Hitting the Rhode (Island)

Our kids’ teachers are probably giving us an F for pulling them out of school early to embark on a cross-country road trip in advance of the long weekend, but I know my mother-in-law is giving us an A for the effort. We picked up Olivia after lunch to head out for a couple of long days on the road. The siblings passed the time in rest and at play.

No Strings Attached

This is not evidence of a Tiger Mom forcing her young daughter to practice violin for hours, even while walking around a street festival; rather, Olivia was given a turn at the violin as part of a promotion for private lessons by some of the university’s orchestra members.

Oft-Dookie Officer

Reed retained his right to silently go about his business in his diaper, hence the I’ve-been-caught face.

Come into the Open (House)

Reed, too, got in on this first-day-of-school thing, but for him it was literally his first day of school. He’s going where his sister went to preschool, and he acted like he’d been going there for years. He jumped right in on the open-house activities, talked with his teachers, toured the facilities, and sat still for his school picture. I think we’ll have more separation anxiety than he will once he starts up for good next week.

Where We All Come to Rest-aurant

Chipotle (aka Home Away from Home) is worthy of this unpaid endorsement. They have provided our family with many nourishing meals. And so it’s a no-brainer that we’d be at the grand opening of our community’s second location, this one dangerously close to our house (aka Home Away from Chipotle).

On Second Thought

Today marked the first day of second grade. The entire family dropped off and picked up our favorite ponytailed, tie-wearing girl. O, how far you’ve come!

Getting the Hang of Gliding

Champion skater Dorothy Hamill she's not, but Olivia showed a champion’s determination in her attempts to circle (ellipse?) the rink without falling or incurring other point deductions. And no, we’re not in Canada: Olivia’s classmates, twin boys Matthew and Tyler, celebrated their birthday and the last day of summer vacation with a party at the local ice arena.

Reed was in attendance but not in blades. He passed the time by zooming around the outside of the rink and studying the zamboni zooming around inside it.

Hyper-Lincoln

If I bagged a penny every time I blogged about Abraham Lincoln, I’d probably be able to trade them all for a five-dollar bill. We tend to be a bit Lincoln obsessed in our family. Fortunately, we have some local outlets for our enthusiasm, whether that’s spending time with his likeness in statue form or posing under his mural.

Neither Hear nor There

My children verbally communicate at an average decibel level that’s somewhere between those of a vacuum cleaner and a jetliner. They are the children you can hear at a supermarket even when they’re ten aisles away. Their loudness is as much a part of who they are as any physical feature. And so it’s funny to me that while Reed can dish it out, he cannot take it—whether that “it” is the whirring of a blender or the club music that blasts from our local Chipotle. In the presence of such racket, he often covers his ears and implores—rather yells at—us to do the same.

Good Transports-manship

Our town is building a state-of-the-art multimodal transportation center that’s set to open in a year or two. My parents, the kids, and I multimodal-ed in the direction of the construction site by scooting, strolling (stroller-ing?), and footing it to the children’s museum.

Pier Group

Chicago alone has much to offer its many visitors, but Taylor Swift playing in Chicago was the tipping point for Aunt Crystal and her mom. The Dakotan Duo—they’re from Fargo—flew in to the Windy City a couple days ago. They’ve been staying with and touring around with Aunt Liz.

On this beautiful summer day, we caught up with them at Navy Pier before they had to leave for the big concert.

What a Doll

Kanani Akina is Girl of the Year 2011—according to American Girl, at least. (Coincidentally, she’s also the Girl of the Year 2011 Whose Name Uses the Fewest Number of Unique Letters, as well as Girl of the Year 2011 Whose Name Seems To Be a Palindrome But Is Not.) She’s the girl pictured waving by Olivia during our stop at an American Girl store this May, and she’s the doll our daughter chose to spend her hard-earned cash on during that visit.

The fact that Kanani runs a shave-ice stand in Hawaii is music to Beni’s ears—the shave-ice part; Hawaii, not as much—and her efforts to rescue baby monk seals appeal to my eco-senses, but there’s this one thing about her that gives us pause: her hair. Her locks are sublime, but they are as long as a Mennonite woman’s, and so upkeep—and an updo—is a challenging matter.

Olivia, known for her own hair battles, is undeterred by her newest doll’s oft-tangled coif. She painstakingly combs out the knots before creating some elaborate hairstyles. Here’s a recent example:

All Those, Uh, Posed, Say Hey

Olivia strikes the celebrated cellist’s pose—the “yo…yo, Ma!”—for her mother.

Tech-Know Babble

I remember using typewriters and word processors when I was young. Email was a recent development when I was a freshman in college, and I didn’t surf the web until later that year. Cell phones were called car phones or bag phones, and we certainly couldn’t play Scrabble on them.

I’m no Luddite, just a fossil. And so it crashes my mainframe when I think about how tech literate my young children already are. Our seven-year-old creates iMovies, pastes images into the elaborate stories she composes on our laptop, and can set the DVR; our toddler can find his way around an iPhone, and he loves to reprogram our garage-door opener.

With Cherries on Top

Margaret is Olivia’s piano teacher, but she’s much more than that. She’s also a co-worker, family friend, gardening advisor, and expert seamstress. She wears so many hats that she needs a hat rack to keep them all straight. (Which, it must be noted, she’d be able to construct with aplomb and precision.) Her sewing hat has helped hold up many of our daughter’s dance costumes, and her stitchwork was on display again today when she presented Olivia with a cherry-themed dress—along with a matching one for her American Girl doll.

Thank you, Margaret!