Dead car, wild turkeys, farm

Yesterday was glorious weather, and kind of a weird day. It took us a while to get out of the house, with big plans for taking the kids to Drumlin farm in Lincoln. We got out to the car, and the doors wouldn't unlock with my key clicker thing. "Uh-oh. What is going on?" Answer: Ollie clicking on the light above his seat & not turning it off = dead battery. Yippee. Happy Saturday. We finally were able to get our landlord to jump the car. One problemo. The anti-theft alarm was activated somehow and every time we opened or shut one of the doors the alarm went off for several minutes! We were too scared to turn the car off, and deactivate the car alarm - for fear that it wouldn't start again.

We promised the kids farm, and so farm it was! We all piled into the car, and set off down Trapelo road with our car alarm blaring. The cop directing traffic at Belmont Car Wash lowered his coffee cup for a second, but probably thought it would be too obvious of a car thief to drive past a cop with the car alarm going and his whole family in the car. At this point I was glad that Jeff is a law student. At least his could talk his way out of this awkward situation, should we be pulled over.

Next weird thing was on the way to Lincoln. Never have we had to pull over to let several wild turkeys cross the road! I was pretty excited. I was even able to pull out my camera in time to snap a few photos. We weren't even at the Farm yet!

Drumlin farm was wonderful. The kids love it there, and it really made me reminiscent of my childhood spending time on my aunts farm. Lincoln is such a gorgeous little town. Plus they have the DeCordova sculpture park that the kids also love. Jeff and I have vowed to do as many fun things around Boston as we can with the kids. We only have a year left here and something tells me it is going to pass too quickly :(

16 weeks and counting

Ok... I was super bad at taking monthly photos while I was expecting Oliver and Emma. In fact, I don't really have any nice maternity photos at all. Slap on the hand for me (considering I'm a photographer!) My goal is to take a monthly photo this time around, since it's most likely our last baby. Here's one from a few days ago at the 16 week mark. We're counting down to May 4th when we find out if it's a boy or girl! Something tells me this pregnancy is going to FLY! Yikes! Due Date is September 26. I'm soooo excited to have a baby at this time of year. Fall is pure perfection in Boston.

A new beginning

Confession time: well, more just stating the obvious. I clearly have been a miserable failure at blogging about my family! I was doing so well - enthusiastically documenting the life of my kids. Now when they look back on Mommy's cyber-journal they'll wonder where I was for 8 months! At least I have a little while to make up a really interesting excuse. Perhaps we were backpacking as a family for 8 months in remote areas of the world that had sketchy internet connections. Or maybe not.

Nevertheless, I have a renewed dedication to being a better blogger. I could give an update, but let's just start with a fresh page.

I wish I could say that we did something really exciting today. In fact, the kids and I just ran a few errands and played outside in the backyard. I tried to bribe them with amazing lollipops in order to sit for a couple of photos for me. Fail. I closed my eyes and wished Emma would snap out of one of her 30 meltdowns. Fail. (consistency and every possible form of reasoning/distraction has also failed.) PLEASE. It has to be a phase. Wow. This is sounding pretty miserable and depressing. That's some kind of comeback.

Honestly, I have the best fam ever. Jeff is almost done his second year at Harvard Law School. Thank heavens I married someone with enough smarts for the both of us! Ollie is a future genius, and Emma is going to defy the odds to be the first 6 foot female pro-gymnast. With that kind of success, I can just sit back, relax and blog...

Nuts

The only way I can think to describe today is "totally nutty". After another late night last night (my bad) we rushed this morning to get out the door in time for school. This preschool stuff will be an interesting adventure. Jeff took Oliver to school, and left just after story time. Oliver did such a good job all by himself today. Hooray!!

Emma also did super fabulous at her first day of gymnastics! The class is just perfect for her. She even attempted a forward roll all by herself. It kind of ended up looking more like a face splat, but she tried! Her favorite was the "tumble track", which is a long, narrow trampoline. A super duper runway for two year olds. (They must really use it for gymnast tricks, but today it was occupied by a mob of tots.) Emma loved to jump and do cannon balls on it. She is quite talented at doing cannon balls.

Although I am so proud of my wonderful kids, I can't say my day, personally was super fab. It was AHHH! At least the first half. After dropping Jeff and Ollie off in Harvard Square, Emma and I went to Target to pick up a few things. I opened the trunk to get out the stroller, grabbed the wheel to pull it forward, and @%^#*!!! My middle finger got smashed in the folding mechanism. (Metal frame stroller, finger stuck in hinge = extreme pain) For 5-10 LONG seconds I could not get my finger unstuck. The weight of the stroller had dropped out of the car, closing down on my finger, and my heroic left hand isn't so handy at getting right hand unstuck. Apparently. I honestly, not even kidding, thought my finger was being cut off! Ok... my finger is out, deeply cut at the first knuckle and totally numb. I'll be honest, I sat there on the bumper of the car for a few mins cursing and crying. At that point I was wondering still trying to figure out how bad this bad was. It sucked, but I sucked it up, got Emma in the stroller and went to get some first aid stuff. (went home with nothing from my list - darn it!) After a bit of panic and a band aid, Emma and I headed on to her gymnastics class.

I talked with the nurse on the phone and she requested that I come in. She ordered an X-ray (find out results tomorrow)and said that it could take a couple of weeks for the feeling to come back in my finger, due to nerve damage. Great. I now have a finger that feels like it has been sitting in a dentist chair too long. I suppose there are worse things though. I could have lost that fine digit to the mighty Phil and Ted. (brand of my stroller for the not so stroller savvy.)

The tides shifted this evening. We had a lot of fun at Naomi's 3rd birthday party. I was so happy to see Emma and Oliver playing really well with all of the kids and having a ton of fun. Other than Oliver getting into too many things that he shouldn't, and Emma getting beat up by a one year old (hit her with a plastic shovel and slapped her around a lot- totally shocking to her, super sad to me) the evening was a total success.

For once, I am hoping tomorrow will be totally uneventful. Boring would be perfect.

Ollie's first day of Preschool

I wish I had more than a moment to write right now, but I wanted to post a couple of photos of Oliver on his first day of preschool. It was really quite hilarious today (the parents were allowed to stay to observe the school program.)For a minute here and there I thought my son was going to be leading the preschool rebellion. Those nice preschool teachers are certainly going to have their hands full! During a rather quiet moment, Oliver decided to protest circle time, by shouting out "I do not like singing songs at all! I only like space ships!" He was very nicely told by his teacher "maybe some of the other friends here like to sing, and you might learn a new song that you will like to sing during circle time." His response was "it's not circle time! It's square time!" All things considered, Oliver did so well. I am so proud, and in total and complete denial that my little guy is not so little anymore. Tomorrow Jeff gets to go to school with Ollie for a bit. We'll try to report back if circle time went a little smoother the second time around :)

Back to Beantown

Well, we are back home in Belmont, MA after a totally wonderful Gritton Family vacation to California, followed by a week in Utah. Since getting back we have been trying to unpack and get things organized before school starts for both my boys on Wednesday. It was a perfect summer day today, perfect for an afternoon trip to the farm, and an evening walk to the playground. As we walked around the Beaver Creek reservation (where the playground is) we were completely in awe. What a gorgeous, HUGE, park! And this beautiful oasis is right down the street from us! As we walked through the large fields and over the quaint bridges, all I could think of was the pictures that were waiting to be taken of my kids playing here. I am so excited for this new discovery. Jeff and I already have plans to start up our running program there again tomorrow. (We'll keep you posted on that.)

Oh Sunny Day...

HOORAY for sunshine! I actually am one of those people who likes nice cool overcast days, but after 2 solid weeks of thunderstorms nearly every day, it was sure nice to get the kids to the playground! I had nearly forgotten how adventurous Ollie is on climbing structures. I was close to having several heart attacks as Oliver insisted he was big enough to climb to the top of an 8 or 10 foot jungle gym, and then could climb down all by himself. Maybe I'm a tad bit paranoid, but YIKES! I would have been scared at the top of that thing. He did it though. Who am I to question this boy? I just wish that every once in a while he would accept that he is 3 and not 10.