Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Wild Ponies Attack

Wild Ponies are the attraction at Assateague National Seashore in Maryland.  Extremely beautiful shore, wild and rugged.  I'm not so sure about sharing the beach with the horses.  I mean, it isn't that I mind sharing, but the poor horses get mobbed by crowds the whole time and don't get left alone.  Plus there's the poop all over the beach factor.  So yeah I was feeling sorry for them until they stormed out beach set-up and tried eating our trash and taking the neighbors newspapers,etc.  The life-guard shooed them away ultimately, and in fact I missed the excitement as I was in the bathroom.  But everybody else got the extra close-up view.






Monday, July 28, 2008

So short

We had a great weekend with everyone in Bethany Beach, which by the way is in Delaware not Maryland.  Good times.  We have a shot on this same bench 15 years ago.  A family comprised of different members, some the same.  
For the record, Makili wasn't crying in the previous post because of the lemon.  He actually likes lemons.  He was just tired and crying because he couldn't get any more food.
Raph - always the show-off.
There was a lot of tossing people around.
Brittany was pretty, even upside down.
Then she got tossed in the water.  And was still pretty.  And that got the ball rolling.
Next, Grandma got tossed in.  She was a good spot about it.  She actually tried to stay in, and got slammed by a wave which prompted Austin to run around screaming "Grammy's down!  Grammy's down!  Mayday!  Mayday!"

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Fun in the Fountain!






Together again

We've been spending long days in the sun in Maryland, body-surfing waves, body-boarding, digging, etc. The chilly ocean feels balmy to us Mainers. My nephew Austin doesn't think it's cold either.The short break of the waves is pretty intense. Austin got really slammed by a wave and got out. I went to check on him, and he told me, "I think I broke a rib." I told him I thought it was hard to breathe when you break a rib. He said, "well I heard a cracking, so I could of dislocated my shoulder, or it could have been a dolphin."
And then there was Brittany. She ahd the bad fortune of having her bikini top untie in a wave that was followed by about six more very large waves. She is almost 13 and I think to that age baring your chest is pretty frightening. Before I started nursing it might have frightened me too, but seriously I think Brittany might have chosen drowning over losing her top or showing her breasts.


I told my brother I had no idea he read books, much less this variety.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

A Whole New Ballgame.


Before I get into all things Makili, I need to let you know that he shat on the rug this morning. Just to start the day off right. It wasn't too big of a deal. It did lift right off, but still, there was a pile of poop on my rug this morning after his bath in the 15 seconds that I went in the other room to get him a diaper.

We went to the doctor's yesterday for his 1 year appointment (albeit closer to 13 months). 30 inches tall and 22 pounds (that's three inches and 3.5 pounds since our last visit!). Such a big kiddo. Handled the vaccine like a champ. The taking of blood from his arm to check for lead and iron, was a whole other ballgame. Not fun. Me and two nurses restrained him, while the first nurse missed the vein. Finally they did it right, but poor Makili sobbed all morning, so upset that I had allowed that to happen. Poor guy. Healthy happy little kiddo though.

Makili has really been communicating well lately. Though he doesn't say a whole lot, he now understands so much. He will point to mama's nose, eyes, ears, and teeth. He will go find his ball, car, book, block, shovel. He loves to point out the fan, dogs, cats, birdies, water
(and I think horse and cow). He can "sit down," and "lay down." He also knows all done, all gone, nite-nite, outside and inside. He has officially started signing too. After months of "more," he finally got the concept. He is so proud of himself when he uses the sign and gets what he wants (which thus far is always food). He also signs "all done."

Food is still Makili's favorite thing, though climbing is coming on strong as number 2. Makili likes pretty much whatever we have - tofu, waffles, peas and lettuce from the garden, cereal, watermelon, berries, crackers, dried mangoes (a real fav!), etc. He doesn't really like yellow squash too much which is a shame since we are going to be up to our eye-balls in it. He has definitely figured out the concept that we eat food from the garden. I have to really watch him because he knows you can eat lettuce. Sometimes he will feed me lettuce and then eat himself, other times he just plucks a leaf and stuffs it in his mouth. I have to make sure the leaves are actually lettuce. He knows peas go in his mouth. Yesterday we picked our second tomato. Makili wanted it and I handed it to him so he could check it out. I was surprised when he put it in his mouth since he has never had a whole tomato before and when he has had tomatoes he hasn't really cared for them. I wouldn't let him eat it because it wasn't ripe and he was not happy at all with that agreement. I ended up sharing the first tomato (which was ripe) with him, though once I had broken through the skin and he really tasted the tomato he wasn't too interested. Yesterday we got carrots from our farm CSA, and Makili loved those. He walked all around the barn chasing a dog, intermittently chewing on his carrot with a huge smile on his face. SO damn cute.

Because he is big now, we let him sit in the next size up car seat. He seems to like it. Especially today having me turn around and talk to him made him VERY happy in the car. Anything that makes kids happy in the car is worth something.

Makili is still a pretty good sleeper. He goes to bed between 7:30 and 8:00 and typically sleeps till 5:30, at which point he nurses and 50% of the time goes back to bed with me. It sure feels like a treat to sleep till 6:30 or 7:00! Napping isn't really so great. I've been trying to cut out the morning nap lately because otherwise I end up fighting him for both naps, which is very annoying and if I can get him to hold out, usually that means he'll go down easily between 12:00 and 1:00 and sleep for about 2 hours. But you really can't count on anything with naps.

Makili has a great sense of humor. He loves to tickle me, which means sticking his finger in my belly button. He also has several games he likes to play. He likes it when you hold his hands and throw his arms above his head while saying "cobbler, cobbler, cobbler" (yes I invented this game as I was waiting for the first cobbler of the season). In any case, he will come over and grab my hands and show me what he wants me to do until I play along, and then he laughs and laughs.

Motor skills are Makili's thing. In the three short weeks he's been walking, he has gotten pretty darn good. Now he has moved onto climbing. He's been a climber for a while, but now that is all he wants to do. He pulls every book out of the book basket, so that he can climb in and out, in and out, in and out. He tries to climb onto the furniture, but thankfully he's still too short. He has learned to put the rings onto the stick as seen above. He loves to pull everything out of every cabinet. He loves to feed himself with the spoon, if that's what you can call it.

Apparently tantrums aren't learned behaviors. Raph's family has always joked about how Raph would throw himself on the floor when he was a kid and didn't get what he wanted. Makili does the exact same thing. He of course looks up to make sure I'm watching in the middle of his tantrum before continuing on. He performs these acts when something is taken away or when he is told no. Yesterday for example he had a tantrum when I told him he couldn't play with the outlet at Tim's house. Such a mean mom.
He's also been into puddles lately. Today he wore shoes for the first time. He didn't care for them much and pulled them off whenever possible.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Not everybody


Not everybody gets jam named after them. When I finished making the blueberry jam yesterday, the only thing that kept popping into my mind when I thought of blue was Jack's eyes, so I decided to name the jam Jack jam. I of couse brought him a jar this morning. Then today he, Sam, Morgan, and Makili all helped to make some blueberry-raspberry jam. I let Jack name the jam. He named it Bob jam, since his dad has blue eyes and redish hair. So there you go.

I have made A LOT of jam in the last two weeks. And so I've decided to have another contest. Since the jam is already made and I can't possibly procrastinate as much as I did for the previous contest (sorry Laurie!) it should go a little better. So I will be sending a package of assorted jams to a randomly selected name exactly one month from today, August 21st. Every comment left between today and August 20th, will qualify your name as an entry. So if you like jam, here you go! Lots o luck!

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Priorities

So it has occured to me that I've taken more pictures of my garden lately than my kid. I have commited to realigning my priorities soon, but watching things grow is just so amazing. I told Raph, these potatoes and sweet potatoes are killing me. Yeah I see the plant part growing and getting bigger, but I am DIEING to know what is going on under ground. You cannot imagine the joy I get from counting the baby cucumbers, eggplant, squash, tomatoes, etc. I really really LOVE it. I really love Makili more of couse, but for once the garden is changing faster than he is.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Cobbler Season is Upon Us!

Yeah it's a season for me. Truly. I. Love. Cobbler. Blueberry cobbler. Blackberry Cobbler. Peach Cobbler. Especially peach cobbler. It had it's debut today. We picked six pounds of blueberries this morning at Salt box Farm. And I made a batch of blueberry jam for my dad for his birthday. (Sorry I'm ruining the surprise dad. ) And then I made two cobblers. One to share with my cousin's girlfriend's Romanian family who are here visiting. And the other just for me. My precious. My delicious. I made one cobbler with the tried and true recipe from Ann, and the other was an experimental version from here. (I altered by the way though and put the fruit on top instead of on the bottom. I recommend this.)

Give it a try. We also picked raspberries this week. Unfortunately, we were a bit late for peak raspberries and it was a LOT of work. I was on my knees for an hours crawling under bushes looking for those dang berries only to hear ladies around me talking about how they were dripping off the branches last week. Damn. Anyway, I've decided that raspberry jam is my new favorite. And since this was the first batch of jam I ever made all by myself, I named it "Solo Jam." Naming jam is, in my opinion, half the fun of making jam.

I guess in addition to cobbler season, canning season is officially upon us. I've also been freezing this year. I have a lot of frozen rhubarb, some kale, and I'm going to try freezing some squash in the not-too-distant future, since we will soon be up to our eye-balls in them. The tomatoes are growing like nuts too. I just found that the tomato cage I put on the biggest plant is not holding and tomorrow I'll have to do something about that. Now if some of them would just go ahead and turn red. The deer mowed down my swiss chard in the flower garden, where there is no fence. I thought that the motion light would keep them away, but apparently, it wasn't on. Oh well, it will be mature soon in the other garden.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Some Recent Beach Picks

Being naked means checking out what's down there a lot of the time.Serious sheepdog Morgan. What a little model.
Beach treasures.
Grandma showing him the ropes.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Glories of poop

So having an Aunt and Uncle who have a llama farm two hours away has come in handy for the garden. They provided us with some well-composted llama terds to add to our garden. We built one bed after having gotten the poop however, and so it never got any. The difference has been staggering! Look at these squash plants for example at the ends of each of these beds.

And here are some beets with poop...
and without they look pretty pitiful.
Look how far the lettuce garden has come!

Monday, July 14, 2008

Getting away from me


What can I say? It is summer. And while I'm loving the sun and the water and the wind, I've been feeling a little down lately. Overwhelmed and bored simultaneously. I think I'm ready for date night or something. Some time alone maybe. Today was a little better, but yesterday I seriously almost lost it. The truth is I need some more big projects like the garden. There is only so much weeding and watering a girl can do. I need to be busy because sitting around playing with Makili all day is making me nuts. I of couse love it part of the time, but he's getting more independent every day and I usually have a little bit of time, but nothing to do with it except quilt. But I want to be outside, doing some thing physical. We helped my cousin and his girlfriend rearrange their furniture and Raph and I played in a pretty great pick-up soccer game this weekend. That was good stuff. I don't know. Maybe my normal hormones have just started circulating again or something. My body is in culture-shock, like being thrown into a foreign country. I'm rambling and I know it.

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Water and Vegetables.




Makili and I went to the beach today for a little while, though today wasn't my best day ever. It was hot and buggy outside. Unbearable inside. It was the kind of day it would have been nice to have a friend to share the beach with. But really the sunburn factor would have been a problem. I couldn't think of any projects to work on even though I have a ton waiting for me. Makili was needy and really came close to driving me out of my mind. I accomplished absolutely nothing. The house is a mess. We've seen a few roaches in our house, which is just about the last thing I want to deal with after the mammoth variety that lived with us in Hawaii. So I set out some homemade roach traps I read about online, where you put petroleum jelly around the rim of a jar and put banana peels inside. Yeah I didn't catch one goddamn roach, but now we are infested with fruit flies. And I continue to see roaches.

So yeah, here are some pictures from our glorious day at the river yesterday. This is one of the perks from our CSA membership at Wolf Pine Farm. Nadine and the kids came for the heat relief and for something to do. You can tell she's done this before because she was wise enough to bring lots of snacks, which kept Makili and Morgan relatively happy in the car. Though I think by the time I got home I had endured a solid hour of Makili crying. You can only feed a kid so many mangoes. Anyway. It was great. And finally, the cauliflower I harvested from the garden today. Pretty delicious, and that is coming from someone who is only mildly into cauliflower. Peas are coming. (I'm keeping track of our harvest on the right side-bar incase your're interested.) Cucumbers, eggplant, beans, and tomatoes are flowering. Yes!