Summer Camp

Bob and I took our respective oldest child camping at a local county park, where we were joined for a hike at dusk and some campfire fun by Marcos and his oldest. We’d been talking all summer about planning an outing – it was nice to be making those plans into reality.

♪ The best part of waking up
is hot cocoa in your cup ♪

The Art of Compromise

With our Honda Civic Hybrid pushing 100,000 miles, Beni convinced me to consider the possibility of acquiring a new family ride. We weren’t so worried about our car breaking down; rather, we were hoping to maximize its resale value. Citing our growing family, Beni made the case for a bigger vehicle, perhaps a minivan, something along the lines of this…


…to which I countered, by appealing to our tradition of eschewing vehicles that burn a sizable amount of fossil fuels, something more like this…


…before we finally settled on this – a used Toyota Highlander Hybrid:


In the end, we traded in our beloved Civic Hybrid, for which, despite our son's best efforts when closing the deal, we didn't get offered anything close to what the car was worth to us in memories (it was the car in which we'd brought both of our children home after their births and taken countless road trips).


There were mixed emotions on the drive home: on the one hand – at the 10 o'clock position, of course – I was thrilled to be driving home in another hybrid, but on the other – gripping the steering wheel at 2 o'clock – I was sad to let our other one go, especially into the hands of our cloying and oily salesman, whose motivational signs (as seen below) were the only thing that could match him in cheesiness. This was a guy who, simply by sharing the name, sullied the good name of my deceased grandfather and other fine chaps name Carl. And so Carl, since you're not the typical used car salesman (his continual use of the phrase "I'm not a typical used car salesman" so made him the typical used car salesman), I'm not going to be the typical dissatisfied customer who's going to slam you on his blog or on his Twitter account.

Sunday Best

Olivia and I stopped by the marvelous Museum of Science and Industry this afternoon. On the way out, we stopped on the north side of the museum campus to snap a picture that was inspired by the portrait of Stephen Colbert – an image within a image – that is hanging in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. (My friends and I got a close look at the portrait when we were out in D.C. for Obama's inauguration.)

Whirled Cupcake

For all the headaches of big-city life – traffic, parking, middling professional sports organizations – there are some clear advantages, with “increased food options” way in the lead, in my estimation. I offer the cupcake café – our locale for dessert this evening – as proof that food life is much better in metropolitan areas.

Bounded Bounds

The Jumperoo is designed to “respond and reward your baby’s jumping action,” but our active child, he with the spring-loaded legs that aid his attempts to launch off of our bodies when we hold him near, didn’t quite jump in with both feet when given the opportunity to jump with both feet. Here’s the leap-less lizard in his suspended seat.

Art and Soul

As you can see, we’re a couple pigs, their houses, a wolf short of a fairy tale.

Olivia put her newly constructed papier-mâché piggy bank out to pasture patio – in which she’s collecting coins as a charitable donation for, as she puts it, kids who are in hospitals and don’t have any toys – while performing an extreme makeover on a cardboard box. From where our child is summoning her artistic abilities, we don’t know – we just try our best to encourage and foster her creative faculties.

Simple Gifts

During our morning trek to downtown, Olivia scored a delicious vegan cookie and a select book for completing the summer reading program, both of which thrilled her to no end. It’s nice to know that she still relishes the simple joys, especially after having experienced joy on a grander scale at the beginning of summer break.

Marital Orts

(Orts are scraps, usually table bits, left after a meal. Martha Barnette, language maven, calls her scrumptious blog "Orts." Here are a few of the orts stuck to my tie floating around in my mind after Van and Laine's lovely wedding day.)

• As a rule, I get a little choked up during wedding ceremonies and reception speeches.

• Babies at weddings can be distracting, but if you must bring them, suit them up in seersucker and have them smile a lot.

• I’m especially lucky to be married to my best friend.

The Bus Stops Here

Olivia and some friends (I originally typed “fiends” – a total non-Freudian slip – these kids are great!) of hers spent the morning on bus tour of our community. The trip was designed to show the kids how those who don’t have or choose not to use cars get about from here to there. We started at the bus center in our downtown, transferred to another line at a main terminal of our twin city, and then took that bus back to where we commenced.

Tip of the hat to Julie for planning this enriching excursion.

Three of a Kind

Add the two others who are out of frame – yours truly and the dog – and you’ve got a full house!

Tails of Two Pretties

If staying in place is one of the standards by which ponytail setting is judged, then I'd at least receive a passing mark. I know I lost points for disproportionate hair distribution, but I was working against the clock and around the big comb’s untimely disappearance. In the end, Olivia seemed happy to know that her daddy can set passable ponytails, and she shared her cheer by doing her do diligence on her mother’s hair.

While on the topic of hair styling, I thought I’d share an observation I made while reading Sprinkles’ First Haircut – Sprinkles, by the way, is the baby brother of Blue (she of Blue's Clues) – to Olivia and Reed: the barber, a bearded fellow named Bob, looks a bit like a guy from Iran known for creating buzz with his cutting and snippy remarks. You be the judge.

Best in Show

Too dog-on cute!

Zoo Crew

Grandparents michigandus: the genus/species name of Olivia and Reed’s grandparents from the Great Lake State, who were on their final leg of their three-stop family-visit tour. We spent this morning at our charming zoo.

Independence Day After

The rainclouds rolled through this area on the Fourth of July, putting a dampener – forgive me – on all works fiery in the night sky. Fortunately for us, we were invited to a make-up celebration the next day at the house of a friend of mine from my early years in college admissions. Steph and her family played host to a block party, and her backyard provided unobstructed sight lines of two magnificent fireworks displays.

FigmentEnrichment of Their Imagination

Our local nature center invited families to their outdoor play day, an occasion designed to allow children to explore new worlds through interactions with the natural one. As Beni and I often joke, we, as a family, don’t differentiate between formal invitations and the more casual ones (e.g., throwaway lines, habitual mentions, byproducts of courteousness): you ask us, we’ll (likely) be there.

And so we made our way with some friends to a place that is becoming more and more unfamiliar to more and more of America’s youth. (Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, calls this obliviousness “nature-deficit disorder.”) We’re doing our best to buck this trend, and we hope families and individuals alike will join us in reconnecting with environs neither concrete nor electronic.