Urban Girl

My mom told me recently that she'd just realized Frances is going to be an urban kid, probably more comfortable on the T than on a tractor.  I think mom is right. 

This is the kiddo cooling off with a fan in a T station.

"Goofball" is all I'm gonna say.

Thirty-Three Months of Preschooler Frances

I really can't call her a toddler anymore as she can out-run me is small bursts.

It has not been a quiet month here at Lake Woebegone, my home town.  Since starting school, all of Frances's rhythms have been unsynchronized, with unpleasant results for the household.  She used to sleep from 7 p.m. to 6:30 a.m.; last night, she slept from 8 p.m. to 5:45 a.m.  And, I can now say without hesitation that she has had temper tantrums, not just the meltdowns we've experienced so far.  It is tempting to put all the blame on the huge change to schooling, and therefore cut back on how much time she spends at school, but we're trying to have faith in her ability to adapt, even if it takes a few months.  And we're trying to remember that all two year-olds have temper tantrums and we've just been very lucky up until now, but, man, it's hard 30 minutes into a screaming fit.  On that note, I will try to be positive from here on out in this post.

Thirty-Three Month Fun Facts of Frances Elliott Upton

• Favorite reads:  Still Curious George.  I now realize we've been reading the same eight Curious George books for the past month and it is time to visit the library.  Frances's new explanation for anything she does that's a little bit naughty: "I'm curious, like George."
• School: She really does seem to love school while she is there.  Sometimes it takes her a minute to let me go in the morning, but she's all smiles when I pick her up.  She seems to like her teachers and the other kids.  She likes to pretend she's a teacher when she's home with me and she likes to line me up to walk around the apartment.  I know she likes their train set.
• Questions:  She is still a ferocious question-asker.  How can I put this positively?...She definitely encourages me to think about aspects of the books we read together that I would never have considered without her probing.  She can turn a seven page book into a 30 minute project.
• Food wars:  Frances will now eat apples (not the skins, but still, that's progress) and tortillas.  She willingly put more that one bite of scrambled egg in her mouth this month and last night she had half a bite of baked ziti.  She then turned to Cheerios, but half a bite of baked ziti is half a bite more than she's ever put in her mouth before.  Oh, and some hot dog, too!  Not many mothers get to be pleased when their kid eats some hot dog, but we're a bit special around here.  I'm very careful not to comment to her one way or the other to avoid power struggles, but maybe Frances's food boundaries are loosening up a bit.  Here's hoping.
• Favorite song: "High Five," by They Might Be Giants.  A decade ago, I would have said I'd be thrilled to have a kid who likes They Might Be Giants.  Now I can say that listening to one song over and over cannot technically make you crazy, but it can definitely push you along the bend.

To next month!  Only 30 days from now, we will be back in Maine as a family.  I'll keep reminding us all of that.

                       

Newport Ice Cream

Our friends the Ahouses had us down to Newport, RI, this weekend for some general rest and relaxation, or as much rest and relaxation as you can get with two two year-olds along for the ride.  After some truly lovely time at the beach, Mark and Michele took the girls for ice cream.  I took a nap, so I really did get some rest and relaxation.  Here are some photos Michele took of the girls in action.

Frances takes her ice cream seriously.  I'm told she had Lobster Claw-flavored ice cream, which somehow involved red chocolate.  You can see some of the red on the end of her nose.

God bless you, Michele and Mark, I needed that nap and Frances clearly enjoyed the ice cream.

"I like Buzz!"

Yep, that's a trash can on my kid's head.  After I emptied the trash the other day, Frances picked up the empty trash can and started gleefully exclaiming, "I like Buzz! I like Buzz!"  Translation: I (have a helmet on) like Buzz (Lightyear, the lovable space ranger from the Toy Story movies).  We may have our Halloween costume ready, and it's not even September.

George's Island

At the beginning of the summer, Mark and I made a list of activities we'd like to do before cold weather sets in again.  Mark's activities were riding a train (for Frances's sake), attending a symphony and sailing on the Charles.  My activities were consuming onion rings and milk shakes by the ocean, picking berries and taking a ferry to one of the Harbor Islands in Boston Harbor.  We've done all of one spouse's suggestions and none of the other's.  Can you guess the winning spouse?  Keep in mind that one of us schemes about the weekend all week long, while the other does something annoying, like work.  That's right, I win.

     So on a recent weekend, we headed out on a ferry to George's Island in Boston Harbor.  Here's Frances being a bit cheesy on the ride out.

George's Island is dominated by Fort Warren, a Civil-War era fort.  Frances had a great time exploring the fort once we'd pried her from the play structure situated conveniently 100 feet from the dock.  Here she is in the guards' station.

The place was full on nooks and crannies.  We had a great time surprising dad, over and over.

It was very foggy on the way over in the ferry and for half the morning.  Almost looks like a castle on a moor, rather than a fort a 20 minute boat ride from Boston.

Technically, they weren't supposed to be on that side of the barrier, but no one seemed to mind.  More cheese from Miss Frances.  She was in a good mood that day.

She somehow got separated from her shirt...Actually, I know exactly how she got separated from her shirt: she took it off.  What I don't know is why she felt the need to disrobe.  Luckily, she only felt the need to take off her shorts for a few minutes.

Daddy and Frances contemplating the meaning of life, while looking out into the greater harbor...

..."Enough with contemplating life," says Frances.  "Now I will collect rocks, should I ever need some more pebbles in my life."

Next weekend, we will go to a symphony or ride a train or sail on the Charles, I promise.  Probably.

deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum

Every summer Friday, five attractions in the Boston area offer free admission.  I love it.  We recently took advantage of the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum's free Friday.  The offerings of the deCordova are, well, a little strange, for my taste, but it's a beautiful setting for gamboling about and it was free!

Here's some Frances gamboling.  She picked out the flower herself.

This is one of the tamer sculptures.  Frances and I liked it quite a bit.

And then we retreated to the snack bar for some drinks.  This heat is killing us!  (I am aware of the multiple layers of irony there, just so you know.)

Thirty-Two Months of Toddler Frances (and Hyannis, MA)

I know Frances and I had just come home from Maine, but we needed a little vacation for the three of us.  Plus, sleeping in air-conditioning sounded really good.  I thought Hyannis, Massachusetts, sounded nice (Hyannis = Kennedys = beautiful homes to ogle, right?) and it had cheap hotel rooms, so we headed off.  On the way, we stopped in Heritage Museums and Gardens in Sandwich, Massachusetts.  It was lovely, highly recommend it to any locals.

We started in their car collection, housed in a reproduction of the round barn at the Hancock Shaker Village, which is also near and dear to our hearts.  Frances was impressively interested in the old cars, but her favorite was this car she was allowed to touch.

This could easily be my favorite water feature ever - just a very simple water trough that spilled out into a lily pond.  Frances liked all the larvae in the pond.  To each her own.

Eat your heart out, John Singer Sargent...O.k., maybe not, but close.

We were momentarily lost on the garden's trails, but it was not a bad place to be lost.  

There was also a Norman Rockwell collection (which we skipped, I'll admit) and a carousel (which we rode many, many times, but it's hard to get a good picture on a carousel).

We finished up in the children's area, which was almost worth the trip all by itself.  It included xylophones, drums, a tree house, crafts, plants to water, and more.  It was well worth braving the light drizzle coming down.

A final shot of Frances in the gardens.

Then we traveled on to Hyannis, but it turned out to be, well, a tourist-trap, to put it nicely.  Apparently, the Kennedys hung out in Hyannisport, but we wore ourselves out looking for nice parts of Hyannis and never made it to Hyannisport.  It was still a very needed get-away.  We all loved the gardens, Frances loved the hotel pool and Mark and I loved sleeping in air-conditioning.  We did stop on the way home and buy a window unit.

The pictures above were taken on Frances's Thirty-Two Months Birthday, so I'll do my little run down.

• Favorite reads: Still Curious George, but I found some more modern re-incarnations of George at the library and they're preferable to the originals.  Much shorter, but I'm still waiting for the man with the yellow hat to realize George is not going to be a good little monkey and stay out of trouble.
• Firsts: School, of course!  She goes all day for four days a week, which is a lot of time, but I think we are happier together when we are together.  I hope she's learning to branch out and I'm getting to do some volunteer work.
• Frequent phrase: Still "Why?" but I've come to realize she asks all sorts of questions all the time.  She'll even ask "What's Frances doing?"  I wish I could count the number of questions she asks a day.  I bet we've had days of up to 100 questions.  Sometimes I don't even notice it, but other times I get very worn out.  A typical conversation sounds like this:
• Frances: What's that?
• Me: A red car.
• Frances: Why?
• Me: (deep sigh) Because it's a car and because it's red.
• Frances: What is Frances doing?
• Me: Putting on Band-Aids.
• Frances: Why?
• Me: (deep sigh) I dunno, kiddo.  Is it fun?
• Frances: Yeah.  What's that noise? etc.

         I try to keep the sighs in check, but sometimes it's hard.

• Names:  Frances has figured out that her name is Frances Upton and that mine isn't.  This is a little bothersome to her because she wants to be alike in as many ways possible.  For example, it gives her great pleasure when we all wear stripes or flowers, although she hasn't caught daddy wearing flowers yet and probably never will.  And she thinks it's great fun to tell me that my name is Frances.  A few times, she's told me my name is Morgan Upton, but she doesn't seem too traumatized that it isn't.  If she ends up emotionally scarred by the difference in our last names, all those folks who asked Mark why I didn't change my name can feel justified.  I'm not holding my breath.