We've Moved!

... In virtual terms, anyway. We have sort of migrated a lot of Z-related stuff to Facebook. It's a hassle if you don't have an account, and I know some people don't like Facebook, but it's kind of a nice service, and a little easier to post pictures and videos of Z and, well, other stuff. It costs nothing to sign up... JOIN US. GOBBLE GOBBLE, GOBBLE GOBBLE, ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

Please come on over and friend Rachel or me and get caught up! That is if anyone ever looks here any more. If so, thanks for thinking of us! Here's some recent stuff from August 09: a bike ride and a typical Zora in hot weather situation...

CASE IN POINT: THE MOVIE NEVER LOADED AFTER AN HOUR OF A SPINNING WHEEL. There's a better way to do this, y'all. Come see us on Facebook!

March Snowstorm Trudge

... with a sorry snow angel!

Hello. Remember Us?

We've been mighty sick in our parts-- from major illnesses to a recent three-person bout with the flu.

Here's a recent video of Z doing her bedtime thing.

Library Days...

We've been going to the downtown branch of the Providence Public Library every Tuesday for the last few months for a little story-time, a little playtime, some germs (two colds so far, picked up from glomming onto plastic foodstuffs...)

Zora really enjoys the stories, likes a bit of the toys, but more than anything, she likes to try and escape. At least three times a morning she tries to log into the librarian's computer and then, while I'm moving her away from the desk, she takes off for an attempt at the Young Adult wing. Or the doors. Or... Who knows?

I had the chance to record one of these forays. Enjoy!

Late Halloween Updates...

Halloween was two weeks long this year-- or so it seemed. Between the parade, a costume day at the library downtown (no photos, unfortunately) and the actual Halloween Candy Gorge, Z got a lot of chances to wear her R-made costume and smudge her face-paint.

Many thanks to our neighbor Diane for the great Halloween-night photos of Z. As you can probably tell from the first photo, chocolate was consumed. Yes.



And here's a non-Halloween photo... from last night, when Rachel threw Z in a basket of toys.

Halloween Parade

This is Z without her ears on doing her best lion growl.

Yesterday they held a little Halloween Party at the park. There was face-painting, beanbag tossing, sugary snacks, a pet costume contest (ugh), punkin'-chuckin' trebuchet, mutant elephants, potato people, a human fly and a giant ear of corn. Typical Providence.


Before she went away for the weekend, Rachel put together a cute little lion/cat costume for Zora. I bungled the whiskers, but most everyone got it. Some people called out "bear," so I had to show them her tail, but everyone thought it was cute.

A few photos from my camera (it's still on life support).



So there was a costume parade, which Z took very seriously. She insisted on walking most of it and had a shaker that she kept going most of the time. The Corn Guy led the parade and the Elephant and Potato guys showed up midway. I'm sorry I don't have any pictures of their arrival, because it was pandemonium. Some kids burst into tears and some attacked them. It was a good show.

Tail end of the parade, where the insistent short-strides coagulated.





Here she is with another neighborhood toddler, Kyle. I've never known a kid (he's a few months older than Zora) who can speak like he can. I swear he uses the subjunctive better than I do.

...

The arrival of the Elephant Guy.



...

She fell asleep on the walk home, of course.

October update

This week, cousin Jamie's Bat Mitzvah in Jersey aligned with a long holiday weekend, our pending wood anniversary, and a desperate need to use up those accumulating vacation days. We've taken the opportunity to traipse up and down Route 95 a little bit, including several hours each getting over the George Washington Bridge and then the Lincoln tunnel. Zora really appreciated the opportunity to get an up-close, slow-motion look at our nation's crumbling infrastructure.

Even more so, she appreciated the foods of the Northeast Megalopolis, with great gusto. At the Ethiopian place in New Haven Friday night, Doro Wat was a great hit, as were lentil samosas and great wads of injera. We don't need to mention the chocolate cake for desert.

At the kiddush in Leonia, NJ on Saturday, she found that the flavor of the pickled herring in sour cream was very much to her liking, but not so much the texture. The challah, fruit salad and a black-and-white cookie were more her speed.

Saturday night in Brooklyn, Zora really appreciated the lasagna with home-made ricotta and fresh-baked semolina bread whipped up by Auntie Stef, not to mention the awesome gen-u-ine caesar salad created by Marc, with real anchovies and everything. After a short walk to Blue Marble ice cream, we failed to prevent her from consuming 3/4 of a butter pecan ice cream cone (Keem! Keem!).

Sunday morning, Zora was up for dim sum. Clams in black bean sauce, fried noodles, chive dumplings and sundry other delicious treats were a huge hit.


She really is surprisingly adept with chopsticks, and is very adamant about using them instead of a fork. There ends up being a huge mess, but we've got to laud her effort to be culturally sensitive.

She's pretty excited about the new shoes we found in the same neighborhood.


Chinatown was, frankly, a little overwhelming.

Wild Child

Zora cast aside the shackles when she awoke Saturday. She slipped out of bed quietly and decided to have an adventure. While her parents did the unthinkable, sleeping past 7 AM, she exercised her freedom.




WITH SOME LIPSTICK.

Here she is in the bathtub.

Events preceding an early bath, in play form:

R: ZZZZ.

C: ZZZZ.

R: Honey. Where's Zora?

C: ZZZZ!

Zora passes by bedroom door. Looks in. Walks toward box of cereal that is on the kitchen floor for some reason.
Z: Beebapo peez kay.

R: Oh. Do you want some cereal? Just a second. Honey. Hand me my glasses. You can't have that kind; that's Daddy's. You want some (Nature Happiness Brand O-rganic O's) O's?

Honey. Hand me my glasses.

C fumbles for glasses, hands them over to R. ...

R: OH MY GOD!

C: WHAT!

And... SCENE!
So not only did Zora try out her mother's favorite lipstick, she had to extract said lipstick from her mother's purse, which was on the table. The middle of the table. So she had to pull a chair out, climb on said chair, get onto the table, pull the bag down, get down herself...

Yes, we really dodged a bullet. She could have done anything! Thank goodness(???) she covered half of her face in lipstick.

Once her face was on she got a little hungry and tried for my Honey Nut Cheerios. She couldn't get them open. This was also on the kitchen table, though we found it on the floor-- next to a couple of packs of English muffins, both packages with torn plastic and smeared lipstick all over them.

The Cheerios:


At some point during or after the lipstick application she came in to pat our bedsheets, no doubt an homage to the art found in Chauvet Cave.


Which is done by a toddler covered in lipstick and which is done by our Paleolithic cousin?


Just to erase the image of the the wild child drinking her own bathwater-- hopeless-- I've included a photo from just a few days prior, when her face was clear and all seemed right with the world...


In case you're wondering, it all came off fine. It even came out of her hair!

Briana: She's Gone! :(

Folks, that's my first-ever emoticon right there in that title. Something about the occassion calls for a... symbol that expresses the profound sadness we're feeling today, so I had to bust it out. To reiterate, :(

I took Briana to the airport this morning at five-ish. Got a call later in the day saying she made it back to Akron where I'm sure they gave her a welcome-home parade and her parents will lavish her with attention before she heads off for her sophomore year at Toledo U. Some life.

Despite the fact that our apartment is so small, and Briana's nocturnal schedule was sometimes... tricky, I already miss her and the apartment seems a little sad without her. Sure, there's a decided lack of bad music coming from laptop speakers, but... we miss her.

At dinner I mentioned her name in conversation with Rachel, and Zora began to look very concerned. She went to what was Briana's room, checked it out. Looked out the kitchen window. Asked to look out of the bathroom window. Pointed off into the distance. It made me kind of sad to think that her memories of Briana's visit will probably be occluded by words when she gets them, and the pile of memories she's bound to put on top of this summer, but I suppose that's the way it goes. I remember blurred images from what must have been my first couple of years, so maybe she'll remember Briana picking her up, or blinking into the late-morning light, or quietly eating a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, or falling asleep next to her car-seat on rides from the beach. Who knows? I'll remember them, at least.

Briana was always very sweet with Zora; very patient and sharing. Here she is helping Zora with her hair. You'll notice you can see the floor in this photo, so I think that might date this image back to the first couple of days of Briana's visit, before she unleashed her shoe collection.



And here she is with Zora at SoundSession, wherein Providence introduced its funky self to Briana. We hope she makes it back for next year's parade!

Sorry for such a long delay, folks. A broken camera (many good years, several bad drops) and a busy life have kept us from posting for a loooooong time.

Luckily, our neighbor Ben has a fancy camera on his phone and shot some pictures of Z down at the corner store. She was hanging out with Megan (our awesome upstairs neighbor-- the best and perhaps only good thing to come out of Pennsylvania, really) while R and I were at a class.

ANYWAY, the photos. Thanks, Ben, and thanks, Megan.

This one is a little creepy because she looks like a teenager. Sort of. She's holding a Wiggles doll (property of the store, really) that has been modified for S&M. He had a gingerbread gal as a top, but I don't think Zora's found her yet.


She is... perplexed by this guy, but asks to see him every time we go to the store (hourly, some days).


And here's the cutest picture I've seen in a minute (slang minute)-- Megan and Zora in the park. They took a walk with Ben and reportedly Zora was a huge hit with the wandering Christian missionaries who set up next to the playground occasionally and sing evangelical hymns in Spanish. For some reason they always steer clear of me when I'm out there with Z, but apparently Megan looks like she could be saved.

Finally, here's a link to a little video of Zora dancing with some other kids in the park. She's got the same dress on, but it's a different day. What can I say? We get a lot of use out of this dress-- it's awesome. Her auntie Stef got it for her!

TTFN, friends, family and neighbors.

PS. I just looked at that video, and damn if she hasn't grown a foot since then! She looks like a baby, whereas now she looks like a little kid.

Memorial Day Visit to Brooklyn...

... where we visited Auntie Stef and Onkel Manny. And Zeke (Zeek?) and Zelda (not pictured).



We did a lot of traveling.

Walking and eating a scone.




Fort Greene Park

Prospect Park, Memorial Day

Discarded (dud) water balloon. I sincerely hope it was a water balloon.

Enough with the photos.

Happy Mother's Day Picnic

Okay, I didn't get any of the actual picnic, but it was very nice. We had it out at Breton Point, where it was blustery and sunny. Look how happy and full this kid is! She ate her weight in olives. Look how little hair she has at 16 months! Ridiculous.

Flying a kite with Mary (Grandmom).

Holy Smokes!

I guess there's no way to make up for lost time, but here goes.

Sorry for the delay. We're all doing fine. The baby (not so much a baby anymore) is doing really, really well, though she's not talking much. I mean, she makes tons of noises and busts out the occasional "Mama" and "Dada" and "ball," but really, I expected more, and her sentence structure is horrible. She is experimenting with her eyebrow and forehead expressions, and the other day looked at R and I, scrunched up her face in mock soulful pain, and sang, "Ooooooh." I have no idea where she got that.

We got a bike seat for her and she seems to enjoy it a great deal. It sits on the front of my bike rather than the back and she makes for a terrific windbreak.

Okay, some photos. I hope someone is still looking at this blog!


Howard and Mary come every week so Rachel and I can slip out to the gym and get some exercise sans baby. Zora and Mary are the best of buddies.


Zora's Aunt Mary (of the Freed Clan in Virginia) sent Zora some egg-shaped shakers she LOVES. She's shaking them here. She appreciated the packaging almost as much-- a cardboard tube and a silk handkerchief.

I've been working on some clothing design. I call this one "Dress I."


Bike helmet!
R has been baking bread lately-- amazing bread. Zora is a fan of all food, really, but fresh bread with a little butter and a pinch of kosher salt? It makes her very happy.

It's a shame our neighborhood has no proper hills.
"Dress II"

Uncle Joshua wrestling Zora away from the computer.

Sunday Styles.
Bored baby.
Asleep with Zeppo, our 20-pound cat.

Pancakes!

Aside from accomplishing everything on her list before noon on this cold, cold day, Zora also had a couple pancakes. She approved. Please find below an abridged chronicle of the pancake event.








All of a sudden, clouds passed over the sun. "What is this crap?" she said.

"Oh, well."

Happy Cold Day, Reader!

New Year's Eve Meal

R made a fancy dinner with Z. It's often hard to work with someone breathing down your neck, but R has gotten quite good at it.


Tarragon mashed potatoes, shallot cream sauce, scallops... Yum. Yes, it's a dark photo, but look at that plating!

Happy (belated) New Year!

TO DO:

Zora is collapsed, exhausted, on my shoulder. I just pried a tiny piece of paper from her clenched fist, on which is scrawled:

a Drop mama's phone behind bed
aa Bite mama's boob
a Kick daddy in privates
a Eat page of seed catalogue
a Break dish
a Remove all plastic containers from cupboard
a Pour cup of maple syrup on self, floor
a Unload clothes from dresser
a Find lipstick in mama's purse
c Noon nap

Good to see that someone in this house is achieving their goals for the day.

11 Months and Counting and BONUS: Undersea Quilt

Classy Lass.


We have a walker, ladies and gentlebeans! Toddler, really, but she walks 'round and 'round our tiny apartment, her little leather-soled shoes chuffing like a tiny steam engine.

Late morning preparations for the day. Phone and scarf, check; jam-jams, check.

We were recently in VT for the Christmas holiday. Zora toddled and shouted for her relatives to the North, ate copious amounts of lasagna (shout out to Uncle Steve), had numerous showdowns with the dog, Lola, and generally had a nice time.

Occasionally I forget how fortunate we are to be part of such a creative family. There is nothing that someone in our extended family (dear friends and godparents included) that isn't known, excepting the Great Mysteries. I know this, but sometimes I forget. Then I see something like this, the quilt that Lila, Sarah and my mom made for Zora. It's so beautiful that pictures truly don't do it justice.

Here it is suspended in the living-room window so you can better see the various shades of blue. It is, as the kids used to say, bananas. Click the photos to blow them up a little!


Some close-up shots:
Lila did the crab. Reader, you've probably never seen any artwork Lila's done other than this, but let me tell you-- it's in her style. I'll post a close-up of it later. He's resting on a grotto with a starfish inside.

I think Sarah did a lot of the work on the jellyfish. They're cnidarian-tastic; one even has a puffy... head-thing made of soft something.
See the tiny disc jellyfish and drifting sea anemones? Those are the quilt's ties. It's all very sturdy and pickable for Zora, too! She inspects it quite thoroughly upon waking.
Thank you, Aunts and Grandma! This belongs in a museum!

PS. Here's a shot of the crab. Satin goodness, and funny to boot. Note the chubby hand creeping toward the grotto.

Adios, friends!

Happy Hanukkah/Chewbacca!

It's that time of year again! For eight nights (at least) homes across the world are redolent with the smell of onions and fried potatoes.

Zora's first latkes! She approves.




Note the tear of joy under her left eye. Latkes, sour cream and homemade applesauce...

I started to clean up, but ran out of dishwasher room. Too bad! Good thing it's Tuesday night-- Howard and Mary come up tomorrow so R and I can hit the gym and burn away a latke or eight-- Zora will help her grandma clean up the rest.

Have a nice holiday, everyone!

More Photos of Turkey and People

This is the baby's blog, I know, but... some non-necessarily-baby photos for your amusement.

Fire... goooood!

"Endeavor, please, to keep dem coals out me drippins."

Howard, Turkey, Z, Laila, Alec. Herb is kind of hiding and eating back there, too.

This was the first time in many years I had turkey. It was pretty damn good. Any guilt I had was washed away by an incredible nap before dessert.

Z, Laila, Howard, Herb.

Que Linda!

Z and Mary talking about politics, weather, the traffic getting down there, music boxes.

Li'l Jeanyus

"So this is a bowl. What do she taste like?"

------

Books pulled out from the bookshelf by Z yesterday:

The Metamorphosis
Nineteen Eighty-Four
The Subterraneans
Prometheus Rising*
How To Baby-Proof Your Home**

*This one's kind of a clinker, I know.

**Irony duly noted.

Also, she has Peek-a-Boo DOWN. Go on and get yourself a scholarship, girl!

No, seriously. I can't afford to send you to college.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving and Ensuing Holiday!

The native people of this land shared with the settlers the proper way to blowtorch a turkey.

Honestly, though-- grilled turkey is good! Z had a bit of everything (save for dessert) and astounded all with her gusto.

A post-meal, pre-dessert stroll to the harbor. You can't see her (because she's grabbing at the camera), but Z loves going for walks in the dark. She looks around at everyone happily and just laughs at the shadows. I'm just saying she's not the scared kid (yet) her dad was.

A walk on the beach the following weekend. Z usually falls asleep around the halfway point. She's getting heavy!

When Eric at the corner store (while holding her) asks if Zora has leftover squash in her ear, it's maybe time for a post-Thanksgiving bath. She's enjoying her baths more and more lately.


More good photos to come. Sorry for the delay; Blogger has been acting up a bit.

First Snow!

The last time Z saw snow she was a little blob in a baby sling. Today she stuck her tongue out into the wind and the big, wet flakes that fell for about an hour this morning. Please note the marvelous hat now fits! Thanks again, Leah!

Happy One Day Before Thanksgiving!

Actually, it's two days as I post this, but you get the idea. I'm sure we'll have a jillion pictures of the three-toothed wonder (two on top, one on the bottom; she loves to grind them together in my ear on our walks. Wonderful!) eating mashed potatoes and turkey very soon.

You ever intend to do something and then as time goes by you make it more and more ornate or large or generous in your mind in order to mitigate the shame of procrastination? And then the sheer size or complexity of that act stymies you further?*** No? Well, it happens to me all the time. Case in point: Zora's had a busy, busy couple of months, and I fully intended to post about them here complete with illustration, but...

So, sorry for the wait. Here's some of what we've been up to.

Z's been a traveler these last couple of months. In October she (and her parents) went to: Newport (not such a stretch, as she's got family there) for Violet Von Doom's first birthday. Hostilities were kept to a minimum. Z was a little overwhelmed by all the babies there, and since she was the only one without teeth (the shame!) could not partake in the goldfish crackers. Good time, though. Great cupcakes.

Z also has been to Vermont (Roberts Fam, Maya), Virginia (Freed Fam), Boston (Driscoll-Brooks Fam-- twice!) and Northampton (Newman-Bernstein Fam) over the last couple months. Though we took the train to Virginia (without major meltdowns, somehow. Having grandparents across the aisle was a major plus. Everyone should travel with 'em!), Zora has been a real trooper with the car seat lately. She rarely screams in the car any more-- which is nice, as you can imagine-- and often sleeps for a good stretch of any drive we take. Hooray! Embrace your American-sized carbon imprint, child!

Anyhoo, the pictures...

A mild day in autumn. Perfect for an afternoon swing!


Z has almost mastered THE CUP. We tried a sippy cup, but honestly, it seemed like more work than figuring out how to hold an actual one. That's not to say we can give her a pint glass of Pepsi and walk away. More like a tablespoon of water with constant attention. More often than not she'll pick it up and put it down correctly, but sometimes she just tires of the whole process and drops it like it's hot (Holla!).


Loves lemons, lemon juice, lemon pulp. Here she's enjoying one of her favorite toys: the lemon reamer just after use. This last weekend she actually got a little lemon in her eye, but it slowed her only a little. She still loves them.

Zora really enjoys eating, but she really, really enjoys sitting down with lots of people and eating. Shabbat, when she sits down, candles are lit AND she gets to hear her mother sing? AWESOME. Here she is being changed after dinner. Can you make her out way in the distance on her changing table? She's very excited about the candles and being naked. Don't worry-- her mom is just out of the frame spotting her.
Here are mom's hands. Z is always happy to be naked.

Z in Virginia, wearing her traveling best, putting together her supplies for the day.
Making the long crawl to the kitchen at Dave and Mary's in Virgina. Due to our tiny apartment, Z rarely gets up to top speed with her crawl. This house in Virginia was as close to a baby autobahn as there is. The straight shot from the front door to the kitchen allowed her to hit top speeds. Note the rumpled rug in her wake.
Here she is admiring pots AND pans. And their respective lids.
Who doesn't love a green chair?

Obligatory Halloween photo. Short story long: We had several possible costume ideas, including Tintin (my favorite), Kuato (warning: kind of gross), and Master Blaster, and as is so often the case with us, spent so much time laughing at our ideas that we didn't come up with anything good. So we literally went with something our neighbor found on the sidewalk. Really. If you can't tell, it's some sort of polyester pumpkin hat (washed). Later we whistled away our sadness at losing ALL the good candy bars. Little monsters around here reaching into the bowl with TWO HANDS. ALL THE SNICKERS WERE CONSUMED. She really can whistle, by the way; a funny, airy little thing, but it's a whistle. I don't know how she picked it up, as I'm not a very good whistler-- she just started one day. She also mimics coughing for any unfortunate soul who happens to be sick nearby. It's quite annoying if you're really sick, as I was a few weeks ago. NOT FUNNY.

LOVES being naked.

Enjoying the crinkly part of decorative corn. She's wicked smaht.

We went to Boston last weekend for a museum trip with Onkle Manny, Titi Stefanie, Tom and Heather (who are like family, but I can't bring myself to write "Uncle Tom"). They're dear friends, though, who fed us a five (six?) course meal after our museum trip. We had a lovely time, I got my first and probably only 'Nog of the season (*sob*), and Zora was awesome. She ate with us, traveled with us, was completely down for whatever. Give this kid enough lemon wedges and she'll even sit in a bar while her parents have a hot whiskey. This was actually a lot less depressing than it reads.
Zora and Stefanie enjoying the third course: pumpkin soup with corn and lemongrass.
That's it, thanks for reading! Sorry it's been so long since we last posted. Love to all and happy Thankstaking, as Uncle Legacy says.






***This is the story of my life. I owe myself about a billion sit-ups when I finally get around to it.

Teefs!

Ladies and gentlemen, we've got 'em. C is delighted. I think he was beginning to think we would have to get her tiny dentures.

Just to be different, Z decided to have the top ones arrive first. They just showed up yesterday, and various family members have already called her "Cletus,""Bucky," and "Kukla." (I'll let you figure out the generational divide on that one.) Halloween being just around the corner, and us being the kind of ignoramuses that we are, we briefly entertained the idea of going for the "most offensive costume" award by dressing Z as a caricature from a WWII propaganda poster, a la Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Very briefly, indeed.

Eight Months and Fourteen Days

Late again.

We have had a nice August/September. We saw family, friends, arch-nemeses (Violet von Doom). Of course, being the person I am, I have no photos of any of these encounters here with me on my computadora. Soon, perhaps.

Zora fared much better in her second encounter with Violet. There was almost a toy phone incident, and mild hair pulling, but the manacles and leg-irons on Violet evened the playing field for the most part.

Hmm... what else?


Z finally had a reason (Rosh Hashana) to break out one of the fancy Par-ee French dresses Auntie Stef gave to her. It's an amazing thing-- it has more detail on it than any piece of clothing R or I own. It fits her perfectly.

I don't quite remember the rule about plastic bags, but I do remember one is bad for babies. I'm pretty sure then that several wadded up and stuffed in a large plastic bag-- which is then tied to the wall for easy recycling that never happens-- is the perfect toy for a baby to play with.

Contemplative polka-dot elf.

More to come soon!

Zeven Monthz! (Again)

Raspberries from Vermont (mixed with rice-- it looked like she was eating steak tartare) were a big hit.



In what is probably a sign of teeth to come, Z's favorite baby bin toy is a book held together with a string and a large bead. She likes to put the book in her mouth and stands up to show whoever is on the outside looking in her trick. CONCERNED GRANDPARENTS AND OTHER READERS, DO NOT WORRY. I AM WATCHING HER AND THE BEAD AS SHE DOES THIS.

An evening walk with Mom. Boy, does she love her Mom.

Belated Seven-Month Post!

We're always late.Never getting dressed on time...

Playing with stuff while we should be concentrating on other things...

Spacing out at the breakfast table...

Staring off into space...

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Amazing Panty-Head!

"Fun" folding laundry!




Fun time's over.

Some of What We Did on Wednesday...

Took a morning walk to the park...

Took a swing in the morning light...

Watched our shadows...


Ate copious amounts of brown rice blended with peaches. That is a bib, not a shirt, unfortunately.


There were also naps and X-treme poos, but you don't want to see those pictures. Really.

Hope your Wednesday was also good, dear readers!

Auntie Stef Came to Visit

Teeth were checked...

All clear! Yay!
Zora had a great visit (except for the car bits) with Auntie Stef.

What's That?

It's Zora!

Having a little avocado.

GUYS-- YAMS!

YAMS.
YAMS.
YAMS!
GUYS... YAMS!

YAMS.

YAMS.
YAMS.
YAMS.
YAMS.
YAMS.
YAMS.

Beach Day!

Maya came down from the Green Mountains to visit Li'l Rhodey for the weekend. We had a belated kickoff to beach season at the local edge of the world. We ate clam cakes, underdone fries and lots and lots of sand.

Here are my two favorite daughters:

SIX MONTHS OLD!

Hooray!!!It's official: only six months left on our no-questions-asked return policy. So far, so good, but I'm waiting to see what happens with those ears and that hair before I make my final decision.


No, I'm only kidding. It's character! She's a keeper.

We were a travelin' family in the month of June. We visited our Western Mass fam, our Vermont fam and our O-high-in-the-middle-O fam. Zora flew (in a plane) with no complications, and drove across several states (in short chunks) with her usual protestations. She hates the car. We try to accommodate her by breaking up drives across this great land of ours into two-hour chunks (coinciding with naps, of course), but even that sometimes is too much. Inevitably she stops crying as soon as she hears the e-brake click into place, and by the time I unfold myself from the front seat, she's smiling through the leftover tears.

Some photos.
Asleep in the sunny guest room of our dear Somerville friends, saving up the shouts and accusations for the ride to Vermont.

With the VT Family.
I couldn't get a photo where everyone was looking at the camera. Here R considers her daughter's patchy curls.

Of course she was fine in Vermont and even seemed okay at the outset of our return trip. She didn't disappoint, however, and decided she'd howl and sob from the Massachusetts border to our home in the Ocean State. Good times!

Zora did well on the plane and had a good time visiting Ohio. Wherever she goes there is no shortage of people who want to hold her, and the Buckeye State was no different.

Here we are on the lawn of the beautiful Toledo Art Museum.


Here we are in an enormous and strangely beautiful cemetery in Cleveland. She's being held by her Uncle Joshua.

Here she is in an Akron restaurant that had its own special kind of beauty: a sundae bar and more types of pie than you could shake a stick at. She's being held by Nana.


And here she is on one of the two worst beds I've ever had the misery of trying to sleep on. Incredibly, they were in the same room! Comfort Inn of Akron (the one off of Market Street, right off of 77), you need to step your mattress game up.

A Declaration of Independence

So we had a very nice, damp 4th of July, with hot dogs and hamburgers at the home of Roger and Janet, the site of our wedding. All officially-sanctioned fireworks were called off for the weather.

We returned to Providence around 10:00 or so, while the city was demonstrating its usual teeter on the edge of utter lawlessness. Opening the car door was like stepping into a war zone, the air thick with firework smoke while bright explosions burst into the air from a house on every block. The occasional police cruiser rolled slowly down the city street, in passive appreciation of our neighbors' investment in thousands of dollars of illicit pyrotechnics.

We hit the hay around 11:30, while the bombs bursting in air continued indefinitely. Zora had different ideas, though. Despite repeated attempts to nurse her to sleep, I kept stirring awake as she crawled all around us. The last time, I woke to a squeal of delight and caught her STANDING, having pulled herself up on the edge of her bed. Did you hear me? I said STANDING. Damn, chile. And tomorrow is just six months.

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This evening, Z decided to stage a reenactment, to quell any doubt about her Super Baby skillz. You can follow along step-by-step, if you have a hard time with this maneuver, yourself.

and . . .

HUP!

Just in case there are still any doubters, here it is on the flip-side:
(and yes, she is trying to climb up onto the couch. Lucky for us all, she hasn't figured that out. Not this week, at least.)

Cray-Zee!

NEWSFLASH!

Zee crawls!

Five?!

Hey! Look who it is! In soft focus and ready to start the day!

Zora hit five months on the sixth, which, I realize, is a week ago. We haven't been good about keeping up with this blog, which is kind of how these things go, I gather.

Anyway, Zora is in fine fettle. She's getting long, is still lean, and has a winning personality. She's won over the folks at the corner store and is generally a hit nearly everywhere else we go. Actually, we only pretty much go to the corner store, but I'm very confident other people would like her, too.

She's very funny.



We took a trip out to an amazing old house built on a rock in Jamestown Harbor in May. There was lots going on, and you'd think, seeing as I had a camera with me, that I'd document it, but the true highlight (for me) was seeing Z strapped into her futuristic flotation device. She was puzzled by it, but put up with it for the trip back and forth.

She looks so small there, but she really is growing. And she's very strong. Her doctor says she's "motorically advanced," which R and I really like. We thought she was blowing smoke, but that's actually a word. And Zora is motorically advanced! Really! She's just about sitting up by herself, and goes up on her hands and toes. Her crawler is busted, so she just rocks back and forth and scoots backwards, but I'm predicting a leap this week.

Here she is balancing while we visited her Uncle Josh and Aunt Stew.

She's only just begun tasting adult food. The criteria are texture (easily gummed) and overall parental laziness in keeping her away from it. She's pretty dogged. Anyway, tonight R gave her some avocado bits. Wondrous!



It got a mixed review. She followed it up with a napkin and the tantalizingly cool air of a Popsicle held just out of reach.



Lastly, we've really been enjoying the fine weather. We had a field day a few weekends ago in the park near us (I broke a piece of the croquet set, Z drooled all over a mallet handle), and have taken some good walks. Here we are in south county about to enjoy some Rhode Island mosquitoes.

The other big June event (so far) has been an actual baby encounter. All of a sudden Z seems to notice other babies, even if they're her in the mirror. Last week we had a walk in the park with a baby slightly older and in possession of a harder edge. Her name? Violet von Doom. Yes. And she quickly initiated Z into big-baby world. Bonus: she showed her how many "five" really is.


Some earlier photos, before the great insult:

Happier, simpler times...
Violet isn't really THAT much larger than Zora. She's a little closer to the camera. She is much more focused, though. Unfortunately for Z, that focus isn't on the other baby next to her.

This kind of snub (and the hand-to-face above) can only lead to years of enmity and rancor, but it's so damn funny now. We're going to do a complete series of baby fights before they know what's up.


BONUS VIDEO: ZORA DRIFTS IN TIME-LAPSE!

FOUR (months).

Z is four, drooling, happy, gum-smiling months old! She's a pleasant and, we think, fun baby.

This last month we:

Visited Vermont family....

Maya and Zora...
Aunties Sarah, Lila and Zora (and Rachel).

We had a great visit up there and rang in spring (with the traditional Roberts Family spring picnic and burning of the wreath), but got caught in winter's last gasp on the way home-- snow, sleet, freezing rain and then just rain. A one-way total of about five hours. A couple more like that and Zora will have qualified for her learner's permit.

We've been enjoying the nicer weather following Winter's last gasp, and take a daily walk in the morning. Zora has been getting to know the people at the corner store, and various characters on the block. She's a big hit, and smiles for most everyone. Her laugher is broken, and she can only get out a few chuckles here and there. Squeals are becoming common, and long soliloquies bookend the day; one when her parents are still groggy, and one during the late-evening diaper change. Lots of "Oooohewwwwahs" and "Queeeeeahhhoooohs".

Lighting Photo Round!

Here she is on our trip to the Land of Garish Patterns.


Fresh Produce!
High-intensity nap training!
Blurry smiles! Still an elusive smiler-for-the-camera.
Like her father, Zora hates the flash.
Random tidbits: She loves bottles of all shapes and sizes. We don't know if she's a reincarnated glass blower, bottle collector or lover of drink-- or if she's all three. Her favorite so far is the Gerolsteiner fizzy water bottle, and if she's squirming while we're eating dinner, we only have to plunk the bottle in front of her. She loves it!