July 2015

 i like to turn around from the couch and see this. here you are working in your art area. mommy  is quietly working in her food area. your art teacher was right. you are an art powerhouse. create. create. create. and recently you've been keeping your art area organized and clean.

 here you are ice skating. i just got a new phone i and the pictures look way better. you are in freestyle 1 now. you've come a long way with lots of lessons and work. now when i skate with you are better at everything. you challenge me and i say "naomi, you know you are going to win". winning feels nice. i understand. and you have definitely lost many times to me. when i was younger adults would let me win a lot but i always knew they weren't trying. i'm not sure i liked that. the one thing where i can still challenge you a bit is a race. but the last time i did that i took a bad fall. news flash if you're in your forties and can't skate well you should not be doing all out races.

i have this growth on my hand. it's probably a touch of the ol' cancer. it's kind of gross but you've been playing doctor with me applying the medical tape. doctor nomster is not grossed out.
we are in maine now with family. we are revisiting the origins of stuffies. stuffies, the book, concept EP, and i hope film i'm making. let me do a recap. last year while in maine you were playing with your stuffed animals. having races with them imagining their conversations with each other. at the same time i was writing songs about it. when i left maine i had 5 song ideas that told a story of the imaginary stuffie world you created.

I've been developing the songs since then. and recently i've been developing the story. this time in maine i hope to get more ideas and get the story further along.

today is the 4th of july. you started off the day on a fun run mommy designed. 4 miles. that's 3.3 miles further then you've ever run. and you did great. you ran 2 miles. i got up late but tried to catch you guys. after running the whole course i found you leaving the beach. i had a feeling you would want to go to the beach. i really wanted to run along side of you. maybe next year.

when we got back to the house we played on the bed. we'd lay on our backs and throw the small stuffie bean bags in the air. one person would throw the other would try and catch. it's like very slow juggling with two people.

we are chelating and you've been really good about getting up in the night. i think we will look back on this and realize it was the right thing to do. there is very little in this life that comes with absolute proof if was the right thing to do. we take our best guesses, informed guess, and see.

grandpa and and aunt grace are both retired now. mommy and margie changed the lyics of sweet caroline to sweet retirement. here we are singing the alt version. there were a lot of people and grandpa got a lot of bottles of stuff to drink. 



 you got away from this crowd and spent a lot of time with tiana, mark and anna's kid. she'd 15 now and kinda like a much older sister to you.

here you are ouside of billy's chowder house.  me and you always end here. the place is packed and this is how we wait to be seated.


here we are going to beach. the water is just as cold as san francisco. i waded out with you.


you made a sand sculpture with mommy.

July 7, 2015


today we went out canoeing on the marsh. it was hard paddling. especially with my 60lbs of extra cargo. extra cute. i had to rest and we were falling behind the pack. you didn't like that so i said why don't you go with mommy. and you did. cargo jettisoned. i continued on with Nathan across the marsh.  mommy, i assume, struggled back to the boat launch with you. when we got back you were on a tiny beach.

after that we went to the arcade. you used to be tenative. not any more. you feed those machines quarters at will. you leave the tickets for mommy to fold as you move to the next machine. last i checked you had 2800 tickets. are you trying to get something in the glass case?