this weekend

this weekend we spent a lot of time outdoors, trying to enjoy the nice weather. on saturday it started out a little wet and cool after light rain during the night, so i decided not to try to mow the lawn. we went to my in-law's house for a little while in the late morning, but there wasn't much going on there. the highlight of the visit was watching my mother-in-law site and learn how to use the computer/internet with my son e.w. in her lap. i directed them to www.sesamestreet.com, where they played some games. meanwhile, i held the baby and rocked back and forth with him by the high counter in the kitchen, reading the new york times magazine article about hedge funds. i didn't get far.

saturday afternoon/evening my friend from d.c. came to visit, or as e.w. calls him: uncle misha. we had fun playing soccer outside on the lawn, a little wiffle ball batting practice, and a nice warm spring evening backyard deck bbq. very nice.

sunday we saw the in-laws again in the morning for blueberry banana pancakes. e.w. and i played outside for a bit and dipped our feet in the chilly pool. then we went to my parents lake house for their anniversary party. e.w. went down for a nap as soon as we got there, and the my wife and i went down to the beach with the baby to see who was around. i spend quite a while talking to some old folks while holding the baby. we doubled back for e.w. when he woke form his nap, so he could play into he sand and go swimming a little. being back at the lake with e.w. was a lot of fun; he's now the right age for beach fun like sandcastles and shallow-water wading & splashing, etc. it's a just little odd to be there with him in the place i grew up swimming/playing: odd in a good way. i hope we spend a lot of time there this summer.

later in the afternoon, after a shower back at the house, we mingled with the family and ate good food, drank beer, etc. finally as the sun was low in the sky, e.w. and i went down to the dock to fish at the shore with my grandfather. he brought his own poles, tacklebox, and a can of a few fresh worms. the water was literally swarming with blue-gill sunfish. if you just threw a little piece of a twig in the water they all came over to look at it and even nibble. we set up a couple of poles with bobbers and hooks, and e.w. looked on, intently. he rummaged through the tacklebox, playing with the rubber worms, and repeated "i'm helping, i'm helping!". together, e.w., my grandfather, and i casted off the dock and watched as the many small fish nibbled the worms off of our too-large hooks. the sun was warm and the lake was calm, like a gigantic mirror, reflecting the sunset and the ridge. this is where, when, how i learned to fish; and this is what i've dreamed about ever since e.w. was an apple in our eyes. we didn't catch anything before e.w. wandered off with my dad back up to the house to get dessert. i stayed there with grandpa, intent on catching something, anything- the inaugural fish of the summer. i did. i tiny little sunny. then i headed back up. grandpa stayed alone in the chair ont the dock in the glow of an orange sunset and continued fishing. later on after dessert we were about to leave when grandpa announced he had caught a substantially sized bass. e.w. went down to see it, and touch it, and was very excited. i had to run him back up to wash his hands before we left. all the while he talked about the "big fishy" he had seen.

the baby, a.j., slept through the night sunday night for the first time in a while. He drank two bottles with about 10 ounces of milk before he went to bed; which is unusual for him. of course, we also spent an unusual amount of time in nice warm outdoors settings. couple that with his excessive drooling tendencies lately and he was probably pretty dehydrated as well as exhausted. so my hopes are not high that this is the beginning of a new era of all-night sleeping. besides, i didn't manage to get much sleep last night anyway. i drank a cup of coffee at 10:30 p.m. because I was so damn tired- but at that point i still needed to water our near-wilting flowers, take out the garbage, and clean up the kitchen a little. the coffee did the trick but i ended up not really sleeping until 1:00. oh well. more coffee at 6:00 and away we go to another monday!