Welcome to this Beautiful Story

Oh, Callum James! 

The very exciting new development in the life of this big brother is an unshakeable need to draw! After nearly no interest at all for years he suddenly is interested in drawing like mad! His favorite is drawing pictures with oil pastels (craypas I saved from my adolescence, none the less).  He's taken to promising to draw me something rather than explain it to me.  For example, "Hey buddy, how was your day?" "Mama, I'm going to draw it for you when we get home. Ok?" (Draw is always said with great emphasis as if he is explaining to me something new that I might not have heard of. ) 

The other day after reading one of our favorite Skippyjon Jones books he retreated to his little art table and was working away at a furious pace.  And, then he came to me asking to write the words.  He had written his own Skippyjon Jones book!  

So, here it is (if you know these books, you know that this text is ridiculous enough to actually make sense, though he was clearly winging it as far as book content on this one.) :

 Oh, I wear my suit!

 I like my family.

 I want some noise. 

 I like to ride at space with the space doggies!

 I like my sock monkey.

 I love anything in life!

 I like tables and...

 I like my mud toy. 

 I love my home.

 I like meatballs. I like my town.

 The end! 

Welcome to this beautiful story!

And the Oscar goes to...

Jude Patrick! 

Oh this one.  There is nothing quite like the dramatics of this one.  The stories he tells are always big and involved and the retelling involves reenactments.  There is nothing as simple as "I fell down, scraped my knee and cried." The story involves falling down again and again to demonstrate the fall; then full showing and reshowing of the knee scrape and then even a dramatic version of the crying.  In the morning he tells us "I was sleeping like this" and demonstrates his head resting on his hand and snoring sound effects!  

He dances with his elbows held up high and a big wiggle in the hips. 

The other day he sat looking at a tree in our yard and told me a story that went like this:

I was climbing that big, big, big, big tree.  And, I feel down so, so, so far. I cry (imagine dramatic fake crying reenactment). That is not safe. Climbing a big, big, big, big tree so, so, so, so high. No. Not safe. No Jude! (he screams) No climb big, big tree. No fall down! Not safe! [note: none of this ever happened, it was completely imagined]

He also loves to give big hugs and often says I LOVE YOU SOOOO MUCH! He's hugged me so hard that I've fallen backwards.  He is full of as many made up words as he is made up stories.  He likes to add KIKI to the beginning of a title.  I'm kiki-mama about 1/3 of the time.  Kiki-papa and Kiki-Callum live in the house, too.  

It's a big, big, big personality and we love it so, so, so, so much!  

One Last Summer Trip...Portland, Maine

Despite the 7 hour drive to get there we had a great time in Portland, Maine over the Labor Day weekend.  The town is heavy with the salty smell of the ocean and has that old Northeast feeling in large part because of it's maritime history. 

It was a quick trip but there is so much to do in the area that our days were filled with very boy-friendly activities. 

  This is the rocky walk out to a lighthouse.  The boys were THRILLED to see a lighthouse and really disappointed to find that we could walk up them.  We found a tall observatory for them to walk up to compensate. 

 Portland has quite a food culture and numerous fantastic coffee shops.  This was one of our favorite, mostly because the boys found a little spot to get their sillies out! 

 Callum descending the observatory steps and 

enjoying the street musicians! He actually asked this guy, "Is sax your ax?" which is a line from the Muppet Movie.  I was worried this guy was going to pick Callum up and cart him home he was so charmed. 

 This, in case your are curious, is what the boys look like while watching cartoons.  We discovered the great joy of cartoons in a small hotel room pretty quickly!

 This is just one of many amazing parks right on the sea.

 Thanks Portland! We had a great time...now, we settle into a new preschool year and hopefully a bit of a more regular schedule.