May and a book

Godmother Nikki gave May many books. But her favorite -- the ambiguous pronoun is deliberate because it's a favorite of both May and Nikki -- is "The Mitten." Here, Jen H. (long may she rock) takes a video of May playing with that particular volume. I think May is about six months old in this video.



Everyone, you know what to say: "Jen rocks."

Also, I forgot to mention some family news: Grandma Cathy will be closing and moving on the 4th of July. And Great Grandpa Ferry is out of a brief hospital visit and into a rehab home where they hope to get him some physical therapy to make him stronger. Also, Grammy Nielsen broke her foot. (We lose internet and phone for four days and all heck breaks loose.)

Finally, on a happier note, after much ado and sound and fury, Nikki has finally adopted her new dog, Dee Dee. She is a Great Pyrenees, which is (something) like a slightly smaller and all-white Newfoundland, for those of you who know Beau and Maggie. Nikki and Dave rescued her (i.e. took in an older dog that they owner decided he didn't want rather than bought one from a breeder) over the weekend. And they drove to friggin Albany to do it! I have a picture on my phone and no idea how to get it from there to here. Nikki says she's a very sweet and quiet dog. She also says there's no way she's going to cook for the dog, which the crazy rescue foster lady wanted her to do.

That's all the news. I'm going to get my teeth cleaned now.

Everybody say, "Jen rocks!"

Jen H. has come through one more time. Actually, many more times! Over the past 17 months, Jen has been taking little mini movies of May. Until recently, her lack of time and my lack of technical coolth, together, have prevented us from sharing the aforementioned movies with you, May's adoring public.

This has changed as of today.

We have a dozen or so videos that I'll post whenever I get a few minutes to upload. You will reap the rewards of Jen's awesomeness. Everyone say: "Jen rocks!"

Say it louder. She didn't hear you. Alternately, , send her brownies or something. Seriously, she's the only reason you people get to see May at all most of the time.



This is from March, so May is about 3 months old.

Toast and jam

But mostly jam.

When Grammy and Grampy visited for Father's Day they brought us a quart of strawberries and a pint of blueberries. (Seth brought us Harry and David pears! And apples and stuff.) Since berries are so fragile, I decided to use them right away and make a batch of refridgerator jam.

Now, 'fridge jam is quick, easy, and low in sugar. But it's got some sugar in it. Which is more than May usually has. So when I made her toast today and smeared it with a little jam, she thought she'd died and gone to heaven.

Heaven is messy in toddlers' minds.

You spin me 'round and 'round and ....

First, more photos of May! Please click here to see more of the photos from last Sunday's brunch with David and Jen. (As ever, shout out to Jen for her photog skills.) You don't need to sign in -- just click the button that says "View Slideshow."

Second, the first Brookfield Farm CSA share has arrived! We're all quite excited here in Chez Ferry. The pick up went (relatively) smoothly. It's at one of the local co-housing collectives, which wasn't quite made clear to me when I read the postcard, so I knocked on a strange door or two before I sussed it out.

But once May and I picked up the box, we raced right home (stopping off at Porter Sq. Books to get "Putting Food By," a book on, well, putting food by) to do something with it! The box contained chives, spring turnips (!), and French radishes, as well as many and various greens -- butter, romaine, mesclun, new spinach, and some unidentified dark green that may have been collards. Never one to shy from a challenge, I picked the unidentified greens and went to work.

I got some spinach and scallion pasta from Dave's. While that was cooking, I fried up sweet pork sausages from Sessa's. Letting the crumbled sausage drain, I sweated some onions and garlic, then tossed the greens (washed, dried, and chiffonade-ed, naturally) into the hot pan with a little bit of sherry vinegar. Tossed together, it was a lovely dinner.

Since I'm trying to entice all of you to go local, I'm going to tell you every fabulous dish that I make from Brookfield Farm. And you're going to drool. And maybe that will help you get into the CSA mode.

That said, finally, we're trying something new. Jen made a little movie of May swinging her arms wildly. I'm going to try to embed the video. Just click on the picture below to make it work. (In theory.) It's sideways but I don't know how to fix that. So tilt your head 90 degrees to the left.

Sunday at Starbucks with May

Uncle David and Auntie Jen went with us to Starbucks Sunday morning (before Pop-Pop and Betty arrived for their Father's Day visit). Here are some photos that Auntie Jen took.

(You'll get all the link from the Gallery soon, I promise. There are great shots of her with a butterfly.)






When Pop Pop and Betty came, Mom and Dad got a chance to go to the movies (Shrek III!) then we spent a lovely day with them on Monday, including another visit to Starbucks.

PSA

When's the last time you had a mammogram?

Ladies, I know it's a dull subject and an uncomfortable one, but I want you all to go schedule a mammogram right now if you're the slightest bit overdue.

Sorry, I just got Atticus's biopsy results and it is lymphoma. So I'm worrying about cancer.

We went to the gym!

Yesterday, for the first time, May and I went to the gym successfully. She stayed with the ladies at the nursery for the whole time and I got to go on the treadmill for 50 minutes. I didn't get to do weights -- but I didn't want to push my luck.

We're going to try again tomorrow!

Bad and unexpected news

Atticus has been tenatively diagnosed with lymphoma -- pending biopsy results on Wednesday. What we thought was a very stubborn hairball turned out to be an intestinal tumor.

We don't have much more information than that. We'll be treating him with steroids to try to make it go into remission. He's coming home from surgery this evening -- apparently they keep "most" cats in the hospital a day or two but, as the vet very diplomatically put it, "Atticus will mostly likely do better at home. I don't think an IV is an option."

(It is an option -- if you like your vet techs sliced, diced, and shredded. Apparently cancer hasn't slowed him down much. Just made him barfy.)

We hope he'll get better.

May in June

So today is gray and cool, a nice alternative to yesterday's blasting sun and heat. (We're not summer people here at Chez Ferry.) We've been having a low key day and snapped a few photos of May for you all to enjoy. (There's a tiny political rant at the end.)

We had our lunch at the tables outside of Starbucks. There was a cute Corgi that fascinated May to no end. Here she's disregarding me for the Corgi. Always good to know where the parents stand in the Toddler Heirarchy.



Never doubt that my child is an urban child. Here she is with her Starbucks chai latte and her cell phone. (Okay, my phone and chai, but....)


May loves all bears, especially Brunneous and lately, pandas. She was very excited to wear her FONZ romper to bed.


I've always been a passionate advocate of reproductive rights but since having a daughter, defending these things has taken on a new urgency. If you've got a couple of extra dollars, please donate to Planned Parenthood to make sure that May always has complete control of her own body. (Once you've had more than three kids, your likelihood of dying goes up drastically! Much of the maternal death in America is totally preventable but we do nothing! Fifty percent of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned! There's an anti-abortion family in Montana buying up pharmacies in a town with a stated policy of refusing all contraception!)

Help my daughter out, please, by fighting to protect her right to not bear children unless she wants to.

Too many photos of May?

So, for those of you who have been complaining about a lack of Mayhew photos, here's the mother load. Possibly too many photos. I basically took the camera and dumped it on Kodak Gallery -- without taking the time to go through and clean out the ones of her when she's screaming or the fleeting glimpses of her hair as she dashes out of the frame or whatnot. Or even turning the sideways ones right-side-up. Sorry.

These are from the past four months or so and I've put some of them on the blog so they aren't all new. But there are more than 250 of them, so you should find something to make you go "Awwww."

May in June

It's Friday in Boston (and most everywhere else in the world, this side of the I.D.L.) and a thunderstorm rolled through at about 4 am, waking up everyone in the place. May decided she wanted to get up early and ate and then she fell back asleep at 6:30, just too late to do us adults any good.

So here are some photos instead a witty blog entry.