Tugs/Books

Your promised tugboat picture. I wish this shot did it justice.  It's one of the most striking tugboats I've seen--black and white, with gold trim in between the stripes, if I remember correctly.  Though, I've started to take more notice lately and have begun to appreciate how handsome all of the tugboats are around here.  The paint jobs are usually interesting and immaculate.  Made me realize that somebody cares about these tugs.  Somebody loves these tugs. 

Brace yourself.  You may see more tugboat pictures in the future.  Lucky you!  I'm in the perfect neighborhood for it. 

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Back to yesterday's subject: I really, really like children's books. Children's books were a major incentive for me becoming a mom.  The picture books are piling up around here and I can't wait for chapter books.  Oh man, I will finally have that complete set of the Boxcar Children,* just you wait.

Finley's tastes have changed over his sixteen months.  If anything, he has less patience for the complicated stuff these days.  Back when he was helpless and completely at my mercy, I could get away with reading my boring nonfiction to him.  Now, now he can run away from that stuff.  Plus, he's become a champion whiner when he's bored.

So, we keep things relatively simple. 

Like I mentioned yesterday, Where's Walrus? by Stephen Savage is the clear favorite, but here are the others in our rotation (in no particular order (not even alphabetical)):

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus Willems
I think they revoke your "Brooklyn parent" card if you don't read this to your child on a nightly basis.  It seems like everybody has this one.  A particular selling point for us is that it includes a BUS.

A Sick Day for Amos McGee Stead/Stead
This, too, has a bus.  Finley also likes to say McGee! so I think that's why he's drawn to it.  It's one of the longer books in our rotation, but Andy says it's his favorite read-aloud. 

The Quiet Book Underwood/Liwska
Frankly, I think he just goes for this one because he can say Quiet.  But it's cute and quick. 

I Want My Hat Back Klassen
Warning!  Controversial picture book!  But I love it. So what if my child starts eating his adversaries and fibbing about it after?  The illustrations are great!

Freight Train Crews
Oh my.  This one is looking to overtake Wah-sus.  It has more words, but not many. 

Potty Patricelli
I'm including this one for the level of audience participation it incites. Running around the house yelling UNDIES = good times.

Leonardo the Terrible Monster Willems
This is my favorite to read aloud.  I scared the tuna salad out of him!  Gets me every time. 

I could go on and on--I didn't even touch the board books for the most part--but I had to cut this off somewhere.  Little dude loves his books!  I'll let you know when new favorites come up.  I have two new ones on their way even now.  It's a sickness, I tell you.

* The original 19, that is.

Walrus Love

There's something about a kid loving a book to death.  I mean, you have to love that they love it, but holycrappleasecanwereadsomethingdifferenttonightfortheloveofgod?

Where's Walrus? is the frontrunner these days.  Every single night: Wah-sus!   As far as best-loved books go, we could've done a lot worse; it's wordless, so the time commitment can be limited to only as long as it takes you to flip through the pages, the pictures are wonderfully simple, and the story is engaging enough.  And how much does it kill me the way Finley's face lights up every time we pull it down from the shelf? He loves it so much.  Loves it so much to death, I tell you.

It's been in our life for a while now.

look at him!  he's so bald!

I think I read about it on a blog before Finley was even born.  We got this signed copy at a local bookshop.  (I love signed books!  Thanks for instilling that value in me, grandma!)  The checkout lady asked if I was a friend of the author's.  She said all of his friends were stopping by to buy the book.  Naturally, he's a Brooklynite.

And now I confess I have finally gotten around to looking up a picture of Stephen Savage so I can stalk him around the neighborhood.  And look what I found for my trouble!  Due in October!  Oh man, I've just started to fall in love with tug boats too. Maybe I'll try to attend the actual book signing this time.

So, I was going to tell you more about the books that Finley's into these days, but I think I'll save that for tomorrow.  Plus, now that the subject of tug boats has come up, I have a questionable-quality, but still awesome picture of a tug boat that I took over the weekend that I want to show you. 

Thanks for your patience.  You will be modestly rewarded!

Just a Bunch of Randoms

Finley is talking so much.  I know every parent thinks that their child is a genius, but this guy....this guy . . .

He's the real deal.

His vocabulary is a funny mix of practical, fictional and New York.  We've got a lot of the basics covered (it turns out that the basics unfortunately include tv, phone, coffee, and beer).  The fictional can be more puzzling; he has a lot of books, many of which are educational name-that-thing types, so he is more familiar with tractors and walruses than your average 1.5 year-old Brooklynite should be.  Also in this category: coqui.

The New York?  Taxi, bus, bagel.  Also, he does a mean police siren. 

Big accomplishments in communication this week: help, thank you and Finley.  Also, he thinks the salad spinner is called a what.  You'll have to talk to Andy about that one. 

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Related to language, I think you should know that I really like to watch Let's Make a Deal.  It is my ultimate guilty pleasure. Finley knows that this show is called Deal.  He also always roots for the box.  Now that it's summer and they're playing re-runs, I plan on being a good mom and keeping the TV off like the APA tells me to.

It is a not totally insincere life goal of mine to attend a taping of the show.  Taking a trip to LA isn't outside of the realm of possibility, but it also isn't the most likely thing in the world these days.  Must do some serious thinking about this.

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We're watching the Killing on Netflix streaming for the last couple of weeks.  I think we got the first dud episode last weekend, but otherwise it's been riveting.  It's set in Seattle and I've read that there are all sorts of geographical inaccuracies--there must be a blog out there somewhere that can enlighten me since I'm pretty hopeless with Seattle geography myself.  I do know that the volume of rain they depict is nonsense.  It makes me happy to have at least that much insider status.

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Finally, something morbid (but funny! and fascinating!) to start your weekend.  (So, I know this one's been around for a while, but it's the first one I'd seen of her series and I think it's a good intro if you're not familiar.)

Hot

Newsflash! It's hot on the East Coast!

We moan and groan about this every summer, and somehow it manages to make national news.

Our sitter took Finley to the water portion of the park yesterday to cool off.  When I asked later in the day hey Finley, did Caitlin take you to the park today?  He'd reply WATUH.

And here I was taking for granted that everything is in one ear and out the other with this guy, but apparently he's developed a memory--an impressionable one at that.

We're going to have to start watching ourselves around here. 

For Father's Day, You Made the Dad in Your Life Cook His Own Dinner, Right?

father's day construction

I meant to post more last week, but I haven't been taking as many pictures lately and work got too busy for the internet. (If it isn't obvious by now, my blogging time is largely subsidized by my employer.)

 Also, I've been tired and lazy.  The tired is normal, but wasn't helped by the little dude coming down with a cold.  The lazy is also normal, but I have less of an excuse for that.  So I guess I'm saying, almost a year in on this blogging thing and here it is--the real me:  tired and lazy. 

So yeah, my husband cooked his own dinner for father's day.  He also dealt with most of the parenting duties while I fell asleep on the couch. Additionally, I made him build his present. . . . no better way to show you appreciate a guy, right? 

I'm hoping to pull it together soon.  My want-to-do list is still incredibly long.  There's a lot of summer ahead. 

On the upside, I'm still reading.  Six plus months in!  I'll take credit for a New Year's Resolution follow-through! 

The Boys

If you look closely, there's a green lady in there too.

Peach Pie

I need to learn to take better pictures of my food.  Though please note the sewing and knitting paraphernalia in the background.  How domestic of me. 

Seattle, town that I love, had a cake vs. pie contest last August.  Pie won, obvs.  The winning pie recipe was posted shortly after and has since sat in my recipe binder, unused.

So, I decided to pull it out and give it a shot for Memorial Day weekend.  I have three thoughts about this pie: (1) it tells you not to peel the peaches and, whaddyaknow?  that's totally ok; (2) it has a good amount of spice with the ginger and the cayenne pepper which, I suspect, is why it took the prize;* and (3) the aforementioned spice was good, but made it a little less easy to devour, which also sort of made it bad.**

If you think you can handle the heat, head over to Good Egg and get the recipe.   Maybe I'll halve the cayenne next time?  Usually I'm loath to wimp out on spice like that, but I think with a little less I could keep some of the intrigue while maintaining my ability to gorge myself on pie.  Priorities, you know?

*  I think the recipe merits a win, don't get me wrong, but I think spice has a way of elevating one entry among (what I'm assuming were) the spice-free competitors. 
**  But still, it was good. 

Carousel with a View

We made it to Jane's Carousel on Saturday, so check that off the summer to-do list.

I don't think that Finley saw the appeal.  Andy said that he had this expression the entire time:

But on the upside, he now knows that horses say "neigh," not "moo."

He's finally walking.  Did I mention that already?

Then, ice cream for dinner.  (For mom and dad, anyway.)

Sometimes All You Need Is a Bowl of Guacamole as Big as Your Head

Little dude has discovered the joys of dipping.  His father couldn't be more proud.

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Did you know?

We live right under the presidential helicopter's flight path.  In all fairness, we pretty much live under many helicopters' flight path, but the president's tends to fly most directly over us en route to Manhattan.  It's also terrifically loud (and there are usually more than one), so we always know when he's coming--usually in time to catch him out the front window.

He always seems to swoop out to get a good view of the Statue of Liberty before heading toward the southern tip of Manhattan.  There's probably a technical reason for this, but I like to think that he enjoys taking in the view.  A few years back, the pope did something similar and that seemed very deliberate.  Turns out that really important people are just tourists like the rest of us.  How refreshing.

But, strangely, the last couple of times the president has lingered over our neighborhood before heading out of town.  Regretful that he has to leave?  Taking in the city lights? Just a tourist, like I said.  Of course, there is this.  Maybe it's just his way of saying "love you back." 

It's June, So . . .

it must be time to talk about Christmas again?

I took a long break from knitting after the holidays passed (I think I went as far as to completely forget about it) and then I finally got bored enough at work to start looking for distractions other then the internet . . . .  Well, whaddya know?  Stocking number two!  And only (almost an) entire year after I started talking about stockings in the first place!

This one is lined.  One-hundred-percent done.  Also, it's for Andrew (Finley's is here, if you'd like a refresher).  Next up: a stocking of my very own!  It's going to look a lot like my prototype but with slightly different stripes (and hopefully fewer mistakes).  Now I just need to get it finished before Christmas.  I'd say that shouldn't be a problem, but then I would be seriously jinxing myself.

For now, I'll try and lay off the Christmas posts for a little bit longer.  Surely I can let the 4th of July pass first, right?

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Also, hello, it's National Doughnut Day.  West coasters, please go and have a maple bar for me.