It only took 99 tries (literally)

Pro tip: If you think you might want to get a passport for your child, do it before he/she starts walking and thinks that your camera is the ooooonly thing he/she wants to touch RIGHT NOW. GIVE ME THE CAMERA, LADY.

Ride #3

Things are getting off to a slow start this year with riding. We kept getting sick and sadly, were not ready for the Ronde de Rosey. Looked like a lot of fun though! My second ride of the year, a month ago, went pretty poorly. I totally fell apart 2 hrs in to a 4hr+ ride (stupid) and ended up urging my companions to go on without me. I would have called Ed to pick me up had I not left our only car capable of transporting both a baby and a bike in Lexington. Ride #3 finally happened yesterday. My team's new kits just came in, so I arranged to meet up with Chip and his friend Steen at Ride Studio Cafe. After espresso and croissants (and picking up my bag of awesome kit), we headed out on Battle Road, which is maybe even more fun on a road bike than a 'cross bike. Tomorrow is Patriots Day, so it was crawling with minutemen and redcoats.

After that, we did most of the CRW Thursday night loop. It was windy and I am terribly out of shape, so the route markings enabled me to keep Steen and Chip, who aren't familiar with the area, heading in the right direction so I could suck wheels. Fortunately, they were quite gracious and waited for me after each hill.

We've been having lots of gorgeous, sunny days lately, and Ed has set up the Chariot as a trailer so we can start taking Elliot on rides. So I hope that soon, riding my bike will become such a common occurrence as to not be worth mentioning in the blog.

Elizabeth Park

On Saturday, we met up with Ed's mom and sister, Paige (who was visiting from LA), for a lovely day in Elizabeth Park in Hartford. We had brunch in the morning at the Pondhouse Cafe and went back for tea in the afternoon. Yum. (My two favorite "meals.") The weather was perfect and we had a lovely afternoon. Elliot loved riding around on his push-trike and throwing sticks. He's becoming quite a runner too. We all took turns chasing him down and keeping him from: interfering in other people's games of catch, "helping" out in the kitchen of the cafe, and making faces through the cafe windows at patrons.

A trip to the park and new tricks

The sun was out on Saturday, so we took Elliot the park near our house. He loves the swing. And the wood chips.

Elliot seems to be pretty normal for his age, but he's the only child I've spent much time with, so each new skill he picks up just blows me away. Here's some of what he's been up to lately:

- "cooking" for Grammie with his Ikea play kitchen, serving her, then "washing" the dishes
- he sort of says "mama," "dada," "up," "down," and "cracker"
- he asked for "more cheese to eat" yesterday using sign language
- he understands how to pet the cats gently and he laughs and laughs while he does it
- he likes to pretend to turn our dining room light on and off by pointing to it while Ed works the remote
- once, when I was sad because he had temporarily misplaced an awesome toy from his Auntie Heather, he looked at me very sympathetically and then gave me a big hug
- he likes to clap for himself when he's finished something (like a meal)
- he helps me put wet clothes into the dryer and generally likes to assist with everything we do
- he brings his Scootababy to Ed and says, "Up!"
- every night, he pulls a stool up to the sink and brushes his teeth with us -- he gets upset when we make him stop
- he likes to hold Ed's iPod up to his ear and say "hai-yo!"
- he waves bye-bye to the phone after friends and relatives call (we put them on speaker for him)

So again... I realize this is pretty normal, but all this new stuff is amazing to us first-time parents. :) Elliot is more and more fun every day.

Our little nerdling

Elliots honors Prof. Einstein:



And builds molecules with his Daddy: