Across the pond

Jamaica Pond, that is, not the Atlantic.

Jamaica Plain has a Jamaica Pond, and Jamaica Pond has row boats.  The three of us tried them out last Sunday.  We started out the rowing with Frances planted next to me and me firmly holding on to her life jacket.  Brought back memories of sailing in Maine as a child - and being really annoyed.  Over the course of the hour, I loosened up a little and Frances tried her hand at rowing.

And then some general goofing around.

It ended up being great fun.  We watched people fish and sail, and rowed around an island.  Luckily for me, Mark's length is incompatible with anywhere but the middle seat, so he has to row and I have to laze around.  Perfect.

That night, as I was putting Frances to bed, she said "Thanks row around island," so I'm guessing she enjoyed herself, too.

A Whole Lotta Haywards

Ok, technically just one Hayward (that's me).  Here's the story:  My sister and her family drive from Lexington, Kentucky, to Maine every year.  This year, their schedule allowed them to spend the night in Boston.  Good times!  They came just in time for some Indian, then a whole lot of cousin running, and then a little reading before bed.  Here you have my sister Jocelyn, her eldest Nora, Frances, me, and middle cousin Clare.

I'm not sure where the boys had gotten to, but somewhere in the apartment, brother-in-law Josh, cousin James and Mark were hanging around, too (alright, at this moment, Mark was taking our picture, but then I lost track of him).

Frances loved it.  She's gotten into the habit of thanking me for something just before she goes to bed each night.  It's a very sweet habit that I adore.  On The Night of the Cousins, Frances said "Thank you cousins running" just as I was saying "good night."  Pure bliss.

Natick Community Organic Farm Spring Spectacular

I'll say this for the frozen North, once Spring finally comes, it is well celebrated.  We headed out to our second Spring celebration, this time at the Natick Community Organic Farm.  It's a small farm associated with the town of Natick, practically on the grounds of a public school.  Why didn't we have this in Arkansas?

We started out with a little hay ride...

...and then found our way to the grounds of a preschool program held on the farm.  I'd actually heard about this program before somehow.  Only a few kids and they spend almost all their time outside, no matter what the weather.  Lots of helping on the farm and mucking around.  Mothers are encouraged to bring a change of clothes when they pick their kids up because the kids get so messy.  Sounds great for the right kind of kid.  Frances was a big fan of their swing, just a ring suspended from a wire stretched between two trees.

She was on this thing for quite a while.

Hey, Sir, can we get one in Maine, please?  Frances would love you forever.

Eventually, she was coaxed away from the swing and on to the horse.

She was interested in this house for about five seconds.  I thought it was pretty cool, myself.

Back at the Spring Spectacular proper, Frances homed in on the face painting.  She must have asked ten times during lunch when it was her turn to get painted.  I present Frances, The Butterfly.

And we wrapped up with some bunnies and...

...poppies.

At the last minute, Frances tried to make friends with a cow.  The cow took one look at Frances and bellowed.  Ever have a cow bellow about two feet from your face?  It is very loud and Frances was not pleased.  She screwed up her face and screamed.  Her parents were chatting with some other attendants and didn't immediately clue in to Frances's distress.  She spent the rest of the morning telling us about the time the cow moo'ed and she cried (alone).  Sorry about that, kiddo.

Boston Nature Center

Mark was out of town a couple Saturdays ago, and I didn't want poor Frances to feel deprived, so we headed off together to the Boston Nature Center.  Big success, with a little paranoia thrown in.  When Frances and I pulled into the Center, we were greeted by a herd of wild turkeys.  I love that about Massachusetts, the roving bands of giant birds.  My camera couldn't quite do them justice, so I'm not including a photo, but just imagine very large birds with Frances in hot pursuit trying to pat them.

First, Frances and I walked a .3 mile trail and picked flowers.

That took about four minutes, so then we started in on a five mile loop.  Frances did quite well for about 30 minutes.

Then, I became convinced that the boogie man could easily do away with us without any civilized human knowing otherwise and I decided never to go hiking without another adult ever again.  About two minutes later, I realized we were very, very close to a brand new subdivision that Mark and I had even considered moving to.  We were maybe 100 feet from some very civilized humans.  But Frances wanted to be carried at that point, so I decided it was time to turn around.

Back at the Nature Center headquarters, some only slightly tortured-looking teenagers were offering bird crafts for the kids.  Frances's favorite craft was making binoculars out of two toilet paper rolls.  Here she is using them to scout out some birds.

(She's been using them on and off for days now.  She can't quite manage saying "binoculars" though; when she can't find them, she wanders around saying "Where my noc'ers?"  Very unfortunate.)

We finished up by moving some sand around.

Very successful morning, turkeys, boogie man and all.

Oh, Joy!

Mother's Day, again.  I've heard normal people go out to brunch on Mother's Day.  Somehow, I've been in a Mother's Day 5k two years in a row.  I blame the Ahouses.  I really do.

This year, Frances and Sophia Ahouse got in on the action with a 1k of their own. Lining up before the race, that's Frances almost in the center of the picture in a white shirt and pink pants with Sophia to Frances's right in a blue and white striped dress.

And they're off!!  Can you see the girls?  They're towards the back with Dave, Sophia's dad, running between them.

And then the rest of the kids finished and it became a group effort.  That's Michele with baby Theo strapped to her chest, Sophia, Frances, Dave and me.  I haven't had such fun in a long time.  The girls kept trooping along, long after we had the race all to ourselves.

And then the girls got their numbers pinned on, because we were a wee bit late, and their ribbons.  I was so proud.  Seems like a very motherly thing to do, doesn't it, beam with pride even if your kid comes in last?  I was just so pleased with her First Race.

I think the girls were mostly so pleased with having their own numbers.  And Dave is so pleased with being funny in the background of pictures.

Then the grown-ups had their 5k, with Dave again pushing the girls, Michele running her first race since giving birth two months ago, and me bringing up the rear.  It's a challenging race, with lots of up hill running.  Dave was the first runner with a stroller to finish, and he had two kids!  And I finished!

I mentioned after the race that I'd heard Mother's Day brunches were all the rage and that we might try one out next year.  The Ahouses agreed that would be a great reward, after next year's race.

I blame the Ahouses.  I really do.

Thirty Months of Toddler Frances

The kiddo is two and a half!  The kiddo herself thinks she's "two and O months" (that's the letter "o," not the number zero).  Not sure where she got that, but on the big day itself, Frances and I headed over to the Arnold Arboretum to dust off her bike.  I pushed her around for a bit and then a little girl Frances knows from the library story hour happened to show up.  Frances has a bit of a crush on this girl, so she gladly followed Rosie around, throwing sticks in the pond, "feeding" the fish dandelions, and monkeying about under the trees.  It was great.

Then she re-cooperated in the grass for a bit.

Not too terribly much to report this month, but here it goes, Thirty Months Frances Fun Facts:

• Favorite reads: Oh, the horror!  Her favorite read right now is a Dora book.  I can't even be bothered to learn its title, but it's got something to do with Dora and Boots, the monkey, finding Easter eggs.  It has flaps that Frances can look under to find the eggs and Frances is a sucker for flaps and Dora, so I'm doubly, um, cornered into reading this book multiple times a day.
• First joke: Point at anything in a picture book.  Say "That's a cat!"  Laugh uproariously.  Repeat, a lot.  Two year-old humor.
• Sleep:  Frances has taken up napping again.  I'm so pleased.  I thought we were doing alright with no napping and early bed times, but now that she's napping again, I realize we were having a rough time.
• Frequent phrase: "Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?"
• Word to describe Frances this month: smoother.  Maybe because she's napping again, Frances has been easier lately.  This makes the decision to send her to school that much harder, as originally I had thought it was time because she seemed so bored with me and my activities.  We shall see.  One month until school starts.

Morning at Marblehead

Mark, Frances and I have been to the outskirts of Marblehead, MA, a couple times, but never to the downtown to see the old houses.  We made the trip a couple weekends ago and I highly recommend it.  These are real deal "old" houses, at least as far as America is concerned. We didn't manage to get any pictures of the old houses, but we did get this one of Frances on one of the docks.  A lovely spring morning, as you can see.

The Wake Up The Earth Festival

The Wake Up The Earth Festival is the local Spring festival, put on by the local professional hippies (they host a great toddler drum circle!).  It's full of family-friendly activities.  Frances and I tried out the...poles, let's go with that, that were erected in a tent shape for...dancing, let's go with that, too. 

And we played with a jump rope.

Frances hasn't quite figured out the point of jump ropes, yet.

And Frances tried out the hula hopes.

By the time we got back to the poles, we learned they were meant to be decorated, sort of a modern day, free-form May Pole.  Frances obliged.

There were also great bands and lots of good eats.  I thought it was great fun, but Spring festivals with May Poles aren't quite Mark's thing ("I'll persuade him someday!" said the ever-hopeful wife), and Frances was having a very off day (she walked around the festival moaning "Birthday" which, it turns out, means "I want cake" and she ended up sleeping around 14 out of 24 hours and eating lots, so growth spurt?), so after a bit, this mama gave up and let everyone come home.  But, Happy Spring to you!

Little Bookworms Story Hour

One of my favorite things about our new neighborhood is attending the Little Bookworms Story Hour at the local animal shelter.  That may sound a little strange.  It sounded strange to me when I first heard about it.  Going to a story hour at an animal shelter sounded potentially very depressing, so I avoided it for at least a month.  Eventually, I decided to give it a try and I'm so glad I did.  The kids have about an hour to meet some animals (ferrets, rabbits, parrots, dogs and cats, so far), color pictures, play with play-dough, sing silly songs, listen to stories, pretend to be animals and then get animal stickers.  It's chaos, but I love it because the kids are so happy and the woman in charge is so enthusiastic about introducing her animals to all the kids.

Last week, the kids got their faces painted.  It was Frances's first encounter with face paint and she loved it.

Can you guess what she is?  Give up?  She's a rabbit.  See it now?  (All rabbits have purple eye brows, you just have to look really closely.)  Miss Frances was completely pleased with herself and showed her paint to anyone who would listen to her for the rest of the day.  It was a hoot.  And I think they do face painting every month.  Fingers crossed.

Lounging in the Lilacs

As I believe I've mentioned before, we now live very close to the Arnold Arboretum, an arboretum associated with Harvard that has free admission.  I had noticed some lilac bushes in our neighborhood were in bloom and thought it would be worth checking out the Arboretum's collection.  Boy, did we luck out!  The day was beautiful and the lilacs were gorgeous.  Get comfortable.  I had some trouble deciding which pictures to include.

Happy day, happy kiddo!

Riding at Auntie Linda's

Before heading back to the significantly colder North, Frances, Mimi, and I took a little trip to West Fork, Arkansas, to take advantage of our Auntie Linda's hospitality.  It was riding time!  Frances jumped right into the grooming.

That green and pink thing hanging from Frances's neck is a felt purse that Frances was pretty sure needed to come to West Fork with us.  Lena, Mimi and Sir's new dog, had tenderized it a bit, but Frances was ever faithful

Here's the crew: Linda, the noble Count, Frances Elliott, and me.  Frances was a tad more nervous riding this time than her first time, I think because last time she had her big cousins showing her how it was done.

Happy trails, to you, until we meet again!

And then we came back to the significantly colder North.  A few more weeks until Maine!  Get your sweaters out!

Botanical Garden of the Ozarks

Northwest Arkansas is getting so fancy, it even has its own botanical garden that I highly recommend.  It has a giant nest for kids to climb around on.

And a bridge draped by a weeping willow.

And a train, so even Frances liked it.

This train thing is getting out of control.  I suppose it's better than a Barbie obsession, but geez Louise already.