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.
