A little Wine with Dinner

Eating with a European (Patrick) means getting a little sweet wine before dinner.

Looking for Rain

Olivia likes to play pretend that there is a storm or rain outside, even though we're bone dry here in the summer. Here she wishfully sticks her hand out to feel the rain drops.

Weird Child Ritual on the Beach

I'm not sure what was going on, but all the kids spontaneously started to do this.

Peter and the Wolf

Obsession The latest craze in Olivia's life is listening to the Leonard Bernstein narration of Peter & the Wolf. She L-O-V-E-S it and puts everyone who walks into our house through the exercise of listening to it, complete with telling us what animal's theme is currently being played, and phrases she particularly likes from the story. While attending an open house at a nearby music school, I showed Livvy a flute and said "This is the instrument that makes the music for the Bird." Fortuitously, a nearby teacher picked up the flute and played the Bird theme. Livvy and I were both impressed, and I was thrilled that she got a chance to *see* the music being played, if only for a moment. Existential Angst, or the Lack Thereof I worried at first that the tale was too scary - what with the Duck being devoured by the Wolf - but she seems to have taken it in stride. "Why did the Wolf eat the Duck, Momma?" "Because the Wolf was hungry, and wolves eat ducks." In response, she nods her head and proceeds to tell me that the Wolf is still hungry, and wants to eat the Cat and the Bird, too. Perhaps at some later date we will deal with psychic scarring, but for now Liv is too young to understand that the Duck being eaten up = the duck is dead... and we feel somewhat sad about it. The music implies that the Duck's ingestion is sad: "Momma, is this the sad part?" "Yes, the Bird misses his friend." It will be interesting to see how her enjoyment of the story changes with age. Too Scary! Last month Olivia plagued us with requests to SEE Peter and the Wolf. "I want to SEE it!" So we rented the Disney DVD of "Make Mine Music," a Fantasia-esque medley of animated shorts, Peter & the Wolf among them. I found their version of the Wolf darned scary, but he didn't faze Liv (and the duck doesn't get eaten in the Disney version). The short immediately following is the tale of two hats who fall in love, set to a tune by the Andrews Sisters. Satisfied that Olivia had survived her viewing of P&tW unscathed, and certain that a song about a couple of hats wouldn't be frightening, I left the room. Only a few minutes later, though, Livvy started yelling "TOO SCARY! TOO SCARY!" so I dashed back in. Those darned hats! So much scarier than big wolves with snarling teeth. (Yeah, yeah, in the Hat Tale there is gunfire and violence, but how the heck could I have known that??)

Chasing Kites on the Beach

The final activity of the day was to run on the bach, chasing akite. We also dug holes in the sand and looked for shells.
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Hot Tubbin'

So livvy had her first hot tub experience. Our hosts had ingeniously lowered the temeprature on this hot tub the night before our arrival. Livvy spent HOURS in the water, eating watermelon,. getting out, getting back in, walking around, turning the jets on, turning them off, splashing, talking about the deep hole in the middle and all around having a great time.