My streak would have continued if today was September 25

I realized that if I'm going to use the blog to track the kids' milestones, I'd better get to it. I know that pretty much everyone who reads this thing already knows about most of these, but this is for posterity, kids.

Ava is officially pulling herself up on anything and everything. She's also cruising. I hear that early walkers start around 8 months old, so she clearly won't hit that. But I wouldn't be surprised if she's walking before Jonah turns 3. She is also finally cutting her first tooth.

Jonah is potty trained!

After our disastrous attempt at potty training back in July, Matt started telling Jonah that he could have five (!) M&Ms if he peed in the potty. (Matt didn't consult with me before determining the quantity of M&Ms that a peepee was worth.) Jonah was still not interested—until we gave him an M&M to try! Once he knew what he was missing, he was pretty much potty trained in two days. It's been over a month now, and he's not even wearing a diaper for naps. He's also often dry overnight. I was terrified of potty training; I'm shocked and amazed at how easy it was.

Jonah has also started preschool, and he loves it. He's going to Pine Village Preschool, which is a Spanish-immersion preschool that just opened up a site in the South End. How we got to this particular school is a whole other story, but we're happy with it so far. And Jonah can already count to at least 20 in Spanish!

Ava and I attended Katie and Blythe's non-bachelorette party/non-bridal shower last weekend. We spent two nights on Block Island with them, Mom, Aunt Sally, and Blythe's mom, Adrienne. Ava had been a little sick, but she was a real trooper, and she was great the whole weekend. The adults had a lot of fun playing games and drinking wine after she went to bed.

Labor Day weekend, I flew down to Memphis for Tiffany's bachelorette party (and I held my own, even though I haven't done much partying lately!), and Matt drove ALL BY HIMSELF with both kids down to New Jersey for the weekend. I'm truly impressed that he did that. Personally, I find the idea of driving alone with two kids to New Jersey on a holiday weekend way more terrifying than the idea of taking care of them by myself for a few days.

We had a busy summer, and it's carrying on into fall. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up!

So many children, so little time.

It's so hard to keep up now that our help is gone. We had Grandma for almost two weeks, and then Nana for 10 days, and then the whole family came into town for Ava's naming. We were terrible about taking photos that weekend, but Matt managed to snap a few at the kiddush afterward.




Since then, Ava's been working on her tummy time:



And Jonah decided that Tigger wanted to hang out in the Baby Bjorn:



We got Jonah to stand near Ava long enough to take some photos, but Ava refused to smile:



But since she sleeps six or more hours most nights, we've forgiven her!

Martha's Vineyard Monkey

When the dust settled from our synagogue’s silent auction and a weekend on Martha’s Vineyard was still up for grabs, we jumped at the chance to snap it up. The weekend in question was June 6-8, so last week, we headed out for a long weekend of exploring a new island with the Monkey.

We stayed in Aquinnah, the town formerly known as Gay Head, and perhaps the most isolated of the several towns on the island. It was a very different experience from our “usual” of Block Island, where the (one and only) town was a twenty-minute drive from our house. But it was definitely fun to experience a new place.

Friday and Saturday were on the cold side, but we did some exploring. Monkey enjoyed looking at the lighthouse in Aquinnah (“Red light!” “White light!” “Red light!” “White light!”) and digging in the sand. However, he does not like having sand on his hands or feet, making for a unique challenge. He did his digging primarily from the safety of the beach blanket.

Here’s where the story has an interesting twist. On Saturday evening, we decided to drive into the town of Oak Bluffs to grab some dinner. We walked along the water, and then turned into the large green and walked past the gazebo back toward the town.

A minute after passing a group of people near the gazebo, we heard someone shouting “Matt Fried! MATT FRIED!” Turns out we had just walked past Rob, Matthew, and Jess Goldfarb, brothers who Matt knew from his summers on the Connecticut shore. Mind you, these are people he hasn’t seen in close to twenty years, but in their words, he looked “just like Matt Fried. Only grown-up.” We had dinner with them and the others with them, and learned that all three live on Martha’s Vineyard now, and Matthew and Rob run a farm in Edgartown called The FARM Institute, which offers community-supported agriculture and programs for kids ages 2 and up.

Now for the real treat: on Sunday, we met Rob and his wife, Magda, at the farm, and got a tour! [Bad Mommy and Daddy did not think to bring the camera...oops!] We got to see chickens and baby chicks, piglets and a great big momma pig, a cow and her four-day-old calf (already running around, of course), and lots of other animals. Our Monkey most enjoyed chasing around the guinea fowl, listening to the ducks quacking, and watching the bunny hop, hop, hop away from him. Oh yeah, and sitting on the tractors was a big hit, too – he’s still talking about it! It was so fun to reconnect with old friends, and to hear about the really amazing work that they do. Check out their website and see for yourself!

Cousins!

We spent a long weekend at Passover with Grandma, Aunt Carrie, Uncle Brian, and cousins Samantha and Landon. Here's a series of photos that recreate that classic family photo dilemma...how many do you shoot before you give up on that perfect snapshot?

I guess the fifth time's the charm!

Interview with a (Monkey) Toddler

Monkey is talking all the time now, and I finally get how it is that parents can understand the seemingly incomprehensible ramblings of their small children. I tried to get him to perform his tricks for the camera, and the (very mixed) results are below. Enjoy!

Weekend Monkey

Monkey and I had a lovely walk on Sunday.

There was a big snowstorm on Friday, so we couldn't go to any of our normal weekend parks. What to do with a Monkey who wanted to get out and run around? We walked down to the Esplanade and along the river...err, the canal.



We saw some ducks.



Monkey chased his shadow.



Monkey pushed the stroller.



It was a perfect Sunday afternoon outing!