Miniature Golf

This weekend we went to Rada’s 7th birthday party which was held at a miniature golf place. On the way there, I had Ethan and Zack in the back seat of my car telling a long series of scatological jokes in the form of: X poo-poos on Y, followed by hilarious laughter. For example Ethan started it out with “I have a funny joke – the elephant poo-poos on a skunk. Ha, ha, ha, ha.” This lasted for about 20 minutes as they substituted such things as cars, houses, various animals, etc. for the X and Y variables. They thought they were extremely funny.

We also had a play date with twins Max and Josh, whose dad is one of my swim buddies. The boys enjoyed making all sorts of mayhem. Afterwards we went to Crane beach where Ethan found semi-live clams (alive enough to keep shut and stick out their necks, but not alive enough to bury themselves safely under the sand). We watched the tide come in and the water was warm enough for Ethan to swim in for quite a while.

Summer Fun

We’ve been enjoying summer as much as possible. Here are a few highlights from the past few weeks:

--Trip to Davis Farmland with Jane and her son Finn. The boys had a blast playing with the baby goats that were running around, and also feeding the piglets, llamas, cow, sheep, etc. Ethan had his first experience up on a pony, with a huge smile the whole ride. The splash park was an incredible relief on this 90+ degree day. In the end the boys played in a pretend stream, Ethan painted his face random colors (artistic license), and they both had bubblegum ice cream on the trip home.
--Canoeing with Lisa, Mike, and Roberto. We put in at Lisa’s sister’s house in Salem. Ethan spent the entire trip repeatedly asking if we could go to the playground instead. (When he does this I say “yes Donkey” referring to Shrek 2 in which Donkey keeps peskering Shrek and Fiona with “are we there yet? Are we there yet?”) After we landed the hermit crabs diverted his attention for a while.
--Picnic with other families with kids from Kazakhstan (see photo). It was great seeing how well all the kids are doing! People were impressed with how fast Ethan had learned English.
--Playing at Walden Pond with Rich and Jennifer’s twins, and Roberto. Ethan seems to bond especially well with kids he can chase or be chased by. Lisa found a dead fish which Ethan wanted to touch.
--Crane beach with little Molly and Beth. The water was so low that there were huge tidal pools warm enough to swim in. Ethan and I splashed the water as high as we could as we ran through them. Molly and Ethan found a big hole in the sand and buried themselves and various objects in it. Adults had fried calamari and kids had fried chicken for dinner. Ethan got a ring and a necklace for 25 cents each from a toy dispenser at the restaurant.
--Trip to Canobie Lake Park with Tom. Ethan’s first time up in a Ferris Wheel. He also loved the bumper cars, and the pretend planes that went around in a circle which he could lift up or down.

T. Rex's mouth

This past weekend we had an exciting weekend up at a pond in New Hampshire. There were two houses, 13 adults, 7 bedrooms, 4 boys, two very large dogs (125 and 150 pounds), and perfect weather. Ethan went fishing for the first time, and within about 10 minutes managed to catch the only fish (a 10 inch Perch) that anyone caught the whole weekend. He also went out in a Kayak and in a rowboat with his dad for the first time. Ethan jumped off the dock and swam to shore all by himself, and tried a trampoline for the first time. Here’s a photo of Ethan and Zack and his mom Karen. Zack and Ethan had a great time with the other boys building a big ditch in the sand at the lake, and then walking up the hill and pouring bucket after bucket of water down their mini-waterfall.

The other day I heard Mark and Ethan having a conversation downstairs. Mark said something like “This house is older than me. It was built before I was alive.” To which Ethan responded with “You mean you’re dead?”, which for some reason struck me as incredibly funny.

Ethan has a placemat with a bunch of dinosaurs on it. Recently he noticed that T. Rex’s mouth, with it’s big long teeth, is quite different from the Stegosaurus’ mouth. I explained that it was because T. Rex ate meat, and Stegosaurus ate plants. From just looking at the mouths, he could completely distinguish all the meat and plant eaters on the placemat with 100% accuracy. An observation about the mouths I had never noticed. Meanwhile, he just won’t believe us about T. Rex is the same beast as Tyrannosaurus Rex. He also wouldn’t, for some odd reason, believe us the other night when we explained that bats ate mosquitoes. He insisted that it was not so because they weren’t talking bats. ??