Sonoma County spring

Bubba and the kids just returned from 5 nights in Santa Rosa. Bubba is working on a hiking guide for the Wine Country, so while I stayed here and worked, the kids had a blast at Grandma Camp and Bubba turned his legs to rubber on the trails every day.

Last month saw a similar trip, but I came down and joined in for the second half. The first day I spent down there, my parents came with us on an outing to the coast, which I'd had an itch to do for months.  First we hit up Armstrong Redwoods:




always climbing


a tree she can reach? Or more likely, it just looked like a big stick to hold


discussing different types of sequoia foliage


fallen giants make an inviting playground




under two years of life stands next to 1000

From there we proceeded out along the river to the coast and stopped at Goat Rock.


happy baby on the way


so exciting for this mountain boy to see the ocean again!



Carson really wanted someone to stand with him near the water, but he was not too sure about getting his feet wet.





Laramie was happy just to play with the sand. She tried eating some too.





We took a little walk up to the river's end, and the kids were fortunate to find two different driftwood shelters.

















Laramie hitched a ride on the way back:







Such a lovely day. More adventures followed on the next...

Who needs preschool? I mean, grad school.

Carson is always eager to visit the animal hospital and see what's going on there. I'm sure my kind coworkers' willingness to engage with him and hear his thoughts is a big reason for that. He knows that mom and "the clinickers" help sick dogs and cats get better, but I didn't realize he was such an expert in my field until this month.

He happened to drop in with dad one morning as we were examining this little corgi for lameness. "What's wrong with the dog?", he asked.
"It has a sore leg."
"Hm, I think it's a problem with the bone. Here, let me squeeze all the legs so I can tell you which one it is." (He had to run off and put on exam gloves, since he certainly couldn't examine a dog without them.)
..."This one has a bone... and this one has a bone..." Then, identifying the leg the owner had asked us to check: "It's that one."

She's one!

And returning to the blog, after a long absence, is our dear daughter Laramie Rose--who is a toddler all of a sudden and turning one today!

This girl is a delight. She is happy nearly all the time, smiles a lot and likes to cuddle. She adores her brother and follows him about, mostly unfazed by his rough-and-tumble ways. She loves to eat just about everything she can get her hands on and has seven teeth now to gnaw apples and pork chops and all. Though she's increasingly comfortable with walking over the past month, she'll still drop to a crawl for distance and speed. When her brother's not around she's content to play by herself, often pulling her books off the shelf and looking through the pictures, or experimenting with our collection of kid-friendly instruments (the recorder is her favorite). She is not using any words yet but has quite the repertoire of meows, growls and roars.

How she grew:


newborn


one month


two months


three months


four months


five months


six months


seven months


eight months


nine months


ten months


eleven months


ONE YEAR TODAY!

We love you to pieces, Laramie, and we're so glad you're in our family!

Country boy's compassion

"I told that dead Steller’s Jay when it was going to rain, and I didn’t want it to rain on him, so I moved him up by the house where he would be warm, and I put him up on that box so we wouldn’t step on him and make him deader.

"And that dead Steller’s Jay just dozed by the house in the sun, and I made him a cozy place and I’m going to put him down for a nap. And I’m being really quiet so he can rest. And I have to be with that Steller’s Jay if he’s all alone. And when I come in Squeaky can be out there by him so he won’t be sad or cry because no one is with him. 

"And I know why he is dead! Because he wasn’t eating. Or... maybe I shot him with my gun!"

Well, okay then!

[Carson is building with his pipes. These things have been in near-daily use for the better part of a year now.]

Mom: “What are you building?”

C: “It’s a drop dropper.”

Mom: “What kind of drops does it drop?”

C: “Nothing, because I didn’t put anything in it to drop.”

Mom: “What might you put in it?”

C: “I don’t know; I have to figure out what kind of drop dropper it is. But now it’s a speckled log hog…"

...soon it turns out that this contraption “shoots out roasted green speckled frogs, sitting on a speckled log, eating some most delicious bugs, yum, yum, and then one jumps into the pool where it’s nice and cool and now I can’t get it to work because it’s falling off, and you have to help me because the green speckled frog music is making me feel like I have to shoot green speckled frogs and this is not letting me! And I have tried everything and it keeps falling off and I can’t shoot green speckled frogs… This is very difficult and it doesn’t have time to let me use it, and it just falls down because I didn’t put much legs on it and it only has one leg and it needs two legs and we need to hunt in the bag for more pieces… I’m gonna need some help with this!”

A boy's work

[On a snowy New Year's Day:]



Hey, MOM!



I'm building a fort, and it's going to be GIGANTIC!!



It will be very tall, up to the attic. Do you want to see my expilament?


I'm gonna make a weensy teensy door so Tess can get in to her camping wood.


Look, I can climb up, and put my feet up here and my hands up here, and I haven't done that before. It's like a mountain!



And you can actually watch me climb down to get back to my work. My work is called picking up wood, and throwing down big wood and little wood, little barks and big barks, for next days.



I told Mom she could borrow a little piece of oak to burn.


Tess likes kitty food and she heard a little tiny "kerplop" and she found some kitty food.



Malcolm said to Tess, "I'm gonna have one more," and that helps their brain think better.



And they said I could have one--three--FOUR more pieces of kitty food.


I have this chain saw for emergencies, for wood that is not cut.



And I'm gonna get back to my wood box fort before someone closes the doors.