I've noticed that Chris and I refer to both a hospital and a museum as "Children's". Hmm, this could become confusing for Bennett at some point. (Example: "We need to take Bennett to Children's for an appointment." versus "What should we do today? How about a trip to Children's?")
But on Sunday we decided to take advantage of our membership to the Children's Museum (only one more visit and it will have paid for itself). Like pretty much every other time we've gone there, it was a mad house! They have a large 3-story climbing structure that we debated allowing him to go on. Once we saw how crazy it was there we knew we wouldn't let him. He has severe selective listening, so I think it would be quite difficult to get him out of there when it was time to move on to something else.
What was fun though is that we explored a number of areas that we haven't seen on previous visits. Such as:
Shooting baskets with Daddy
Playing in the grocery store (surprisingly not as interested in this as we thought he would be)
And going to a (free) performance of the Three Little Pigs. It had audience participation, and days later he is putting a finger on his chin and saying "chin, chin chin" (not by the hair of my chinny, chin, chin).
Other moments this week....
One night Bennett started telling us a story about getting money from Uncle Andrew. He must be thinking about this a lot, because he kept on talking about it that night, and he still keeps bringing it up.
Here he is microwaving an egg. Playing with that is an almost daily favorite!
When we picked him up from school one day we saw him sitting in the pre-k room reading. Apparently he sat himself in the chair, covered himself with a blanket, and then pulled the other chair over so that he could rest his book on it.
We got some snow this week so after school Daddy and Bennett finished shoveling the driveway, getting the bits that the plow had missed. The next day he was upset that he couldn't go out and shovel again.
I've always been pro play-dough. We've given it as gifts before to our nieces and nephew and their parents have complained that it's a horrible gift because it gets ground into the carpet. We've always thought this was an odd excuse- just don't allow the kid to play with it in a room that has carpet. However, for us this means it can only be used in the kitchen. And since we lack a kitchen table, it seldom gets played with (much to Bennett's dismay). Last week I pulled Bennett's learning tower over to the counter and let him go to town. He had a blast. Note to self: keep counter clean so that Bennett can play more often.
And then these next pictures are an example of what happens when Mum and Dad want to try to sleep a little longer. Even though Bennett *can* get out of bed on his own, he doesn't. So Sunday I got him up and we told him to play. Occasionally he would bring something over to one of us, but he mostly played on his own.
Books being strewn on the floor.
The sound of these being pulled off the shelf is what finally got me out of bed.
Clothes that used to be neatly folded in the basket and on top of those bins.
Play food, brought up from downstairs.
There actually is a lot more that you can't see.
As mentioned last week, Bennett received a toy microwave from Aunt Cathrine and Uncle Bob for Christmas. He LOVES that thing. Every day he's cooking something up for us- egg (singular as we only have one), hamburger, hot dog, etc.
One day he was cooking and he brought me Spam and egg. Having been a teen Monty Python fan, this food combination amused me.
Lately bennett has been messing the the cushions on the couch a lot- hiding toys under them, throwing them on the floor, etc. On this occassion he needed to get underneath the cushion while Daddy read a story.
Saturday we went to Sturbridge. More about that in a minute, but here are some pictures. These mittens he's wearing are awesome. He had been using hand-knits (which are actually the green things dangling from his wrists) but his hands were always still really cold. Not that he complained, but we always felt bad when we took them off and his hands were red with cold. But last weekend I was looking through a bag of hand-me-down mittens and hats and found these red ones. After hours in the cold his hands were still toasty warm. Awesome!
And it wouldn't be a visit to Sturbridge without stopping at the store to get some cookies. Today's selection was chocolate chip. We normally don't give Bennett sweets, but he loves them!
When we went to Sturbridge on the 1st we were in the farm where the women were making candles. They were discussing the various forms of fats that were available and their uses, and one of the women, in an off-hand comment, mentioned that in a couple of weeks they would be butchering a pig. I let her finish what she was saying and then asked for more details. What was the date? What would we be able to see? How was this process different than in the 1830s? Etc. We were eager to see this process! Normally Saturdays don't work well for us to go to Sturbridge due to skating and nap time, but we decided to risk messing up lunch and naps so that we could see this. After all, there would be much more to see on Saturday than on Sunday.
Due to the sensitive nature of this event (and other similar events) they don't publicize it. However, we were told that if you ask, they will let you know when it will be. And apparently pig slaughter is usually the first weekend in January but was delayed a week for some reason or another this year. They also post signs when you get your tickets (plus the employee verbally told us in case we had missed the sign) and they have signs at the roads as you near the farm.
Apparently lots of the interpreters sign up to participate on weekends like this. After all, it's not an experience that frequently presents itself and they want to learn as well. My guess is there was one person there who knew what they were doing and everyone else was learning.
When we first got there, Bennett made his cute pig noises. He doesn't say"oink". Instead he makes grunting sounds, much like what pig would actually make. Those who could hear him thought it was cute. He definitely recognized that it was a pig, but I'm not sure that he understood that the pig was dead.
We watched for a while, got a tour of the smokehouse, watched for a while, went into the farm to see what was going on in there (making blood sausage), watched for a while, went to the blacksmith shop, watched for a while, looked at the other animals, watched for a while...
Eventually Bennett had had enough and started saying, "bye-bye". Guess that was our cue to leave.
If you are easily grossed out, (Mel, this means you- I won't be held responsible for you no longer eating pork products) please don't read the following paragraphs or click on the links. There is nothing else here for you to see.
Due to modern regulations the pig must be shot. They did this just before the museum opened. Historically they would have knocked it unconscious, hung it up by it's hind legs. They then would have slit the throat. By doing it in this order, they would have been able to collect the most blood as the heart would have still been pumping. There was an awesome interpreter who spoke with us and mentioned that things hadn't gone so well on this occassion. They had missed the artery when slitting the throat to collect the blood and as a result there was a lot of blood lost on the ground. They tried to cover it up with some snow (so that it wouldn't be super gruesome) but you could still see some of it.
When we arrived the pig was lying on a table and they were in the process of removing the heart. Surprisingly it looked very "clean"- really no blood on it. They put it in a bowl and held it out so that those who were interested could look.
Next they hung it up again so that they could tie off the anus. Chris and I wondered why this hadn't been done earlier in the process, but I'm sure they had their reasons. We then went away to do something else.
When we came back, the pig was back on the table. They had removed the other organs, intestines, etc and were getting ready to further butcher it. This is around the time Bennett had had enough, so we didn't get to see the rest.
If you're interested, here are a couple of pictures that I took. If you're really curious I have a few others. Image 1 Image 2
Since my last post encompassed activity through Tuesday, this was a bit of a short week.
I think the most exciting part of the weekend for me was on Saturday during skating. I looked across the ice and Bennett was standing up, not holding on to anyone, and marching! Yay, Bennett! He does seem to like marching these days, which is one of the first steps of learning to skate. We often see him marching and saying, "march, march, march."
After nap on Saturday we went sledding again. This wasn't as much of a success as last time. We went to Jericho Hill, an old ski slope in Marlborough. I had driven by it earlier in the day and it hadn't seemed too busy, but by the afternoon there were quite a few people there.
Bennett went down a little hill with Daddy and seemed to have fun. Then we decided to give the big hill a try. Most people, ourselves included, were only going about half-way up the hill.
Bennett started off happy, but by the time they reached the bottom he was NOT happy. I'm not sure if it was the steeper hill, the bumpier ride (it was bumpy in general but also a gulley at the end that made for a bit of a jump), or snow being kicked up into his face, but Bennett was whining and crying a bit. We did do a couple of other runs, even trying the smaller slope again, but he was not having fun. He had much more fun going to the playground that was there and going down the slide while Daddy did some more sledding. And then Daddy broke our sled, so it was time to go home.
On Sunday we had what I believe is our final Christmas celebration of the season. (One year I think we celebrated in March, so January 6th is pretty good.) Uncle Andrew and Aunt Gentry arrived first. Bennett quickly made them his servants, having Uncle Andrew get him milk and having them read him a number of books. At one point Bennett started getting fidgety and lay upside-down, so Aunt Gentry did the same to read the book. And then Uncle Andrew joined in.
A short time later Aunt Cathrine and Uncle Bob arrived, bringing their dog with them. Interestingly Bennett never referred to her as "puppy" like he did in Georgia. She was just "Annie". He didn't ever really want to touch Annie, but was always interested in knowing where she was and looking at her.
After we ate we opened a few presents. These included peculiar European condiments for the adults as well as helpful jar scrapers. And following the kitchen theme Bennett got a toy microwave! He had lots of fun pushing the buttons and cooking the various included foods- hot dogs, chicken, hamburger...
Then, since it was long past Bennett's bedtime, he said goodnight to everyone, Chris brought him upstairs, and everyone else said their farewells as well. This morning Bennett didn't want to go to school. He wanted to microwave things.
Everyone loved Bennett's custom wrapping paper, with many people saving their paper. Aunt Gentry got a piece with a pretty perfect looking footprint that she mentioned would be great for framing. Glad to hear that it was such a hit. I'll have to remember to have Bennett make some again next year.
On Christmas Eve Bennett wore his kilt to church. Getting an active toddler to stand still for a picture is tricky! He got lots of compliments from other people at church, both those we knew and some we didn't. One we didn't know was a Scot who came up to us mentioning that he liked the kilt and saying he should have worn his, and that it was a good thing Bennett didn't have a dirk with him in church.
When we got home from church we changed Bennett into clothes that wouldn't matter if they got messy and it was time for him to eat dinner, open Christmas PJs, and leave milk & cookies for Santa. We'd done some baking but hadn't actually made cookies. (Instead we had fudge, bars, and some snack-y things.) Good thing one of Chris' former students had mailed us some cookies that arrived just in time to put out for Santa.
Santa came and put a bunch of presents under the tree.
Bennett woke up at a normal time. We changed his diaper but wanted to leave him in his PJs for opening presents. Well Bennett is very routinue driven and was not happy about this! Finally we convinced him to go downstairs.
He kind of looked at the tree and presents, went over and grabbed one and wripped the paper off. Then he moved on to the next. Wow, we got through presents quickly! Maybe he went so quickly since we hadn't gotten many toys for him? (We figured the swing set over the summer was a big enough gift to last for a while! Plus he's too young to really know or care.) His favorite gift was new sneakers, which we almost hadn't given to him.
After we all got dressed I got Mimi and brought her over for lunch and more presents. She gave Bennett a bunch of dress-up hats: fireman, policeman, cowboy, pirate, witch...
After eating I brought Mimi back to her place while Bennett and Daddy napped. Unfortunately Bennett didn't take a very good nap. I was supposed to start packing the car when I got home but they were waking up by that point.
So instead Bennett helped us gather things to pack into the car. Chris brought me my pillow so then Bennett brought his downstairs. And he only tried a couple of times to take things off the pile and put them away.
We finally were packed (we packed way too much stuff) and hit the round around 4:00. We drove for a couple of hours and stopped in CT for dinner, changed Bennett into PJs and headed back out.
As an aside, the fine for littering in CT is $219. Who came up with that price, and why? Wouldn't a round number make more sense?
Chris and I took turns driving, although he probably did the bulk of it. When we were going through the mountains of Virginia and into North Carolina we were going through snow squalls and pouring rain. Not the most fun when sleep deprived so we took it nice and slow. And I even stopped at a rest area shortly before dawn to take a quick nap. It was around this time that Bennett was starting to wake up. Luckily he stayed pretty quiet until I pulled out of the rest area and then he started chatting.
We stopped in South Carolina for breakfast (we meant to go to Steak 'n Shake but I missed the exit) and then got to our hotel around noon. Phew, we were exhausted! We got to Chris' parents house, failed to get Bennett to take a nap, so they watched him while Chris and I napped.
Bennett dubbed them "Mama" and "Papa" (his way of saying Grandma and Grandpa) which led to some initial confusion as to Mama/Mommy. He also was very excited about the 15-year-old "puppy" and quickly returned the routinue to take Brownie on a walk- where the leash went, that he needed to put on his shoes to go outside with Grandma, etc.
What was a little odd for him was the evening bath and bed routinue. It probably didn't help that we did things a bit differently every night. The first night we did bath at the house and then left to go back to the hotel. The second night we tried putting him down for a bit at the house (took a while to fall asleep) but then moved him to the hotel, and of course he woke up when we transferred him. Then the third night he had a sleepover (more on that later) and finally the last night we went back to the hotel for bed and there were lots of noisy people in the hall. I would say that overall he was a champ and mostly coped with all of the changes.
We had brought some of Bennett's toys with us, and on Thursday the cousins came over and had fun playing with the trains and then taking Bennett into the backyard to check out the swingset.
Friday we went and fed the ducks at a nearby park, went for a walk, and checked out one of the playgrounds.
Then that night, as I mentioned earlier, Bennett had his first sleepover. I'd been away from Bennett before for a work conference, but this was the first night that Chris had spent away from Bennett since his initial time at Children's- so since Bennett was 3 weeks old. They started their evening with Bennett helping Grandpa make pancakes. Bennett loves to help cook! And then the report that Bennett had no problems at all going to sleep. We'd warned them that sometimes Bennett wakes up in the middle of the night needing to have his blankets adjusted. Because of this Grandpa had trouble sleeping and was up at 1am. He checked on Bennett a few times and every time Bennett was turned around a different way in the bed. But he slept soundly and didn't wake up until Grandpa went in shortly before 8am and turned the light on in the room.
Saturday we celebrated Christmas! In Chris' family everyone takes turns opening their stockings, starting with the youngest and moving on up in age. This means that Bennett gets to go first.
When it was Chris' and my turn he helped us, and then he went and helped Grandma and Grandpa as well.
After stockings we moved on to presents. It was a bit overwhelming, which is rather understandable since there were 12 people! And he wasn't too happy with me when I tried moving things aside that he had opened. He wanted to play with them now!
Although he liked the train toy pictured above, I think his favorite is this fruit below. There are two halves held together with velcro and he can "cut" the fruit. He also got some other fruit that didn't cut, but that didn't stop him from trying.
Since Christmas isn't all about Bennett, I have to share this picture of his 10-year-old cousin, Dekota. Dekota loves Legos. In fact, other than a book that we gave him, all of the gifts he recieved that day were Legos. And the book was The Hobbit to go with the Lord of the Rings Legos that we gave him. But what he's opening here is a 2 gallon bag full of miscellaneous Legos that we got for him. He was so excited and shaking because he was so excited. I hope he finds some fun things in that bag!
After presents it was time to eat. We also provided crackers for everyone to open. We've had these in the past, but people still seemed a little confused by them.
After everything was cleaned up we headed outside for a family photo. I think some people were a little upset with me when I told them they couldn't wear jackets, but I think this looks nicer. I took about 20 pictures, and as luck would have it, in each one of them somone is less than perfect looking. This one was the "everyone look goofy" picture, which I think is my favorite of the bunch.
After Bennett's nap we went ice skating! At first all of the adults had said that they wouldn't be skating. I think that maybe they were afraid of falling or making a fool of themselves. Luckily, in the end, almost all of them gave it a try. And better yet, they all had fun!
They had the walkers, which are both a blessing and a curse. They help them stay upright, but then they end up doing stupid things- going to fast, or not doing things "correctly", so they end up falling. Plus the walkers were too small for them. By the end I made Dekota and Elizabeth stop using them, and they were doing ok.
Sunday morning we had everyone come over to the house again because we had forgotten to get a picture of all of the cousins together. Then after lunch we headed home.
I mentioned that we missed going to Steak 'n Shake on the way down. Luckily this wasn't a big deal as they built one in Augusta! We ended up getting shakes from the drive-thru twice. It might have been nice to get food, but the timing didn't work out. Next time?
We also stopped at Sonic on the way out of town so that I could get a cherry-limeade. It's nice being able to go to places that we don't have at home. Now we just need to find ourselves a Taco John's!
I think one of the hardest parts of the trip was entertaining Bennett in the car. On the way home he was interested in "reading". We'd brought a lot of books, but not enough! I'd give him one, he'd read it for a bit, then hand it back/drop it, and say "more" (mo-ah-- think Boston accent). I'd hand him another and we'd repeat this. We went through a dozen or so books until they were all gone. I tried repeating books, but he wouldn't have that. And he didn't want his cars and he didn't want to color. I was running out of things to give him! Luckily his fruit kept him entertained for a little while, and then it was time for dinner and bed.
We finally got back to MA around 8am, making much better time than we had on the way down. He wasn't supposed to go to school on Monday, but we were exhausted so we called them up and asked if we could bring him in. They were only open until 3 since it was New Year's Eve, but that was good enough for us! We dropped him off and then went home to nap.
Since there was no school on Tuesday and it had snowed we knew we had to take Bennett sledding. We decided to go to Sturbridge since we would also be able to go for a sleigh ride. They had 1830's reproduction sleds and we all had a blast!
For Bennett's first time down the hill he went with Chris.
After that he requested going in the Boba (backpack carrier). I tried telling him that he couldn't because it wasn't safe, but he was pretty insistent. So he ended up on my back and I did my best not to fall on him. And he LOVED it! So many giggles.
And finally, here's a video of Bennett and Mummy going sledding. Hmm, he just needs to keep his hat on straight. And there really should be sledding etiquette where you don't walk up the hill right where people are trying to come down!
So there you have it. That's how we spent our Christmas Vacation!
I think by now most people who we sent cards to have received them so it's probably "safe" to show these pictures. I like to try to do something cute/funny rather than just using a standard photo.
Here's 2010, using a quote from the movie Elf.
Buddy the Elf taught me that
"We elves have four major food groups:
candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup."
and here's 2011.
"Santa, my Christmas wish is for Daddy
to get more hair than me in 2012."
By mid-November I was at a complete loss as to what our "theme" would be for our holiday cards. I was texting with a friend about her card idea and mentioned that I still didn't know what to do. She suggested "toy soldier". I mulled that around in my head, trying to figure out how I could make it work. Toy Soldier morphed to Nutcracker which then somehow ended up with Hermey the Elf from Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I often kid that I must have grown up in a cave/ under a rock, because unlike most of the other people my age, watching Rudolph was never a holiday tradition in our house. Chris thought it was funny that this is what I came up with, even though I've only watched it a few times in more recent years.
In the end, coming up with the idea was the easiest part of the process, not that any of it was all that difficult. The problem was that I was in the middle of making an advent calendar and December was fast approaching. I knew I needed to get that finished up before I could tackle anything else. Finally I finished that and I could turn my attention to sewing a Hermey costume.
My original thought had been to use the same pattern that I had used for Sir Topham Hatt, but then I realized that the neckline was all wrong. So instead I found a different pattern to alter. Having watched Miranda alter the other pattern I felt confident that I could handle this one. (But she did help me by giving me a pattern to use for elf shoes.) I still had a bit of a time crunch though and knew that this costume-making could drag on for a while. I decided that rather than taking the photo at home we would have them done at the JC Penney portrait studio (where we go for all our other photos). Fewer distractions, nice backdrops, perfect lighting, and I wouldn't have to worry about camera settings, etc. So I booked an appointment.
Booking the appointment was good because it gave me a concrete deadline. I had 1 week to get the costume done. It actually came together pretty well. In the end I made the jacket a little short in the front, but given how long he had to wear it, I think I'm the only one who would care. When I first booked the appointment, I had this backdrop in mind.
Then the night before we went in, I had Bennett put everything on just to get a final look at everything. As he stood by our tree I thought how pretty that looked.
I knew Penney's had a tree backdrop so thought we might do some of the snowflakes and some with the tree. (Turns out they have 2- this one, and this one.) But then when we got there and were checking in, we saw another backdrop that we thought would be even more perfect. So here you go. Here's our holiday card.
Happy Holidays
From your Misfit Friends
Rudolf and Hermey the Elf
We also had a coupon for a small portrait package, so we got this pose as well.
And we didn't buy this one since we were really wanting a picture of the whole costume, but I really do love it.
We did have pictures taken with the snowflake backdrop, but in the end, none of them were favorites.
As I mentioned in my last post, we thought it would be fun for Hermey to have his picture taken with Santa. What's nice is that if you buy the "official" picture you can take your own pictures as well. It's a good thing I did this, because when buying the official picture I was concentrating too much on selecting one where Bennett looked good that I ended up buying the one where Santa looks creepy.
Here's one of mine:
and here's the "official" photo.
And after all of that, I now have a pair of red tights to hand-down to someone, elf shoes that should probably go straight to the trash (they didn't turn out that well and the felt isn't holding up well), and a jacket and hat that will likely never be worn again (although who knows, maybe Bennett will develop an interest in dress-up clothes).
