As June fades and July blossoms we are in prep mode for Acadia. Every year we go on vacation with Nanna and P-Pa and the mornings and afternoons are spent hiking. To get ready we like to do some hiking, in full gear. This past weekend, the glorious four day weekend thanks to a Tuesday 4th of the July, we climbed Crows Hill Ledge. This is the first time we did it with a two year old Beethan and the weight was pretty different. Last fall we did the hike a few times and it was not bad at all. Beeth was basically a slightly heavier than normal backpack. But this time, whoa baby. He is chunk of baby at 28 pounds and change and so with that weight plus the pack and it is contents, I probably bear an extra 35-40 pounds. At first it was exhausting. This is right at the time when Isaac was transitioning out of the pack, maybe a few months later (but those few months matter when a baby is born in June--four more months puts you into the cooler October weather). I was worried I wasn't going to make it. Then I started getting a constant stream of chatter. It was like listening to a tiny (more) unintelligible auctioneer in my ear. Beeth was non-stop with the chatter. "Daddy look at this." "Daddy did you see our chipmunk friend?" "Daddy, touch the blue (he like his brother likes to touch trail marker)?" "Daddy, let's climb that." "Daddy is that pooop." "Daddy, where Mommy?" "Daddy, where Isaac?" "Let's go find Isaac and Mommy?" "Go faster." "Jump, please!" It was a forty minute hike up and a forty minute hike back and he talked for probably 38 at minutes each way. Isaac, on the other hand, almost always fell asleep in the backpack. I was delighted to have a little play by play announcer with me every step of the way. On the way down, I did start to lag a bit. It was hot and the "Devil's staircase" portion of the hike is especially brutal going down. I was slowing and breathing heavier. Ethan could tell. So he mustered up his most powerful special ability--his chant. The boy can start a chant better than a drunk guy in the outfield at Fenway. And this particular chant pulled at my heart strings and powered me through the final steps: "DA-DEE, DA-DEE, DA-DEE." With that chant going how could you not keep going?

Isaac turned seven two weeks ago and I feel remiss for being late with a birthday post.  

Isaac has grown so much in the past seven years, it is nearly inconceivable.  To go from a little guy that can't lift up his own head, to a walking, talking, dapping kid is an amazing process.  I thought that I might just not notice, that living with him everyday might make me miss the small steps he takes, even to this day, but the reality is being a parent makes you attentive to another in a way that is impossible to replicate elsewhere.  I haven't missed how amazing the process is.  I am still in awe of it.  Just this week, we moved around the reading at bedtime so that I can see over his shoulder and in that time I have witnessed him tackle reading with so much more confidence than he had just a few months ago.  Reading is the key that unlocks modern society and watching Isaac master that key has been spectacularly fun, especially when cast against a background of anticipating his discovery of the  bigger world around him that reading unlocks.  

We think of people has having a static age--"Isaac is Seven" but the reality is that even as a adults we are always in the process of becoming someone new, someone with more experience and a better perspective.  For me, witnessing Isaac go through this process of development has been one of the singular gifts of my life.  

And so while he got a lot of nice gifts on his birthday, I have come to realize that birthdays for parents are about celebrating the gift their child represents to them--the every day gift of growing and changing and mastering the world around them.  In watching that process parents learn about themselves and the world with a fresh perspective.  And this is one of the many reasons why children are perpetual gifts to their parents.  Happy Birthday Isaac Anthony!

It was a crazy busy week this week.  I was at a conference in Boston for two days and then in Boston again on Friday.  Bianca did way more their her fair share of taking care of the boys.  This meant that she got a lot of time with them and in this extended time she heard a flight of fancy from Ethan Beethan.

On Friday night she was talking with Ethan and he told her:

"Mommy, we go to gazebo.  Me and Callum.  We go see humpback whales."

Let me unpack that for you.  First, the gazebo is reference to one of our favorite parks--Coggshall.  There is a gazebo on Mirror Lake and around it are a wide variety of animals--fish, snakes, and turtles of all sorts.  Ethan positively LOVES the turtles, so going to the gazebo means that Ethan is going to see some wild life.

The second sentence is a bit easier--Callum is one of his friends at school.  He has three other buddies--Christopher, Luca, and Alex, but right now Callum is the one in his best buddy circle.  Ethan and Luca have been positively angry with each other for all of the sort of offenses you would imagine two year olds would be angry with each other for--toy theft, yelling, nothing more than random mood swings.  Right now, Callum is it.

The third sentence references Ethan's new favorite book/animal.  Last week, it was Balgegle, Balgegle (Bald Eagle, Bald Eagle) but right now he is a whale phase.  And his favorite picture in the whale book is of a humpback whale.

So when you apply all of those things you get Ethan's dream play date circa June 2017--a trip to Coggshall with Callum to see humpback whales.  Unfortunately Mirror Lake is probably no more than ten feet deep, so, well, that's not going to happen.  But it is fun to dream, right?