Babies on the high seas / Catting around on Salem Common

Avonlea Jane had another busy week. After filling up her calendar with storytime and playdates, we spent Thursday enjoying Free Salem Ferry Day with another mom and baby duo. The Salem Ferry is a high-speed catamaran that gets you from Salem to Boston in forty-five minutes. It takes a little longer than the commuter rail, but you cannot beat the coastal views, especially of all of the lighthouses and harbor islands. This was Avonlea Jane's second time on the ferry, but her first time being awake for most of it.

Avonlea Jane enjoying Pirate's Booty on the high seas

Playing with her friend Justin as we pull into Boston Harbor

You disembark the ferry at the entrance of Boston's historic North End (home of the Old North Church: "one if by land, two if by sea").

Between the North End and Quincy Market is currently a carousel being used to raise money for land conservation. The kids were lucky enough to enjoy their first rides.

After the carousel ride, the four of us enjoyed lunch at McCormick and Schmick's in Qunicy Market. David and I normally dine there on the weekends, when it is primarily full of tourists and families. We had forgotten that on weekdays the restaurant would be full of the business lunch crowd, which unfortunately did not find our babies as adorable as most people do. Thankfully after a slightly rowdy lunch, Avonlea Jane and Justin were both able to get a nap on the ferry ride home.

Avonlea Jane especially needed to rest in order to be alert for her swim lesson. Unless David has to work late, both of us are in the water with her throughout her lesson. However this week, we were pressed on time to get her changed at the YMCA, so only David got in the pool with her. Fortunately, this allowed Mommy to get pictures of the lesson.



Here is more of Avonlea Jane in her lesson:





This was an important weekend for another one of our babies as well; Mabel entered the Official Cat of Salem Contest. We had been preparing for the contest for the last year and were really looking forward to being able to tell people about Mabel's newly found fame: "Hi, we're Liv and David, surely you've heard of us; our cat is the Official Cat of Salem." In order to compete, Mabel was dressed in costume, and she went as Hester Prynne from Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter. We were sure with such a fabulous Salem-centric costume, she would be a shoo-in. Alas, it was not to be. Sadly, all of the cats who placed in the contest were black cats. So, next year is clearly Maxwell's year. Until then, we will cheer ourselves by knowing we have the Unofficial Cat of Salem.

David is carrying both of our girls to the Common for the contest. Hosting a cat contest outdoors is not the brightest idea, especially when it is held right before the dog contest. Surprisingly, Mabel did really well on a leash and enjoyed walking around the Common and checking out all of the new people. She was even complimented on her calm and cool stage presence.

Mabel psyching herself up for the competition

Mabel is showing off her "A" for adultery. Clearly, she's been catting around.

While she wasn't a winner in the Official Cat of Salem Contest, she did take third prize in the Cat Halloween Costume Contest. She was beat out by a white Persian cat dressed as a chicken and a hairless Sphinx dressed as a bat. Perhaps had she agreed to wear Hester's bonnet she would have placed higher. Regardless, she was thrilled with her prize gift bag of treats and toys.

After our disappointment at the cat contest, we treated ourselves to a trip to Ipswich's Russell Orchards. (Our competitiveness, and subsequent malcontent, in this contest has made it clear that we can never put any of our children in a pageant.) The weather could not have been better, and we were thrilled to see Avonlea Jane have such a good time on her first trip to the orchard. This particular orchard not only has different fruit fields and a pumpkin patch, but a wide variety of farm animals to visit and a fabulous orchard store with fruit wines, hard cider, and apple cider doughnuts. The doughnuts are so popular that there is generally a winding queue with signs posted detailing how long of a wait you will have from various points in line. Our first visit we waiting nearly an hour to get ours.

Checking out the ponies

Playing in the pumpkin patch

Picking up leaves to eat

Friday and adventures in food

At the end of the week, we decided to play the role of tourists in Salem ourselves. Friday was Mayor's Night Out in Salem, when all of the local businesses pass out candy to resident trick-or-treaters and all of the local attractions are free to Salemites. We had wanted to go to the New England Pirate Museum, but it was unfortunately closed by the time David got home from work. (They were apparently participating in strictly the Mayor's Afternoon Out.) So, we decided to visit the Salem Witch Museum, as even though that museum is always free to residents, we have never taken the opportunity to visit.

We have learned through trial and error that except for the Peabody Essex Museum, nothing else in Salem really is a museum, even if it claims so. There are no exhibits and you are not free to walk around at your leisure; all of the Salem attractions are guided tours through recreated scenes from 1692 which are full of 30+ year-old mannequins showing their age. However, the Salem Witch Museum was better than we expected it to be, mainly because we were friends with our tour guides, and because we've been to some of the other "museums" in Salem. (Uncle Dillon once referred to his visit at the Salem Witch Dungeon Museum as being, "the worst $7 he ever spent.") For those of you non-Salemites who come to visit and want to tour a museum, we think we'll stick to the Peabody Essex.


Fridays are Avonlea Jane's favorite day of the week, because that is when she has her morning playgroup. Above, you can see she is bundled up and ready to go play. October has definitely brought a chill in the air, as evidenced by the fact that Avonlea Jane is tolerating a hat on her head.

Mugging for the camera at baby group

Above are three played-out babies on their way to lunch at Rockafella's. The weather warmed up enough to eat outside--probably one of the last chances we'll have this year. Avi enjoyed some of Mommy's sweet potatoes at lunch. She's eating more and more foods and showing clear favorites. To date, out of all of the foods she's tried her absolute favorites are pears, egg yolk, and Pirate's Booty, a puffed rice/corn ball snack covered in powdered spinach. Her love of Pirate's Booty knows no bounds. One day this week we took a covered container full of Pirate's Booty out with us in case there were other babies who would want to share (that's how Avonlea Jane tried it for the first time), but I forgot to take it out. When we got home, I gave Avonlea Jane the container, thinking she would eat a few and then play with the rest. While I was folding laundry, she proceeded to eat the entire container. David also had a similar experience with Avonlea Jane and Pirate's Booty.

Other foods Avonlea Jane has tried:

• banana
  
• avocado
• peach
  
• sweet potato
  
• Swiss chard
  
• rice cakes
  
• apple
  
• applesauce
• yogurt
  
• potato
  
• carrot
• parsnip
• quinoa
• black beans
• green beans
  

Welcome October

Avonlea Jane has been a busy busy girl this week--with playdates, storytime, swimming, and a party. Keeping her so busy has helped immensely with getting her back into a regular sleep pattern despite the teething. (In grown-up news, we also signed the Purchase and Sale Agreement on our new house this week. We take possession toward the end of the month and will move in November.)

Avonlea Jane had a playdate this week on Derby Wharf, and here she is afterward, enjoying the last of the warm September weather.

She kept watching the seagulls flying over the neighboring beach.

Storytime started this week at the library, and Avonlea Jane is in the session for 0-12 month olds. She started going to storytime at around two months old and then was one of the smallest babies. This first week of the fall session, she was the oldest baby in attendance. It is both sad and exciting that she will soon transition to being a toddler.

Taking a break after storytime to play with some leaves on the way home

We were so fortunate to have absolutely lovely weather at the end of September, but we are happy to welcome October! Not only has fall arrived in full force in Salem but the tourist season has as well. September was a quiet month downtown--the calm before the storm--but now we are gearing up for Halloween season. Every year Salem kicks off Haunted Happenings, the city's month-long Halloween festival, with an evening parade on the first day of October. This year's theme was "A Night at the Museum." The parade was full of marching bands, local sponsors, and children from all of the local schools dressed up as characters from the movie Night at the Museum or art pieces from the local Peabody Essex Museum.

Avonlea Jane with a just-her-size pumpkin at the farmers' market before the parade

Before the parade started, the three of us went to a baby costume party, where Avonlea Jane had a ball.

All of the babies lined up

While posing for photos may have made many of the babies upset, you can see that Avonlea Jane was thrilled.

As much as Avonlea Jane liked the party, she loved the parade. In fact, we would say she had a roaring good time. She had a good time waving at all of the people going by and laughing at the marching bands. She even thought the firetruck sirens were funny, while the rest of our tiny group burst into tears.


Mommy and Avonlea Jane with our friend Erin and her son

Just for fun, a video of Avonlea Jane playing with toys and talking to herself:

Staying in Salem

Again, we apologize for not updating more frequently; this may be the pace for a while. We've been busy with a teething ten month old, busy projects at work, and finalizing our house purchase. We finally found a house that was right for us and right in Salem. It is a ~170-year-old, 3+-bedroom, single-family house which can be seen here. We will close at the end of October and move throughout the beginning of November. We're very excited to be staying in Salem, not only because we love the city, but because we also don't have to worry about changing the name of our blog.

In other exciting news, Avonlea Jane is creeping all over the place and successfully moving herself from room to room. We have no doubt that rapid crawling will happen soon. She is also pulling herself up to stand. Her swim lessons have aptly been coming along swimmingly. She is exceeding all of her instructor's expectations. She has been putting her face in (without crying) and has started to kick her feet and blow bubbles in the water. Whenever she has taken in water, she has coughed it up and not even been upset about it. In fact, getting water in her mouth has made her laugh more than a couple times. Today she also signed to another baby for the first time. We were at lunch and both babies were showing each other the sign for "light" while pointing to the chandelier.

Avonlea Jane enjoying the beautiful weather in her Grandma-made booties.

Having fun at our Friday morning baby group

Below are some pictures from our friend Gail:

4th of July

Look how bald she is here!