The Brookston Family Blog
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Alice while playing with Woody and Jessie (dolls from Toy Story 2) tried to put on Jessie’s hat.

Alice accessorizing.

After a very hot day cooped up in the car, we took the kids to cool off in the pool.

Alice shows off the new bathing suit she got for her birthday.

Today we went looking at houses with an eye towards finding a smaller place with a yard for the kids. Here are a few random shots of Porter in various homes in Marin County.

Riding a teddy bear.

Swinging on a dolphin.

Sarah’s family, along with several other families, have been getting together once a year for what they call “The River Trip” for a few decades. It’s essentially a weekend camping trip with a 10-mile or so canoe trip on Saturday as the main feature of the trip. Last year, we took Alice there when she was only a couple of weeks old. This year she and Porter were veterans, although they’re still not old enough to go on the river in the canoes.

When we first arrived, Porter was thrilled to see Grandpa and they went for a walk to look for Grandma.

Later Grandpa relaxed in the campsite with Alice.

Meanwhile, Aunt Margaret and Porter went down to the river where Porter played tug of war with the canoes.

He lost.

Sarah and Alice joined us down by the river where Alice sampled the local terra firma delicacy.

While Porter and Sarah went wading in the shallow part of the river.

Throughout the day, Alice positively reveled in the dirt getting dirtier than she’s ever had an opportunity to get before.

Our dirty girl.

While cleaning up a bit in the back room, Porter discovered the hiding place where I put toys to give him. Luckily, he only found two packages, an assorted box of trucks and cars and a pack of construction vehicles.

Porter proudly displays his new trucks & cars.

Sarah picked up some fresh blueberries at the market at the ferry building on her way home from work last week. Today she decided to make blueberry pancakes for everybody. They were very tasty but neither Porter or Alice were sure what to make of them.

Alice shows off her blueberry pancakes.

After several ear infections this year and frequent fluid in his ears, Porter’s pediatrician referred us to an ENT specialist. We wanted to see what we might be able to do to alleviate the fluid in his ears. Our concern is that with the difficulty he’s having in his speech development that he doesn’t need any more impediments. Anyway, just like taking your car to the mechanic to examine that rattle, there was no fluid in his ears and everything looked just fine. He’s going to monitor Porter’s ear every month for the next quarter or so.

At O.T. today, Porter started off playing a little T-Ball. He’d got a bat and ball but has never tried to hot a ball off of a tee before. It was pretty impressive. He was knocking them out of the park, hitting the wall hard on the other side of the room with a smack. Not every time, mind you, but often enough that it was no fluke.

The next Mickey Mantle?

Meanwhile, Alice discovers koosh balls.

It was finally time to get the car washed, so I took Porter and Alice with me after school and before Porter’s occupational therapy session. I thought Porter would enjoy watching, and he did. He played with a car in the waiting area but kept looking and pointing to the cars coming out of the washing area.

Porter at the car wash.

Since she could pull herself up, Alice has been stealing crayons from the tray in the easel in the back room. This morning, I caught her trying to draw on the cover of a book. I gave her some paper and she tried to draw on that too. She’s holding the crayon a little too flat (rather than upright) but she’s got the idea and is pushing it against the paper and moving it in a line from her belly out and away from her and then back again. Over the past few months, we’d thought Alice was exhibiting a left hand preference (my mom and great aunt were/are left handed and so are/were Sarah’s brother Dave and their grandmother) but lately her right hand seems to be prevailing. When she was drawing today, she was definitely favoring her right hand to write.

Alice trying to figure out what to do with the paper.

Normally when I take Porter to meet the bus, he’s carping about not going or, at best, is resigned and fairly quiet. And once the bus has arrived, he ignores me entirely and rarely talks at all. If he says anything, it’s to tell the bus driver about the toy he’s carrying with him to school (today it was the blue truck, naturally).

Today was different. After he was strapped into the bus seat, I said my usual goodbyes, trying to reassure him that he’d have fun at school and that I’d be here to meet him when he returned this afternoon. Today he broke the silence and called to me, “bye bye, Daddy.” It’s a little thing, but to me it meant a lot. We’ve noticed he’s been much better about greetings lately and there’s been a lot of improvement. He’s also gotten better about saying goodnight at bedtime and even kissing us and - gasp - his sister goodnight. In the morning, he’s been saying goodbye to Sarah as she heads off to work, often without any prompting.

After we left McNear’s Beach, Porter was still pretty crabby so after dropping off Alice and me back at the house, Grandpa took Porter over to the mall. Porter had be talking ceaselessly about a blue truck and, according to Grandpa, he’d been asking about it all day, not just since the park. It turned out there was a specific blue truck Porter had his eye on and he led Grandpa directly to it at a toy store in the mall.

Coming up the stairs, Porter’s mood improved dramatically after a trip to the mall.

We had our carpets cleaned today and Grandpa took the kids for part of the afternoon. Since Grandma was busy getting ready for the River Trip this weekend, the kids and Grandpa came back before the carpet had a chance to dry. To give it more time, the four of us went to McNear’s Beach. Porter had fallen asleep on the drive from Cotati, and I woke him up when we got to the park. He was none to happy about the sleepus interruptus and never quite found his way back to being awake. Alice, on the other hand, had a blast running around in the grass.

Alice enjoys the grass in her Packers jersey.

Here’s a Quicktime movie of Alice walking, which I promised to post as soon as I took some film of her walking. To be honest, she’s been walking so much lately I sort of forgot about it … until now that is. You can either download the movie to your desktop or just click on the link to play it in your web browser (assuming your web browser has the quicktime plug-in installed).

After Porter seemed to enjoy the life preserver at the pool, Sarah picked up a blow-up dolphin for Porter and a crab for Alice. They worked out great, especially for Porter. Alice did okay but still preferred clinging to one of us. Porter, on the other hand, really seemed to enjoy being able to be free to dog paddle around the pool. He did laps around the edge of the pool. I had a hard time getting him to come home with us.

Sarah takes the kids out for their first float.

Porter loved his floaty dolphin.

While cleaning up the living room for the impending carpet cleaning tomorrow, I came across this excercise thing of Sarah’s that I’ve never seen her use. It’s essentially a stretchy jump rope with handles on both ends. Porter thought it was the coolest thing and kept trying to play tug of war with it.

Don’t let go, don’t let go. Alice is oblivious to the danger in front of her.