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First of all, our nearly ignored cat, Carma, continues to bring us gifts from the wild.  Ben said he found a dismembered rat in the yard yesterday and today I found, with both children present, a headless baby bunny... and an ear.  Ew. I know!  EW!  Art seemed unphased that the baby bunny had no head.  Or that a bunny ear was just laying there inches away.  I explained that Carma had probably hunted and captured that bunny.  Now we would bury it in the ground so its body to turn into dirt and make new things.  We've been watching a lot of nature shows.  Hunting and killing seems pretty well accepted at this point.  Maybe not completly understood, but accepted. On the subject of nature shows, we were watching Planet Earth, Deep Ocean and Art asked, "Why do fish need to be in the water and why do they die if they're not in the water and why does the water need fish?"  I explained that all things that are alive need something called oxygen and fish get their oxygen fro...

Lewis is taking a nap in his bed today... --Sent from my handheld device.--

The last day or so Lewis has been saying, "Uh huh" while he nods his head for yes. Today he's nodding less and "uh-huh"-ing more. Altogether a lot easier on his neck.

Last night I went to opening night of the Minnesota Opera with my friend Amy. Black tie! The opera was good, but not a great one (Bizet's The Pearl Fishers ). It was kind of predictable for a an opera - love triangle, broken vows of chastity, death sentence, last minute remorse and the final death of somebody. Great people watching in all the fancy clothes and great conversations afterwards about the strange costume and set choices. All together a nice night out!

Today I stopped by the trade show of the Midwest Booksellers Association in St. Paul to see Norton Stillman at Nodin Press . He publishes lots of great books, including one I put together from the columns I did at the Pioneer Press called Ant Farm. I'm honored that he liked the work enough to publish it, and it's even better to have made a good friend along the way.

Today we had planned a trip to the apple orchard but rain diverted us to the huge indoor play park in Edina. It's excessive and huge and quite fun. Some 6 or 7 stories of slides and bridges and balls. Lewis was much braver than Art, zipping down slides and climbing up things before Art. In some ways Lewis helps Art do things he wouldn't normally, or at least as quickly. Here's a short slidshow of poor Lewis. He recovered quickly to slide again. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kdgu1e4Z09w&hl=en&fs=1&&w=425&h=344] This is a photo of their website that gives a better overall sense of the thing. Art practiced shooting for a quite a while and become quite good (although Jess and I were both quite a bit better). He made the shot photographed here. Lew was a total disgrace, couldn't even hit the rim. The had a number of these fun wheely things to zip around on.

"I lost my cool with the kids today. They were screaming like fucking crazy things! Lewis, especially. He screamed for 15 minutes because I wouldn't let him go for a walk at 3:30pm. He needed a nap! And then he woke up and he was still crabby. I think he might have just fallen asleep. I don't know. That kid is NUTS!"

Jess and I just ran around Lake Nokomis and afterwards Lewis asked in his own grunting way to sit on this fan powered boat. The fire dept was doing some training. --Sent from my handheld device.--

There's a listserv the teacher keeps and she posted this interesting info and photos on it... ----------- Thursday - September 17, 2009 Snack - grapes, lemon/zucchini cookies (thanks Henry!) Lunch - cheese tortellini, edamame, apples Project - clay beads with glitter Wednesday - September 16, 2009 Snack - fruit salad, doughnut holes (thanks Si!) Lunch - mac and cheese, carrots Project - community fruit salad Tuesday - September 15, 2009 Snack - fruit, pirate booty Lunch - ham, rice cakes, strawberries Project - banana bread Thursday - September 10, 2009 Snack - fruit, pirate booty Lunch - grilled cheese, carrots Project - cosmos flower picking, art and seeds Wednesday - September 9, 2009 Snack - fruit salad Lunch - mac and cheese, cherry tomatoes, carrots Project - community fruit salad Tuesday - September 8, 2009 Snack - fruit, pirate booty Lunch - ham sandwiches, corn chips, raisins Project - blueberry muffins Thursday - September 3, 2009 Snack - fruit, pret...

Both kids lately have been insisting on doing things more by themselves. If you try to carry Lewis down the stairs he'll often scream as if you're trying to murder him--he wants to do it himself. Last week Arthur and I went swimming in Lake Harriet and the first thing he told Mama when we returned is that he let go of Papa and swam by himself in the deep water. Right now giving them room to be independant feels almost as if we're fooling them (we're still right there the whole time). Truly releasing them into the world I imagine will feel quite different.

I took the kids to McRae park today and they have a super fun spinny thing. And here's a tiny video to see this fun thing in motion: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWI-KvoAyeo&hl=en&fs=1&&w=560&h=340]

This morning a crowd gathered to watch as I huffed and puffed using a massive trench digging machine. I rented it to dig a 18-inch trench from the house to the garage to lay an electric cord, and the machine was quite the attraction. A number of neighbors also stopped by to check it out.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARs3ibUzxas&hl=en&fs=1&&w=640&h=385]

Several weeks ago we found an "old died bird" in the backyard. We look at it, talked about it and even moved its broken body around a bit before we buried it in the backyard so, as I always say about our vegetables in the compost bin, it could "turn back into dirt". Art wanted to give it a toy so it would have something to play with. Ah, three-years-old. I love how he can protect himself from hard things by creating a story that makes it feel better. Of course, it helps that he doesn't really know better, but its rather nice.

These photos were (I think) from the first year Jessica and I knew each other (bottom left is my favorite). She would often come up from New York to visit me in Rochester where I was going to school. It was a thrilling time and I was really proud to introduce this beautiful cellist from New York City to my photo friends. We baked a delicious apple pie together that weekend in my ugly little apartment. Man it was tasty. And here's a couple more from her trips up. Look at all the hair I had(!).

Jessica got each of the kids a kazoo the other day, and Arthur has been loving it. Tooting all over. This morning he woke up early, came into our room, and asked where his kazoo was (and got very upset cause we wouldn't immediately go downstairs to find it). So tonight he's not taking that risk.

...that Lewis says Mama now! Well, not very often, but he does say it. And he said "Bau!" the other day! That would be ball in toddler-speak. Right now he's playing by himself while I compute. Art is taking a nap. He doesn't take one every day lately, but today he is. He's going to a new, quiet and small preschool in a woman's house which is going really well. We'll post something about that pretty soon. On Art's language front he has grown out of one of my favorite mispronunciations, todegger . He now says together like the rest of us. He still says oat-ah-meal , though, and I think that is my very favorite.

We finally picked the apples (rather, apple) from our Honeycrisp tree in the backyard. All summer our whole family has been lusting over one big, juicy thing. We planted the tree a couple years ago and this was the first time it's ever grown an apple. Over the summer we had many close calls as Lewis grabbed it, "NO NO! No, Lewis!" Tsundi nearly pulled the thing off before Jessica intervened. I can't tell you how many times Jessica would admire it and suggest we pick it before a squirrel or something gets it. So you can imagine how excited Arthur (and Jessica) was when he finally decided to pick the tasty apple. We passed the fruit around in a circle each taking a bite until the kids lost interest. Not Jessica or I, though. We polished it off. It was entirely delicious but also had a strange oniony aftertaste. Maybe we created a hybrid?

And here's something Art has just recently grown long enough to do on his own:

Jess and I are headed to a nice restaurant for a nice date! --Sent from my handheld device.--

--Sent from my handheld device.--

Art was jumping from couch cushion to couch cushion that he had laid out on the floor, hopping back and forth over and over again. I saw him do a really big jump and said, 'Wow! That's a big jump!" and he said, "That's Hopscotch. I'm doin' hopscotch. I'm learnin'. We're all learnin'. This is my work and that's what we do. We do hopscotch and ballet, because that's what they want us to do, so we do it. See?" And he jumped again and again.

Hey!  Lewis definitely has some words.  I've been waiting to report just to make sure it wasn't a fluke, but I'm sure now that he says "Dee!" for tree and he seems to be saying "Mama!" with some real intention lately.  He's been saying "Hi!" for a long time and I would consider that his first word.  Oh!  And yesterday we were playing with a ball and I asked, "Ready?" and he said, "GO!"  He did it over and over!  Ready, set, GO!  So, this is cool. What??!  A 17 month-old baby is communicating!  STOP THE PRESSES!

This past weekend Arthur and I took a short trip to the cottage in Hancock, Wisconsin. Just by ourselves. It was nice if not a little lonely. It was the first time I had been without other adults, and I underestimated how nice it is to talk with full size people. But Arthur had a real fun time and that's really the reason I wanted to go in the first place--to give his some quality Papa time. We borrowed the motor boat from the nextdoor cottage and took it out in the deep weedless water where we promptly jumped in and swam around. It was a real highlight for Arthur. His little body was shivering and his mouth chattering from the chill, but he loved it. This photo was a technical feat in itself that I'm quite proud of. And there was a Labor Day parade in the tiny town.

Before I write about Art's hard time let it be known that no Art's were harmed in the making of this photograph. Ben assures me it was taken swiftly and incognito (with his phone) without compromising his ability to compassionately deal with Art. Art can be totally flexible and can handle disappointment and frustration with grace, but only if he's been prepared for it in advance. Kind of oxymoronic, I know, but that's the way it is with him. Catch him off guard and you end up with this heart-breaking moment. Art pleading to have the hose on when we were right about to sit down for dinner all because I had to spritz some sand a bit to finish my walkway and did not explain that we would not be playing with the hose, just a quick spritz. Art had a lot of those moments today, today being a stressful day of transition after Wisconsin. I think he'll feel better tomorrow, and we'll help him by letting him know what to expect.