Ghouls and Guinea Pigs

Aiden had his heart set on being Lenny the Guiniea Pig for Halloween this year. For the uninitiated, Lenny is one of three "WonderPets" (the others being Tuck the turtle and Ming-Ming the duckling) who fly around in an upturned frisbee (flyboat) saving animals in trouble. Aiden also had his heart set on Dadoo dressing up as Tuck and Mamoo as Ming-Ming, but he had to settle for t-shirts in turtle green and duckling yellow on that account. Still, we braved the windy, drizzly Halloween night as a spirited WonderPets threesome and returned home with a pumpkinfull of candy.

We carved pumpkins...

And raked leaves on Halloween Day...

The best part of Halloween in New London is the Haunted Forest Trail, which leaves across the street from our house. From 5 to 6:30 it's geared for little ones, with the ghouls and spooks holding bowls of candy out instead of jumping out from behind trees wielding scepters and bloody skulls. Aiden led us (Lenny is the leader of the WonderPets, after all) through the spooky forest where we emerged on the veggie fields of Spring Ledge Farm. Tractor hay-rides transported us to the main farm building, where popcorn and hot cider awaited. From there we completed the trick-or-treat loop through a small subdivision and back to our house, just before the skies opened up and it started to pour. Halloween perfection.

What not to wear in Indianapolis...

Andy and I had a rare "adults only" getaway when we traveled to Indianapolis over Columbus Day weekend for our friend Greg's wedding. The wedding reception was at The Columbia Club on the circle in the very center of Indianapolis. It's partly a hotel... the hotel where we booked our room, actually, figuring we could just stumble up there after the reception without having to drive or even cab it up anywhere.

Unfortunately, no one warned us that the Columbia Club is also partly an ultra-conservative members-only leisure club. With a strict dress code - no T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, sandals, spandex (?! you know there's a story there), revealing clothing, or anything other than business attire, thank you very much! Other than the garments we were wearing during the 6 hours of actual wedding/reception, we had absolutely nothing that could be located under the "appropriate attire" column. But we made the best of it, sprinting, hats in hands, from the doorman at the front doors to the elevator as fast as possible every time we entered or exited the hotel. When we finally wore our wedding attire, we strolled around like fat cats in the lounge for about five minutes pretending to be Ronald and Nancy Regan. Though we probably came off more like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. I'm sure they were glad to be rid of us.

The Colbert Report eagle attacks me...

Andy defying dress code next to the dress code commandments (in the elevator)

It's Sarah Palin and Curt Schilling! OMG! Curt, give Sarah her glasses back and stop rubbing the golden elephant's behind!

The wedding was great, though! Lots of tender moments, fun music, and way too many drinks. Glad we got to share in Greg & Lindsay's big day :)

Indianapolis Capital Building

As we anticipated, Aiden did not miss us. He spent the weekend with HaPa and Grandma in Vermont, where he enjoyed an outdoor oven pizza party, a playdate at Gerritt's house, the Charlotte tractor parade, and fishing in the pond.

On the giant combine harvester!

Beware the Smoke Alarm

Remember when you were little and you had an irrational fear of the basement staircase (in my case) or the dark alleyway between the garage and the house (in my mom's) or the glowing eyes of your collection of stuffed animals at night (my brother's)? Or something like that?



Well, Aiden has developed his first irrational fear, and it's driving us nuts! He's decided that he does not like smoke alarms. So I know what you're thinking... that a smoke alarm must have gone off in the kitchen, or in his room, and scared the bejesus out of him. Nope. The thing has never gone off. What's creeping him out are the little red blinking lights on the smoke alarm that tic on for a second every few minutes and let you know the alarm is in working order. He ran into our bedroom about a week ago saying the smoke alarm in his room "reached out at him and blinked." Since then he's noticed that there's a smoke alarm in just about every room of the house, and he won't go into any of those rooms alone anymore. Sometimes he won't even go in with a chaperone, and has to be dragged kicking and screaming. We've tried everything we can think of to convince him that smoke alarms are "friendly" and that they keep us safe, and we've even covered up the red blinking lights with electrical tape. No dice. Though it's getting old pretty fast, we can't help but crack up every time one of us wanders from the kitchen to the dining room and Aiden yells, "Dadoo! Momoo! Be careful of the smoke alarm!"

Latest Escapades

Here are some photos of what we have been up to lately. We watched a medi-vac helicopter land in the school fields across the street from our house (no emergency - the kids got to play around on the big machine as part of a Touch-A-Truck Day.)

Then Andy ran a rainy 5K race in Claremont, NH and we went to a huge chili cook-off they held afterward. Andy and I tasted and rated (the cook-off was judged by the public) about 35 different chilis, from individuals to corporate to social organization entries. There were spicy ones, white ones, sour ones, sweet ones, smoky ones, runny ones, and even one completely cold one. A few were exceptionally good. By the end of the tasting, I was disgustingly full of chili.

We also made it down to Lancaster to visit the Stevens's and meet their newest addition, Ben. I neglected to take a photo of little Ben; I'm not sure how that happened. Aiden and Ollie had fun running through the giant corn maze we spent the day in. Ok, it was only two hours, but the thing is, we weren't even close to finding our way out after that two hours. At 3pm we were meeting people in maze who said they'd been in there since 11am. I think it was at that point that we admitted defeat, claimed the kids were acting up, and asked an corn maze attendant to lead us out an emergency exit. Thank goodness for kids when they give you an excuse to get out of impossible situations!

Windy Hill School

The daycare center that Aiden has been attending since we moved to NH could not be more logistically convenient, since it's located directly across the street from our house. I know that over the past year or so, this has made Aiden feel secure in a sense, that his home is right across the street from "school" - he can see the whole front of our house from the playground, see it so clearly that Andy has to sneak home for lunch every day so that Aiden doesn't spy him and mistakenly think his Dadoo is coming to get him early. And the place across the street was really the only one with spaces for two year olds when we first moved here, so it was also the only game in town. But lately we've been frustrated with some aspects of his daycare, and wanted to find Aiden a more stimulating place to spend his days. I'll spare you the details, except to say that it's very frustrating as parents working full-time to see all of these great nursery school options for kids- waldorf schools and montessori schools and other progressive places where the kids get to garden and bake muffins and go for long hikes in the woods - and to know that there's no way you can offer that to your child since the hours are, at best, 9AM to 2PM. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. To put it mildly, our choices are limited. Limited to 8AM to 5PM - FIVE days a week!

Which is why we feel so lucky that we did find a great nursery school option for Aiden. He's going to Windy Hill School which is run by Colby Sawyer College here in New London. It's a "laboratory school" in that college students in the early childhood education program lead small group activities each day for the kids (there are full-time permanent teachers there too) as part of their college curriculum. They have a nice big playground, the whole campus to play on including a cool swamp and 1oo acres of conservation land, the college gym to run around in on cold winter days, a big library room, and lots of activity and playrooms. It's not directly across the street, but it's close... a 10 minute walk, or a 1 minute drive... you can't beat that! We can drop him off at 7:45 and there's an after-school care program from 2:30 to 5:30... and, the best part... the kids get to garden and bake muffins and go for long hikes in the woods! We are so excited for Aiden to really start his education here!