Lobsters at the lab

Yesterday evening, Caden was running around, making mischief of one kind and another, while Dada made dinner. At one point, the sound of scattering and clattering came from Caden’s play room. Dada looked around the corner from the kitchen and asked, “What’s going on, Caden?” Caden replied, “Dada making pizza. Caden making a mess.”

Caden started swimming lessons last Wednesday. On Tuesday night, Mama made swimming caps for all three of us—they are required at the Y’s pool—and Caden loved his so much he wore it to school on Wednesday. He also demanded to bring his “Beavers ball,” which provided an irresistible photo op. After school and a quick dinner, we headed over to the Y, where Caden had a fantastic time playing in the water, singing favorite songs, and sliding down the slide into the pool.

Spring semester is over at Northeastern, which means Friday lunch barbeques at the lab. Mama and Caden drove in to join everyone for burgers and pot-luck side dishes. Caden especially liked running around outside, playing with the grad students, and checking out the big lobsters in the running seawater tanks. Sal invited us over to their place after work—Liza and Mae were at a Sox game—for dinner and playtime. Caden loved watching their hamster and playing with Mae and Summer’s toys, and we all enjoyed a tasty dinner.

The weather was crummy all weekend, but it’s been nicer these last couple of days. Caden had fun on an unplanned visit to the lab today—his teachers sent him home claiming that he was sick—where he and Dada checked out the animals in the tanks and played with a soccer ball outside. Jeremy let Caden borrow his lobster hat, which led to some pretty cute clowning around.

At the Boston Public Garden

What a cutie!

On Thursday night, as we were packing our things for an overnight in Amherst on Friday, Caden crawled into Mama’s suitcase, looked at himself in the mirror, and announced, “What a cutie!” We couldn’t agree more.

Spring has arrived in New England, with trees flowering, daffodils blooming, and warmer weather enticing us outside. Last weekend, we went for our first hike in Lynn Woods—the 2nd largest city park in the country—which is a 20-minute drive from our house. The trail meandered along the shore of a reservoir, and we stopped at a small picnic area for snacks by the water. We had so much fun eating and playing outside that we walked down to the beach for a picnic the following day. Caden had lots of fun playing with his new sand toys and watching the doggies splash in the ocean.

Mama and Dada also spent a fun morning at Caden’s school, doing a tidepool show-and-tell. We brought in lots of friendly animals—seastars, crabs, urchins, and even a moon snail—and seaweeds for the toddlers and preschoolers to touch. We even taught the preschool kids to make algal presses!

On Friday, we ventured to western Massachusetts, where Dada gave a seminar at UMass Amherst. Mama and Caden had fun exploring the town while Dada was on campus. The following day, we had a yummy breakfast at a café in Amherst, then, while walking across the green to check out some shops, realized that they were giving bucket (cherry picker) rides to kids in celebration of Arbor Day. Caden loves cranes, so we talked the operator into giving Dada and Caden a ride. Yay! After a bit of shopping, we went to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, which is just outside Amherst. Eric Carle’s books are some of Caden’s favorites, and he really enjoyed seeing the brightly colored pictures, playing with the toys in the lobby, and playing and reading books in the library.

Today, we ventured into Boston, where a boutique selling some of Mama’s crafts was having a grand opening celebration. Caden got to ride on the blue train, the bus, and the green street tram to get to Newbury Street! We checked out the swan boats at the public gardens, then stopped at a fun playground and a tasty lunch spot before going to the shop opening.

A moon snail introduction

On the lakeshore in Lynn Woods

Happy Spring!

Happy Boopy to Caden!

For weeks before, and now after, his 2nd birthday, Caden has been singing his birthday song: “Happy boopy to you!” He often includes other family members in his song, so he has been celebrating not only his own birthday, but also Mama’s, Dada’s, Ama’s, Adad’s, Nana’s, and Boopa’s. On April 3rd, we celebrated Caden’s birthday eve with our traditional breakfast dinner, just like we had two years previously on the evening before he was born. And on his birthday, Dada made a seastar pizza and chocolate treat. Between that cake and the seastar cake the following day, we had enough treats to keep celebrating Caden’s birthday every night for a week!

On the 5th, we invited six of Caden’s friends—and their parents—over for a birthday brunch. It was really fun in a crazy toddler sort of way, with lots of running around, playing, eating goodies, reading books, and singing songs.

In the week or so leading up to his birthday, we asked Caden what he wanted to do on his birthday weekend, and his response was, invariably, “Ride choo-choo Boston!” so on Sunday the 6th, we rode the T into Boston. Caden will happily tell you that he rode the blue train, the orange train, and the red train to go to the museum. We had a good time playing with bubbles, diggers, and slides at the Boston Childrens’ Museum. We headed home via the toy store, where we picked up a couple more special birthday gifts, including a really nice trike from Ama and Adad. Dada put the trike together a couple of days later, and Caden now says that he’s a “big kid” because he rides a bicycle.

Caden also says that he’s a big kid because he can open doors. Specifically, all of the doors in our hotel room in Providence, where we went for the annual Benthic Ecology Meeting, were lever knobs, which are easily opened by little guys like Caden. We spent four nights in Providence. Highlights included elevators; escalators; a great view of school busses, cars, and trucks on I-95; a tasty dinner with Heather, Jeremy, and Isaac; fun in the pool with Mae and Summer; and a new Thomas the Train set—a deliberately delayed birthday present—from Mama and Dada.

A seastar pizza

Birthday balloons

Blow out the candles on your cake, and make a wish

Birthday cuties

Toy tools

Drivin' a digger

A new train

Freeway view

Ten days in the sun

A week ago, we returned from a cross-country jaunt to escape chilly New England and maintain our experiments (for Mama and Dada) and play with Ama and Adad (for Caden) in California. Like all trips, near or far, Caden looked forward to this one for weeks and couldn’t wait to walk down the jetway in Boston. We flew from Boston to Minneapolis to Sacramento and spent Easter Eve at the hotel right across the street from the baggage claim.

The next morning was Easter! The Easter bunny postponed its visit until we reached our “California House”—the duplex at the marine lab—but we stopped in Davis for church and an Easter egg hunt. It was a gorgeous day (70 degrees was amazing, coming from here), and we enjoyed our drive over to Sonoma County. We tried to make a number of stops in Santa Rosa, but everything was closed for the holiday. Thank goodness our favorite Sebastopol market was open, so we were able to stock up on groceries.

Ama and Adad arrived the following day, and it was wonderful to have their help and company during our visit. Mama and Dada were able to get their research done while Caden played and cuddled, and, despite being sequentially sick during our time there, we all enjoyed chatting, hiking, antiquing, and sharing meals. Ama and Adad drove their truck and trailer back up to Oregon on Friday, and by Sunday we were all feeling much better. Before driving back to Sacramento on Sunday, we had fun playing on the beach with Randall and James and having treats with Tessa and Cormac.

Stay tuned for an update on Caden’s birthday weekend!

Easter egg hunt!

With Shelly, Caden's California nanny

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

A chin-up with Dada
Running with James

Counting and singing

Caden has been hamming it up for the camera lately. The clips below show him counting butterflies in his Pooh Loves You book and singing two of his favorite songs: "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" and "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes."

Winter escapes

Getting away

A week ago, we embraced the wintry weather and drove up to the Mt. Washington Valley in New Hampshire. Despite our respective illnesses, we were all really excited about going; Caden has figured out that New Hampshire is a fun place to visit, and not just a novel rodent. In fact we had a tough time getting him to bed on the evening of the 21st because he wanted to go so badly.

We scooted out on Friday morning, soon after the flakes started falling on the North Shore. The main roads were clear, and we managed to find the Mt. Washington Valley Children’s Museum in North Conway without too much trouble. We spent a fun couple of hours there, watching the snow accumulate outside and waiting until we were able to check into our room at the Village House B&B in nearby Jackson. Highlights of the museum included a kid-friendly version of a logging cable skidder and a panel with lighted buttons that played some of Caden’s favorite songs (e.g., “Baa, baa, black sheep” and “The itsy-bitsy spider”).

We spent a couple of enjoyable nights at the Village House, which is a dog-friendly (all of the other folks staying there had doggies, much to Caden’s delight) and kid-friendly B&B, located right on one of the many groomed cross-country ski trails that cris-cross the landscape around Jackson. The innkeepers brought out lots of toys for Caden to play with, and they even watched him for a few hours on Saturday so that Mama and Dada could go skiing together.

We had a great time, but were all still feeling a bit under the weather during and after the trip. In fact, Caden developed a fever on Saturday, which wouldn’t go away. That, plus his worsening cough, sent us to the doctor on Tuesday – he missed a couple of days of school – where the poor little guy was diagnosed with a double ear infection and pneumonia. He’s on antibiotics now, and is back to his cheerful self. He’s been a real trooper this winter.

Summer fun in mid-winter

On Saturday, we cranked the heat, put Jimmy Buffett on the CD player, dug out our warm-weather party gear, and invited friends from the lab over for a tropical potluck. We'd originally planned the party for Mama's birthday, but the flu intervened, so we extended the birthday celebration for another week. Everyone brought something to eat or drink that was inspired by warmer weather, and we feasted on Indonesian rice salad, fresh pineapple, coconut potatoes, salsa, and rum drinks.

Caden’s friends Mae and Summer came over for the evening, and the three of them had a great time playing. The girls started off in swimsuits, but Summer soon ended up running around clad only in a diaper. We are all looking forward to winter’s end, and it was fun to pretend – for a few hours – that summer was here.

"We want to watch YouTube!"
Boxed in