* So far, James has had approximately 2 ounces of yogurt and 3 ounces of pear as the sum total of solid food in his lifetime. Until today, when Alec found a box of matzoh and was walking around handing us all pieces of it. He's so sweet when it comes to sharing food. And then I noticed James sitting on the floor, gumming a piece of matzoh. He was not at all happy when we took it away from him either.

We usually take the cautious approach to introducing potentially allergenic foods, and in particular delay introduction to nuts. But I get the feeling that unless we decide to simply not have those foods in the house, it will be a freaking miracle to keep those foods away from James with Alec.

* As it turns out, I'm the only person at work who can work the day after Thanksgiving, so my museum is closing that day. And just like that, we suddenly had two days off in a row surrounding a holiday, which means we could actually leave town. So we're going to spend Thanksgiving in Boston with B's sister. Whee! This will be our first family Thanksgiving in 6 years. I'm all agog in anticipation.

* Hopefully, we'll be able to stop by the Public Gardens at least long enough to see the statue of the Make Way for Ducklings ducks for Katherine. Come to think of it, it's been just about exactly a year since we did our first FIAR unit on Make Way. That hardly seems possible, and yet at the same time, the online school seems like a distant, vaguely unpleasant memory. Meanwhile, we have just finished the world's longest unit on dinosaurs and are about to move onto telephones. Life is so much more interesting when we have control over what we study.