Max's Garden

Max's patio garden has been flourishing throughout the spring and summer. We're growing flowers, herbs (mint, thai basil, sage & cilantro) and vegetables (lettuce, arugula, bell peppers, radishes, corn & baby carrots). The corn was kind of a lark, we planted some popcorn just to see how it went, but it's growing like crazy, as you can see in the top picture.

We eat the lettuce in our salads every day, and cook with the basil all the time. The sage is gorgeous, we'll eat it tonight with pork chops and Quorn.

The radishes were prolific but we quickly discovered that no one actually wanted to eat them and the arugula was tough and scraggly (but tasty) from the get-go.

The mint grows at an amazing rate, it's practically a weed. Max doesn't like actually eating it but he loves smelling it, although he hasn't yet figured out how to take a delicate sniff. He always looks more like he's huffing it.

So today we got rid of the radishes and arugula. Max pulled up the plants by their roots ("poke-y Mommy!") and helped me till the earth with his yellow and blue plastic beach toy shovel & rake.Then he got to pick out the next two crops: rainbow chard (in the bottom picture) and Italian Basil which is really quite different tasting than the Thai basil.

I love that this is our little hobby! Every day when I come home from work he runs up to me, grabs my hand and drags me out to the balcony saying "water plants wit da water can mommy!". Who knew how much fun a 4' x 10' balcony could provide?

Stoner Park Pool

This weekend we packed four of Max's favorite things into one afternoon: picnics, eating sandwiches, playing in the water, and going to the playground!

Lucky for us, there's a local park that has that all contained on one square block. And the pool costs a whopping $2 per adult, and is free for Max! We started with a picnic. Max got to eat crackers right out of the box, which he absolutely loved.


Then we did a little baby yoga to loosen up before swimming. Check out our little guy's demonstration of "Downward Max".

After lunch, Max literally dragged us to the pool. By west-side-of-LA standards it was a very hot day, around 81 degrees in the sun but still probably only about 65 in the shade.


Unfortunately, the public pool was a very chilly unheated 75 degrees or so - too cold for mommy & daddy but Max didn't mind a bit.

He splashed and ran and sang his favorite song for us over and over:

All the dolphins are leaping in the water!
Leaping in the water!
Leaping in the water!
All the dolphins are leaping in the water!
Bubble bubble bubble bubble...SPLASH!


This song goes on for a half hour at a time, with toddler intepretive dance as well as other animals & actions : jellyfish floating, crabs pinching, eels sliding, hippos sleeping, etc). Here Max is demonstrating laying in the water like a starfish.