March, 2008
We had an injection of spring in North Carolina in March. There were several days of sunny weather, highs in the mid-60s to mid-70s. Great hammock weather, which is where Ella was playing, in the backyard, in these shots. My friends Chris and Karen gave us this hammock and hammock stand becuase they’re moving into a townhouse and don’t have space for it. They rock!
Jan. 31, 2008
We haven’t taken any really snazzy pics lately, so I dug through the archive and found this little gem.
It’s the first time Ella yawned. And the last time she went to sleep.
Seems that way.
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The header is an example of Ella’s being completely uncooperative for the camera.
We were at the Keswick Blessing of the Hounds on Thanksgiving morning, the oldest such event in the country.
This year, no hounds peed on the monument in the church yard.
Ella’s the worm in the apple on Carter Mountain orchard, high above Charlottesville.
Nov. 13, 2007
The header is a pic of Ella riding her new bike at my dad’s in central Virginia. This was her first day to spend much time on the bike. My dad’s street ends in a cul-de-sac at the bottom of a slight hill, and beyond the cul-de-sac is a lake. Ella’s first few trips down the street almost ended in the water. I don’t know if she wasn’t sure how to use the brakes or if she was just trying to give her old man a heart attack. She’d get going as fast as she could, head downhill and laugh hysterically. I had to run in front of her and grab her off her bike before she crashed into a mail box. She was oblivious of the danger, having the time of her life.
Our friend Don took the pics in a popular bagel shop. Don’s a retired ad agency creative director and he likes playing around with photos. Ella was happy to be in his lens.
Let’s see … birthday party pics. The usual.
Trick-or-treat pics. Again, the usual. She loved this dinosaur costume. We bought it online for about $15, and she’ll play with forever. The head growls and roars and the feet make crashing sounds.
I heard someone tonight — a neuropharmacologist who’s done a lot of science education research — talk about the dire straights of science education. (This is tangential — we take a lot of pics of Ella outside and in motion.) Someone asked her how to reach kids, and adults, who don’t have an interest in science. She said she thinks all kids are interested in science, and they become disinterested when they get boring teachers or it gets too difficult. Ella has an abundant love of nature, for animals from worms to birds to dinosaurs, and plants and water and stars. She loves discovering her place in the world, whether she’s zooming through it or digging it up with her fingers. She’s a kid that remains in motion. I hope she holds onto that sense of exploration.
Oct. 25, 2007
The header shows Ella milking a cow at the state fair. She had absolutely no reservations about it. She’s more comfortable around animals than around other kids. That’s not something we’ve encouraged, it’s just her way. She sat down, patted the cow’s big belly and reached for the udder.
The top Flickr photo is me petting a grizzly bear at Washington State University’s grizzly bear lab. These bears were raised by people. Scientists study their metabolism and other physiological functions during hibernation. Bears don’t sleep in the winter, their organs just slow way, way down, a condition that would send humans into heart and other organ failure. What can we learn from bears? I learned that they smell worse than wet dogs. And they move their hands really, really fast.
Oct. 4, 2007
Ella not only loves frogs and lizards and butterflies. She loves horses. I imagine most little girls do. Ella rode a pony for the first time last year at the state fair and she loved it. It was the kind of ride with Shetland ponies that goes around and around. Actually, I think she rode three ponies.
There are quite a few horse farms around here and many of them give lessons. A few months back Trish picked up a flier from our local downtown equine shop for a stable that offered a free introductory ride for kids 3-12.
We’ve been waiting for Ella to reach 3. She’s still not there, of course, but Trish talked to the stable person and worked it out so Ella could ride on Tuesday, two days ago.
Ella loved! The lady immediately started teaching Ella techniques — how to mount and dismount, how to get the horse to go and stop, how to hold her feet in the stirrups. In the photo on the header Ella is learning how to keep her balance by squeezing the horse with her legs.
I’m afraid I see where this is going.
The bouncy pictures are at the bug fest, when we stood in line an hour and missed the bee-bearded lady. But Ella got a kick out of the bouncy thing.
Other pics are of her with bugs.
Oh, and her own self-do.
Sept. 11, 2007
Ella hit the pool hard at the beginning of the summer, then she took a little break.
We figured we’d better get in as many pool days as we can before it closes for the “winter.”
Ella’s always loved being in the water. We started her in a pool when she was about 6 months old. Now she can swim from one end of our neighborhood pool to the other, then back again, wearing her floaties, of course. She takes her inspiration from turtles, but she has a pretty powerful kick, too.
Today, though, the wind was blowing pine needles into the water and it was generally foul, and Ella was afraid that BIIIIG snakes were going to bite.
Aug. 13, 2007
I hate Flickr. It’s impossible to predict in what order it will upload photos.
Ella’s wearing a dress her grandma sent. Nice head scarf. She wore this to the grocery store yesterday, with her leach clipped onto the yolk, because she was a puppy.
It’s been so hot that we’ve let the dogs inside the house for the past week. They used to stay inside all the time, before Ella. Now they usually stay outside during the day and sleep in the garage. They don’t look very appreciative.
What says summer better than ice cream!
July 16, 2007
We just returned from a vacation in Kentucky, visiting Trish’s family.
The corn field looks just like the other many, many, many corn fields in Western Kentucky. I kept waiting to see a baseball field in the middle of one of them, but no dice.
The baby is Ella’s second cousin, once removed, the spawn of her first cousin on her mother’s side. Ella loves babies.
The cow with the hat is kitsch that my aunt sent to Ella while we were away.
June 22, 2007
When Ella was five months old, and Trish went back to work on weekends, the best way I could get Ella to take a nap was to put her in a battery-powered swing. Her record: 4.5 hours of blissful slumber.
We hung a baby swing from an ash tree in our big backyard in Nashville, and in Maine I installed a beam between two trees in the front yard so Ella could swing next to Lucian, the neighbor.
I was a slacker here. We had two big sweetgum trees in the middle of the yard that mucked up any potential swing path. I had those taken out, and a small slippery elm presented itself with one limb, about 18 feet off the ground, just big enough to hold Ella off the ground.
Trish had to prod me into the project. I found a instructions online for tying the proper knots, and I put the old table saw to use on a beautiful piece of cypress wood I’ve been lugging around since San Antonio, in 1997, intended to be part of outdoor furniture.
Finally, Ella took flight. Higher, higher and higher. She has no fear of gravity.
June 22, 2007
Trish found this babydoll bed at a yard sale last Saturday and bought it for $10. She surprised Ella with it. It turns out to be a perfect fit for Purple Baby. Ella is still thrilled. She keeps it right beside her bed at night so she can be close in case the baby awakes.
I didn’t even have a G.I. Joe because my mom considered it a doll and she didn’t want me to be a girly boy.
June 5, 2007
I hate the way Flickr uploads photos. It’s a pain in the ass to arrange them. It has to be done during uploading.
These shots were taken at the Durham Bulls game Sunday night. it was Ella’s first baseball game. She’s been to high school and college basketball games before. She loved baseball, as far as we could tell.
June 2, 2007
I realize it’s been two months since I updated this, and if anyone ever looked at the page in the first place, and wanted to return to read it, they’ve probably given up hope that I would consistently update its comments.
Anyway.
Last fall we bought a $50 membership to the North Carolina Zoo. It’s been the best money we’ve ever spent. Ella loves going. It’s about 45 minutes from our house, so there’s even time for a nap to or fro. It’s not like the zoos I knew as a kid. In Houston the zoo was free, and it seemed massive. But really the animals were in fairly small enclosures. In the East Texas zoo, the biggest attraction was the hippo, which had a barn and a big cement hole no much bigger than itself.
The zoo here is reaching for the wildlife park atmosphere. I’m sure the lions wish they could run down a zebra every now and then, and the wolf definitely seems like he wants to prowl, but the zoo has rescued polar bears from a Mexico circus and they’ve almost completed 100+ acres for the elephants, rhinos and gazelle.
When we went to the zoo last week we saw the sea lions being fed and the polar bears swimming around. The lion couple with their young triplet cubs were sunning themselves and peeked up at us a couple of times. There was a huge tortoise visiting from Australia.
Ella’s favorite attraction continues to be snakes.
