Like father like son

Yes, Elliot, your relationship with technology will frequently feel like this.

If you can't tell that Elliot is bigger. . .

November 7, 2010:

July 7, 2011:

When he opens his eyes, it’s just light enough to see the ceiling.  The red square on the wall.  The floppy pillowcase corner brushing his forehead.  Looking left is brighter than looking right.  Same as every morning. Good.

He’s calm.  First thing in the morning he's always calm.  He can lie there on his back and stare at the ceiling and do nothing.  He feels skin contact with daddy or mommy or both and he feels safe and needs nothing. Eventually he stretches, a big one, a massive one that arches his back, until only his butt and the crown of his head are touching the mattress.  This causes him to roll to the side and come face to face with one of his sleeping parents.

If it’s mommy he reaches out and gently pats her lips and nose.  If it’s daddy he indulges his recent fascination with facial hair, and extends a single middle finger toward the chin.  He pokes the brittle facial hairs gently, watching how they behave.  

He relaxes and rolls onto his back again.  He stares at the ceiling.  He blows his lips out “bbbbbbb bbbbbbbbb bbbbbbbbb” because hey that feels good.  He moves his limbs randomly, pulling his legs into the air and dropping them back to the bed.  By chance his left hand comes into contact with his left foot, so he grabs it.  Now he’s got a toy: when he pulls his left hand the left foot comes with it, and that feels kind of funny so he does that for a while.  

He turns his head side to side.  This is another new hobby.  There’s a gyroscope in my head!  For the trick to work the head has to be whipped very quickly left and right.  He checks it every day to be sure the trick still works.  Left, right, left right: yup, still dizzy.  He’s noticed that when he does this around mommy and daddy they get very excited and start saying the same word over and over.  He’ll have to think more about that later. 

Suddenly he realizes he’s the only one moving.  What's going on?  Neither mommy nor daddy has made any motion for five minutes.  It could be they're just sleeping, but maybe they’re dead!  The thought fills him with terror. A look of fear spreads across his face, and in seconds he is crying. 

That does the job.  Mommy wakes up, or half wakes up.  A nipple goes into his mouth, and it's like someone flipped off a robot: his eyes drop closed and all his floppy limbs go limp.  Everyone gets another half hour of sleep.

Fourth of July

Somehow I forgot to get these photos online.

First we headed to Greenpoint to visit Kyle, one of Hannah's oldest friends:

All the vices were represented:

Elliot was in performance mode:

Dan was in town from Michigan.  Dan is the man.

Then we went over to Ryan's place in Park Slope, where Brady did his best to corrupt Elliot:

He started freaking out (Elliot, not Brady) so we didn't stay long, and sadly missed late-night shotgunning (Brady, not Elliot).

A mini goodbye to upstate NY

(N.B. this is the final post in a series about our recent trip to the New Palz area.  If you're in the mood for logical narrative flow, scroll down and start about 5 days ago...)

We finished the weekend with a few classic family activities: petting zoo, mini-golf, and the World's Largest Garden Gnome. 

Things we didn't manage to capture on film:  barbeque on the grill in front of our cabin; the llamas that our cottage host keeps as pets (not a joke, go to the website and check it out); dinner at a nice organic restaurant called Main Course in New Paltz; the scary walk in the woods we all took just before dark.

Then there was this...

We just stumbled across it while driving the rolling hills of upstate NY:

Some people collect stamps, others collect giant gnarled chunks of wood.

If only we could photoshop away the weird pale stick of wood in that last photo....

Mohonk and Minnewaska

Our cabin was halfway between the two parks (one of the reasons I highly recommend this particular set of cottages).  

But somehow we only managed to snap photos of Minnewaska.  They were very similar, though: green trees, blue water, white clouds. 

See that strip of land in the distance?  Here it is from another angle:

The water was cold, as Hannah's face demonstrates:

Walkway over the Hudson

It's a pretty long bridge.  Very long.  We didn't really manage to capture it very well, because Elliot started screaming halfway through the walk.

But the views from the walkway were amazing.

The farmer's market on the opposite side of the bridge (our ostensible reason for crossing) was somewhat lame.

But the pie we got there was quickly gone.

Elliot loves the woods

As you can plainly see:

Brunch

It used to be this would happen at 1pm.  Now it's 9am.  And we're impressed with ourselves for waiting that long.