play time

Juma has found many ways to keep himself entertained lately. His large collection of Legos came with us to Zanzibar, and these give us hours of entertainment.



The other day we made salt play dough, and had lots of fun making pizza. We take custom orders, too, so if you're interested, let us know.



We're currently looking for food coloring to make it a little more realistic.



Juma has also found several boys to play soccer--or football--with in the late afternoons when the sun isn't quite as hot.

a weekend in Baltimore

Justin and Juma made the drive down to see me this weekend. Walking around downtown, we happened on a big trucks expo, which Juma pretended not to like but loved.






We also went to the second-to-last game of the Oriole's baseball season. They've had a terrible season, but they won this time.










As I write, they are on their way back to Connecticut.



Juma said he's getting more used to saying goodbye, but it's still hard.

Yes. It is.

Some evidence of all the fun and excitement Justin and Juma have been having together (while I study in Baltimore):


Kayaking and crabbing on Long Island Sound:




Finding a horse shoe crab floating in the ocean:




Riding a two-wheeler all by himself!

baseball

Juma's baseball season is almost over; he has only one more game that we could make it to (but it's at 7:45 at night! What six-year-old can play that late?!?!).

This is a highly abbreviated video from Juma's first game of the season--he made two runs. Justin is pitching to him on the first hit. Juma is wearing jeans, orange shirt, and is number 12.




And these are some shots from one of his practices (just about the only practice we made it out to--this working and being a single parent thing is tough!).

Waiting for a catch:




Pretending to pitch, while playing center field:




Practicing hard:




Getting bored in the outfield, giving himself a manicure:

goings-on

I'm taking a little time off my school duties to let you know what's been going on at the Beckham house.

Juma finally lost his first two teeth. Unfortunately, they had to be pulled out by the dentist because one of his big teeth was coming in behind. Fortunately, the tooth fairy pays extra for that.

Juma finished up his first season of basketball; the best part was the trophy. Of course.

He touched the ball during games. Twice!



Next sport: baseball. Justin is assistant coach, and Juma has three friends on the team.


We drove down to Baltimore last week to check out the city and Johns Hopkins University. On Friday Justin and Juma had a great time exploring the town while I was visiting with professors and other prospective students. On Saturday we all went to a children's science museum, where we extracted some wheat germ DNA (Seriously! They have an experiment set up for small kids to do this), lay on a bed of nails, took mini-lie detector tests (Juma's a terrible liar, but Justin and I...), and tried on a space suit. On Sunday I let JHU know I'd be coming next fall.




Connecticut's weather has showed us it's spring: volatile and usually wet. But at least the flowers are peeking through.