Summer Camp

This year Madeline participated in a Musical Theater Summer Camp at her music school. It was a big time commitment (it started 4 days after school got out and went from 10 am-4:30 PM Mon-Thurs) so this has not exactly been a "relaxing summer" as we have traveled to Lincoln Center twice a day (sometimes more). This week it all comes to an end. She has three performances, the first of which we attended last night. I was so impressed with the whole (3 hr!) production, of course I am a mom that is easily impressed with things my kids do :). Maddy was a Cat (the orange one) in the musical. I attached a small clip if you want to see a little snippet of the night. Marc is going to go to tonight's performance, and will take the actual camcorder with him, so maybe I will change this clip out for something with better resolution.

Ella

This cute little redhead will be leaving us soon. She is off to Houston with her parents for new adventures. Ella has been a part of Owen's life for pretty much his entire NYC experience, so it will be a very sad goodbye. She must rank high on his list of people because Owen can only currently verbalize three names. She is on the short list: Momma, Daddy, El-la.
My girls will miss her too. Eva has decided that we should either have Ella in our family, or that she should be adopted into Ella's- and she leans toward the latter choice most days. Madeline loves to "take care of" Ella, who is a willing participant to all of her make-believe ideas. Tonight Ella was Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, a Butterfly, and Prince Charming courtesy of our dress up box, and our imaginative 6-year-old.
I will miss Rachel- our many long talks, Costco runs, zoo trips, park visits, and NYC explorations. She is a big part of why I love this city so much. I am hoping I can see through the crowded subways, dirty streets, and occasional unfriendly city folk when she is gone. Marc and I will miss Matt, and the humor and fun he brings to our group outings (Marc will miss your sympathetic ear :)

We will miss the Theurers!

Houston is one lucky city.

Bird Watcher

Owen loves animals. Noteably pigeons, dogs, and squirrels- the only animals we really see here in Manhattan. Every single time we head to the park, the moment he is released from stroller bondage he is off to hunt pigeons. Luckily, here in NYC we have plenty of pigeons to provide him with hours of entertainment. Pigeons are extra fun because they don't fly away when they see Owen coming, like most birds do. Pigeons love to run first. They will run, and run, and run, and run until the last minute- when Owen is almost certain he has one for a pet- and then they decide to fly. But not too far. They fly just far enough for him to think there still might be a chance. So the chase persists. For most of the afternoon.

The Talker

Owen is not an early bloomer speech-wise. He has, up to this point, communicated with a lot of pointing, grunts and temper tantrums to get his point across. Now that he is 22-months-old, I am happy to say things are changing.

It has been so refreshing to hear some real words come out of his mouth lately, even if they are slightly garbled and miss-pronounced. Some of my favorites:

Turtle- "too-tle"
Snack- "nack!"
Fish- "ish"
Bird- "ird"
Banana- "naz"
Cow- "mooo..."
Horse- "mooo"....yes, we are still working on this one
Yellow- "ello"
Circle- "gircle"
Triangle- "tree-angle"
Dog- "og! roof!"
Flower- "lowers"

He has a few words that he has mastered perfectly: mom, dad, hi, bye, Ella, mine, up, all-done, ball, teeth, eye, nose, NO, baby, and cheese. It is fun to watch him try to say new words every day, and try to put words together. The other night Marc was delighted to hear Owen yell wildly at his arrival home from work, "Hi, Dad, hi!!" Usually, it is just a "Hi!" or a "Dadddyyyyy!" So this word combination was something to get excited about.

Toothless Wonder

I knew my kids would have funky teeth. It is just a given. I had braces for 6 years. And headgear. It was awesome. But, truly- I was not expecting this surprise. The other day we realized that Maddy was growing her "adult tooth" in front of her baby tooth. Fun, huh? So we called the dentist, scheduled an appointment, and watched the new tooth grow in a little more before the big day came.

She was a little antsy on the day of the extraction, but I knew she would be a trooper. This is, after all, my child that does not cry during immunizations. She managed to handle the extraction just fine. No tears, no whining.....no nitrous oxide either. She didn't even want me in the room- which was really for the better I think :).

Now she has a big gaping hole where the old tooth once was. I am hoping it just goes away eventually, even with no tooth to fill it in. It will be interesting to see what kind of other dental surprises are in store for us down the road....at least for now we can celebrate being cavity-free!!

Butterfly Release

I had been hearing almost every day about butterflies that Madeline was raising in her classroom. Every day when she would get home, I would get the daily butterfly update. Her classroom followed these critters from caterpillar, to chrysalis, to official Painted Lady Butterfly. On an afternoon before school let out they decided it was time to set these butterflies free.

Parents were invited to watch the students say their last goodbyes. Madeline let me know several times that she would like to find one of the butterflies after it was released, and take it home as a pet. This year they decided to release the butterflies near the water of the East River. Last year they released them in the school yard, and a flock of pigeons managed to swoop down and gobble them all up in front of the children. Not exactly a science lesson kindergarten children can handle :).

This year, no birds were in sight, and the butterflies successfully flew off into the world on their own.

Here is a butterfly we found hanging out on a rock nearby. Maddy was sure that this was "her" butterfly, and that we needed to bring her home with us. Luckily, I was able to convince her otherwise.

Mary Poppins

Grandma Chenn and Marc's brother Andrew were in town this past week, and we decided to check out our first Broadway show as an entire family. We have not been brave enough to bring Owen in the past- so now that he is so old and mature (21 months), we decided to give it a go.
We chose Mary Poppins, and had a great time. The production did not begin until 8:00 pm, so I spent an entire week slowly getting everyone's bedtime pushed back so they could handle being up until the curtain fell at 10:45 pm. Owen did surprisingly well- with the exception of the one time Marc had to take him out in the hall to let him run off some energy in the second half.
This production was a lot of fun for the girls to watch, "step in time" was our favorite scene- the girls loved the man who danced on the ceiling. They also loved watching Mary Poppins "fly" above the audience.
I did have a beef with one part of the production. I wasn't too keen on the naked sculptures in the park that suddenly come to life (obviously not in the original Disney movie:). My girls (or any child for that matter) don't need to see a man dancing around with just a fig-leaf for covering. Okay, so he had a skin-tight leotard on too- that left nothing to the imagination.
I will say, with every Disney Broadway production I have seen- there has been something absolutely unnecessary included. Why?? Am I a prude?
Anyway, overall, a good experience. The kids loved it, and Owen fell asleep within seconds of hitting his stroller. The girls fell asleep shortly thereafter in the subway car home- and were delighted to have Grandma Chenn along for the ride to snuggle up to.