Going Batty

I’m currently in Austin for business. The original plans were to have the family join me in Texas – we’re working on our collection of visits to progressive U.S. cities – but Beni’s work schedule resisted such a diversion. I’m bummed that they’re not here, but at least I’ll be able to take them to points of interest when we eventually make the trip together. And no visit to Austin is complete without a viewing of the million or so bats that make their nightly departure from the underside of the Congress Bridge.

I was impressed by how many families turned out for the event. The spectacle is quite amazing in and of itself, but the whole viewing experience is enhanced by the looks of wonderment in the kids’ faces and the symphony of oohs and aahs coming from their mouths, all of which made the ache for my family’s company more acute.

Halving Fun

Olivia shows that you can indeed halve your cake (with a chainsaw, no less) and eat it too. This picture was taken at Madison’s christening party. Her older brother A.J. is in the background enjoying the other half.

Double-Read Instrument

Function: noun

Definition: A pair of joined readers who read together in bed to produce the harmonious sounds of silence.

Organic of Time

For the past four or five years, we have participated in a community supported agriculture (CSA) group. A CSA is made up of individuals who support small-scale farms by buying shares that help cover the farmers’ anticipated costs of operation and salary, and in return, the shareholders receive a weekly bounty throughout the growing season. Ours is run by a local organic farmer and his family.

We pick up our veggies on alternate Tuesdays (we split our share with another family), and this every-other-weekly ritual is something that Olivia looks forward to very much. Tonight we made it just as the farmer was packing up his truck to return to the farm.

Horsing Around

Olivia found the lawn ornament that’d been gifted to us – thanks, Jeff! – and thought she’d ride it into town.

Debate Abated

At long last, we can settle a philosophical debate that has raged since the days of Aristotle, the question of “which came first, the chicken or the egg costume?”

4 months - Pumpkin

1 year - Piglet

2 years - Cow

3 years - Chicken!

Vegetarian Chicken

Heady Proposal

We suggested to our hardheaded – and occasionally hotheaded – daughter that she remove her stocking cap or risk literal hotheadedness on this 80 degree plus day, a suggestion she met with predictable grimace and smirk.

Scissors Kick

Our house has been converted to an art studio by our budding Picasso. My mom’s desk from childhood is now the workstation at which Olivia creates most of her masterpieces, and her play table and our kitchen table also serve as sites of her artistic endeavors.

Olivia’s preferred medium is paper and scissor, by which she creates a portfolio of products: movie tickets, greetings cards, snakes, and my favorite, jingle bells (a notecard that she’s frayed along its bottom edge that she insists I shake while she sings select Christmas carols).

Spell Unbound

Olivia is changing the face of word standardizations. She introduced into the lexicon a word constituted of a number and letters – 4LQBD, to be exact. For the record, it’s pronounced [yah-gee] and it means “when you don’t have a jelly bean.”

Holding Company

During our family visit to a horticultural garden on this hot and humid Labor Day, nothing could hold Grandma Randi back from holding a weary granddaughter on her back. We promised Olivia something from the gift shop before leaving; our budding gardener bypassed all the toys to select a stiff-bristled street brush.

Giving Her the Old Shoulder

I told Olivia the other day that she might soon grow too big for me to carry her on my shoulders. I think she really took that to heart – she’s been requesting the bird’s eye view whenever we’re out, as if she’s savoring this relic of toddlerhood. As for me, I too am savoring these moments, knowing that such age-bound activities are as fleeting as Britney Spears’s career.

Hand in Hand in Hand

With Olivia, it’s usually us who have our hands full; in this case, it’s our little one who literally has her hands full. We all took a walk at a nature preserve this fine afternoon. We visited a homestead, its farm, and its one-room schoolhouse, where Olivia diligently took notes of the volunteer’s history lesson on her piece of slate.

Orna-mental Note

We visited the Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland, the world’s largest Christmas store, with Grandma Randi over Labor Day weekend. Surely it must be in the 1000 Places to See Before You Die book, and if it’s not, it’s time for a revised edition. The place is so amazingly expansive – it has every type of Yuletide decoration, ornament, tchotchke, doodad, etc. that’s ever been created, perhaps imagined. For example, there are two huge displays reserved just for ornaments of various dog breeds (including greyhounds!).

Olivia was able to locate her own ball ornament, and she later set out to hike through the virtual Christmas tree forest.