Among other activities we rescued an orphaned soccer ball that Ken found floating in the pond. Stepping stones:

A nice lady walking by thought the three of us looked so cute that she volunteered to take our picture (how weird is that?).

Using a long branch to rake in the ball. (We'll spare you the part where Ken and Henry tried to throw rocks to make it float closer to them, like Pooh did with Eeyore in the Poohsticks story, and the part where Ken waded in to get the ball but Henry got mad and started shrieking and threw it out into the pond again, and the part where Henry jumped in the water just for the hell of it.)

Soaking wet (he ended up going into the water up to his chest) but triumphant. Soccer, anyone?

Inchworm

The big bad who?

That rhythmic sound you hear is the chair leg banging on the floor...

"Three daddies in a tub"

Henry understands the principle of addition. At dinner he was goofing around with "rub-a-dub dub, three daddies in a tub," and then "three mommies." I said that was an awfully big tub. I asked him how many people that would be and put up three fingers on each hand, and he counted six. Then he added "three Henries." I asked him how many people that would be, so he put up three of his own fingers and counted them along with my six, coming up with nine. He's known 2+2=4 in a schematic way for a couple of weeks, but this was exciting.

Epilogue to nasty weekend

I'm tempted to exaggerate and claim that Henry basically drove me to near-psychological collapse last weekend. Or let's just say it was a very, very unpleasant Saturday. (Ken was at an all-day conference.) By Sunday afternoon we were all ready for a break. Fortunately, Henry fell asleep in the car on the way back from a 3-hour stint at the park. And slept from 2 to 5:30pm.

Being a complete pain in the neck for three days must have taken it out of him, too.

Friday Mommy's boy

I am looking forward to having another baby but sort of dreading my maternity leave next fall. Spending a whole day alone with a kid, five days a week, for three months -- and every Friday with two kids! Sort of scary. I have invested so much into developing a professional identity this year that I'm afraid I'll just dissolve into a meaningless mess without it, like a sugar lump in the rain. I'm not judging anyone else's personality or choices here, just telling you something about my own.


Yesterday was both encouraging and not. Henry and I spent the whole day together; my classes have ended, Ken had to work, and we've ended the arrangement with the Friday babysitter (she's about to deliver a baby of her own and perhaps a bit overwhelmed). So Henry and I had a typical stay-at-home-mom type of day, namely avoiding any staying at home at all costs: a walk in the Fresh Pond Reservation, lunch at a cafe in Cambridge (here he is, eating a sandwich at Hi-Rise), a couple of hours in a Cambridge public library, and the discovery of a new playground, also in a part of Cambridge where we haven't been before. I have to say, the kid is really good company. It wasn't a bad day. (Because I wasn't trying to get anything else done, at all.)

I also don't mean to whine about having maternity leave next fall: most women in this country don't get three months off at full pay, so it's by virtue of having successfully cultivated some appearance of professional dynamism (e.g., academic employability) that I will find myself in this situation at all. And only briefly, then it's back to the usual and highly validating working-mom routine. (One semester is nothing.)
Meanwhile: a playground structure shaped like a brontosaurus, though Henry insisted it was a fire truck:

A conversation with a random 4-year-old on the playground, who didn't much care about the dinosaur thing either.
Henry: This is a fire truck.
4-year-old: No, it's a Power Ranger. I call it my Power Ranger. The fire truck is over there.
Henry: No, that one is a tractor. This is a fire truck. Here is where I keep my hoses and stuff, and there is the ladder.
4-year-old: Um, okay.

What do you say to that?

A recent tantrum.
Me: Henry, come have supper.
Henry: No, I don't want to eat ratatouille tonight. I want to eat it tomorrow!
M: But ratatouille is what we have.
H: No!
M: Oh come on. Let's just eat. I already made it. We can have it tomorrow, too.
H: (screaming, for some reason) No! Make it go away! Make it evaporate!
M: (trying to shift the conversation but also actually impressed): Wait, what did you just say? When did you learn the word "evaporate"?
H: Today, at the park! I peed on a tree, but when I wanted to see what the pee looked like, Daddy told me it had evaporated.
M: (...!)

Magnolia Playground, April 25

That's Veronica in the pink hat. We met up with Sean and Gretchen in the park. This other girl (the one wearing all the layers) came up and tried to use one of Henry's sand toys. "No," said Henry, "I gave it to Veronica!"

It's a nice playground, maybe mellower than the two others we usually go to. And last Saturday was a beautiful day.

We had planned a further outing (even involving going out to dinner, since it was Ann's last night in town) but Henry sabotaged it by screaming and yelling and not wanting to get his clothes on. It's practically impossible to get him out of the house twice in one day. Oh well. So we stayed home and ate delicious green curry instead. Ann seemed pretty philosophical about it.

Balloon man

All winter/spring, Josh and Mira and Abi have been going every Wednesday to the Pizzeria Uno in Porter Square, where a balloon man named Jungle Jim makes balloon sculptures for kids. On a recent Wednesday, Henry and I came along. They guy is really talented. He made Henry an octopus (see below)...

...but Abi, who is by now a regular and gets to make requests, got a horse and rider!

Both left happy. (Though unfortunately the helium-balloon part of Henry's octopus popped just as we were getting on the 77 bus to come home -- I hope we didn't startle the driver too much!)

Patriots' Day

Perhaps some of you remember learning something in school about "the 18th of April in '75/ Hardly a man is now alive/ Who remembers that famous day and year/ And the midnight ride of Paul Revere." Well, we in Massachusetts have long memories and unlike the rest of the country we are given a whole legal holiday, Patriots' Day, to celebrate these events. (Most people know it as the day of the Boston Marathon.) Since Grandma Ann was in town, she and I took Henry to the Lexington (yes, as in Battle of Lexington) town parade. Where most of the military history was comfortably 200+ years old...

Local entrepreneurs. (Anyway, wasn't it basically commerce at the heart of the American Revolution?)

Some more contemporary military displays...
What we're not showing you is Ann, Henry, and me shivering in the COLD. It was windy and just in the 40s. As soon as the parade ended, we ran back to the car!

Ken, meanwhile, was home with the tail end of an awful cold. After spending nearly the whole day in bed, he pulled himself out of it just long enough to roast a duck. Delicious!