Baxter turns 3

Baxter turned 3 last week and is wise and all-knowing. Or at least he's got a good comic vibe about him.
We visited the wonderful northwest last week, staying with our good friends Eric, Sarah and Maya in Seattle. Eric has a great blog supplying the masses with political insight not found on the major news networks, along with top-notch pop-culture and parental information. Incidently, we learned during this trip he also has a not-so-secret fascination with the new and improved Britney Spears.
At any rate, Seattle was great, we saw the woodland park zoo, trained almost daily at Greenlake park for the Leaf Peeper half marathon (see details at my sister-in-laws blog), and enjoyed a comfortable family atmosphere at the Magnuson/Prager home. Oh, and Bax turned 3 years of age during the week. It's truly amazing how significant development is on only three short years. I remember vividly watching the Sox march through the playoffs three years ago and Baxter was nothing more than a puking, eating, sleeping blob (I type that sentence with love). Today, Baxter possesses verbal skills unmatched by many adults, has developed a taste for local artisan cheese (blue and chevre), regularly looks forward to mixing it up at the local farmers market and will chat it up with strangers about farming and firetrucks. A newer development is a strangely delightful imagination.
His mother discovered his crayon creation on our friends coffee table (sorry Eric and Sarah) during our last day in Seattle. Frustrated by this and several earlier episodes of toddler mischief, she exclaimed, "Baxter, what am I going to do with you?!"
To which he replied, " I guess you'll have to put me in a cage with kitty cats, 'cause I'm an animal!
Neither one of us has any idea where this line of thought originated from, we have no cats and have never threatened either child with a cage. The beauty of this is that it breaks the mood instantly and acts like a deodorizer of parental frustration.

We're back home now for over a week, ran 13.1 miles yesterday in a lovely race in Waterbury, VT. Fall is upon us, which is a good time in Vermont with the apples and great local harvest of the earth. May all your root vegetables be be tasty.