2009 - The Northern Baby Year in Review

As the year 2009 comes to a close, and everyone from newspapers to radio to bloggers is recapping the year (and the decade), the Northern Baby clan decided to look back through their 2009 photographs. We found that '09 was chock-full of events and fun places. Here's some of what we found:

Northern Baby started the year with winter. Sorry; that should be Winter with a capital 'W' - living in the North Country lets us enjoy the complete snow/darkness/freeze-your-toes-off experience of Winter. NorthernMommy marked the season by participating in the Penguin Plunge. (You know, where they cut through two feet of ice so that a large group of insane people can jump into Lake Champlain....) NorthernDaddy and Northern Baby declined to join in on that particular nut-fest, but during the rest of the season we went with NorthernMommy as she went sledding and snowshoeing. At the end of the season, as it warmed slightly (you know, those days that it's +28 degrees, and you realize that you don't need a jacket anymore!), we savored maple syrup season. This year we visited two sugar houses - Audubon in Huntington and the Francis family sugarhouse. The latter is owned by a co-worker of NorthernMommy, and was a real treat to visit. It's on the smaller side of sugarhouses; one that works a moderately-sized sugarbush to produce just enough syrup for family and friends. Visiting any sugar house is a rewarding experience, but the smaller ones usually have less people at them at any one time, so you can have a deeper conversation with the owners than at the large houses. (Just be prepared to help shuttle lots of firewood if they're using a wood-fired arch!)

Northern Baby's first birthday came around this year - he turned one, if you missed it at the beginning of the sentence! NorthernDaddy made a big, yellow, rubber-duckie birthday cake for the occasion - and Northern Baby didn't eat one bite of it! Another first for our little toddler came along in the spring: his first haircut. It was a Pretty Big Deal for NorthernMommy and NorthernDaddy - Mommy was slightly worried about scissors near the baby, but more anxious to have a son who didn't look like Cousin Itt. Daddy was very impressed and preoccupied with the really cool pedal cars that had been converted to salon chairs (why can't we have those in adult hair salons?!). Baby? Well, baby sat patiently through the whole thing like it was no big deal.

Okay folks, I just took another look at the long list of notes that detail all of 2009's happenings, and at this pace, it'll be well into 2010 before I finish typing. (and I hear ominous rumbling/slamming drawer sounds from Levi's room...) So we're going to speed it up a little bit.

Number of museums visited with Northern Baby/Toddler this year: 12. Does that seem a little excessive to you? Here's the official list: Echo Center, Fleming Museum, Montshire Museum (extremely cool!), Baltimore Aquarium, New England Aquarium, Shelburne Farms, Montgomery Zoo, Shelburne Museum (Full Throttle exhibit!!), Marsh-Billings, Discovery Museum and Rokeby Museum. Echo, Shelburne Farm, and Shelburne Museum were each visited multiple times, so Little Man has spent some serious time around historical/ informational displays this year....and with all of the farm museums we've visited, we've also seen entirely too many cows, sheep, and tractors. (Correction - you can never see too many tractors! - but we have been in the presence of far too many "moos" and "baas"!)

In the warmer months, we spent a lot of time in the garden here at home this year. There was also camping, bicycling, kayaking, and exploring - we saw moose, snakes, bunny rabbits, frogs, and more. We went swimming - there was swimming in ponds, swimming in lakes, and swimming lessons in a pool. We attended three Lake Monster baseball games. We went to Big Truck Day and Kids Day. There were Concerts in the Park, Farmers' Markets, tractor parades, and the Champlain Valley Fair. Northern Baby made two trips to Virginia to see grandparents, and one really long trip to Alabama to meet his great-grandpa and great-grandmother. The Northern clan attended many festivals, including the Dragon Boat Festival, the International Festival at UVM, a Strawberry Festival, and the Street Rod Nationals. (Whew! - lemme take a deep breath!...) We celebrated the wedding of Aunt Rosie and Uncle Mark - up at their lake house and complete with one very suave toddler's dancing. He was working on getting a cute little three-year-old girl's phone number until he finally understood what we were trying to tell him: "Dude, that's you're cousin!" We spent a LOT of time hanging out with friends from Playgroup. Managed a trip to Storyland amusement park. Northern Baby finally got his big break and started helping Daddy in the kitchen with food prep. Am I at the end of the list yet? Nope. At Halloween, Levi picked out a puppy-dog costume and went on his first-ever Trick-or-Treat adventure. Levi likes candy. Mommy and Daddy don't like Levi after he eats candy. Christmas time brought the Quest for Cutting our Own Tree. I'm sure that I'm missing a whole lot of events and activities....

On the developmental front, Northern Baby transitioned from baby to toddler (and made us realize that the title of our blog was not completely thought through!). During 2009, he has expanded his vocabulary (every day now, he amazes me with new words or complete and mostly accurate answers to questions), continued to be his same ol' even-tempered, good humored self, and started taking great delight in helping Mommy and Daddy with tasks around the house (but he's not quite ready to hold the flashlight for Daddy - I've got the bruises to prove it!). Levi has amazed us this year by learning to put himself into "Time Out". If we tell him it's Time Out, he walks straight over to the designated corner, sits down, waits a moment, and then busts out wailing like we've just shot his puppy. If only that would last until he's 18! He's climbing on everything possible, and loves to rough-house. Throwing things is another hobby of his - balls, toys, sometimes food, anything. (That's how he learned about Time Out!)

Allrighty - I'm darn tired of typing right now, so I'm going to upload some of my favorite pictures of NorthernBaby this year and post this thing for y'all to read. We anticipate that 2010 will be full of further NorthernBaby adventures, and look forward to sharing them with you.

Cut Your Own....

A few weeks ago, the Northern Clan returned from visiting family for a wonderful Thanksgiving and immediately set their sights on ushering in the Christmas season. What's the first thing that one needs to do in order to create a Christmas vibe in the home? Of course - put up a Christmas tree!

An (gasp!) artificial tree was prohibited (in fact, Northern Daddy almost lost his life a few years ago for even suggesting the purchase of a "fake" tree). Not much better was the idea of finding a nice pre-cut tree from a parking lot vendor. According to Northern Mommy, a magnificent specimen of a Christmas tree that was locally sourced, organically-grown, and carefully cut down by our own family would be the only type of tree allowed through our door. (I had slightly lower standards: green would be a good color....)

We set off towards White's Tree Farm - a Christmas Tree Farm a few miles down the road - in search of our tree. ( Actually, I think the whole thing was rigged: we travel past this tree farm several times a week, and NorthernMommy is always scoping out the trees as we pass by. I'm pretty sure that she already had our tree picked out back in July, and was just waiting until it was time to pick it up!)

We arrived about an hour before closing - which was also about an hour after the sun went down. We almost backed down at the challenge of selecting a tree in the dark, but decided to make it an adventure and grabbed our flashlight and a saw and headed into the night.

As you can see from the photo below, after stumbling over stumps and eyeballing a few dozen trees (ever realize that all of the trees look alike? - just pick the first one you find!), we located our winner. Levi thought we were going to take home the little tree he's standing beside; we had to explain that we needed to leave the little ones to grow up bigger, and that we were taking home the giant standing behind him. We (meaning NorthernDaddy) put the saw to our tree, and before long, it was in place on our sled for the drag back to the car. Levi insisted on providing an honor guard for our procession - he marched solemnly along one arm's length to the rear of the sled. On the way, we hit a bump, throwing the tree off the sled to the side of the path. Levi showed an extreme amount of concern (jumping in place and shouting, "Oh No!" over and over again) until the tree was returned to its place on the sled.

After the tree was safely transported home (and we fought with the tree stand for a few hours - unsuccessfully - we ended up with a new stand the next day), the decorating could begin! Now that NorthernToddler is almost two, he has been promoted to Assistant Christmas Tree Light Installer.

After the lights were on the tree and approved by the Decorating Committee, the tough work of placing ornaments was at hand. Good thing that we have a hard-working elf to help with the job! (Yes, he climbed that ladder by himself, and no, he didn't successfully put even one ornament on a tree branch by himself!)

Lights on, ornaments hung; our tree is complete! Time to start the caroling, the parties, the shopping (ugh!), the cookies, and enjoying warm holiday spirits from those around us! Merry Christmas!

Whales' Tails

It's been too long since we've updated, and someone in the family is getting twitchy because of it...you can be sure that NorthernToddler and NorthernDaddy aren't the ones - we're too busy arguing over who gets the Goldfish crackers. (As a side note, I would like to point out that my mother never gave me Goldfish crackers as a childhood snack - I was THIRTY-THREE years old before I had my first Goldfish cracker. Can you believe that?! Now, I snarf them all the time, which is why Levi and I fight over who gets to hand out the snacks: he thinks that I short-change him in the snack department. I am of the opinion that I'm way bigger than him, so I should get a way bigger serving of Scooby Snacks.)

Okay, back to the update: for those of you that have driven the Interstate into the Burlington area, you know about the Whales' Tails. For those who don't know, if you're traveling north on I-89 near Williston, there suddenly appear two large whale tails. Just sticking outta the dirt on the side of the road. (Some crazy Northerner stuck 'em there....or some stoners....or maybe they're fossils!) We've passed them many times over the past few years - we finally made our way to the park that surrounds the area to get a whale close-up. (The real story on the tails and why they are on the side of the road? They were originally created out of black marble or granite or something to be placed in front of a hotel/conference center in Randolph, VT. The project fell through, and due to some cosmic weirdness, the tails ended up on the side of I-89. [There did used to be whales in Champlain, and whale fossils were discovered in Charlotte, so I guess there's a connection to whales swimming in dirt...]) We finally made the trip to see them real close, and they are impressive. Below, NorthernToddler poses to provide scale. The real reason that we stopped to see the tails is the weird field of weird things nearby. From the highway, it appears to be a wind-energy farm (with really tiny turbines!). From close up, it appears to be another stoner project: there are hundreds of poles with propellor beanies on top in a field. It might be a wind-energy generating project, but there are no wires from the windmills to the tubes... no idea what they are. On the way back to the car, we stumbled across a tiny little sign that explained the alien field: it's an art installation to inspire the watching of the wind, or light, or some such thing. The spinny-thingies turn in the wind and drive tiny generators at the top of the tube which power LEDs that light up the tubes. It was daylight when we were there, so we didn't see the display, but the sunset made the tubes look pretty cool. Look below, and imagine standing amidst hundreds of these eight-foot-tall poles. Kinda freaky/cool!

Levi hams it up near one of the alien light sticks.

Woof, Woof!

NorthernToddler picked out a puppy dog costume for this year. His mom and dad attempted to talk him into being something else, but our little man was quite insistent on the puppy outfit. After seeing him with the costume on, we think he made an excellent choice. Little man makes a good puppy. It didn't take long for him to learn the traits necessary to play his role: running around excitedly, drinking from toilets, and lifting his leg on fire hydrants. Okay, just kidding; he learned to say, "Woof, Woof" very quickly.

Levi's very first trick-or-treat stop. Ever. In his entire (short) life. NorthernMommy made sure that he was thoroughly prepared for the job by rehearsing his lines (twickorteet), and we headed out to bag some candy from the biggest sucker in the entire North Country - grandpa!

At first, Levi didn't really get what was going on....but as we headed to the other houses on the street and complete strangers started to fill his bag with candy, he caught on real quick! We hit all five houses on the street, and ended up with a full bag of candy! (It's a good idea to stop at houses staffed by senior citizens who've been waiting since noon to see if anyone will trick-or-treat at their house this year: they've got a lot of candy to get rid of - it's also recommended that you take along an impossibly adorable toddler: they provide a distraction so that you can shovel the candy into the bag with a minimum of fuss!)

By all accounts, NorthernToddler's first trick-or-treat outing was a smashing success. (Well, except for Mommy giving our little hero several pieces of his candy.... we ended up with a slightly wound-up ball of lightning who couldn't get enough of sprinting back and forth along the length of Grandpa's house!)(Good job, Mommy! - everyone knows that the candy is for the parents, not the child!) Our most difficult challenge of the night was trying to explain that the phrase 'twickorteet' only works on ONE night out of the whole year.

As a closing photo, we have a shot of our little redneck for your enjoyment.

Camo pants, lime green sweatshirt, mis-matching windbreaker, and a gimme hat from the GM truck dealer....that's our redneck! (The camo pants and lime green shirt came together as a set, and they look great in combination - but the total package is what sets out our little fashionista!) Now that you've had a little bit of time to absorb that fashion statement shown above, here's the best part: He went to church on Sunday morning wearing that exact outfit! (Well, minus the hat - we DO have standards...)

Charlotte Tractor Parade

Gather 'round folks - it's time for the long-awaited update, the news of the century, .....the triumphant posting of the Charlotte Tractor Parade!

Some readers (I just found out that we do not have a mere two readers; we now have three!) might ask why it has taken so long to post the update, or just how much time do I need to learn how to post pictures from the new camera....well, the real reason for the late update is that our household has been totally preoccupied and obsessed with the "Balloon Boy" story. We've read every newspaper article available and not strayed away from the television lest we miss a second of talk show coverage on this story......

YEAH, RIGHT! We've been busy with life: raking leaves, preparing dinners, teaching our dear NorthernToddler to not apply crayon to our furniture - all the normal stuff. I was going to post yesterday, but it was so nice (almost 50 degrees) that I started cutting down the stand of Japanese Knotweed that is obscuring our shed/chicken coop. (Okay - for just a second here, we're going to ask you to be quiet and keep a secret from Northern Mommy: it has to do with chickens. I don't particularly care for chickens, other than they are tasty when properly cooked, but Northern Mommy is fascinated by the idea of raising some laying hens here on our semi-homestead. I've sworn up one side of the barn and down the other that I AIN'T RAISING NO CHICKENS! Damn noisy, dirty birds that require feeding and upkeep...well, after reading about some other peoples' experiences with chickens and visiting some friends who raise them, I'm slowly contemplating the idea of housing some on our property (we've got a nice coop with a large fenced run that was already in place when we bought the house). So far, the positives for having chickens are: I'll have eggs to throw at NorthernMommy, and we can always chop some heads off if things don't work out (can you say "chicken and dumplins"?!) So, maybe next spring we'll be teaching NB/T how to scatter chicken feed...but DON'T tell Northern Mommy! My excuse for clearing the entrance to the coop was that I needed a place to park the snowmobile trailer....let's let her keep thinking that!)

Wasn't I supposed to be writing about a tractor parade?! Well, here we go - below is a picture of NBT showing us just how bored he is with waiting for the parade to start. The parade started thirty minutes later than the advertised time, so we sat around for an hour waiting for tractors to start rolling. (But when they did.....we saw a whole lot of tractors!) (So many tractors that we got tired of watching them - and we love tractors!)

There was a short lecture from Northern Mommy on how I had too many tractor photos ready to share with y'all, and that seeing how the title of the blog has something to do with 'NorthernBaby', maybe I ought to cut out the tractors and insert a photo or two of NBT.

(I hate it when she's right.)

Below is the coolest tractor in the parade. If you have to ask why, too bad.

Northern Mommy's favorite parade entrant. (Why would anyone paint their tractor pink?!)


My favorite tractor of the parade - and it's kinda funny how the curve/roundness of the tractor's bodywork is reflected in the curve/roundness of the operator's bodywork!

Okay, this wasn't at the parade, but it helps to fulfill the requirement that pictures of NBT be in the blog about him. Isn't he just too darn cute?!

Technical Difficulties

Dear Faithful Readers (all two of you):

I realize that I promised a posting of this past weekend's grand adventures, including photographs from the legendary Charlotte Tractor Parade, but due to technical difficulties arising from the replacement of the camera we have used for the past six years, we will be unable to post pictures until NorthernDaddy learns how to upload the newer files.

Sorry for the inconvenience - but rest assured that NorthernBaby/Toddler is still tearing up the North Country and having a GRAND time, despite lack of photographic proof.

I Believe I've Seen This Before...

The first paragraph and picture are from a September post. The second photo(not mine) is from this evening.

Below is a photo taken at sunset of the harbor in Burlington. Some readers may recognize the sailboat as a picture they've seen before. Well, that fella moors his boat in the same spot every year, so I take photos of it as the conditions change. ( I almost think that the city of Burlington pays this guy to moor there just for tourist photo opportunities - this boat never moves!)

© Tom Way / Alamy
Lake Champlain, Vermont, New York, Quebec
Another border-straddler, Lake Champlain sits largely on the boundary of New York and Vermont, but its extremities creep northward into the Canadian province of Quebec. Champlain's waters are sprinkled with islands, lighthouses and quaint lakeside villages, and its shores are criss-crossed with old railroad lines and new bike paths. The High Peaks of the Adirondack Mountains form a spectacular backdrop.
For more information: Lake Champlain Region

We were looking at the Yahoo main page, and they linked to a ForbesTraveler.com article on "North America's Loveliest Lakes". Of course, we had to click through the slideshow to see the lovely lakes...It was nice to see Lake Champlain listed among the other notable bodies of water, but the photo that was used seems familiar. That's not the exact same boat, but it's in about the same spot. This further bolsters my theory that the city stations a sailboat in the same spot on the waterfront every summer in order to create a 'photo opportunity'.

If anyone wants to visit us next summer and help to verify my theory, you're welcome to stay with us - just note that NorthernBabyToddler is learning to play the "drums" by banging wooden spoons on various household items. He's also learning to cook - he helped make a pizza today and ran his fingers all through the finished product (probably not the tastiest for visitors' dinners). Oh yeah, he's also learning about toilet training....but peeing on the floor of the bathroom (and the kitchen floor, once) - now that I think about it, not that much fun for visitors. Maybe we can hook you up with a local hotel!

(Here's a pic of NBT helping with the pizza.)

Hope that everyone has a fun weekend - we will be posting after a busy couple of days - going to a christening for one of NBT's friends, watching the Charlotte Tractor Parade, hitting the local Lowes, and tons of other stuff!

Our Weekend

We spent a few minutes at the Montshire Museum of Science in Norwich, VT. This is a pretty cool museum aimed at children (and older kids - not naming any names NorthernDaddy). We were two hours away from home to attend a cross country meet that NorthernMommy had to coach some runners in, so we combined it with an opportunity to see a set of grandparents and cross off one more of NorthernMommy's items on her "must see" list.

The first thing Levi did after (well, as) Daddy was paying his admission was to run over to the giant tanks with trout and turtles and other fishies and proceed to point and shout at them. I think he might have been excited...it took a few of us to drag him away from the fish and convince him that there was more to the museum! The photo below shows "Andy's Place": a special play area for kids five and younger. It's pretty cool. There are treehouse platforms and a giant system of tubes to roll golf balls through and all kinds of stuff - Northern Baby wants his bedroom to look like this place....Remember the kinetic sculpture that we mentioned a few months ago? Here's a smaller, wall-mounted version by the same artist. I really want one of these installed in my office! (If the winters get any longer up here, I might just start bending some metal for one...)

Grandpa Peter becomes the motor for another kinetic sculpture. See that long white coil/auger thingie in the center? That's what lifts the balls up to the starting point; and the ratio of hand crank to auger turning was about five to one - I think we wore out the old man with all the cranking he had to do!

Northern Baby(Toddler) spins up a dust devil in one of the interactive displays.

A giant xylophone/glockenspiel variant: made of granite! Not one of those sissy orchestral instruments - this is a monster! Look at the size of the mallet used to strike a note! (And because I know you're wondering; yes, I had to look up the spelling of xylophone. I knew how to spell glockenspiel, thank you very much!)

A musical fence. Put one of these in your backyard, add a toddler with a mallet, and your neighbors will never sleep again.

Actually, as I think about it some more; put one of these in your backyard, add beer and a typical adult male with a mallet, and nobody in the vicinity will sleep! I loved playing this thing!


Levi and Daddy try to tap out Handel's Messiah....Levi was consistently a measure ahead of the score....

NorthernMommy's cross country race was held in the rain. The two smart members of the family retreated to the car to take a nap and stay dry. Then we passed a few hours by turning the inside of the car into a playground. (Fold the seat down and you double the area for running around!)

We're not pulling weeds this late in the season (it's about to snow...), and they are responding by putting up pretty flowers. Here our model strikes a pose near the back fence line.

Visit to the pumpkin patch. When told to pick out only three pumpkins, Levi picks almost all of them to take home.

Aww, isn't he cute?!

Dad! - you're killing the pumpkin!!!! Oh No!

Eww, what's that stuff in there?

Say cheese!

Apple Picking

Last weekend, we went on a short apple picking expedition. Well, not really an expedition: there are just short of a million PYO (Pick Your Own) operations within spitting distance of our house, so it was more leisurely jaunt than a true expedition. (And after picking the apples, NorthernMommy made up some apple crisp - and then we ate it all in about twenty minutes. The resulting sugar coma is why we're posting a week late...!)

Levi was all gung-ho about picking apples...."just point out some of the lower hanging ones for me, Mommy!" You can see below that he believes in the full-body tackle mode for removing apples from the tree. Daddy hoists little man towards the upper branches...

Compare the previous photo with the picture below: the lower one was taken on last year's apple picking outing - almost a year to the day. Can you believe how little he was?! (He was a heck of a lot lighter to carry around then, too! At least he's walking/running on his own now.)
A moment of repose. Or maybe digging for worms. Either way, we don't care: he wasn't running all over the place - we're all about moments of stillness - love 'em! (even though they're usually only 'moments'- NorthernToddler doesn't stay still for long; too much to see and do!)

To the victor go the spoils...after a fierce battle with the orchard, Levi muches on the plunder. (And, yes, he ate the whole thing - stem, core and seeds, everything....even though we tried to tell him not to eat the core)

Needs a haircut and a face scrubbing, but he's still our adorable Northern Baby.