Frances in the Orchard

Alas, blueberry season is over, but beautiful New England offers up a new bounty:

Last Sunday, we took Frances apple picking for the first time at Honey Pot Hill Orchard in Stow, MA.  It was ridiculously hot and crowded at the orchard, but Frances didn't mind.  She thought the ladders were great playthings.

We eventually enticed her away from the ladder and into the actual trees.  

There were apples everywhere.  Frances was quite pleased with these two she found on the ground.

With some coaxing, she picked a few off the trees, not the ground.

The picking took about five minutes.  And then it was back to the ladders.

Very successful day.  Frances and I have been munching on apples all day long and Mark was very receptive to the apple pie we made with our pickings.

Frances at the Topsfield Fair

Last Saturday was gorgeous here in Massachusetts.  Mark and I took Frances up to the Topsfield Fair, America's oldest agricultural fair.  Frances was a little under the weather; it took her awhile to get engaged in the festivities.

This is Frances being interested in a chain and me trying to get her interested in anything else.

The cows were a little interesting, but not thrilling.

This teeny tiny goat needed to be examined for about ten minutes before Frances was interested in touching it.  Gotta be careful around baby pygmy goats.  Never know what they'll do.

By the time we made it to the tractor display, Frances was showing some real joy.  This front loader was very popular with little miss.

Then, we found the miniture train display.  Oh, joy! Oh, rapture!

And we were still home in time for naps - which made Mom and Dad pretty happy, too.

Twenty-Three Months of Toddler Frances

So, not the best pictures, but on Frances's twenty-three months birthday, we found ourselves out for dinner with Frances's friend, Sophia.  We were celebrating making an offer on a house.  Frances was celebrating her French Fries.

Here we go:

• Language: I'm a little behind on the language list.  Some that I've failed to mention in previous posts include milk, bagel, run, "eep" for sleep, Abby, Amy, mouse and house.  Her new words this month are Elmo, towel, nut, bright, bridge, tunnel, "rit" for read, "oap" for soap, and "rickie" for cookie.  She only signs cracker, airplane, bird, blueberry, and more.  All her other signs have been replaced with spoken words.  I read somewhere that at her age Frances should "have" 150 to 300 words.  I don't think she speaks even close to that many, but I could believe that she understands that many.
• Locomotion: Running, running, running.  And she doesn't fall down half as much as she used to.
• Favorite song: Old MacDonald, and her favorite animals to sing about are horses and dolphins.  Making the dolphin sound is...interesting.
• Favorite books: You Can Go to the Potty, by William and Martha Sears and a Sesame Street dictionary.  I prefer the Sesame Street dictionary.
• Social skills: When Frances began trying to socialize with kids at the playground, she would walk up to them, tilt her head towards the kids and then raise her eyebrows.  Success was rare.  Now, she runs circles around her intended playmate, hoping the kid will engage in a chase.  One poor child gave me a look that said, "What am I supposed to do with this?" but then gamely chased after Frances for at least 20 minutes. Thank you, thank you stranger child at the playground for indulging my child.
• Frequent conversations:  As with last month,

                   Frances: Wet?

                   Me: (I can say anything here, really, then Frances will say...)

                   Frances: Bath (pronounced "Bas").

             Another "conversation" we have goes like this,

 

                   Frances: Daddy choo-choo.

                   Me: Yes, Daddy rides the choo-choo train to work.

• One word to describe Frances this month: pre-Humdinger.  Not everyday, but some days Frances can really give us a run for the money.  The next year might be long.

What the Fluff? A Family-Friendly Affair

First order of business is explaining fluff.  It's a marshmallow goo that was created in Somerville, the next town over from Cambridge.  Every year, Somerville has a What the fluff? Festival to celebrate their "treasure."  Best thing to do with fluff?  Make a fluffernutter sandwich, that's fluff and peanut butter between white bread, of course.

Frances took this fluffernutter stuff pretty seriously.

Well, not that seriously.

Besides eating, there were other fluff-centric activities, like fishing for fluff container lids.

Each lid had a clever saying written on it, like "To fluff or not to fluff."  The sayings were a little lost on Frances.

The day was made perfect for Frances when she ran into her friend Sophia.  They had a great time careering around the festival, creating problems for anyone trying to walk in a straight line.

Us parents don't stand a chance.

A Frances First

I had read that toddlers are more interested in eating food that they help prepare.  I decided to make some banana bread with Frances, our first co-baking experience.  Frances thought mashing up the bananas was great and she was really keen to try the batter.

Don't believe her expression here.   She was actually saying "Yum" while I took this picture.

She even enthusiastically ate about two bites of the finished product, and then lost all interest.  Back to the drawing board.

Last Summer Hurrah

Before Mark started his new job(!), we squeezed in one last trip to Maine with Mimi, Sir and Auntie Cathy.  First order of business was getting a picture of the long lost Mimi, fresh off the boat from a circumnavigation of Prince Edward Island.  Frances took this:



Phew!  What a relief to track her down.  Now we can stop having the conversation about Mimi being on a boat in Canada.

Brilliant Frances figured out immediately that eating her dinner was pointless, because with Mimi and Sir there's always hors d'oeuvres to be had.

Our last full day in Maine started out a little rough. Frances woke up at 1:41 a.m. and wouldn't settle.  Why sleep when Mom and Dad are around to play?  To give the house some peace, Mark, Frances and I headed out in the chilly dawn for an island tour.  We watched the sun rise over Bar Harbor and then treated ourselves to blueberry pancakes at a diner.  So the day was looking up. 

We got home, rested a bit and headed out for a picnic.  This is Auntie Cathy, Frances and Mimi loaded on the boat and ready to set sail.



Notice that Auntie Cathy was wearing a jacket and pants and sipping hot tea.  That's how warm it was.  Frances, for her part, was wearing her pajama top and the same pants she had on the previous day.  Not sure her teeth were brushed either.  Her mother was too tired to get Frances any more organized. 

Poor tired kiddo. 

The water in the picnic cove was about 55 degrees.  That didn't slow Frances down one bit.  She took one look at the water and started pulling off her clothes.  Partly because I'd been up since 2 a.m. and partly because I was wearing a turtle neck, it never occurred to me to bring Frances's swim suit.  Lesson learned.

"What happens if I sit down in the water?"

You get cold, kiddo, really cold.

One of Frances's favorite activities right now is being swung around by her arms - she begs for "wish, wish," her best attempt at saying "swish" which is the sound I make while swinging her.  She suckered Mark and me into "wishing" her.

And then Frances took us for a sail around Hardwood Island and then home.

It ended up being one of those heavenly Maine summer days.  And Frances was asleep in my arms by 6:40.

Twenty-Two Months of Toddler Frances

I'll try to be less wordy this month.

• Language: So many new words, but many of them sound alike and context is very important to the poor adult trying to keep up.  Juice and shoes sound very similar, as do walk/rock. and truck/stuck. Words' starting or ending sounds are often tricky, for instance, Dir is Sir, dup is cup, dop is stop, and doo-doo is choo-choo, unfortunately.  Sea gull is pronounced something like T-Gll. Likewise, boap is boat; tacky is taxi.  Some words are spot-on correct, like monkey, bubble and way, as in "This is the way I want to go, not your way."  She can now make the sign for airplane, and uses it frequently.
• Locomotion: Running is her favorite way to get around but she still trips almost daily.  Her knees have taken a toll, but she's discovered the joy of picking scabs, so there's an up side.
• Song repertoire:  I believe when she says "D" at song time, she's asking for the alphabet song.  I'm positive she loves the "Five Little Monkeys" rhyme; we use it to get through long car trips.
• Favorites: She loves books about dogs and trains.  She loves to eat red onions.  (She has loved them for months, but I'm not sure I've mentioned it before and I want to remember it in my doddering old age.)
• Greatest aspiration: Still questing for World Domination, our Frances.  The latest iteration: Mark gets disciplined for touching me.  Jeepers.
• Frequent conversation goes like this:

          Frances (pointing at my head): Wet?

          Me: My hair is wet because I took a bath.

          Frances: Bath (pronounced bas)

 

         This is mostly all well and good, but it gets a little awkward when she goes to the grocery and points at one man with dreadlocks and another with a slicked back do (seemed to be a Dapper Dan Man) and exclaims "Wet!?"  Both men just smiled, thankfully.

I must say, I'm in awe of her progress.  Less than two years ago, she was absolutely defenseless.  Soon, she'll be hailing taxis.  On to next month!