Next up, Rockport

On our latest weekend jaunt, we travelled to Rockport, MA, a really lovely little town about an hour north of Cambridge.


My definition of a great restaurant these days? A place that doesn't mind when my one year old climbs on their picnic table and picks at the food like a wandering seagull. Fish and chips for Mark and Frances, a hot dog with sauerkraut for me, and a beautiful afternoon for all. Perfection.



Then we asked Frances to pose a bit, with limited success, but wasn't the day beautiful?

We got more than our average number of "Your little boy is so cute" that day. Oh, well, I'll take it.

Sweet New England

Last weekend, we went to...


...to pick...

That's a blueberry.

I love this place. It's got so much goodness. Frances was a little unclear how this berry picking thing worked. At first, she just held her carton under the berries and hoped they would pick themselves.

"Hmmm, why didn't that work?" said Frances.

"Oh! You've got to use your fingers."

"One for the carton, one for me."

She eventually got the drill down. Good little picker Frances.

Happiness is being surrounded by blueberry bushes full of blueberries.

After we'd picked all the blueberries we could eat in a week, we visited the farm's animals. Frances didn't want the horse to be self-conscious about his crazy mane, so she spiked her hair.

Then we meandered over to the farm stand. This is not your ordinary side-of-the-road farm stand. Yes, they have lots of organic veggies, but more importantly, they've got Ice Cream! Frances approved.

Hey, Frances, how's that Apple Cider Doughnut?

Frances gave the whole experience a thumbs up.

And that's why I like New England.

Twenty Months of Toddler Frances

Two disclaimers: 1) This post has way too many photos. Sorry about that. I couldn't choose. 2) This first picture best represents Frances's real mood during her twenty-months photo shoot. She was feeling ornery. I have an ever-deepening respect for child photographers.


With that business out of the way, here's Frances Elliott at 20 months of age. Mark and I took Frances down to Harvard Yard. We thought that would be a nice setting for Auntie Beth's lastest gift, also known as The Loveliest Dress Ever.

Please excuse the shoes; we need to find some nice white sandals. Concentrate on the dress.

These last two are my favorite:

Twenty Month Fun Facts

• Language: Frances has had a bit of a language burst. Some of her new words include "uck" for "stuck," "ba" for "ball," "ruck" for "truck," yes, yep, yeah, hat, walk and rock. She also uses hot, wet and up, but she's a little shakey on the meaning. Everything is "hot" and she pats the spot where she wants us to sit and says "up." She also knows monkeys say "hee hee," owls say "who-who" and horses say "knee," don't you know? Frances now addresses us as "daddy" and "momma." She's working on saying "Frances," but so far all we can make is two syllables of gibberish. She also now signs "please," so there's hope.
• Firsts: Frances had her first trip to New York City. I'm not sure how old I was for my first NYC trip, but I suspect I was older than 20 months. Mark was about 23. Frances has really mastered blowing kisses as she's going to bed. She's getting very close to full-on running, but she still wobbles so much when she tries to run that I half expect her to topple over. She never quite does though. By next month, she may have had her first hair cut!
• Obsessions: Frances's obsession with dogs, cats and ducks continues. She lives to get out of the apartment. She also enjoys telling us where to sit, mostly next to her. And clapping, she loves clapping.

I have to keep reminding myself that she's closer to a year and a half than two years, she seems so grown up. I'm loving it.

Fattening Up Frances

We here at Frances Elliott Upton, Inc. generally eschew photos of children eating, but we were willing to make an exception in this case. I've enlisted Fudgsicles in the never-ending battle to fatten up Frances. But we were afraid Frances would get messy eating one, so we stripped her down and headed out to the courtyard behind our building.

She started out clean enough.

But things got messier.

It went down hill from here, but at least she ate!

Frances and the Fourth

Mark, Frances and I had a really nice Fourth of July, with a mixture of the old and the new. Like last year, we started in the Boston Garden. This year, Frances showed off her belly to anyone who was interested.







We found the ducks of Make Way for Ducklings fame, which was perfect for Frances because "duck" is one of her favorite words. All birds, in fact, are "ducks."

After leaving the ducks, we continued meandering through the gardens. I like this photo because it reminds me of the one by W. Eugene Smith with the two children walking through the trees. (Google "photograph children walking" and it's the first photo to pop up.) Frances thought hanging out under the tree was terrific, probably because it was nice and cool.

We, meaning Mark and I (possibly just myself), couldn't pass up another trip on the Swan Boats, since it could be our last. This year I was able to get a photo of a whole boat in the background for the uninitiated to reference. The concept of riding around in a boat propelled by a bird remains strange.

Frances was a little bored.

But she perked up when there were actual ducks to talk to.

As for our new activities, after nap, we headed back out to watch some multi-hulled boat racing.

To be honest, it was hard to follow what was going on with the boats. For example, it wasn't clear to us where the races started and stopped. Frances solved this problem by ignoring the races in favor of climbing the bleachers - repeatedly.

Then it got really hot, like in the 80's, so we went home.

No fireworks for us. They didn't start until 10:30. How do people stay up that late?

Frances in The Big City

We'd been sitting around Cambridge sooo long, we decided to go visit some friends in Brooklyn. Tara and Andrew are moving to LA soon so we needed to skedattle. We didn't do the tourist thing this time, just chatted. Luckily for us, Tara is handy with a camera and Frances was feeling particularly photogenic. Get comfy.

The two day photo shoot started on Tara's bed.






Tara and Andrew have the great fortune to live on the top floor of their building with a roof deck.
Frances was very interested in their screen door.







Tara has quite the collection of decorative headbands. Frances was very obliging.

Frances, The Butterfly

Frances, The Flower

Frances, The Minnie Mouse

Frances, The Purple Glittered Mickey Mouse Bobble Head
and
Tara, The Minnie Mouse

Frances, The Flower II

Then we meandered back out to the roof deck, where Frances did her Goldilocks routine.

Tara's cat, Fizgig, was very patient with Frances's ample attention.

"I can has cat?"

We stripped Frances down for dinner and she never really made it back into her clothes.

One more time as a flower.

A few more photos before bed.

The Statue of Liberty is over to the left.

 

The next day, before heading back north, we made a trip to the playground. We took maybe a dozen photos of Frances on the playground, but we choose this one because Mark found it "graphically pleasing."

See how the three swings line up? That's what makes it graphically pleasing to Mark, and that's why Mark is an architect and I'm not.

Frances held Andrew and Tara's hands forever and walked along without a complaint in the world. She does not do that for her parents.

After a little breakfast that involved waffles topped with hollandaise, we headed back to Boston. It was a fast but wonderful trip.

One more photo, our favorite: