Buttonwood Farm

Who knew that there were sunflower fields in Griswold, CT that rivaled those we saw in France a year ago? And this one sells homemade ice cream nearby! We visited at sunset the other day and it was a picture perfect summer night.

Conformity

"Back in the day," as Anthony likes to say, I went to Catholic school. Yup, I was a HAWK at St. Mary School, class of '81 (and a cheerleader in 6th grade if you can believe that!). Years later, I swore I would never send any child of mine to Catholic school. I think those were the same years I was going to give birth to twin girls and name them Stephanie and Jill. I may have had an asymetrical haircut at the time too, but I digress. Anyway, flash forward a couple decades plus and my daughter is now about a month away from beginning her school career. It's a preschool, just 3 mornings a week (nine hours, but who is counting). It has an excellent reputation, the hours suit our schedule, we know several people who send their children there and, yes, it is a Catholic school and yes, insanely, there is a uniform (thankfully nothing like the hideous plaid mini- jumper I had to wear for eight years. Did I mention yet that my mom sewed mine to save money and it was always a slightly different color than everyone else's AND had darts long before I ever knew what darts were for?) So we have been uniform shopping all around these past few weeks, picking up various navy and khaki items here and there as cheaply as possible...navy sneakers during our trip to Maryland, tops and a sweater in NYC this past weekend, clearance shorts at Target ("allowed through September 30th, no exceptions"). I've been amazed at how almost every department and children's clothing store has a school uniform line of clothing, but the challenge has been getting clothes small enough for my tiny preschooler, especially finding pants that fit the requirements AND that she can handle independently in the bathroom.

I still could have an asthma attack if I think too much about B. starting school, but I'm taking it one day at a time. And I am not yet convinced this will be the place she stays for elementary school, but this is where she will start.

So, for 3 mornings a week starting at the end of August, I'll keep the bright colors and funky outfits in the closet.......and the cute hairstuff too I suppose.....

and she'll look a little more like this (probably minus pompom barettes too).....

or this on a cooler morning.

During this fashion preview show, I asked if she liked her school clothes, and I got an emphatic "NO!" and she began to struggle madly with the zipper/sweater like it was chains and shackles.

Five minutes later she was back to her normal self, dancing around with nothing more on than her self-wrapped blanket sarong.

Good luck School of Saint Joseph!

Firsts

Our first full day back from vacation was marked by Bea's watching her first full-length movie, as well as eating her first bites of stove-popped popcorn. I've been thinking about letting her see Mary Poppins for a while since our kite flying this spring led to the song "Let's Go Fly a Kite" which led to the youtube video of that title, which led to other Mary Poppins songs and video clips, which led to her demanding every morning "I want to watch Penguin Dance movie!" which led to downloading the music which we listened to up and down the New Jersey turnpike..... you get the point. I've got to record her attempting to say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious at some point, by the way, it is just hysterical! She was in heaven, watching all 2 hrs. 20 min. attentively with a forced dinner break, applauded spontaneously at the end, flew her "kite" (purple blanket which can miraculously become anything she deems it to be) and sang the songs all through bedtime. What a great experience to share with her. Now I only hope she doesn't attempt to use her Hello Kitty umbrella to fly down the stairs tomorrow morning! On another Julie Andrews note, while it may be a bit before I let her see my favorite movie ever-Sound of Music- I may just have to introduce that CD as well, because she has taken to requesting "Ay-da-bice" at bedtime to lull her to sleep for a couple weeks now. She loves that song so much.

"The Beach House"

My sister Louise and Sula joined us a we drove down to the eastern shore of Maryland, where Anthony's folks have a beach house 1/4 mile from the ocean. It was a blast and we had a near steady stream of cousins (or "cudinz"as Beatrice pronounces) come by for 1-3 days each. It was so great for her to be able to spend time with some of her extended family and practice being around other kids too. We were up late, slept in (relatively speaking), stayed in jammies way more than ever, trekked to the beach almost every day, and ate our fill of blue crab and ice cream. In other words, pretty much a perfect nine days. One of the other highlights, of which I have no picture, was buying Beatrice her back-to- school shoes. She was insanely proud as she got to wear them out of the store, and playing school is a new favorite game of hers.

Cousins Linden, Raina, and Jaden

This pose reminds me of the beautiful woman who flew on the plane with us from Hanoi to Seoul, Korea, who told me my daughter was "a lovely little Buddha."

Beatrice loved having her Weezy along for the trip.

Fun with cousin Miles

Cousins Truman, Hank, and Miles all gathered around the boys' leapfrog video game

I was proud that my daughter abandoned it first!

Then she was off to Tita Liza, fresh blood for her to "pretend picnic" with...

Up, Up, and Away at an amusement park in Rehoboth, DE

The only way I could con her into riding this one was by telling her it was an ice cream truck.

But she was more than willing to try the swings out.

She was disappointed there was no fishing pole, but had fun ringing the bell.

Here is her makeshift swimming pool at the beach.

She was brave enough to go into the water on day one, but after she took a wave in the face, stayed away from the water until the very last day when she and Lola played on the shore.

I love this pic because I can imagine her at age 40 sitting and reading books on a weekend morning.

Cousins Ted, Lorenzo, and Marco stopped by for a few hours too!

We took her to Candy Kitchen, a beach chain and she was overwhelmed with where to look and what to buy.

Then she settled on the make your own sundae, of which she ate about 2 inches.

Now I know where the expression "like a kid in a candy store" comes from!

See you next year Ocean City!

4th of July

Busy Days

Beatrice had more fun at the lake this week before Margo left CT. She enjoyed her cousins so much. Anthony and I painted my Dad's garage and I am uber-happy to scratch that off of my to-do list. We attended First Friday and an opening of an Illustrators art exhibit including Anthony's work at the gallery here in town, then stayed up the whole time to watch the fireworks last night. Beatrice had fun kicking the soccer ball around while waiting for darkness to come. She thought they were loud but was calm as she kept labeling what each one looked like to her. I guess she's used to doing this when looking at clouds in the sky. According to her, some of the fireworks looked like "pie, panties, Daddy's underwear, and a swimming pool" and of course the pink ones were her favorites. The countdown to the beach is really winding down as we leave Tuesday morning for 9 days in Maryland.