Naomi eating ice cream! Yes, ice cream! She had ice cream twice this trip (the second time was a bit of a disaster, though....she ended up biting me when she finished her ice cream, so we both sat out on the sidewalk in the middle of a torrential storm for time out....on the plus side, she hasn't bitten again)
Naomi and I reading the Cat in the Hat Comes Back. Ah, Cat in the Hat. Last night I had a dream that the Cat in the Hat was trying to kill me, but I could not get the police to help me out because my claim didn't sound plausible. It was actually a very distressing dream. Anyway, this book was one of the first books with an actual plot that Naomi really started liking to listen to (a good thing). But then the love turned into a sort of obsession (a monotonous thing). We didn't take the Cat in the Hat on vacation with us because I was sick of reading it, but Naomi asked for it so many times in the car, that I finally started reciting the thing by memory. It turned out I had the entire thing memorized (with the exception of the order of items on the page where the Cat puts everything away). Anyway. When we got to Cape Cod, we visited the library because once again I wanted to burn the books we brought (I can only read Dora's Backpack so many times before experiencing this emotion), and.... lo and behold, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back was on sale for 25 cents. It was fate. Note the look of utter joy on Naomi's enraptured face.
Chatham beach. Chatham was one of the few kind of snobbish places we went on Cape Cod, but it was a great bikeride, and had one of the best beaches (and a REAL playground and train museum.
We took a daytrip to Martha's Vineyard, which turned out to be a very hard day due to the combination of rain and missed naptime. But the gingerbread houses in Oak Bluffs were cool.
See how much fun the ferry was? :-P
Pirate ship along the Cape Canal bike trail.
I took this picture while biking, and we nearly had a three person crash.
Another great (empty) beach.
We went kayaking in the salt marsh and saw some white and blue herons. Naomi fell out, but don't worry, Matt and I were fine.
Touching crabs and lobsters at the aquarium. We also went to a "Zooquarium", where Naomi held a turtle, pet a snake, rode a pony by herself, fed some barn animals, and (the highlight) chased free roosters all around the yard. Forget daycare--we need to get this girl onto a farm!!!
Chasing away the seagulls who ate part of our dinner.
It turns out now Naomi not only likes daycare...but loves it enough that she doesn't want to leave when I come to pick her up. I am happy, but sad. But I do recognize how great it is that she loves her teachers and class. She had some difficulty in the beginning with hitting and pushing, and a couple weeks later with taking her clothes off at the park, but overall she has apparently been pretty well behaved. Over the weekend she started singing a song she must have learned at daycare that goes "Jump in the water, Naomi. You're all wet. Shake you're body Naomi. Now sit down." It sounds like the kids sit around in a circle made out of bean-bags and take turns dancing in the middle. We got a little bit of Naomi dancing to this song on tape, but things have been a little busy, so the video may go up a little later. Suffice it to say, it is ADORABLE.
Anyway. We have been good lately. The weather has been dismal, and I am a little sad about not going upstate for Rosh Hashanah (tomorrow and Wednesday....MORE rain forecast, boooo), but we'll make it out of the city one of these weekends soon!
Her teachers are great (I feel so grateful that she has always been taken care of people who've been very loving to her, even though things ended imperfectly with our nanny this summer), and she LOVES being around several other kids all the time. She talks all the time about the teachers and other kids in her class, runs in when Matt drops her off each day, and really just seems to be having a blast. They do art projects every day, sing songs, read books, play in Central Park a block away, nap, eat, share, cook, and do a good mix, I think, of structured preschool-type activities and more free-form self-directed play. It's a great fit for an outgoing, rambunctious almost-2-year-old, and I'm extremely relieved that things have gone so utterly smoothly thus far.
Another great (empty) beach.
We went kayaking in the salt marsh and saw some white and blue herons. Naomi fell out, but don't worry, Matt and I were fine.
Touching crabs and lobsters at the aquarium. We also went to a "Zooquarium", where Naomi held a turtle, pet a snake, rode a pony by herself, fed some barn animals, and (the highlight) chased free roosters all around the yard. Forget daycare--we need to get this girl onto a farm!!!
Chasing away the seagulls who ate part of our dinner.
Matt and I lost each other on the freedom trail. So...we ended up spending more time in this great park than planned. It was a great park, though--even if Naomi did get kicked out of the pond for not having a swim diaper.
