lunch date

Stellar teacher conferences, half day, lovely spring weather, local voting, special lunch, just Lincoln, with both of his proud parents who feel very grateful for days like this.

Happy Birthday b/Dad

Thinkers.

Sunday morning walk

With Grandpop.

derby day

Lincoln spent a grand pinewood derby day racing cars, eating Doritos, hanging with Dad and Grandpop, amazing his sister and brother and losing his 3rd tooth (or rather, Mama yanking it out, on request, right in the middle of the 69th heat). His cool design came in a pretty consistent 4th out of 5 each try and he enjoyed the thrill of it even so. A pretty successful first showing all around. 

A year later...Lincoln is 6.

Today I randomly decided to visit this abandoned little blog, just to see where I'd left off and how much it would take to catch it up to the present. Apparently I blinked and an entire year has passed. An. Entire. Year. Precisely. To the day.  I'm not sure if it is a poetic discovery or an ironic one. It is certainly a species of the parental. And the working. And the tired. And, well, the living.

'It has been a busy year' doesn't explain even a fraction of 2015. But here I am, in the very last hours of Lincoln's 6th birthday, looking at a new year fast approaching, and leaving it at that.

party

getting out of the house

We have to get out of the house. We have to get out of the house. We have to get out of the house. We have to get out of the house...

We got out of the house. On the grounds of Lincoln's preschool, only 5 minutes down the road. Snow up to my knees and so old and crunchy that I didn't fall through every time but enough times that each step was totally laborious and kind of surprising. Lincoln lead us on the back route first, to where his preschool class had hung the bird feeders they'd made a few weeks back. There was nothing left of them but a few strings by then. We marched on to the edge and then to the gazebo and it was a lovely struggle the whole way. Totally mind-clearing and restorative and tiring at the same time. And fun. Just what we needed after a long month buried by the weight of my own work, and under snowfall after snowfall after snowfall after snowfall.

milk house wishes

Over pancakes. Babies asleep. 24 degrees outside. Fire going, coffee in cups.

John: "Linc, if you could have three wishes, what would they be?"

Lincoln, without hesitation: "To be a real wizard, to have an adventure like Bilbo, that this whole house was made out of milk."

projection crew

Dad, Orson (and mustache)

visiting Gram

On vacation (or as well like to call it this year: "taking care of babies in another place") on Gram's fair island, with all the rain the heavens can muster for us. Photos to come...

father's day

He awoke a little later than usual, to a sweet card from his son, a big hug, squawking babies and a breakfast made by my own father. And then Grama and Grampa headed back to Z Farm and we piled into the van to fulfill John's father's day wish....

....to visit his own father.

It was a wonderful day, full of fathers and children and grandchildren (and mothers and grandmothers too). I feel very blessed to have enjoyed the patience and love and endless support of my own father and the kindness and generosity of my father-in-law.  And I know that I am incredibly lucky to have this smart, steadfast, loyal, warm (and terribly handsome) father of three choose to make his life with me. Happy Father's Day.

TV

Lincoln doesn't really watch a broad range of television. He's always preferred to study each and every minute detail from one particular series, and, if you gave him a choice, would re-watch episodes from a single series so many times his brain would start trickling out of his ears. He is a binge watcher, no doubt about it. And if we didn't set drastic limits on the amount of time be spends before the screen I'm not sure he'd ever see the sun again. When he finds something that speaks to him, his eyes don't roam. When he was 2 it was Little Bear and nothing else, despite our best efforts to introduce his developing brain to a little variety. When that wore out it was BusyTown Mysteries, followed by a brief affair with Dinosaur Train. These three shows have lasted nearly a year and a half. Three shows. For over a year.

But today, he has fallen instantly in love with number four. To be fair, it was probably the period costumes that nabbed him. But here we are on a Sunday, two exhausted parents, two fussy babies and a kid "searching for a hero to idolize / feeling the pain as innocence dies" via the revolutionary war epic Liberty's Kids.

strawberry harvest

A little basket full today, from his own back yard.

down the aisle

We took our first trip without Orson and Zephyr in tow this weekend, thanks to the kindness of my parents and sister.  They took over the all-hours tending duties while John and I and Lincoln packed into the car and headed to the D.C. area for cousin Andrew and Emily's wedding. This was Linc's first time down the aisle, and first time away from the crying and endless attention deficits that define our daily rhythms these days...and he was excited about it.

He rehearsed on Friday, along with a gaggle of cousins and friends. Anna and Rose (below), Oscar, Julia and Bess all walked the aisle with him.

And he got all dressed up on Saturday evening.

And entertained a large audience in the church with glee.

He sat as still as he could during the ceremony and celebrated afterwards with his partner in crime.

But it was anything goes at the reception.

Which found him immediately unbuttoned, shoeless, covered in dirt and on the dance floor.

By the end of the night he was up on the stage with the band, jamming with his cousins and so delirious with glee that the vocalist had to keep pulling him back from an edge and staircase that clearly had his name on it. When I finally pulled him down myself he hugged me tight, looked madly about him with a wild smile, and then, in a fatigued voice,  requested that we go to bed now. 

The next morning he awoke and promptly donned his old tophat for breakfast goofiness with Gram and all the W brothers and cousins. 

After which we packed up all three of his traveling hats and headed back to our regular life, tired and happy.

A house full

of old good friends. Here from across the continent. We were packed in, and it rained a little. But that didn't dim the energy at our house this weekend. 

A recap (in the passive voice):

Moby Dick was trotted out, of course.

And babies were held.

Work was accomplished (wait, is there some sort of cheating going on here?).

And lines of drinks were made, and consumed.

Bowler hats were shared.

And smiles were shared. In Singapore:

On our couch:

And even in the kitchen:

We had drinks outside.

While the kids napped, or made mud pies, or forts, or lego creations.

And interacted with an app or two.

And a book or two.

And a bath or two.

And ran around, carefree, in the backyard.

We miss you guys now. We really do.