Recently in theo Category

...are worth taking:



Apparently the best part of making Christmas cookies is the mess afterwards.

Sorry I've been awol on the blog lately. What a crazy few weeks this has been, as those who know my alter-ego can probably imagine. Not to be a scrooge but when did Christmas become such a monstrosity? I'm looking forward to a few stolen moments with family, hopefully with minimal sniffles all around.

Anyone liking music might want to try out Jango.com. It's the best implementation of a social music playing/recommendation service I've seen so far. It's in beta testing and there's still some kinks to work out. My user account looks to be here, though I should give warning that the current band list is overly influenced by a jokey classic rock lineup I put in (next up: a high school highlight station only Pam might love).

To the right: gratuitous cute kid pic. Theo traced all the letters in black ink. There's an accompanying video too. Update: and here it is below.

Top: The Architect at work. Left: the stitches; monkey Francis au natural in the morning; another view of The Architect.

Since I use this blog as a bit of a personal journal, to remember dates and happenings, I should dutifully note that last night was the time four year old Theo pushed two year old Francis off the footstool while brushing teeth, causing said Francis to fall precipitously against the bathtub and open a nasty gash in his chin. Three hours and a Martin/Francis emergency room visit later there were four stitches in the poor guy's chin. I'll spare you all a description of the initial mess or the difficulty of holding down a screaming child while the doctor tries to put the stitches in. Everything is fine now. And no, no photos or Youtube videos of the proceedings. Maybe I'll snap a picture of the stitches so Francis can see just where that scar came from!

The Batsto Village Halloween party wasn't quite so much fun this year: their website didn't mention that most activities ended part-way through the afternoon so that the organizers could sit in front of the old houses giving out candy. We arrived on the late side so no face painting or pony rides for the boys butterflies. We still had fun in the first really autumn day of the season and Batsto was looking more bucolic than ever. More pictures (including some of the cool gearing in the old Batsto gristmill) over on yesterday's Flickr page.

Right: rare video footage of a Genus Franciscus Butterfly in migration.

The town parade was postponed by rain again last night but as the butterfly boys were all dressed up we ducked into our favorite pizza shop for some mozzarella sticks and a slice of bruchetta-topped tomato pie. We got out without inflicting any major structural damage or physical injury, though Theo was only a twist or two away from destroying one of their neon signs. Rumor has it that the parade will happen next Tuesday though if the weather cooperates we should have pictures of the Batsto Village halloween before that (last year's pics).

(Still working on getting comments and Twitter to show up properly.)

This weekend we took off for a family trip to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania--Julie and me, the kids and my mother Liz. I won't have time to do a long blog post, but highlights were the Verdant View farm B&B (link) where we stayed; the Strasburg Railroad (link) whose line runs through the farm's backyard, the Choo Barn model railway (link); and the amazing Cherry Crest Farm (link) with its corn maze and its simple games for kids of all ages (who knew you could have so much fun with a hill and a piece of burlap?!).

See the See the photo set on Flickr for more pictures and stories. Every shot is mapped, with links.

Large photo: Family at Strasburg RR: Martin, Liz, Theo, Julie, Francis. Below: Julie and the kids walking through fields at farm, Francis playing kung-fu with the farm dog, Theo running in terror from said dog, Engine 90 ready to pull out.

Yesterday the kids and I took a road trip to Apple Pie Hill, a summit of loose gravel that towers over the South Jersey pinelands from a dizzying height of 209 feet above sea level. A fire watch tower on the summit adds another few dozen feet, enough to get a visitor over the treetops. On a clear day it's said you can see the skylines of Atlantic City and Philadelphia. Fortunately for me it was an quintessentially beautifully fall day--clear and crisp. It was easy to spot the cities, both thirty-two miles away (mostly to the south and mostly to the east respectively) and here's blowups of the two resultant photos:


More pictures, from left: Sand road to the hill, the fire tower, the view down through the steps of the tower (the kids were left in the car), two year old Francis eager but thwarted attempt to repeat Papa's climb up tower. Click individual photos for enlarged and geotagged versions. More photos of this and out stopover at Atsion later in the day on yesterday's Flickr page.

For those interested in repeating our journey, here's a map showing our route up and back. I was mostly winging it, depending on these directions from NJPineslandsandDownJersey.com starting from nearby Chatsworth NJ, self-styled "Capital of the Pine Barrens."



Other map views: View Larger Map | Satellite with Route Map

Theo with his first kite, a dollar-store special from his birthday party. Note matching shirt: is the kid flying the kite or the other way round? Shortly after the second picture was taken Theo let go of the handle and the kite flew away into the trees. I'm happy to report recovery was successful!

Photos clockwise: Theo blows out the birthday ice cream cake's “4” candle; kids huddle around when box opens to reveal Thomas the Tank Engine related toy; independent Francis surveys the scene; cousin M. plays pattycake with Poppop while her mom looks on.

Martin and Theo celebrated Francis's second birthday with an afternoon outing to fav spot Batsto Lake.

Photos: Francis laughs by the lake, Theo making ripples, group shot, video speech.

In the What a Difference a Year Makes (or Doesn’t) Department:

Julie took the kids out to South Jersey’s fabled Storybookland last week.The funniest discovery were the pictures that matched those from Theo’s class trip last year.

2006	2007

We all went together on a family trip this weekend to reacquaint ourselves with one another: our schedules haven’t been syncing well lately. Julie picked a farm B&B out in Lancaster County full of chickens and goats and an easy commute to Strasburg PA, a good place for those who like to look at trains, trains and trains, then drool over trains, trains, trains and trains (we haven’t seen trains or trains up close yet). Pictures from around the B&B are here; strangely we forgot the cameras on our steam-powered outings so you’ll have to look at old pics. Here’s a shot of the kids on top of the playhouse barn’s slide:

As promised the other day, Francis singing the Elmo song:

For fairness sake, here’s Theo with the Thomas/Gordan song:

When Theo was a one year old his favorite book was Dr. Seuss’s Marvin K Mooney Will You Please Go Now: it was required bed time reading. Now that baby brother Francis is of that age Theo is starting to read it himself, at least in theory to Francis. Here are two readings, from August 2004 and October 2006.

   

Julie took Theo on his class trip to Storybook Land, a South Jersey icon that recently celebrated its fiftieth anniversary (maybe sometime we’ll raid the photo albums from Julie’s youth and post pictures of her childhood exploits there!). Martin and Francis stayed home, alas, with high temperatures, part of a family-wide cold that’s affected us all at some point over the last ten days.

I’ve finally started getting internet video down. Next up will have to be Francis’s “sleepy song.”

How to tell if your child is obsessive-compulsive:

Theo is very precise about lining his toy cars up just so on the windowsill. This is the window that looks out into the street, which means his car parking is routinely interrupted by his shouts of “V! V!” (S.U.V.) and “uh-uh-Ss pup” (U.P.S. truck).

We’ve had a couple of visits lately:

That’s my high school friend Rui with Francis; Rui’s daughter Kia holding Francis while Jorge and Ann look on; a week later Jorj read to Theo and his own son Jacob while Sue talks with Julie (unseen) in the kitchen. Earlier in the day Jorj pointed his camera back on us.

Here’s Theo learning how to ride his own bike (courtesy the townwide yard sale earlier this month) and Francis with a sleep smile and grimace:

Update, 10/18: Today was Theo’s first day of preschool. Here’s the photoset

A few days ago my two-year old Theo and I took a meandering bike trip that brought us to the charmingly-named Piney Hollow Road (alas, not quite as rustic as it sounds). We stopped on the unassuming bridge over the Great Egg Harbor River and I looked for a trail into the woods. We found one about a hundred feet north of the river, hiked in another hundred feet and picnicked along the river. When I got back home I started Googling around and discovered that our sand trail was the Blue Anchor Fireline Road and that we were on one of the main paths in to the famed Blue Hole.

Just the quickest of announcements to let everyone know that Baby Francis was born Monday morning. Stats: a boy, 8 lbs, 15 oz., 20 inches long, 14.5 inch head (he was not going to be coming out of Julie the old fashioned way!). Everyone’s healthy, Mom’s recovery is happening more quickly than last time. Theo’s first two visits have been encouraging. Here’s the official Baby Francis homepage and here’s the Baby Francis Flickr page

I have to run right back to the hospital now to visit Julie. Thanks everyone for all of your prayers! More picture soon.

Update: we’re all home!

One piece of preparing for the birth of the second child is passing off temporary responsibility for the first child to a relative or close friend. In preparation we’ve prepared a dictionary of Theo’isms.

For comparison, Theo in Second Month 2003 and last week

They say second children don’t get as much attention and that parents forget to take many photographs of them. We want to avoid that so we’ll get an early start with some ultrasounds. They always look a little scary to me but I take solace that Theo looked just as skeletal but turned out pretty cute.  

 

 

 

www.flickr.com

Click on any of the pictures above for captions, etc. Here’s the photoset of our whole trip. Apologies to all the Theo fans (you know who you are) for not getting these up sooner.

Your retroactive prayers are in order. Julie, “Theo”:www.nonviolence.org/theo and my mother just came to visit me in the fgc office on our way to see the Philadelphia Flower Show. When they were walking out of the “PATCO”:http://www.drpa.org/patco/ train, the doors closed on Theo’s stroller, pinning his arms.

Get your own MP3 of Theo’s laugh!

Theo had quite the social calendar this summer but made sure to get in some hang-time too. Here he is in the car, “come on, Mom, come on Dad, daylight’s burning, let’s go!” July 11.

This summer we started house-hunting in a nearby town.

Theo has the instincts of a natural-born negotiator. He loves to growl a lot, especially in this particular snorting heavy-breathing way that’s just too cute (don’t tell him that though, say “Oooh nooooo, I’m so scaaared!”). He’s also started looking at you then swinging his head side to side—this is a house hunter that knows when to say “no”. One of his favorite sounds is “a-haa”—he’s not just a nay-sayer.

August 28th was the observed date of Theo’s birth.

The one year old is almost crawling—he can pull himself where he wants to go as long as the incentive is right. He can pull himself up to chairs and stand all wobbly by himself for a few minutes when parents let him go. He loves his toys, especially the wooden blocks that fall when you throw them off the high chair; the stuffed cars that go “aaaa-boom” when they crash; and Paul, the anatomically correct doll who Theo loves to talk to (“a duh duh duh doop drad da doo!!”)

Most parents want their kids to be at least moderately popular. And Baby Theo certainly gets more than his share of ooohs and ahhhs when we troop around with him in public. But it’s nice to know that America finds “Theodore” to be increasingly unpopular.