September Trip to Midland

In mid-September, we took a weekend trip to Midland. It's only about two hours away, but I'd never had occasion to visit before. Nick was attending the annual conference of the Michigan Arboricultural Society, so Maya and I tagged along. We took our bikes, which was a great way to get around. Maya and I spent a good part of the first day exploring Dow Gardens. I took so many pictures, and liked so many of them, that I thought I'd share them here!

Maya in the morning sun, with marigolds.

Graceful red bridges spanned many of the waterways.

Leafy green views greeted us around every corner.

We braved the maze made from yew bushes.

The Clinker Bridge made a nice portrait stop.

And then we found the Children's Garden, which was full of fun things to do.

Popcorn Cassia. Running our hands over these flowers and their leaves made our hands smell like buttered popcorn.

 

There was even a friendly pig. Maya thought he would like a nice cool scrub with a broom from the nearby sweeping station.

 

Here are a few more garden views on our way out, before biking back to the hotel for naptime.

We met up with Nick later in the afternoon. We walked over the Tridge, a triple wooden footbridge that spans the confluence of the Tittabawassee and Chippewa Rivers, right downtown and not far from where we stayed.

And then the next day, when Nick was done with his volunteer job at the Tree-Climbing Competition, we headed back to Dow Gardens to show him some of the highlights.

We paused for another portrait session on the Clinker Bridge.

 

Then we biked back downtown to get some dinner before the drive home, our eyes filled up with botanical beauty.

 

Back to School

At the beginning of September, Maya started her second year in the same toddler Montessori program she attended last year. It required much less adjustment (for her) and soul-searching (for me) this year, but it's still hard to believe she's old enough for school, let alone "back to school" already!

With our routine for school mornings well established, we even managed a first-day-of-school photo before 8 am. (I suppose not everyone's childhood included this ritual, but mine did - every year by the front door from kindergarten through high school. So, here we go. Getting a head start.)

Maya with Papa

Maya with Mama and Maisie

So much changes between 1.5 and 2.5 years old!

First of all, she now rides her very own bike to school. She hops on her Strider with her helmet and her little backpack, looking so confident and capable. (Kudos to our local bike-advocacy group and their awesome balance bike meet-ups at a local park this summer. Maya's skills definitely benefited from joining in.) It's only two blocks, with no pedals, but I'm still proud!

Ready to bike on the first day

Maya is still in the same class the same two mornings as last year. But now she's one of the "big kids." The newbies seem so little and wobbly to me. There were, again, lots of tears in the classroom for the first few weeks. But unlike last year when Maya needed a good month to settle in, she only contributed to the chorus on the very first day. Leading up to the next few school days, she told us repeatedly, "Maya gonna not cry." She was psyching herself up for success, and her determination paid off.

Morning smiles on the second day

And may I have a Mama-moment to talk about how much else has changed in a year?

1. No more diapers. She ditched them for good right after school ended last June. 
2. No more Mama picking out a coordinating, seasonally-appropriate outfit and simply putting it on her, no discussion required. She has opinions, and plenty of them, about her wardrobe.
3. She's suddenly so tall. At some point last summer, she discovered that she could hold the top railing on our stairway. For a while, trips downstairs would often include her proclaiming, surprised all over again, "Maya BIG!" 
4. Oh, and her hair is finally growing! This little ponytail is our current solution for keeping it out of her eyes; I can't bring myself to cut any off, since we waited so long for it.

5. Still, the biggest and most amazing transformation: SO MANY words, communicating so many ideas so effectively.

On September 3, her half-birthday, we were at Burt Lake for Labor Day weekend with various members of the extended family. It was a good excuse to make a chocolate zucchini cake and add 2.5 candles. Now, if you ask her how old she is (or, heavens, happen to just say she is two), she will confidently proclaim "Maya’s two and a half."

She has endless strategies to prolong conversations and gather more verbal feedback for her ever-growing skills. I'm still fascinated by the process of language acquisition and this innate drive kids have to hear and use as many words in as many ways as possible.

• When she is asked a question and doesn’t know the answer or doesn’t want to say it, she says (usually in a whisper) "Tell you."
• She'll ask the same question over and over, or turn statements we've just made into questions. She's clearly heard us the first time. I think she's just making sure she doesn't miss a single thing. It's a brilliant way to get even more exposure to language and vocabulary, because I can't keep saying it exactly the same way again and again - I change it up just for my own sanity.
• "What Papa say?" "What Grandma say?" she'll ask me, wanting a recap immediately afterward. Or even, "What Maya say?"
• "What Mama doing?" "What Papa doing?" she asks of me or Nick constantly. After we respond, she asks, "What you doing also?" and repeats it as many times as she gets different answers.
• "What lucky mean?" "What hurry mean?" "What crazy mean?" Wow, my own language skills are getting a major workout coming up with synonyms and fresh ways to define and explain words and concepts.

She's adept at asking questions that sound much older than her 2.5 years to me. She often uses "are" instead of "do/did," but beyond that, she could be a fellow adult.

• At the table: "Are you like the dinner, Papa? Maya like it. Thanks for the dinner, Mama." 
• Greeting me after I return from a morning run: "How was your run, Mama? Are you see birds? Are you see squirrels? Are you see trees? Are you see clouds?"
• All day long: "How was your day?" She asks this with great frequency, or did for several weeks straight. She'd start first thing in the morning and continue throughout the day. “So far, so good,” I took to telling her, which she liked to repeat. Then she'd continue with “How was Papa’s day? How was Maisie’s day?"

And then there was this one, which still cracks me up: After a session of very-much-voluntary wailing in the car, I tried to explain that this makes it hard for Mama to concentrate, and that I need to concentrate while driving so that I don’t crash into anything. Maya listened, asked me to repeat myself several times, and then promptly launched into yet another loud wailing protest. She stopped abruptly and asked, in her sweetest and most innocent voice, "Are you crash the car, Mama?" (That line will likely take up permanent residence in the family lexicon.)

She's also started to figure out how to add emphasis to good effect.
  o   "Maya like peaches a lot a lot a lot," she told me during the height of peach season. She probably said the same thing about every fruit as it came into its heyday this summer.
  o   She also employs this plea: “Maya really really really want milk." Oh yes, still.
  o   And, to the typical "Why [everything]?" questions of two-year-olds everywhere, she adds a final, definitive statement of "why" that takes it up yet another notch of intensity. "Mama, why do we eat breakfast? Why."

I relish her mispronunciations and unique phrases all the more now, because they are disappearing so fast. A few that make us smile right now:
  o   "Maya, what are you doing?" "Maya not doing any something."
  o    Chowder = powder, the vitamin supplement she helps sprinkle on Maisie’s food
  o    Veggables = vegetables
  o    Bepwist = breakfast
  o    Bakset = basket
  o    Leep = sleep, and this rule holds for any initial "s" followed by a consonant: nack = snack, weet = sweet, nail=snail, nake = snake, wing = swing, lide = slide


There's one more question she asks often. "Mama, are you happy?" Usually she pulls this one out when I am cleaning up another spilled drink or negotiating one of the forty-seven steps required to leave the house or telling her, yet again, that we don't pull Maisie's tail. I'm sure I'm looking less than jubilant at those moments. "Mama, are you happy?" she says. Yanking me out of minutiae into the meaning behind it all.
   That's a big question, little one. But yes, I am happy. Exhausted, sometimes, by the unending day-long conversation that begins the moment we wake up, pauses briefly for a nap, and only ends when you finally collapse into sleep. My introvert brain craves a moment (no, really, a week) to quietly process it all. But I am so happy I get to spend these days with you. So happy I get to be the one to answer so many of your questions as you explore and experiment and run out into the world with your arms flung wide to make new discoveries ten times a day. Welcome to another year of learning!

She's off! Two blocks to school!

(And thank goodness for two mornings a week when I get to not talk, except to the dog, for three whole hours!)

Summer Snapshots 2016

Oh, here we go again. I'm a full season behind, but let's see if I can catch up in a hurry. Here are some highlights of our summer, mostly starring our favorite small person who eats it all up with such relish.

Our fruit-hound kicks off the season with some June watermelon. Oh, and she's even dressed to match!

Did I mention she's a fruit-hound? Roadside-stand strawberries made a day of driving around with Papa into a sweet treat.

I went driving around with Nick, too. He finally convinced me to take a motorcycle trip with him. Not one for easing into things, he suggested we head to the U.P. (We started at Burt Lake, leaving Maya there with Grandma and Grandpa for the day.) So, over the Mackinac Bridge we went! Gulp! To Cedarville, then to DeTour, and back again with sore backsides by the end.

We took a Father's Day canoe trip on the Boardman River, with several beach breaks along the way.

In July, we road-tripped west. At Freedom Fest in Balsam Lake, Wisconsin (Nick's hometown), Maya was absolutely certain that she needed to try this bungee-bounce. She's her Papa's girl!

Fishing by canoe on the Yellow River at the Carlson family cabin. Nick found a Maya-sized pole. No fish caught on that one, but Aunt Christina snagged a nice bass.

Then we headed to Duluth and northward up the shore. This is sacred ground for me: I couldn't wait to dip Maya's toes in mighty Lake Superior. We only got as far as Two Harbors this time, but there was some good rock-hunting on the beach there.

We arrived back home just in time for the cherry harvest. It's worth the trek to Frankfort to pick the beauties, both tart and sweet, at North Star Organics. Need I say that Maya had a great time? (And ate her weight in cherries?)

Glorious sunny days on the shore of our great Lake Michigan are the essence of summer. Here are Nick and Maya saluting the last rays on an evening walk near North Bar Lake.

A rare sighting of all three of us, thanks to the nice lady on the beach who said we looked cute and offered to snap a shot.

 

Balance bike meetup! This ridiculously cute, but also instructive, event happened weekly at a nearby town park. There's Maya on her little red Strider, cruising right along.

Grandpa with his TWO grandchildren! We're all excited to help Jeff and Courtney welcome Alexander to the family.

The California crew came to Burt Lake for their annual visit at the end of July. Maya was again delighted to spend time with cousin Marlo. She managed to knock her to the ground with an over-enthusiastic hug on the first day, but after that it was all pretty sweet and adorable. Here they are at the u-pick raspberry patch.

And collaborating on a paint-with-water masterpiece on the front walk.

Canoe ride with two toddlers. 

 

Dog ride with three cousins. Aunt Sarah gives Colby, Maya, and Maggie a push.

The whole gang, almost. We missed (big) Colby and Jane this year.

 

Maisie enjoys a visit to stick heaven at the North End.

Maya was pretty thrilled to hold her new cousin. She calls him Baby Alexander or, sometimes, Alex Babyzander.

The next weekend, we filled up the porch with relatives again - a whole different set! This is a good showing from the Ratzows, my mother's side of the family. Three of her four siblings, plus four of my cousins and their families, joined us at Burt Lake. We had a great time connecting and reconnecting with three generations.

A spontaneous late August camping trip brought us to the Betsie River, not far from home but nice for a night in the wilds. A rainy hike the next morning led to lots of puddle-jumping by the small one in the purple raincoat.

Back at home, we enjoyed lots of backyard time and some garden treats. Again this year, the garden was not as productive as I'd hoped, but at least we had cherry tomatoes aplenty and a very willing little picker!

For the full summer album, click here. You'll note there's a new view now that Picasa has merged with Google photos. I find the whole thing a little cumbersome and the captions hard to read, but am hoping for some improvements over time...