The Toof Faiwy

  Gavin experienced a major milestone in childhood this weekend.  He lost his first tooth.  Bottom row, right front tooth.  It had been a little loose, then he bumped it a week or two ago, and that accelerated the process some. He was eating an apple yesterday and out it came.  He had been demonstrating how he could not only bend it left, right, and sideways, but also how he could twist it around in its socket.  So he got his first dollar delivery from the tooth fairy last night.  Fortunately for the tooth fairy, Gavin had the tooth in a Baggie, which made it much easier to find.  He has been demonstrating how his bite appears markedly different, and has been commenting on how he can stick his tongue in the gap, which is apparently "big enough for four teeth." Ah, relativity.  This big event definitely made up for the loss of his soccer game yesterday 5-0. Those Buckfield kids are big and a little mean, by the way.

Annah is pretty jealous.  She keeps telling us that she has a wiggly tooth.  And the Toof Faiwy is going to visit her.

See? See the wiggly tooth?

We also went apple picking yesterday with Aunt Kat and Pressley.  The kids had a great time, riding in a tractor, filling their apple bags, getting another apple bag, filling that, getting another bag, filling that.... When we were done, we ended up with close to a bushel.  Fortunately the birthday fairy came early for mommy this year and brought a juicer.  We have been enjoying home made apple juice, which, for the record, tastes awesome and absolutely nothing like the store bought stuff. Yum.

"Ditto"

  I read a parenting book over the summer (yes, I am admitting this publicly) with specific focus on sibling rivalry.  Or bickering. However you want to put it. I was driven to this by both children climbing all over me during their music class. The gist of the chapter is "don't intervene". Unless of course someone is going to get hurt, or they are just driving you bananas.  In that case, remove both of them from the offending situation.  For me, this has meant banishing said children to their rooms. Gavin has started taking great pride in needling his sister, and Annah has mastered the art of the tattling whine.  Amazingly however, after I have banished them, they seem to play together upstairs quite well.  Which brings up the awkward question - am I the offending situation? 

Taken on Cadillac Mountain this summer.

One thing that I think has led to their ability to get along better lately (after you take Mommy out of the equation) is Annah's imagination.  She really enjoys imaginary play now.  She had a whole tub of dinosaurs today, and they all went to a party, and then she put them all to bed.  We all had to be very quiet because dinosaurs are light sleepers. We were in the car today and Annah was engaging in a stream of conciousness about a story.  

Annah's story:  There was a princess, and her name was Ariel, and there was Jasmine, and they took a balloon, and they went up.  But then, there was a monster, and he ate everything. There were dandilions, and he ate the dandilions.  And the princesses were sad because they like to hold the dandilions.  And then the monster ate signs, and trees, and he ate everything up.  And that's the story.

Gavin meanwhile has learned the word "ditto". He heard it last night while reading his story, and he spent the remainder of the time trying to use it in a sentence.  "I love you, Gavin." "Ditto." "I liked that book." "Ditto." "The weather is going to be cool tomorrow." "Ditto." Well, we are working on it.  We are very busy starting soccer, and still in Karate, and he announced that he is going to want to play hockey (oi), and skiing will be going on this winter as well.  My goal is to keep them tired!  I think I may succeed.

What We Did on our Summer Vacation

  Well after a long and rather shameful (on my part) summer hiatus, the blog is back.  Hopefully with some regularity, especially as this is not just for family, but this also amounts to my baby book for the kids.  I don't work with real paper, people, only digital.

So now: what my kids did this summer.  

Prepare for a lots of pics and catchup.

We had a couple of visits early in the summer to amusement parks.  We went to Storyland and Santas Village, and Ryan's sister Val (aka Ma Taunte) joined us for the latter trip. I don't remember those places being quite so great as a kid, but I have to say they were awesome!  The kids liked Santas Village a lot. They mostly enjoyed getting their alphabet cards punched by 26 elf statues scattered throughout the park.  So maybe instead of spending money on theme parks next summer we can just hide 26 stamps around the house and the kids can collect them all.

Ani didn't want to talk to Santa.  

We also spent a long weekend in Bar Harbor, which was great.  We went on a harbor educational cruise which was amazingly entertaining, Diver Ed, and Annah kissed a sea cucumber.  Lip contact onto slime skin.  She also kissed a bullfrog this summer.  She likes kissing things.  Hopefully she grows out of that!

I also ran in a few races this summer. Mostly 5 K's but also a half marathon.  A lot of the races came with fun runs for the kids, and they enjoyed that quite a bit as well.  Annah made the digital version of the local paper.  That can probably be expected when you run in a tutu and you also come in dead last.  But she loved it.

The kids have also been doing karate this summer. They are in the toddler "yellow belt" category.  Which you pretty much get just by going.  But they love it, and it will be something hopefully they can stick with.  See the "belt ceremony" below.

And we went on a tugboat ride! Watch out boats! Look who's got the controls:

We also have some "firsts" to report this summer.  Annah got her first haircut.  I have to say she absolutely loved it.  She was into the hair washing in the special sink and she even got sparkles and ribbons in her hair.  She was also the lucky recipient of a lot of hand-me-downs from a neighbor, and she got her first play dress.  She wore it for 3 days straight over camp week.  She smelled a little ripe when we finally managed to extract her from that polyester monstrosity, but she loves it all the same.  

Gavin is also growing up amazingly quickly.  He graduated from pre-K, both at the local public school and at his daycare (daycare graduation below), and he is officially a kindergartner.  He started last Wednesday, and I managed to not cry until after I dropped him off at school.  He is loving it - he has a full curriculum and he actually talks about his day, which is different than he was doing with pre-K, but he asserts that he does not like it as much, but I am pretty sure he will love it.  

Yes, this was his expression for the entire time.  I think he was a little nervous, though he would never, ever admit that!

So there is a brief summer update.  I'll close with some of my favorite pics of the kids from the summer.  And keep on me to update! I'll try to get back on track for a while to come...

Green courtesy of Color Me Rad 5K

Labels courtesy Aunt Kat and Daddy on Vinalhaven.

Vinalhaven Ferry. Wouldn't be complete without the My Little Pony PJ's.

Goodbye until next time, everyone!