Getaway to Easton....

This was the last weekend before the end of summer vacation - or, in the case of ChaseKBH, our soon-to-be kindergartener, this was the last weekend of his ante school life.  For the next seventeen or more years, his life will be dictated by the school calendar.  Typically, Jamie and I were so incredibly busy that we did not make adequate plans beforehand, and since the beach was pretty much sold out, we decided to venture just over the Bay Bridge and hang out on the Eastern Shore.   We spent the morning hiking on Wye Island and visiting the site of the Wye Oak.  More in a later post.

The trip to Easton was a little over an hour, but it's a world away from Columbia.  Jamie and I visited before kids, for antiquing, shopping, and dining.  The kids dislike all except the last activity.

 

 

Oysters were of course on the menu, as well as a lot of crab.  For lunch, we went to the Washington Street Pub.  It was amazingly child-friendly.  First, along with crayons and paper, the children were seated with little packets of Goldfish.  The list of sides on the kids meals were extensive, and included two types of fruit, three types of vegetables, as well as more standard fare.  And they had wifi.  And beer for the adults - Heavy Seas Red for me, and blackberry pear cider for Jamie.  And oysters.  Lots of oysters.

 

Nap consumed the rest of BeaABH's day, but ChaseKBH and I had a fantastic time exploring the town.  Easton was a great place to walk around in, and we had a great time walking (in the rain), exploring old architecture and talking about the history of Maryland. We walked to Rise Up Roasters and ran into a friend from Philadelphia, mom to one of ChaseKBH's greatest crushes.  Lemon muffins and hot chocolate made the fact that we were soaked slightly better. 

 

We walked over to Easton Market Square, which was a cool little market and some associated little stores.  We checked out tomorrow's coffee plan, and debated a snowball, but the rain was just too heavy.  We passed through the historical district and window-shopped, but were too muddy to go in anywhere.

 

Dinner was at the Tidewater Inn, where we stayed for the night. They, predictably, shared a steak.  And even dressed for the occasion, though ChaseKBH took off his jacket immediately after ordering dinner.  There was a concert scheduled for the square that night, however, it was rained out, and the overflow seemed to all be in the restaurant.  The kids enjoyed the historic hotel, checking out the duck statute and fountain in the courtyard, and really enjoyed the magnificent staircase.  And almost 12 hours of sleep after a busy morning hiking on Wye Island.

"We Are In A Play" by Mo Willems

It was absolutely the best, best, bestus piece of theater I have been to in a long, long time.  It was the best piece of children's theater I have ever seen.  It had two four-year-olds who missed a nap and were off schedule engaged on the edge of their seats at a 5 p.m. performance.  And of course it is the thing to do with the preschool and early elementary school set in the D.C. area in December 2013.  Mo Willems again proves that he is an absolute genius, and the defining children's author of this generation.

I am a huge Mo Willems fan.  Heck, I even named my little girl Beatrix, and while I have tried to push the nickname Bea (her brother prefers Ducky), her pseudo-cousins insist her name is Trixie.  Whenever Knuffle Bunny is read, she reverts to Trixie for at least three days.  Mo Willems has a way of writing that appeals to small children as well as grown ups - the kids do not always get the humor, or the random in-jokes (for example, in Goldie Locks and the Three Dinosaurs there are references to asteroids and Three Mile Island).  The stories are entertaining, and don't make me want to stab my eyes out after reading them for the fiftieth time that week.  

The Elephant and Piggie series is about two best friends, worrywart elephant Gerald (male) and happy-go-lucky pig Pigge (female).  The two friends are opposites yet best friends.  They have various adventures and the books and illustrations are very minimalist, yet incredibly emotionally powerful.  My son decided he was more like Gerald, and his friend declared she was more like Piggie - but after a minute or two of thought, he decided he was mostly like Gerald and a little bit like Piggie, and his friend mostly like Piggie and a little bit like Gerald.  

The play itself is absurdist theater at its best.  As Mo Willems explains in the Washington Post, Gerald and Piggie have a series of existential crises until they realize they are, in fact, in a play.  The plot includes several Elephant and Piggie books - We are in a Book,  I Love My New Toy, I am Invited to a Party, Listen to My Trumpet, I am Going, and Should I Share My Ice-cream? The players include Gerald, Piggie, the Squirrelles, Delivery Dog, and the Ice Cream Pigeon.  I was disappointed not to see the armless snake, my favorite of the guest character in the books.

The acting was outstanding.  Though the costuming did not include actual elephant or pig costumes, the costuming and acting managed to convey the fundamental essence of Gerald and Piggie.  The costuming was brilliant - a pink dress, tights, and pink shoes, along with hair sculpted into tiny pigtail buns mimicking a pig's ears for Piggie, and a blue-gray jacket, pants, shirt, and tie with texture mimicking a pachyderm's skin for Gerald.  

Tickets available here - http://www.kennedy-center.org/events/?event=KOTBA

My son's first cake

Cross post at Yet Another Food Blog.

ChaseKBH had a little bit of adult help on this project, but not much.  The above is a picture of ChaseKBH's chocolate Thomas Rocket Ship cake.  It's ridiculously adorable - though the cake itself wasn't wonderful, it wasn't terrible either.  

We started with Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake.  We adapted to a half recipe, or at least as close to a half recipe as a three year old can measure.  Instead of following the directions, we simply put everything into a bowl, and mixed it with a whisk.  The cake was baked in a Wilton Rocket Ship Pan, well sprayed with baking spray.  It took about 35 minutes to bake at 350F, but I think my oven is a bit off right now.  I would start checking at 20 minutes and continue from there.

We frosted the cake with a simple frosting consisting of 6 tablespoons of softened European-style butter, 1/2 a pound of powdered sugar, and about 1/3 of a cup of heavy cream.  Everything went into the stand mixer and was whipped until a frosting appeared.  We colored the frosting with Wilton Icing Color - in blue.  After we "painted" the cake with frosting, we sprinkled on an insane amount of blue sprinkles.

The kid sort of looks like a smurf now.

Meteor shower tonight

The Oronid meteor shower should be spectacular tonight and tomorrow early morning, if we get a bit of a break from the cloud cover.  

Things to do in Howard County

I'm often asked what one can do with small children in Howard County.  Sometimes, but the chronically malcontent, I'm told that there's nothing to do with kids in Howard County.  I am limiting myself to weekend jaunts around the county, and to things appealing to the preschool set (though older and younger will also have fun).  Here are some suggestions for things to do this weekend - excluding the many parks, playgrounds, tot lots, gyms, pools, libraries, and classes all over the county:

• B&O Railroad Museum Ellicott City Station.  A great local, small museum focused on trains and the history of the railroad and Ellicott City, which are rather intertwined.  I also spent a summer volunteering here back when Green Day was edgy.
• Howard County Conservancy.  Trails, geocatching, nature walks, animals, and similar.  It's an interesting historical site as well.
• Clark's Elioak Farm.  For the Howard County parent of a certain age, there's the bizarre experience of reliving your childhood in a disjointed manner, seeing all the old Enchanted Forest items strewn around.  There's a petting zoo, tractor rides, and the ability to purchase farm produce and some very good meat.  I also suggest the grown ups fortify themselves at Iron Bridge across the street.
• Larriland Farm.  Pick some apples, beets, broccoli, pumpkins, or flowers.  Or just go to the red barn and buy them.  Tractor rides, great fruit, and a gorgeous pond.  My nature-hating son loves Larriland - though last time he was there he gave himself a bloody nose trying to cut flowers for his crush (which is either on his 2.5 year old friend or her mother, I haven't figure out which yet).
• Bollman Truss Bridge.  There's a magic in this bridge for all, but especially for a preschooler just learning how things are put together.  This is a the last remaining all iron truss bridge.  There's a great trail that is very accessible to small children - and a great discussion about Sodor will likely ensue.  
• Robinson Nature Center.  Really frickin' cool, and shocking that this place is in a county this small.  It's pretty much our county's science center, with a planetarium, tons of activities, and nature related exhibitions.  
• Sharp's at Waterford Farm.  A fall extravaganza.  I even just wrote a post about this place.
• TLV Tree Farm.  Where the Howard clan always gets its Christmas tree.  We have yet to shed any blood here, though we have cutting open bagels.  Corn maze, animals, other fall fun.

As I say to every teenager who complains about the ennui of their painful existence, stop choosing to be bored.  There's plenty to do - just pack up the iPad, Nexus, or Kindle and take it with you.

Sharp's at Waterford Farm

We took the obligatory preschool fall fieldtrip to a farm and pumpkin patch - this year it was Sharp's at Waterford Farm.  I think we were joined by about a thousand other kids in Howard County and Montgomery County schools.  ChaseKBH was horribly disappointed that we drove rather than take the school bus - since we brought BeaABH with us, and she's too little to sit on a school bus.  So yes, it was my kid crying in the parking lot about not being able to get on the bus.

Prior to doing the whole stay-at-home parent thing, I was never the parent to take ChaseKBH on field trips, so my comparison points aren't great.  However, from talking to Jamie, it seems that the Sharp's trip was a bit more educationally focused than previous farm trips, but, on the other hand, more kids were there so it was a little chaotic.  The kids had a blast though.



The tour stated in the barn, with a discussion of cotton and its place in agriculture.  There wasn't much discussion of its place in American history - which is a difficult discussion to have with three and four year olds.  Given where our family lives, and the discussions we have already started to have regarding the Civil War at the B&O Railroad Museum, I am going to have to figure out a reasonable approach to have these discussions.



Next was a discussion of honey bees, and choosing volunteers to do the honey bee dance.  All the preschoolers knew the role of male bees, or drones.  Well, they knew they were inside the hive, didn't do work, then were thrown out and died - all ideas that I personally thought were much more difficult to grasp than their role with the queen's eggs.



One of the kids also got to dress up like a bee keeper.



After the beehive, we went to look at the animals.  This is a pig's behind.  I can't exactly capture the smell.



Goats!



We also hand fed the animals.  I personally hate hand feeding animals in situations like this.  First and foremost, the animal tongue feels gross on my hand.  Second, I try very hard to teach respect and distance from strange animals - and even docile goats and cows can be dangerous.  Third, there's often not great hand washing facilities, and I spend the rest of the day thinking about the agricultural diseases most recently reported in the press.   The children, however, love feeding them - except my son who shares my germaphobic tendencies.



ChaseKBH really liked the cow.  Actually, he really liked the idea that the cow made milk that became butter that became cookies.



This kid isn't really great with either nature or agriculture.  Watch his allergies start to form.



Sharp's has a corn maze and corn mini maze.  The corn maze was a lot of fun - until one of the kids thought that it might be a good idea to trailblaze his own path.  Thankfully, it was not my child, though the child in question is a charmer who has the spirit of an adventurer.

Sharp's has a cotton field that the kids can walk around.  The kids each took an open and closed cotton bud to study.



We then picked popcorn in the popcorn field.  There is something very eerie about a popcorn field.



The tractor ride was seriously awesome - it was amphibious!  We took a couple swings through Cattail Creek.



Cattail Creek.



Why my allergic-to-everything-outside son likes sitting on hay I don't know.



And finally, the moment of truth - the pumpkin patch.



The pumpkins then became pie.

There's a lovely store with produced, jams and jellies, and, most importantly, coffee.

Rocket Launch!

Never underestimate how cool explosives can be to a three year old.  We've been kicking around the idea of forming a preschool model rocket club, but then we realized that all the other parents would be aghast - and we have a pretty bad track record anyway. The rockets are simple Estes kits from Michael's with standard Estes engines - we used B6 engines in ChaseKBH's Estes Riptide.  There's not a ton of ability to customize the outside of these rockets, but putting them together is maybe a five minute job, and a reasonably dexterous three year old can handle it with minimal parental assistance.