Blast from the Past: Other Knoxville Fun

Since I'm finally getting my act together and punching out posts like there's no tomorrow, I thought I'd go back and share some pictures and stories from June that never got posted before the move.

When we visited Knoxville at the beginning of June, one of the highlights for the whole family, and especially Nathan, was riding in the Oldsmobile!  I totally never envisioned this scene when Brian and I were dating in college and rode everywhere in the Olds!

The kids were excited before the trip started and they were excited the whole time we were driving as well!

This particular evening, we took the car to Granddaddy and Grandmother's house to have dinner with them and Gran and Pawpaw.  Thanks to a discrete text from Brian, I was able to run downstairs and capture a picture of this scene in the workshop.

As we left we got a family picture in the Olds and we couldn't have kept the grin off Nathan's face if we had tried!

In related news, Nathan is obsessed with convertibles now.  Whenever we are driving, or walking around the city or looking out the windows of the apartment, he ALWAYS exclaims loudly when he sees a "convertible car".

* * *

The kids and I had a blast one day picking blueberries with Nana.  Neither child was really interested in eating the blueberries (even with numerous readings of "Blueberries for Sal"), but that didn't mean that they weren't willing to work hard alongside us adults.  I was super impressed when Sarah started out picking WAY more blueberries then green berries, but later she evened out the score and ended up with about half ripe and half unripe berries.  We also got to pick pie cherries and sour cherries out of Nana's new yard, but the raspberries weren't ripe yet.  I'm looking forward to making this a summer tradition with the kids after next year!

Yes, both kids look ghostly white because I was too lazy to to rub their sunscreen in all the way.

Nathan an excellent job picking ripe berries, but then he loved shaking around his bucket so much that they all ended up squished and soggy.  But he and Sarah were both diligent workers and neither got bored or tired before Carroll and I finished picking.

I forgot to include this picture in the Smokey Mountains post, but at some point during our morning I decided to sit down and read my book.  Sarah had other plans - SHE wanted to continue the Haubenreich family tradition of reading by the stream!

The "T-Train" Park

I knew it was just a matter of time before Nathan requested that we visit a new park.  So we did and discovered an even cooler (in some ways) park that's just slightly farther away then our usual playground at Emerson Gardens.  To get there we have to cross a pedestrian bridge over the T tracks.  On our first trip, we realized that we could see the trains through the trees from the stairs up to the bridge, so we sat and eagerly waited on a glimpse of the train for probably a good 10 minutes.  Finally after seeing 1 or 2, I said that we needed to move on and we would find out if we could also see the trains from the playground. 

Well, could we ever see them!  We were all thrilled to discover that the new playground backed right up to the T tracks, with just a chain-link fence separating us from the trains!  The kids ended up really enjoying the little play structure.  It was just right for their stages of development - a ladder-thing that is just enough of a challenge for Nathan to enjoy climbing, easy stairs for Sarah to practice on, two slides plus swings.  But the favorite activity, of course, was stopping all play to stare at the tracks whenever one of us thought we heard a train coming.

At first, there was lots of flinching away from the trains as they went whooshing past, but the kids gradually got bolder standing next to fence.  This boldness led to them hanging on the fence, which led to...

...yep, climbing the fence!  Now why was my first thought when he did this, "Now I'm teaching my son to be a delinquent?"  But then my second thought was "Oh well!  Its good for gross motor skill development!"

Blocks and Towers!

Following closely in her brother's footsteps, building with blocks is Sarah's new favorite indoor activity. She builds every day and whenever it seems like she needs a diversion and I suggest that she plays with them, she almost always says "yeah" and runs excitedly back to her room.  The other day I interrupted her building to tell her we were planning on going to the park. I asked her if she wanted to go and she responded "bok!" (block) as she stood up and collected a few to take with her to the park. I gently explained that blocks were an inside toy and she could play with them when she returned.

Lately she has been branching out of her square-block-only towers to towers that contain multiple block shapes.  These can make it much higher before falling, so as she was straining up on tip toes to put another block on top of her tower, I suggested that she use a stool to reach the top of her tall tower.  She thought that was a great idea.

I think that Sarah's current obsession with blocks has refueled Nathan's interest in blocks as well.  Sometimes the kids work nicely together on the same tower, but more often they have their own structures going one.  And with their own creations, you never know if they'll happily accept the others' help with building or if the "help" will result in wailing and gnashing of teeth.  A common refrain of Nathan's is "Don't let Sarah knock my tower over!!"

And this is the other new building technique that Sarah's developed is this...

... random towers of various heights scattered over the room.  It kind of reminds me of... the buttes of Monument Valley??  Or maybe that's just my proud mom brain working overtime.

Here's a somewhat long video of Sarah working on her towers.  I was thinking lately that its rare to take a movie of just Sarah these days (usually its both kids or just Nathan), so I decided to do just that!

This and That

We went rug shopping about two weeks ago to find something to decrease the "echoy-ness" of the kids rooms. The kids LOVED exploring in the carpet warehouse.  They also found a hideous but very soft blue carpet that Nathan kept declaring was the perfect choice.  He did not end up getting his way that time!

Sarah loves to ask for either "doo-dee" or "I-T" (cookies or ice cream) as her after-meal treat.  None of the rest of us eat our Oreos this way, but she loves to pull the cookies apart and eat the mint cream filling first.  Eating the cookies after that is just option - she already got the good stuff!  I always sog my Oreos, so she has started asking to "dip" her cookie halves into my milk as well.  This particular morning she also managed to purloin a sharpie marker and tattoo her cheek.  Thankfully it isn't as permanent on skin as I always expect it to be!

Sarah is convinced that underwear also doubles as acceptable head-wear.  Usually she snags Nathan's undies (since they're in the bottom drawer and therefore easily accessible), but this particular day Daddy was with her in her room and took her wishes and ran with it, accessorizing her undie-hat with two bows.  When I tried to sneakily take off the bows (after quite a while of her wearing it), she fussed at me ("bow, bow, bow, bow!") until I replaced them and apologized for messing with her style. 

As requested, here's another picture of Brian's bird carving from the opposite side, where the dual-tone wood color can be seen better.  No more carvings have been produced this month - Brian's been occupied with other endeavors, primarily studying for his anesthesia written boards that he'll take next Tuesday, July 30th.  I'm confident that he'll pass with flying colors, but prayers are always appreciated!

For quite a while I've been meaning to post a peanut allergy update and thankfully there's not much to report!  Sarah has had zero additional reactions even though I know I've accidentally given her stuff processed with peanuts (though I'm not sure if it was on same equipment or just in the same facility).  But we've gone (basically) peanut and tree-nut free in the house, trying to avoid giving her anything processed with any kind of nut even though we don't know if she's actually allergic to tree nuts.  I say "basically" because occasionally Brian and I sneak a nut containing snack after the kids' bedtimes!

Our pediatrician in Winston-Salem had given us a referral to an allergist after Sarah's visit to the ER, however we ended up canceling the appointment.  Our plan was to wait a little longer, so she would be a little older and (mostly) so we could get her an appointment with some fabulous allergist here in Boston.  I imagine that appointment will happen sometime in the next six months, and I'll give everyone an update when there's something new to report.

Brookline Library & Nathan's New Prized Posession

We have made only made two trips to the Brookline Public Library but we already love our new library!!  The building is beautiful inside and out and is just an easy quarter mile stroll away from our house.  Have I mentioned lately how our apartment has the best location EVER!?!

The first time we went was early in the month and I had forgotten to save a proof of address from the trash can, so the kids and I just went in to explore and get a feeling for the library.  As I walked in the main entrance, I felt like I was going into a museum, not my down-the-street library!

**Mimi noticed that in the picture above Nathan is missing some of his limbs.  I assume its due to the way the Iphone program stitches the panoramic photo together.  In this case, I was rotating clockwise to capture the picture and Nathan was running counter-clockwise (relatively speaking).**

The first day the kids and I hung out in the children's sections, reading separately and together, playing with the bead mazes and generally enjoying ourselves.  We also found out some super-exciting information - kids can get their own library card at 3 years old!!  Our old library had a 4 year age limit, so Nathan was SUPER pumped about the prospect of having his own card!

We finally made it back to the library last week with all the required documentation and I registered for my library card at the main desk, then we were told we had to go downstairs to the children's department for Nathan's card.  He was just beaming when the librarian handed his card to him!

He wanted to hold it the whole time we were in the library, on the way home and really wanted to have it in his bed for naptime.  He kept asking "is this how it goes or is this how it goes?", wanting to make sure he was holding it so the words were the right side up.  When I requested a picture of him with his new library card, he eagerly agreed (after confirming correct orientation of the card, of course).  By the end of our outing, he was confident enough that he would just ask "this way, right?" as he held his card up.

To Nathan's dismay I told him that we would be putting his library card in a safe place when we were at home so that it wouldn't get lost and so that we would always have it when we needed.  I'm pretty sure he wanted to sleep with it and take it to the park and show anyone new we happened to meet about his card!

During naptime that day, I reserved about 20 books on my library card.  Nathan wasn't the only one excited about their new library card!

Oh, IKEA!

Oh, IKEA.  How I love you and hate you!  You bring functional furniture into my home for reasonable prices, yet you just exhaust me!  And my children!

Well, I mentioned our IKEA trip briefly in a previous post, but Brian and I (mistakenly) decided to run over one day after nap.  Of course, rush hour in Boston starts... well, it seems to be rush hour almost every time we get in our car and drive anywhere.  So we hit Boston traffic on the way down at 3:30ish, spent hours and hours in IKEA, and then hit traffic on our way home at 8:00.  The trip was so *fun* that I have one single picture to document it.  The kids thought this chair was cool.  We did not with a price tag of $80! 

Somehow we managed to live through that afternoon - and I want to document my vow to only to try another trip to IKEA either 1) without kids in tow or 2) first thing in the morning, as early as we can get there, so we are all fresh after a long night's sleep.  Sarah had a hysterical, crying, "only Mommy's arms will comfort me" meltdown as Brian and I were trying to maneuver one very full shopping cart and a heavy flat-bed cart through the warehouse and checkout.  She managed to perk up with I bribed the kids with ice cream as we had to wait (after checkout!) for them to pull one more item for us from their "full service" area.

The next day, however, the kids were all smiles as they "helped" Daddy put together some more white cube bookshelves for the playroom and a bookcase for additional kitchen storage.  Somehow they managed NOT to lose any of the 8,000 screws, pegs, brackets, etc. that they were so excited to hold for Daddy.

Sidenote - Since I have been taking more candid pictures then usual to document our time here in Boston, a little issue that I've been having with Nathan came to a head.  He sometimes has really strong opinions whether he wants to be in my pictures or not, and usually his preference is NOT.  I was starting to accumulate quite a collection of pictures where Nathan became an angry-faced blur running toward the edge of the frame.  I finally decided that my plans of "be sneaky" and "just snap a picture before he can run" weren't working and weren't very fair to Nathan either.  So I think it was the day of the IKEA trip that I sat down and talked to Nathan and told him that from then on I would try to remember to ask his permission to take his picture.  Then he could decide if he wanted to be in the picture or not, but if he was going to be in the picture, could he try to smile for me?  Well, the above picture was the happy result of that conversation!  And our new agreement is working quite well for us!

I love the looks of concentration on Nathan's face when he's working on a "project".

The kids were pretty pleased with the finished product - until they realized that its purpose wasn't a jungle gym/tunnels for them to crawl through.

I Want to Go to a "Meu-zeeeee-um"

I don't really remember, but I must have talked up the cool museums that we were going to visit in Boston because Nathan regularly proclaims that he wants to go to a museum in the morning as we're discussing the day's plans.  Or I mentioned it to him once in passing, who knows!

The first "meu-zeeeee-um" that we have took the kids to was the New England Aquarium. It automatically got a thumbs up from Nathan because to get there we took TWO T-trains, including his favorite blue line.  (We've only actually been on the blue and green lines, so he doesn't have much to compare it to.  But the blue line does have bigger, less screechy and less crowded trains then the green line, which is the one that runs by our apartment and is the one we always ride).  My fabulous playgroup friends got us a family membership to the aquarium as a going away present, which I knew would be amazing, but I'm even more thankful after going for our first family visit!

The first exhibit we saw was probably the family's favorite - definitely both the kids' and also Brian's.  My most favorite came last.  But their favorite?  The penguins!!

It was just so fun to watch them waddle around on the rocks and then jump down and swim in the water.  And when they swim under water, it really looks like they're flying under the water.  So cool!

We got to see lots of the aquarium workers that day.  This man was feeding the penguins and there were two others (also in wetsuits) that were scrubbing the rocks and the walls of the tank.  I didn't really think about it, but since I didn't notice that any of the rocks were covered in bird poo, they must spend LOTS of their days scrubbing!

We finally and reluctantly decided to move on to another exhibit - and the next ones were these miniature penguins, which Sarah promptly dubbed "baby"!

The main outside exhibit were the Northern fur seals and California sea lions (after reviewing the website, I've learned that these animals, though with seemingly different names, actually belong to the same animal family.  I'm not sure which of them I actually got pictures of though!).  They have some kind of show that they put on, but we didn't try to catch it that visit.  I figure we have to save something to look forward to the next 12 months!

This fish was so grumpy looking he just made me laugh!

As Aunt Karen recently reminded me, seahorses were one of my favorite animal growing up.  I guess that really hasn't changed, but this guy was a pretty weird version of a seahorse.  He (obviously) has all those leaf-like appendages to help camouflage him from predators.

I wasn't 100% sure that the fish exhibits would hold the kids' attention, but they thought most of them were pretty cool. 

Watching the jellyfish was great - I think I could watch them for hours!

We all were really excited about this exhibit - shallow pools where you can reach in and touch sea stars and hermit crabs.  We even saw a seastar in the process of prying open some kind of a clam shell get to his lunch inside.  There was a separate exhibit with a shark and ray touch tank, but it was too crowded that day for us to get to.  (Sidenote - it was CRAZY crowded the day we went.  Then Brian took the kids back again last week while I was out of town, and again CRAZY.  So we may have to try some other meu-zeeee-ums until school starts again in September.)

Now my favorite - the top of the giant ocean tank.  This tank is 26 feet tall, 40 feet wide and holds 200,000 gallons of water.  In fact, its so big that they built the tank first and then built the rest of the aquarium around it.  There's a spiral walkway circling the tank all the way up where we saw rays, sharks, an octopus and tons and tons of fish.  It was beautiful to watch.  But at the top, the colors were so vibrant that I couldn't get over it.  AND up there was saw sting rays (another favorite of mine)...

... and Myrtle the Turtle, who is over 80 years old and has lived at this aquarium since 1970.  She weighs over 500 lbs!

She also had another sea turtle friend with her, but I didn't see any information on its name or stats. We did get to watch one of the aquarium workers feeding both of them.

Nathan also thought it was really cool watching the workers that were swimming in the tank.  He wanted to go on the "diving board" with them and get into the water too!

These little eels were just so unexpectedly cool that I had to include them.  They just sway back and forth in the water in the most hypnotic manner.

As we left the aquarium, we decided to walk to an Italian sandwich shop to grab some lunch (I have to mention that Yelp is my new favorite app for finding great restaurants wherever we happen to be in town).  My sandwich was good (ordered to be kid friendly) and Brian's was FABULOUS (with all toppings, including hot peppers, so not kid friendly).  We had walked by these dancing fountains on the way to the restaurant, so decided to head back and watch them do their thing while we ate.  The kids predictably did more watching then eating.  They were so fascinated that I assured them we'd be back with our swimsuits sometime.