In case she needs to read, of course.

Twenty-Five Months of Toddler Frances

Frances managed to accumulate four Advent Calenders this year, much to her joy.  The first actually tells the Christmas story.  She spent about three seconds on it per night and I didn't manage to capture her opening it on film.  The second Advent Calender was a New England coast scene.  She liked it well enough.

The third Advent Calender was a pop-up tree that Frances could hang ornaments on.  We love it.  In fact, we love it so much, we recycled it from last year.  (Thanks again, Beka. Your Jewishness knows no bounds.)

The fourth Advent Calender was on the computer and, I have to admit, it was Frances's favorite.  Lots of music and moving parts, some of Frances's favorite things.

Twenty-Five Months Fun Facts



• Language: Frances is still working on counting and reliably counts from six to ten.  Everything else is shaky.  Her adjective repertoire has expanded to include "cute," "big" and "fun."  She's working on colors, but she's mostly interested in car colors and there are some very odd car colors out there that make learning the basics difficult.  She uses "self" a lot, as in, "I'll do it myself."  "Bletch you" is Frances-talk for "bless you."  She also repeats the last few words said by others around her.  So when Mimi looks at our neighborhood and says "This neighborhood has a lot of po' folk," Frances, dear, chimes in with, "Po' folk." Thank you, Mimi.
• Locomotion: Running and running and running.  I saw a shirt the other day that said "Free-Range Kid."  I was tempted to buy it for Frances.
• Favorite song: Old MacDonald has had its day!  She has moved on to the theme song from the Toy Story movies, "You've Got a Friend in Me."  I'm not proud that my daughter's favorite song comes from a movie, but I'm so relieved not to be singing Old MacDonald several times a day that it doesn't matter.
• Frequent conversations:  We no longer talk about getting wet in the bath or shower.  I don't know what happened, but one day that was just no longer interesting to Frances.  And "Daddy choo-choo" is coming up less often.  She does mention "chine round and round" regularly.  That would be the Zamboni machine she saw at the neighborhood skating rink that goes around and around.  And, really, who doesn't enjoy watching a good Zamboni?



Welcome to Brunch...

...never mind the finger prints and tooth marks on the butter.

Here's proof for myself that she will eat, whenever I need reminding.  Maybe not what I planned, but she will eat.

Y'all come over anytime!

The Old and The New

Frances in the Cambridge apartment:

Frances in the Jamaica Plain condo:

You know life could be worse when you find your happy, healthy two-year old reading Blueberries for Sal in your new condo.

The move went very well with only minor hitches.  Frances locked herself in a room within ten minutes of moving into the condo.  Luckily, she and I had sampled some cheese at a Whole Foods the day before and I still had the toothpicks in my jacket pocket.  We were able to unlock the door with the toothpicks and spring Frances, no problem.  Thank goodness for Whole Foods sampler platters.  Now we keep a supply of toothpicks around for similar emergencies.  We're down to about one toothpick a day!

Celebrating Frances

Mark and I took Frances to the New England Aquarium here in Boston to celebrate her second birthday!  We had a great time, but the pictures from the trip are not so good.  They keep it very dark in there - better for the wildlife? Frances spent quite a lot of time watching the penguins.  Lots of talk about getting wet in the bath.  Notice the cute little dress she's wearing.  Mom picked it out special for the day.

The fish would not cooperate with the picture-taking, but the giant tank was as awe-inspiring as ever.

Glow-in-the-dark-Frances taking in the whale skeleton, also a good shot of the cute little dress.

Then we got to the aquarium's new Shark & Ray Touch Tank.  The idea is that visitors gently rest their hands on the surface of the water and allow the sharks and rays to swim against their hands.  Frances was a little over-enthusiastic.  She splashed around in the water...

...and then she fell in a little.  She was soaked from the crown of her head to the middle of her chest.  Good-bye, cute little dress.  Yep, my kid went swimming in the Shark & Ray Swim Tank on her second birthday.  Great parenting.

"But, guys, why are we leaving?  I haven't touched a shark yet," said the consternated Frances.

Time for some cake.  Frances is currently obsessed with trains, Thomas the Tank Engine in particular.  My husband, the genius, whipped up this little ditty free-hand:

Not too shabby, right?  Yes, we used a train-shaped cake pan, but he didn't follow the pan's outline at all.  Just looked at a picture of Thomas and got to work.  We now have a back up plan if this architecting doesn't work out. 

Frances wasn't at all sure what to do with the candles.

We thought the 13 flames on the cake were a little intimidating, so we tried again with just one flame.  Frances wasn't any more interested in it.  I'm choosing to interpret this as a sign of wisdom.

Mark took literally 400 pictures of Frances opening her lovely gifts.  I'm going to summarize the experience with this one:

We'd originally planned to return to the aquarium post-nap because it was just that cool, but the place was overrun with teenagers, so we decided to indulge Frances's train fetish instead with a trip across the Charles.  It was a wise choice.  The river was thick with sailboats, many with their spinnakers flying.

Frances took this picture.  It says so much about her interests right now: bikes, bridges and trains (there's a train going across the bridge that's very hard to see).

And the two-year old herself!

Congratulations, kiddo, on a great two years.  We love you to bits.