Catch Meh if You Can

Meh surprised me last month with tickets to see a new musical previewing in Seattle before it heads for Broadway. The show was last night, and we had such a fun date night! We started with dinner at a tasty tapas place we'd never been to, and lucked out when we discovered that their valet parking was both free and time-unlimited. Then we strolled the few blocks over to the theater, where they had costumed flight attendants out front handing out bags of peanuts - silly!

Before the musical began, the artistic director (who of course has a blog) came out and explained what a preview entails, that the show is constantly being tweaked in response to audience feedback, and that they really appreciated our participation in the process. And then for only the third time, the show was presented! The music was fun and there were some great numbers; a few minor glitches were covered brilliantly by the actors (one almost cracked himself up when a pratfall off the stage almost became a real one). The cast was fabulous as well; Aaron Tveit (playing Frank, DiCaprio's character in the movie) had some showstoppers, and Tony-winning Norbert Leo Butz was hilarious as the obsessive FBI agent Hanratty. The audience loved it, and there was even an 'in' moment where Hanratty did a film noire bit and said "It was hot. Practically August hot," with a knowing look to the audience.

Curiously, I haven't been able to find any reviews of the show online; I'm not sure if the local papers are holding off on the moving target that a preview must be, or if a gag order is part of the preview process. But it runs for another week here, and then is off to Broadway. I recommend everyone check it out!

(500) Degrees of Summer

It's hot. Really hot. Driving home with the little man, my car's external temperature gauge measured 98 degrees today, and while it's generally pretty inaccurate, I saw similar numbers on the news and weather-related websites. My work even put out an e-mail advisory to turn off extra computers, unplug refrigerators, and still be prepared for buildings unable to sustain normal working temperatures. And this is just the start; tomorrow we may hit triple digits - yikes!

Readers in much of the rest of the country are probably flashing a big 'W' our direction, but you've got to understand that these temperatures are uncommon enough here that most homes don't have air conditioning. Thankfully we invested in portable units for both bedrooms, but the downstairs thermostat is still reading 86 at 9 pm, and Zachary's unit was working hard to hold at 78 earlier today (ours is meagerly struggling at 83; I hope it isn't about to break or something). At least it isn't too humid, but this is still pretty darn yucky.

All of this severe weather means two things: maximizing time indoors, and finding water activities when outside. Today we did both -- first we met visiting London friends N & S (and their sons J and R) at the excellent and never-before-explored Seattle Center Children's Museum. The place is enormous, and like other 'museums', boasted a wide array of vehicles, arts and crafts areas, and play areas. Meh's favorite was the grocery store, which had a dizzying array of canned and boxed goods, scanners, and about thirty kids pushing miniature shopping carts around. I liked the giant central 'forest' path/cave, which Zachary ran through several times before climbing into the camping tent at the center of the path area. Zachary also spent quite a bit of time behind the wheel of a livery-appropriate King County bus, as well as sitting in the back seat waiting for it to 'gooo!'.

We then walked outside to the giant Seattle Center fountain, which was on in full force; J had a wonderful time running around in it, and there were even a few synchronized musical numbers launching spray hundreds of feet up into the air, just to come crashing back down on the happily screaming kids. Finally, we all headed to the air conditioned confines of a new kaiten sushi place and enjoyed a lovely lunch together. It was so good to catch up, and it sounds like they're extending their visit to further enjoy Seattle - hope we get to see them again in the coming days!

When we got back this afternoon, it was water, shade, and indoor play with a fan going full blast. Here's how Zachary prefers to keep cool:

(not pictured: servants waving fans while feeding him grapes)

Bachelor party

Meh and several of her friends are having a girls' weekend up in Victoria, so Zachary and I have been having our very own guys weekend here. Today was action-packed, with a grocery trip (which he talked and sang/screeched through), a walk to the park, a bit of play time at said park (with a chatty 5-year-old who was trying to get him to play with her, or at least move out of the way rather than trying to climb the slide she was sliding down), backyard playtime (where he helped me water mommy's flowers and herb garden -- of course it rained a few minutes after we finished), indoor reading time, and music listening/dancing time with friend J (who joined us for dinner while his wife S is also on the trip). A very full day for the little man, and he seemed to have fun - though every once in a while he'd look at me and say "mama", as if wondering where she was (Meh is convinced that he just thinks both she and I are named "mama").

We both do miss mommy very much, though we thankfully did get to video chat with her this morning from her hotel room. Well, Zachary mostly ran around rather than chatting, but did smile and wave when he sat down for his snack. Sounds like Meh's having a great time, but we're still looking forward to all being back together tomorrow evening!

Go for it

Zachary had a new word yesterday! He's been signing "more" for multiple purposes (variably meaning: yes, maybe, help, switch to the next piece of music, clapping, go, itsy bitsy spider, and a few other things we can't quite decipher). Meh figured it might be time to try to help him start to differentiate a bit. So while he was in his favorite backyard swing, whenever it would come to rest, Meh started saying "go" and simultaneously signing 'go' to see if he could indicate that, rather than just 'more'. He skipped right past the sign, instead saying "go!". He did it several times during the swinging session, and repeated it for me later in the evening, when I asked if he'd had fun on the swing. And he said once more for me today when we went for a walk and I asked him if he wanted to play or keep strolling when we got to the park.

Don't touch that dial

It's a girl! Congratulations to friends M and K on their new baby N!

One of Zachary's favorite (perhaps obsessively so) toys is the little magnetic toy radio attached to the fridge, with several "channels" of music, and multiple songs per channel. (Incidentally, I've seen this same radio at virtually every home I've visited - I think this might be "the" toy, moreso than legos, books, blocks, or anything Elmo-related.) After breakfast, the radio is often his first stop. And when he's got way too much energy, he'll run over to the radio, push the button to start the next song, run back to us to read perhaps a half page of his book, then run back over to select the next song before the previous one ends. It's like toddler "musical chairs" or something.

Anyway, he's had it playing the 'alphabet' station for quite some time (where he laughs and smiles when I announce the song name by rote, imitating the toy's announcer-like voice), and I was about ready for any kind of change from those same four songs, so I flipped the switch to the 'numbers' station. He ran back over, gave me a hard look, and flipped the channel back to the alphabet, before dashing back for more reading time with mommy!

Here you can hear and see the radio in the background while he quickly cycles through Mike Mulligan to get to his favorite page:

I think at the very end of the video he's turning to go feed the Fridge DJ another quarter...

A seat at the table

The true Seattle summer is back in full force, with temperatures in the upper 80s if not 90s. That might be a bit mild for some of our readers, though I suspect most of them at least have air conditioning to retreat to -- no such givens here, and our thermostat was reading 89 earlier today. Yuck! We've coped with air conditioned drives, trips to cooled malls, filling up the little man's pool, semi-shaded walks, and giving up on shorts (for him at least) by late afternoon.

Today, Zachary and I met friend J for lunch. J had made a tasty lamb dish and invited us over to share it -- but the little man's high chair was in Meh's car at her work, so we didn't have a seat for Zachary. I put him in a chair at the kitchen table, where his eye level was high enough to see what was going on, and he did a great job of reaching up onto the table to eat his various lunch selections (alas, the lamb dish was declined). I'd even put his food options on a proper (plastic kids) dish, and after initially wanting to pick the dish up, he carefully would pluck up the foods he wanted before shoving far too many rice cake bits in his mouth at a time. The only focus challenge was the fan in the front hallway, which Zachary kept trying to turn around in the chair to watch. Eventually he did end up on my lap, but it was still cute to have the three guys all sitting around the big boys' table enjoying a meal together.

His cup overfloweth

Those three new cups I had to track down online for Zachary? He's already chewed off part of those straws, so we were back where we started. Monday I offered him one of the cup styles he'd previously rejected, and he wasn't really interested. Tuesday, he drank maybe a quarter inch of juice from it. But today, Meh gave him the cup, and without batting an eye, he grabbed it and happily drank. He also drank milk from it, which was unprecedented! So much for long term drama, though I'm certainly not complaining.

We've been trying to offer him non-regulated flow cups (or, what the rest of the world just calls "cups") as well on occasion. Tonight he actually did great until halfway through, then he decided to upend it. Still, it's progress!

Six Iron

Neither of us can believe it, but Monday is Meh and my sixth anniversary! Meh already got me a wonderful and amazing gift back in May, and I wanted to do something special for her too. Consulting the list of traditional anniversary gifts, the sixth year is apparently "candy, iron, and wood". Iron? Who comes up with these things, the mining industry? Is next year lead? (No, it's actually copper, as well as 'desk accessories'.)

In the end, I did a slightly updated recreation of how I proposed to her seven (yikes!) years ago. And yes, part of the surprise was doing it a few days early (hey, if she can surprise me in May...). The pictures hopefully tell it better than I can describe -- Meh arrived home last night to find a pop-up card, then there were arrows made of lego candy blocks (see, candy!), which I used to lead her on a small course around the house, with small gifts (books - does that count as 'wood'?) at each stop on the course.

At the end of the course was a book that I'd created for her, incorporating a bunch of inside jokes into some of Zachary's current favorite reading materials (with many apologies to Dorling Kindersley, Curious George, Dr. Seuss, and others). Alas, I couldn't figure out how to get the book actually printed onto board book material - but I think I captured the spirit pretty well at any rate. Oh, and I even incorporated 'iron' with a picture of our scary old fireplace. There was much laughing at the silliness, and reminiscing with pictures of us and the little man over the years, and then we each ate a few bits of those lego candy arrows.

Happy anniversary, pretty wife!

New construction

Happy fourth of July! We actually split our celebration up over several days; on the third, friends S (of J & S) and S (of D & S) invited us to join them at the horse races. We left at 5, so Zachary finally got to have some extended playtime with his babysitter (during the winter, he was already asleep by the time she'd generally start sitting) while we had an evening out. Neither of us had ever been, and we had a lovely time. I even placed two bets on the last race with some technical assistance from J, though neither horse came in. On the plus side, after the races were done, they had an excellent fireworks display, launched right from the middle of the track; it was a longer and more impressive show than some of the Seattle ones I've seen in the past few years, and you couldn't beat the view or seats!

Mima and papa mentioned a few weeks ago that they wanted to get Zachary a playhouse for his second birthday. This past week, Zachary and I got home one afternoon to discover two large boxes in front of the garage. The original plan was to store the playhouse in the garage until mima and papa come to visit next month. But realizing that August is often already late fall for Seattle (okay, maybe not that bad), we all decided that putting it together before the visit would maximize Zachary's use of it.

So yesterday, after returning from a nice Fourth of July afternoon of hanging out with friends J & S (twice in 16 hours!) at a local park (where Meh brought some incredible strawberry cupcakes with white chocolate frosting she'd made) and putting little man to bed, we set out to begin assembly. I sorted the 40 pieces while Meh did an excellent job sorting the various bolts and washers into nicely labelled cups on a tea tray. (Only Meh could make flat-pack construction projects actually cozy!) I got three walls up before it started getting too dark and buggy -- plus the neighbors had started their 4th of July pyromaniacal ways and I wanted to avoid falling fireworks debris (after last year's "show", our yard was covered with cardboard tubes).

This morning while Zachary took his nap, I wrapped up construction. When he woke up, I let him go outside and explore his new playhouse. He went right for the windows (which Meh had rubber-banded together to keep them closed; I think I'll go invest in some magnetic strike plates today), and had no interest in the side of the house with the door until I physically led him to it and opened it. Then he was in love! He immediately ran inside and started trying to figure out how to decorate the two cute little shelves -- with combinations of his watering can and the removable sink bowl that came with the house:



The most entertaining part of assembly was seeing all of the miniaturized elements - tiny hot and cold water taps (I had to consult a real faucet to confirm that the instructions actually had hot and cold backwards), miniature shutters, a cute little doorframe overhang, the small interior shelves, and even a small mailbox - at last I've got a place to deliver all of those credit card applications he's already been getting. Thank you mima and papa for such a wonderful gift!

Affirmative action

For a long time now, 'no' has meant, well, only Zachary knew; head shaking could mean "No, I don't wan't more juice", or "No, I'm really thirsty, give me juice", or even perhaps "No, I don't think the Mariners have what it takes to make it to the postseason this year". Over the months, we had a few guesses at what might constitute 'yes', but none has won out.

So we've been trying to get him to nod his head yes, and we've been saying 'yes' when he responds to a question by clearly agreeing in action. And yesterday we had a bit of a breakthrough - Meh reported that she was saying 'yeah' in response to Zachary agreeing with questions she'd asked, and suddenly Zachary looked at her and repeated 'yeah'. It was a one-time response, but it's something! Later in the day, he said 'yah' (as opposed to 'yeah') when Meh read him a particular book, on the page that has a pirate. He repeated this for me this morning; my best guess at the moment is that on a few occasions, I've pointed to the pirate and said 'yarrrr!' or something like that.

Also new today - Meh has always done hand motions for the itsy bitsy spider, a song that Zachary's a big fan of. Today she let him lead, and he actually kind of sort of initiated many of the motions: