grapes, and other happenings

Isobel is in preschool! My oh my, where does the time go? She's being stoic here, but actually she loves, loves, loves "may shawome" and would be happy to spend all day every day there. Sometimes when I'm not giving her what she wants, she dramatically cries "I want to go back to my school!"

My latest favorite photo:

And Jude eats food now! I have a little bait-and-switch technique that I use to get him to swallow a few bites of rice cereal each day. He's more okay with the whole food in mouth idea than Isobel was, but still not particularly enthusiastic about the mush. Here he is, waiting patiently in a stylin' bib made by Anne Gish:

This last Saturday was mercifully cool and not humid, so to celebrate the imminent passing of Summer we went to Benjamin Vineyards,

where we picked two pounds of these beauties:

I had heard that wine grapes aren't like table grapes. Actually, I think someone told me that wine grapes are inedible, which isn't true. Brooke had eaten those two pounds of grapes by the time I returned from the E.D. Sunday night. Isobel and I politely declined. I can't abide seeds in grapes, and I think Isobel was also turned off by the thicker than usual skin. But the ripest ones do have a lovely, very sweet flavor that really is remarkably different from your run-of-the-mill grocery store grapes. Smell a glass of wine, and you'll sorta get the idea.

But even if I wasn't too interested in eating them, picking the grapes was a pretty cool experience. They're so aesthetically pleasing. This particular orchard had black, red, and golden varieties, and we gathered an assortment.
In lieu of grapes, Jude got his first taste of apple that evening:

Mmmm, fruit. Definitely a bigger hit than yucky mushy rice cereal, and I can't blame him.