First Spring Day

Yesterday was our first Monday off that was warm enough to play outside. Here are some pictures from our wonderful soggy time in Marydale Park.

Coffee Shop Story Time

Here we are with some favorite coffee-shop family activities. We keep needing to remind ourselves that the goal of parenting is not to find something to entertain the children so that we can ignore them and do our own thing. We usually have more fun when we are all present together. This does not exclude adult conversation and down times! It just means we don't exclude the needs of the children when we plan our day, and we shift internally to enjoying one another each as we are today. (i.e., posh location, exquisite drinks, grown-up books and kid books) Oh, and we have some fun.First, we are doing a little free pen and ink drawing with supplies from Libby's little art-on-the-go kit. (like this Chinese set, a gift or this homemade one.) This takes no planning. Even Ezra can do this.Small amount of planning: bringing a few choice reads. Lately we've been way into Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Blueberries for Sal, and Henry and Mudge and the Forever Sea.I truly love reading aloud, and both kids are engaging so deeply with the stories.I love this last picture because we're all doing the same thing with our faces.

Conservatory Photos

Libby's been excited for me to post the some pictures I took while we were at the conservatory last week. I like this one because of how Ezra put his foot on Mama's.

I find the interplay of the natural and unnatural at the Conservatory visually interesting.

every day, it's a gettin closer

goin' faster than a rollercoaster. Spring is coming, folks! Okay, so it's not actually warm yet, and all the sidewalks are ice and everything is white and grey, but have you noticed the birds singing? Listen to them! They know something!

And have you noticed the light? There's more of it! And it's a more golden color! Those snowbanks are a bit smaller every day. Soon, there will be rain. and sunshine.

To enjoy the light without cold, we like to go to the Como Conservatory. Delight of delights! Warm, humid, and flowering! They way to do the zoo or conservatory with kids is to slow down. I am finally learning this. Even at little Como, we don't need to see all the exhibits each time we go. If you sit and watch, you'll see more. In the Tropical Encounters (rainforesty, new exhibit, nothing between visitors and animals) we sat and watched, and found

birds on the ground as well as the air, poking around for worms.
The nest of a little songbird. (It pays to talk to those neglected volunteers; they spend lots of time there and know all kinds of things. He showed me many different kinds of birds, and described the one with the nest as "that small, very noisy little guy.")
Many mice about the forest floor; this may have been my favorite part. Mice can also be seen amongst the lions, while they are sleeping!
Birds taking baths.
They eyes of the stingray.
The strange gill holes of the coi.

I do hope Paul posts more of our pics from the conservatory. Such a pleasant way to walk and soak up sunshine!

It's Getting Warmer...

Last week it didn't hurt to be outside. Being outside as a family, which was once such a regular part of our time together has been impossible for such a long time because of the extreme cold of our bleak midwinter. Last Monday, though, it was time to go back to Crosby Farm Park.Gibbie just wanted to sit in his stroller and watch the river for a long time. (A park officer had earlier looked on in wonder as I plowed our little stroller through the snow!)
Ezra was snuggly wrapped onto Mama. We wonder how many more times we'll have of an Ezra small enough to do this with.
It was a short visit, but hopefully a foretaste of much to come.

Conservatory and Photography

We went to the conservatory at Como park in St. Paul. It's a great "outdoor" indoor place to go on a winter day - full of light, warmth and humidity. As we walked in we were met by several young men with sketchbooks. An art class was having a field trip. The conservatory is quite the usual spot for artists and photographers. I have to admit that I've displayed a couple of photos I've taken there myself. After having sold some prints recently, I've felt encouraged to do real photography again. To me real photography involves film and chemistry and has at least as much to do with the forming of the print in the darkroom as it does snapping the shutter. I understand that some do digital as art; I'm just not one of them! I don't know and enjoy the digital process like I know and enjoy the chemical process. I mentioned in a post last spring that I think of digital photography as a kind of sketching. I can compose the image and capture it without going through the finishing process of development and printing that would make it a final print. It's a practice in seeing, more than anything.

The above is a small example. It's a kind of photography that I see in a lot in coffee shops, am very tempted by, but mostly avoid. The photographer's eye is attracted to beauty. Sometimes that beauty comes in the form of someone else's art and it's very tempting to photograph that art and make it into your own art. In a way there's nothing wrong with that. The photographed art is composed and executed in a way that is unique to the photographer and becomes it's own thing. It still feels like kind of a cop out to me, though. I don't think I would display something like this picture, but it was fun to "sketch."

These fish were the boy's favorite feature of the conservatory this time around. I had a hard time keeping Ezra from licking the rocks. They must have tasted good. Salty, maybe?

Family Coffee Date: J&S Bean Factory at Hamline and Thomas

We love our coffee shops. We used to love spending whole evenings lounging around in them, reading aloud to each other, staring deeply into eachothers' eyes, working on our own quiet projects, critiquing the art, bantering with the baristas. Ah, the happy golden days! Well, we still care about good coffee, independent ownership (we're not really herd animals, if you know what I mean), and good atmosphere.

But now child and baby-friendly bathrooms are a veritable necessity, along with toys or really fun outdoor seating. When we have the luxury; nay, the scarce but necessary time for coffee-shoppin', we look for a place Paul and I can talk (and enjoy ourselves; ixnay on the acDonald'sMay unParkFay) where the kids will have fun too. J&S Bean Factory Makes the Cut.
Things we like about J&S Hamline and Thomas: (different from their Randolph Avenue sister store, which Paul can tell you is good for high school kids in the early morning, but not so much for wee lil 'babes)
-Good toy area!
-Bathroom is closeby, with diaper changing station
-consistently good coffee, okay baked goods rockin' awesome sandwiches and soups from Acme and Xanders'
-right next to a great knitting shop (okay, only Libby cares about that, but in the knitting shop, there is a nice lil' ramp between the front and back rooms, which the kids love to crawl up and down. The shop's staff are indulgent of this wildness.)
-breastfeeding friendly environment
-real art on the walls, that actually changes every so often
-friendly, chatty baristas
-some outdoor seating
-accessible via bus: the 67 runs within two blocks and the 16 within four blocks
-accessible via bike: great bike rack (it's hidden!) and bike paths run on Minnehaha, two blocks away
Ezra loves to crawl on chairs, especially if Gib is already on them.

We're not so much into:
-not much privacy (we have a penchant for secluded nooks)
-the kids' area is a tad dim, and doesn't always have outlet covers, though outlets are covered by toys
-the kids' books are mostly lame-o, not that our kids have noticed
-If there's already someone in the play area, like, say, a parent's group or someone else's play date, it doesn't work so well, but this would be true anywhere
-there's not much not to like; we've been hitting this one a fair bit lately!
This is a "city" we built. We used every last one of these great blocks. Most of the toys at J&S are good ones, like these, that we can really play with. The key with blocks is having enough of them that you can really build something fun. J&S does. That's a score for us, as when the kids are playing happily, we can read, talk, and think deeply. When Mama and Papa are happy and get good time with each other, it rubs off on the kids and they're happier too.
Of course, we also do a fair amount of playing too. By the by, do you see that little tower Ezra started there? He can stack four blocks! Gibbs did this particular big big big one all on his own! That's his hand about to place the next story.

Train Watching

Gibbie has been into trains lately. Who can blame him? Trains are cool. I decided to figure out how we could get close to some real trains safely and legally. There are some major tracks that cut a path across St. Paul. Some streets go over them (like Snelling and Lexington), some are cut off by them (like Victoria), and one turns into a footbridge!

We decided to camp out on the Hamline footbridge over the tracks (between Pierce Butler and Energy pkwy.) We brought a picnic lunch on our bikes and watched the trains slowly coming and going. There wasn't much activity, but it was enough to get Gibbie excited. Some of the railroad people even waved and honked at us!Libby got a couple of good kid books about trains from the library. It's pretty fun that already Gib can get excited about a topic and we can learn some things together. I didn't know until last night what a knuckle coupler is, for example. Do you?

Battle Creek

After a quiet start to our Sunday afternoon (which included some jumping) my father-in-law Doug introduced us to a park in St. Paul called Battle Creek. The drive to get there is almost as great as the place itself. I love Shepherd Road by the Mississippi with it's water, trees, and trains. Gibbie especially loves the trains. Feel free to look at the small album of photos I took of our outing. (I like the slideshow feature.)

Libby and Gibbie played a game which I think is called "Pooh Sticks." Libby can comment on the literary reference, but I believe the game involves dropping sticks from one side of a bridge and seeing whose stick comes out the other side first. Gibbie thinks it's a lot of fun.

Monday Adventure

I'm not bloging about anything too serious today- just a photo tour of our day.We stepped out of our front door for our usual Monday morning outing. This week's adventure had an added twist caused by our recent car trouble. (Don't worry, it's nothing too serious. I just need to get around to it! I'll blog about it later.) We took the bus to Swede Hollow!
We had to transfer buses in downtown St. Paul. Gibbie's did pretty well with the waiting.
We finally made it to Swede Hollow. Much to our surprise, as well as their's, the power was out. Gibbie had a cold chocolate instead of hot, and I had a drip brew instead of Macchiato. The shop has such good natural light that, apart from the slight drink differences, we didn't miss the electricity.
Then down into Swede Hollow park we went. Libby and Gib had a great time playing by the water.
Look at the strange flowers Gibbie found. He said, "They're sticky."
Ezra needed a little snack in the woods.
He felt much better afterwords.
Here we all are. It was a difficult self portrait to take with such a squirmy family. Another freeing, relaxing day off.

Mondays

Mondays are my day off, and they've become a very special time for our family. We usually start off at the Swede Hollow Cafe. It just goes to show how much I like coffee shops that, after working for five days in one, I want to spend the first part of our free day here.

Spending a good amount of time at a cafe takes a little more forethought than it did before our two boys. Coloring with crayons on note cards was today's activity for our two-year-old Gibbie.




Gibbie also made up his own pretending activity which consisted of lighting crayon candles with a match made out of the ripped-off top of his Crayola box. He just turned two last week, so a lot of his imaginative play is birthday themed.






The next part of our day is often spent outside and as much in nature as our urban life allows. This week, with the weather being so accommodating, we explored the Swede Hollow city park. It's an area that used to be a kind of shanty town for immigrants (Swedes being the first) and has been a city park since the 70's. As you can see, it's pretty close to being in the woods for being in the middle of St. Paul.
By the time our long nature walk is over, we're all ready for a warm bowl of Libby's home made chicken noodle soup and a good nap. All this, and it's not even quite noon. That's a good day off.