Memorial Day

We had what turned out to be a lovely Memorial Day. This is my favorite time of year, on the cusp of summer with long light and all the delicious prospects of summer stretching out ahead. Summer arrived right on cue this year, with temperatures hitting 90 degrees today after a May on the cool side.

We started the day all walking Bismarck together. Edith is very keen on walking the dog these days. By which I mean doing the actual dog handling. Since he is 98 lbs. and she is 24 lb. and shorter than he is, this is something of a dicey proposition. He would never deliberately yank her off her feet, but if another dog rounds the corner, all bets are off. But he is generally patient, and so we try to give her opportunities when we're on grass. It's great that she's getting excited about taking care of Bismarck.


When we got in from a long meander along the canal (had to stop Edith from trying to squeeze through a crack in the gate onto her daycare playground), we all took a morning nap, which was heavenly. We woke up two hours later completely refreshed.

Then after lunch we decided to head out to Terhune Orchards. We'd been there at Halloween for pumpkin picking and enjoyed it, although we'd left with the distinct impression of a crowded zoolike place that had become too popular for its size. Turns out Memorial Day was nothing like Halloween. We were able to visit the ducks and turkeys in the company of just a handful of other people Edith's age with their parents. Then we picked our own strawberries, her first experience picking her own food straight from the source. She figured out quickly how to identify a berry and to pick it from the plant. We had a much harder time teaching her to put them into the carton instead of into her mouth. You pay by weight, so they'd asked us not to eat berries while still in the field. Edith surreptitiously snuck two or three, however, and her mouth and dress told the tale. We chipped in a bit more for the purloined berries. We finished off our visit by purchasing a basil plant so we'll have fresh basil all summer, then sharing an iced apple cider. Mmmmm...



On the way home we passed a farm that had been mentioned to us by a friend as a place where one can purchase a farm share for the summer season and thereby get weekly organic vegetables. This is something I'd been meaning to investigate that kept getting put off. We pulled in and spoke to the farmer. There are some shares left. We'd go once a week from now until Thanksgiving or so to pick up our share of whichever vegetables were harvested that week. They run from greens in the early summer through a range of about 25 or 30 vegetables down to pumpkins in October and November. You can also pick your own flowers and herbs while there, which would be fun with Edith. I think it would be a great thing to do with her as she phases out of baby food into all table food. We'd eat healthy, she'd learn where food comes from, and we'd all be made more aware of what's in season when and what you can do with various foods. In lieu of any big vacation this year, I think this is going to be our summer project.

In the meantime we visited the regular grocery store, where we got ingredients for a series of recipes in the Moosewood cookbook I'd identified earlier in the day. When we got home Edith and I transplanted some impatiens I'd received on Mother's Day into the downstairs bed. Then I made us some stuffed zucchini and a gazpacho-type soup while listening to the Memorial Day broadcasts featuring families who had lost loved ones and discussing the new documentary about a military hospital in Iraq. So much sunshine and health and goodness we enjoyed today; so much warped and wrong in the world. I daily count my blessings.

Country girl, city girl

And in an instant, Edith can go from cow whisperer to urban baby modeling shoot:


Okay, so this was actually toddler recalcitrance on a Manhattan street corner. Yes, we allowed our daughter to lie down on a New York City curb. Germophobes, feel free to berate us. But first spend a day in the city with a toddler...

In the interest of accuracy, we should post at least one picture that represents the true environment in which Edith is growing up. Not bucolic pastures, not the dynamic metropolis, but in fact, Princeton, New Jersey:

Chicks and geese and ducks better scurry...

... 'cause Edith only has eyes for cows. This week we took her to Farm Tour Days on her great-grandfather's dairy farm. Once a year the local 4-H clubs bring a menagerie of baby animals to Pop-pop's farm to complement the cows, and all the local elementary school classes come to visit. Since the theme of so many of Edith's first birthday gifts was farm animals, and since they have thus formed an integral part of our conversation and singing with her in recent weeks, we thought she might like to see some live versions of the critters in her books and toybox, and on her bib. But despite introduction to chicks and goslings, kids and foals, Edith remained true to her first love, the calves.








Well, the calves and the kids. The other kids, that is. Every time we put her down, she was toddling off as fast as she could to join the crowds of first-grade classes eating lunch out on the grass. We continue to marvel at what a social animal we have. She is perpetually trying to engage the people around her. Mostly for better, sometimes for worse. At today's neighborhood yard sale, for instance, she wanted to be sure that the people who stopped to look at our wares had heard my rule, as pronounced to her earlier that morning. As people started to rifle through the piles of clothes, she told them emphatically, "No -- don't."

One of her big loves right now is driving. I don't know how well she stays on the road, but she uses her horn often enough that other drivers ought to know she's coming. Inside the car she pays scrupulous attention to ambience, judging by how much of her driving time is devoted to the radio and air conditioning buttons. And she is more than willing to pay her tolls, methodically dropping all the pennies in the cup holder out the driver's side window one by one.

Birthday party

Two weeks later, here are some shots of Edith's first birthday party. With many thanks to hobokener, Harrison's Mom, and others whose pictures we are borrowing, because we had so few of our own.

Our theme was Balls and Spoons, Flags and Balloons (a few of E's favorite things)

Edith greets her guests...

...and makes sure they are enjoying themselves.

Blowing is not a developmental milestone of the first year

The birthday girl knew when to take a rest...

...allowing Mama the chance to have her cake and Edith's, too.

The cutest plagues

Happy Mother's Day! The birthday party pictures are coming, I promise. In the meantime, we saw the youth at church perform the annual Mother's Day musical this morning. This year it was Prince of Egypt. The youngest children were cast as the ten plagues (except the ninth, which required simply turning off the lights in the sanctuary, and the tenth, for which the minister's high-school-aged daughter choreographed and performed the Dance of Death). Plagues 1-8 were definitely the best part of the show. I can't wait until Edith is old enough to be a locust.

The Big One

Edith had a wonderful first birthday. On the actual day, May 5, Tom and I brought in the aforementioned muffcakes to share with her class at school. Edith was so excited to have all of us there at once that she gave her classmates several enthusiastic tackle-hugs, then bounced up and down in her chair at the table squealing. (While we were eating, I couldn't resist taking some pictures of the kids in the young toddler class on the other side of the wall celebrating Cinco de Mayo. They were also the class that performed "Feliz Navidad" on the Christmas program. Mexico seems to be a big theme in the second year at Edith's school.)



I picked her up from school early in order to spend some time with her on her birthday. We went uptown and parked at the seminary, then strolled through town to the hospital where Edith was born. I took her up to maternity and showed her where it all began, telling her about her birth. At the entrance to the hospital she checked out the startlingly lifelike statues that take up half of the only bench available--a bronze doctor assisting a bronze elderly woman. I know they're there, yet they fool me every time. Edith seemed wiser.


Then we retraced her trip home from the hospital, walking back through town. It was a warm Friday afternoon, and people were out everywhere. We stopped at Olive's on the way to purchase one of their wonderfully decorated cupcakes as a birthday treat, something I've never had an excuse to do before.

Back at the seminary, we met Tom just coming out of his final final. Everyone at the seminary was out on the lawn celebrating the end of the term. After a few congrats, we walked to the parking deck and then and there, turned Edith's carseat around to face forward. By law a child has to be rear-facing until she is 20 lb. and one year old. Edith passed 20 lb. sometime around New Year's, and since she has never much liked the car, we were eager to see if this made a difference. She was so surprised! The whole trip home she kept calling out to me: "Hey, Mom, guess what? I can SEE you!" I'm pretty sure that's what "AAAh!" meant.

After dinner Edith enjoyed her cupcake in time-honored first birthday fashion, no holds barred. She actually was pretty tidy about it. And amazingly after all that sugar, she went to sleep without any problems.


Next post: the birthday party. I have fewer photos of that event, because we were busy feeding and entertaining guests. But it was a great afternoon out on the lawn, playing and relaxing and seeing family and friends.

Then and now

A year ago tonight at this time I was laboring to give birth to Edith.

Tonight I am laboring to make whole-wheat carrot-zucchini cupcakes* to bring in for Edith's class tomorrow. Wow. I'm a mother now.

There are other parallels that could be drawn. Were I given to such metaphors, I might say that a year ago tonight our little angel was coming into the world. Tonight our little girl was performing as an angel with her classmates in the Dupree Center for Children's rendition of American Idol.

Incidentally, six months changes everything. The fearless Jingle Baby of Christmastide, who knew no stagefright and charmed the crowd, is now the wary twelve month old angel, who doesn't know why her teacher is putting a scratchy gold circle on her head, definitely doesn't like that she's been put in a crib when it's not naptime, doesn't understand why she's sharing the crib with her classmates, and might like to chew on the big fluffy clouds decorating the crib--if only there weren't eighty people staring at her! The only way out of such indignities is, of course, to wail. Edith's friend Harrison was the only one holding the act together, clapping on cue and hamming it up for the crowds, who didn't seem quite as censorious as in the TV version of the competition.

A final sequence of pictures to close this last post of Edith's first year. Call it Mixed Media:

Edith loves coloring now.

But typing is so much faster. (Thanks for the keyboard, Uncle Peter!)

Hmmm, maybe this is the best bet...

*Can anyone tell me what makes a whole-wheat-and-vegetable concoction sans frosting a cupcake and not a muffin...other than the title of the recipe?

364 days

Edith is usually a fount of good cheer when she gets up, but this morning she was cranky and clingy. Then I realized she must be concerned that my contract runs out today.

I assured her that her dad and I had both re-upped for another year’s service as her parents, same terms and conditions.* It’s all arranged, and there’s to be no gap in coverage.

That seemed to make her feel better.

*Actually, we're hoping to negotiate for fewer nightshifts in the second year, but we can work that out later. It's not a dealbreaker.

An Edith pee-off.