Liam's smile

In our earlier boat trip (the trips go different places, by the way, so we are not just repeating the same journey), Liam hid from the camera. It was nice to see him sit tall and smile this time.

This is the final picture from our wonderful Florida trip. The boys are excellent on plane and in the hotel and were great to be with. Liam was very disappointed that snow storms in the Midwest or Pacific Northwest failed to keep us in Florida an extra 2 weeks--and he hopes to go there for 3 weeks next year.

More captains

The boys love the Indian River Lagoon and the Sebastian River Inlet. Here is Crispin on another boat trip, feeling very confident and experienced at the helm.

Back when Liam was 2, Uncle Doug rented a boat on Chincoteague, and the boat broke down. I can't quite remember how we made it back to land--I think a tow boat. I have been relieved to have no major boating hardships in Sebastian--the boys and I even rented a boat for a couple hours; no pictures because I was busy driving and trying to stay out of the wakes of crazy boaters (as my rental trainer told me, in Florida you need only money--not sense--to rent a boat).

Liam the journalist

Liam was extremely excited to capture the space shuttle on the camera he purchased. He showed great pluck as well--and was not disappointed when clouds prevented our getting a good view.

Space Shuttle Crispin

On the day after the zoo, we took Grandpop on errands, took a boat trip, and drove to the Ocean Grill in Vero Beach to have dinner and watch the final space shuttle launch. After a week of blue skies, alas, clouds interrupted our view. The anticipation was great, nonetheless, worthy of a Samuel Beckett play.

Crispin took the waiting and not knowing if we had missed the launch or not in his own idiom by climbing up and down a fence. Grandpop was worried a snake was hiding in the tall grasses. Crispin was less worried; with Valentine's money from his Grandmom, he had bought a pretend snake at the zoo. On the day before, Wednesday, Grandpop took us to the golf club for dinner--it was wonderfully sentimental. The service was terrible, and Grandpop wondered why we had come and kept commenting upon it. I remembered many visits in years past when Grandma Edna also complained about the service. When we dropped Grandpop off from that Wednesday dinner, I thought Crispin had dropped his toy snake outside Pelican Gardens. It turned out to be a real snake.

Rhino Encounter

We participated in a new tour that let us get close to the rhinos as they were being fed. All of us got to pet the Rhinos (careful instructions were given to make sure we were away from the horns and that our hands and arms were never between a 4000 pound animal and a post), and Liam enjoyed brushing one of the rhinos.

No birds landing on his head

When Crispin was 14 months, we visited the Brevard Zoo with his Aunt Chris. I remember going into the feed the Australian bird exhibit with Crispin in the ergo baby carrier, and a bird landed on his head, causing a great deal of tears and consternation on Crispin's part.

On this most recent visit, neither son seemed on the path toward a Hitchcockian terror of swarming birds. Crispin enjoyed feeding the birds (though he preferred when they didn't land on his arm), and Liam enjoyed taking pictures and feeding the birds. Also of note--some years the birds have seemed too hungry and too aggressive; other years and at other zoos, one stands around with the nectar and seeds along with too many other humans, and the birds are satiated and could care less. On this visit, just as the giraffe seemed Nicolas-friendly and hungry, the birds were not too aggressive but were prompt in enjoying the food we provided.

Liam paddling

A common theme of our transportation rentals is that Crispin sits up front (no bell to ring on the boat), and Liam is just getting tall and old enough to help a little bit with peddling.

Crispin in a paddle boat

Crispin waits with zeal for a return visit to Brevard Zoo when he is 5 and old enough to go kayaking through the Africa exhibit (I assume you are not in harm's way during the tour). The zoo has added a paddle-boat feature that Crispin enjoyed as a substitute. We saw no animals but had a peaceful time.

Crispin and the Giraffe

Liam has been to the Brevard zoo just about once a year for 7 years. He looks forward to his returbn visits. Crispin, too.

From about 5 years ago, there is a picture of Liam feeding and petting a giraffe at the zoo. I feel pretty certain that in recent years, there have either been too many other tourists with wafers to feed the giraffe, or the giraffes have been away from the feeding station. On Wednesday we went to the Brevard zoo and went to the giraffes first thing. A giraffe that reminded me a lot of Nicolas the dog (thankfully not of Hershey--bless her--but I don't want a giraffe bonking me on the nose) was taking wafers, few other humans were present, and Crispin and I had a lot of time feeding and petting the giraffe.

Air Hockey

The boys are safely home on Whidbey, and I am waiting to ride the ferry to Buca di Beppo. It is unusually cold here for us (21F last night as I drove the boys home in the wee hours of the morning), and it is snowing. Very pretty, but also a bit of a shock to the system after an unusually and pleasantly warm week in Florida in the 80s. We never once used the pants or long sleeve shirts we packed.

I began to need my sleep to keep up with all the fun during the day, so I fell a bit behind with blogging. Here is a picture of Liam from Tuesday late afternoon. After taking Grandpop to do his taxes, we found found we had 3 hours to spend while he took a rest before dinner at Hiram's. I had found a miniature golf place on-line, and it was beyond my expectations.

It was in Vero Beach--you would have never found it if without digital assistance--and seemed to hail from 30 or 40 years ago. The prices were cheap, and if you played 2 rounds of golf (cheaper than 1 around here) you got to play in the game room for free--which had old school games like air hockey, ping pong, billiards, and basketball pop-a-shot (with free tokens there to put in). The course lacked some of the fancy wizardry of other mini golf courses (moving parts and the like), but with the landscaping, water gardens, and the like, the boys found the place the fanciest of any miniature golf courses they have been to.

They played a number of games of free air hockey. Crispin kept asking to go back.

White Pelicans

When our tour was over, we received the best view of white pelicans as we walked off the pier. A local worker was cleaning fish for a couple that had brought in their haul--and was throwing scraps to white and brown pelicans waiting below. Another fisherman came by and let Liam and Crispin take little bait fish from his bag (not that little--bigger than a sardine) and throw them to the pelicans.

After dinner at Hiram's, we finished Crispin's book The Mouse and The Motorcycle (which I loved reading 33 years ago but found I retained none of the plot these 3 plus decades later) and moved along in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (our second time through the series).

Don't take my picture

Here is Liam at the helm, after he tried to hide to prevent me taking his picture. He was pleasant during the trip and had a fine time taking pictures of dolphins with his own camera.

Need Sunglasses this time, please

Perhaps I had too much fun dissing Disney yesterday--I'm sure they run a good show. My individual point--in my particular moment of American Nervousness (that's a literary reference for you Fitzgerald fans)--is that should I take Liam and Crispin to a big Orlando attraction once on a visit to Great Grandpop, that would become their focus for all future visits, making it hard for them to enjoy the simple pleasure of dining out with Grandpop.

After a nice lunch with Grandpop--at which both boys were gentleman (Crispin keeping Grandpop company while Liam and I found a parking spot; Liam lending his arm to Grandpop to help him up)--we played nerf football in the pool and then took (the perhaps first) of our customary trips on the River Queen boat tours outside Captain Hiram's--this time to Pelican Island. Here is Crispin at the helm--you can find a similar picture from a year ago without so much sun.

This was our first time taking the boat to Pelican Island, and we learned that the pelicans Teddy Roosevelt protected with the first wildlife reserve were not the common brown pelicans we see throught Florida (or the ones in California that ate Crispin's lunch one day--Liam and I distracted him, and he still is unaware of that tragedy), but white pelicans from North Dakota (where Roosevelt's family hailed from) who winter down here. These birds have a 10 foot wingspan. Should you visit and take this tour at Christmas, you can see about 3000 birds settle down at sunset (Roosevelt would have seen 30000). We saw about 150.

The boys and I were pretty keen dolphin spotters, as well.

Liam and football

While this picture might suggest Liam was passive while Crispin was active in the splash pad park, do not be deceived. Liam was having so much fun experimenting with water (there were plenty of moments when I bit my tongue to avoid explaining about water pressure--a stronghold of Waldorf pedagogy is to allow children to have the scientific experiences when they are young and then to derive the scientific explanations themselves when they are older) that I could never get him still enough to take a picture except when he was taking a break to towel off.

After this, we had a grand time in the Captain Hiram's pool tossing around a cheap Publix nerf football. I was in the deeper water, Crispin on the stairs, Liam very confident and comfortable in the shallow water. They'd throw me hard ones, and I'd jump and dive and go under trying to catch it. The boys would giggle with delight and do their best to catch my return throws. Again, I write this neither in delight nor anguish--this is a change and evolution from when time in the pool with one adult meant one child was always dissatisfied, waiting for me to take him out in the water while the other waited at the safety (perceived by them, not me) of the highest step.

The boys and I had dinner at Captain Hiram's (Great Grandpop is not up to two meetings a day in general). Hiram's now has a lobster tank and game in front. Some of you might know the game where you direct a claw to attempt to pluck a stuffed animal out of a bin of stuffed toys--I think one person in Arkansas once won this game. Now Hiram's has a game where--for higher stakes--you try to pluck a lobster out of the tank with similar claws. If you succeed, you get that lobster for dinner for free. Barbarous, I know, but when in Sebastian. . . Well, we got no free lobster dinner, and Hiram's gets a bit better at separating parents from their money (please don't kick me out until the end of this week!).

Blessings of Stuff

We first came to this splash pad park in Sebastian before Liam could walk. I remember when Grandpop described it to me, I was suspicious--so untrusting of the unfamiliar was I. I assumed it would be some over the top production, I guess, rather than a practical and relatively safe way to allow young children to play with water without fear of drowning--what big city fountains perhaps allowed years ago on hot summer days or what children found in other areas when they broke open the fire hydrant. As a toddler, Liam loved it, and he has looked forward to it ever since. Crispin was hesitant to go today (he wanted to go to the pool and had perhaps forgotten what the splash pad was all about), but he was enraptured once he was there.

It was so nice that another child came with so many buckets that she could care less if Crispin came to pick one or two up and play with them--very gracious.

As return and return to Florida, and especially since we fly into Orlando--the home of Mickey and all his competitors--I sometimes worry how long these lovely but less supersensational attractions will please the boys (and Liam is growing older; I remember the experience as a boy of looking forward to returning to something only to one year find I was suddenly too old for it. I remember wanting to sign up for baseball camp and never did--not through my parent's refusal--until I was too old to really enjoy it; all my friends had moved on). There is also this unwritten rule that we must at least consider redoing all events we have previously done on a visit (unlike an adult, children like rhythm and repetition), so even if we spent the week going to Disneyworld, Sea World, and Somebody Studios, Liam would feel the loss of not going to the Splash Pad or local zoo (I consider taking them to Sea World, but even that will then become something to do or feel disappointed for not doing on a return visit; nice as it was when I visited as a young adult).

When you fly to Florida with young children, your children will be asked if they are going to Disneyworld. Sometimes there almost seems to be disappointment from the well-intended but insidious adult if they are not (I don't mean to criticize my own parents hear; they brought me to Disneyworld when I was a few years older than Liam; I loved it. It is also true that one part I loved was the independence they gave me, but years later I learned that what I thought was a granted right for me to take a bus and explore by myself was remembered as me running away by myself and them desperately searching for me. I returned to Disneyworld as a cutting edge English major and could not put out of mind how patriarchal it seemed--that was where I was then. Around the same time, however, I was able to go to Universal Studios with my sister and be conned into pretending to be Norman Bates only to be tricked into wearing Granny's apron in front of a large crowd while another, more authentic Norman Bates simulacrum stabbed me--showing you that my literary criticism of Disneyworld was perhaps not to be trusted. Since then, of course, Disney and others have, of course, become ever more proficient at separating parents from their money while leaving the children happy but unsatisfied, ever seeking more, much like the White Witch in Narnia who gives Edmund the Turkish Delight that always leaves you wanting more). That all being said (in parenthesis, of course), there was a reprieve for me this time. As I was boarding the plane from Chicago to Orlando, I heard one flight attendant tell another, "I was talking to a dad coming back with his children from DIsneyworld. He was saying that he would rather have his head slammed in a car door repeatedly than go back to Disneyworld another day." (Now before you protest that you, too, went to Disney, remember that clever Ivy league graduates have probably helped Disney become even better at separating money from parents and leaving children feeling unsatisfied and wishing they had more [and perhaps more clever Ivy League graduates will shut down this blog because I've had the audacity to criticize Disney--so read it while you can]). While I wouldn't want any dad to have his head slammed in a car door repeatedly, it did make me feel a bit better about planning a trip mainly of pools, splash pads, the local zoo, meals with Grandpop, and trips to the same Publix grocery store I have gone to for probably 20 years.

Photojournalism, drawing, airplanes

Liam purchased a camera with his own money to take pictures on this trip. He has hopes of sending Grandpop a bound book in memory of our visit (his Aunt Colleen and Grandparents K and Bob do the same). While Kelly and I were worried he might register rather than do (though Garrison Keillor might commend suffering and witnessing rather than doing to become a future English major and radio show host), Liam shows an impressive ability to use his camera only for brief moments--thus far.

Here is Liam trying to take a picture of Grandpop and Crispin as Grandpop rolls away from him.

Liam had a fine time drawing pictures for Grandpop. Crispin and I had a catch for a while, but when Crispin began to act as if he had ants in his pants, I made paper airplanes for him. I produced my smart phone to look up better directions for better flying paper airplanes (Liam--bless him--experimented and came up with his own crazy designs) and perhaps gave Grandpop a good shake his head experience. He offered to let me use his phone, but when I explained I was only use the computer aspects of my phone to look up origami patterns, he probably wished that we were talking about the lack of a Germany or even a central government during the time of Bach. It is hard to imagine shipping over to Africa and Italy in the 1940s in the War to End All Wars to think that your efforts to save the world would make it possible to look up paper airplane directions on a phone.

Pelican Gardens

Pardon the sun. All the same, the whitewash in the back captures the bright Florida sun.

3 years ago Crispin was learning to walk when he visited Pelican Gardens--giggling, chatting, falling, standing, laughing. Now he is older and more aware--and a bit more intimidated by all the attention from Great Grandpop's neighbors; he was eager to get to the courtyard.

In my last post, I wrote of how familiar Sebastian and its haunts have become--and these familiarities become ways to measure how life evolves for the boys and me. Crispin and Liam definitely grow older (I write this neither in celebration nor in anguish). When we dined with Grandpop at Pelican Gardens today, after Liam had consumed a great deal of cauliflower, and after Crispin had consumed a small amount of pretzels we had brought along (he still seems to be recovering), and after both boys surprised Grandpop by refusing dessert, I gave them the option to go out to the courtyard and play and wait for us--which they gladly took. Grandpop and I could talk of history, WW2, Campbell's stew, how young Germany is, and the boys were really happy outside. While I wouldn't quite send Crispin off by himself, Liam has proved to be quite trustworthy of late, and Crispin stays with him. In Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt describes how his impoverished and depressed mother sent him at age 3 to watch over his 2 year old brother--and a year or so later to watch over both brother Malachi and their infant twins--for hours at a time at a park in Brooklyn. Times have certainly changed (and a life in poverty in Brooklyn is not necessarily a good baseline to start with), but Liam's steadfastness does seem to merit at least consideration of what privacies and responsibilities he is entitled to.

Sebastian Revisited

I perhaps wrote this ten months ago, but it is striking to realize that I've been visiting Sebastian for more than half my life--and it has been perhaps the most visited place for my sons for their whole life. O, the strength of rhythm and routine and repetition! (sorry, a Wilfred Owen moment there brought an exclamation point into the prose).

Here are Liam and Crispin on a wooden boat climbing structure at a playground Liam has visited since he was a little less than 2. When Kelly, Liam, and I would stay with Great Grandpop and Great Grandma Edna, the grandparents would sleep in while Liam had us up at 6 (if that long). To avoid a hubbub, we started going to the playground pictured here every morning before the grandparents woke up. Liam was not yet walking, yet he enjoyed crawling and climbing the various structures. Mom and Dad did a lot of loving work to follow and spot him.

Over the years, Liam was walking and still needed to be spotted--then Crispin needed a spotter (there were some big drops on the play structures). Now there was less need for spotting, but Crispin bumped his head because he was taller than he expected--or the height of a crawl space in the pretend castle became lower.

Cinderella

Last Friday night we watched Prokofieiv's Cinderella at the Pacific Northwest Ballet. The boys adored the production and were ready to go back the next day.

Windy City Again

After some illness earlier the week, Crispin, Liam, and I all recovered to take our redeye flight from Seattle to Chicago last night. We are on the ground in Chicago, will hopefully walk through the underground tunnel in O'Hare, procure breakfast, and then fly on to Orlando--en route to Sebastian and Great Grandpop Walt.

Article given be by Mia Michael

http://www.google.com/m/url?client=ms-android-verizon&ei=tttQTYC7FpDSqQO8_uj2AQ&gl=us&hl=en&q=http://www.canadianwritersgroup.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Enchanted-Stories.pdf&source=android-browser-type&ved=0CBgQFjAC&usg=AFQjCNEY7eg9YIsnRewDocrzoMggTNNIWg

Dear Friends and Family,

The above long and crazy link is for an article given to me in the antiquated form called paper. The gift was bestowed by Mia Michael, the wise kindergarten teacher I worked with in my first year in Monterey in 2001. After not seeing each other for almost seven years, I gave Mia a gift of music, and she gave me a gift of wisdom.

It struck a chord because of the joy Liam receives from reading the Narnia series--we are currently rereading the series beginning at book 1--and the intense interest Crispin shows in the plots of ballet stories such as Swan Lake, Cinderella, and Daphnis and Chloe. Both boys look forward to the bedtime Grimms' Fairy Tale I tell them by candlelight; now that they are getting older, I don't have to dance around some of the stronger mythic images in the tales (in the German Cinderella, the stepmother gives the two stepsisters a knife to cut off a toe and heel, respectively, to fit in the slipper--only to by ratted on by two pigeons in the magic hazel tree planted over the grave of Cinderella's mother. This part is not in Prokofiev's ballet, by the by). I have started going through the Pantheon collection of Grimms' tales and telling each story in order (unless the story is too violent or too weird) to the boys--when they are about 12 and 8 I may be done.

Liam plans to compose ballets for many of the stories he hears and books he reads. In just about every book Crispin hears read to him, he tells me which character he will be when the plot is acted out.