Got birthday milk?

Meh has been having an epic and extended birthday celebration! The boys were very excited about planning mommy's birthday; I made a card (with kudos to the Keep Calm-O-Matic), and the boys signed their names (Z insisted on adding the date) and drew pictures for mommy. O drew mommy's face, "but there were no legs because the face was too low". We'd talked about what we wanted to do, and the boys agreed that bringing her breakfast in bed was the way to go; when I asked O what we should bring her, he said, "well... I'm going to bring her a glass of milk. Because milk is so yummy for breakfast." Sure enough, Thursday morning, O immediately wanted to pour the glass. I was able to stall him for a bit and he helped me pick out other breakfast items, but from the moment we co-poured some milk, practically before I could even gather the plate of food and tea, he was already walking it up the stairs -- very carefully, but I still dashed after him to make sure the milk actually made it intact. Meh seemed pleased with her breakfast and the card, though she was mildly concerned by our secret birthday dinner date night -- not to worry, it turned out great, at an excellent restaurant (special thanks to friend J for the recommendation!)

Tonight was the birthday party proper -- Meh booked a small painting party with a few friends. It's apparently the new thing (grandma reported that she'd been to a similar event a month or so ago), where you all go to an art studio, drink wine, get your own easel and paints, and a professional artist guides your group through the process of painting a specific image. From the sound of it, the girls all had a fabulous time -- Meh returned home with an excellent picture of iris flowers (and some yummy leftover cake, sushi, and cheeses for me to enjoy too). Happy birthday weekend to Meh!

Dramatic Reading

Z has been learning a number of "sight words" (words that are both sounded out and learned to be recognized by visual cues) at school, and we recap many of them as part of his weekly homework assignments. He's been doing a good job overall with them, but in the past few weeks we've gotten a few happy surprises that indicate he's understanding and internalizing reading and writing even more than the homework would suggest. The other day he was sketching on a magnadoodle (a new favorite activity, and he's getting increasingly good at cars, trucks, people, airplanes and, my favorite, "catering trucks"), and I heard him slowly and deliberately say in time with his drawing, "This weekend I played with cars" -- sure enough when I looked down at it, he had written the first letter of each of those words. But today was the big one -- Meh brought home one of the Bob Books and we've read a few of the stories with the kids, but this morning, Z proceeded to read an entire story all by himself!

Coupled with O's recent success at re-potty training (really he'd already been self-trained, just too concerned about missing something exciting to actually walk the ten feet to the bathroom during the day), which included filling a 7 dry days sticker chart in just 8 days, this morning we went to our favorite newly (re-)discovered toy store with the boys for each of them to pick out a vehicle. Z pondered a large number before settling on a fine yellow die cast Lamborghini; O hoarded even more, and finally declared a moving truck (with operable rear gate) to be the winner. Alas, we then wandered the store for a few minutes while a birthday present for one of Z's classmates was wrapped, which was enough time for O to change his mind and instead select a Thomas and Friends talking Emily train -- which when rung up we learned was triple the price of his moving truck. Ah well - well earned. Congratulations on both sets of accomplishments, boys!

This is SportsCenter

It's been a weekend of birthday parties for several 3-year-old friends! On Saturday, I took the boys to friend E's third birthday party at her house. They had a great time playing with the many toy vehicles present, as well as going in and out of E's very fun (and excellently repurposed large appliance cardboard box) homemade playhouse. Oh, and O got bit by the electric model train bug; E's mom had just gotten her dad's set up and running, and he spent a good 45 minutes downstairs nicely watching and then operating a model locomotive, buffering it up to a couple of freight cars and throwing track switches like a pro to get it back on the mainline for a few loops.

Sunday was an O-only affair for friends' R and M's son J's third birthday party. (Mima got to have some alone time with Z, which they both enjoyed thoroughly.) I wasn't quite sure what to expect, as the invitation indicated "sports" would be played. It turned out to be an excellent organized activity where a coach teaches the kids some basic sports skills in a non-competitive super fun environment. O was incredibly into it, helping with various cheers and then going full tilt whenever the physical activities commenced. Here he was in the opening run-around-the-perimeter activity, showing excellent form:


There was an obstacle course, some basic basketball skills (practicing throwing a ball through a hula hoop), baseball base running and bat swinging skills, and (my personal favorite) they closed out with each kid in turn chasing down a rolling hula hoop:

It was great to see O get so into an activity, and he was talking about the sports he participated in the whole drive home, "Well, my favorite was the basketball... but we didn't have time for the tennis" (I presume the coach had mentioned this to them as something they'd run out of time for). Anyway, a thoroughly busy and fun weekend for both boys, and now the idea is planted to consider getting O into some kind of sports activity (perhaps even the Sportball classes they have that inspired R and M to make it J's birthday theme?) this summer.

Hot Chocolate

When O talked to mommy on the phone while she was gone (and I think even before she left), his primary concern was that she bring him back a present of some chocolate. Diligent mommy indeed brought the boys some, um, "authentic" Arizona chocolates -- namely a pair of Kit Kat bars, accidentally left in a hot Tucson car for the 2-3 minutes it takes for them to melt into a chocolaty wafery blob. Owen was still ecstatic, and gobbled his up on the ride over to Z's after school program today. Z took one look at his and tried to give it to Owen; I indicated a tummy ache might be possible, so O grudgingly gave it up to me before devouring it all.

The boys have been big fans of the rolling album of pictures from our recent London trip, particularly the British vehicles we managed to snap pictures of. Exclamations of "British fire truck!", "It's a British police car!", and "Look at that big blue British dump truck!" can be heard often -- though my personal favorite was Z gesturing to this picture of Osterley House and saying "Picture of a British fence!"

Bachelor party

While Meh has had an occasional night or two away from the boys (and a few longer trips with me), this week marked her first major airplane-involving expedition away solo; friends T and P and their kids J and M are getting ready to move from Arizona to the Czech Republic, so this was a last opportunity to visit them while still in the same country and time zone (well, MST versus PDT, but close enough). We all took mommy to the airport and gave her kisses goodbye; Z continues to struggle with goodbyes, but actually did fairly well. Back at home, I created a visual schedule for him, with a picture of an airplane and "Arizona" (a desert/cactus landscape) next to another airplane and a picture of home, with a calendar of days counting down to mommy's return -- we X'ed out the previous day each morning at breakfast. Both boys would later comment on the desert landscape, "it looks like Cars Land!". Z still frequently talked about "mommy having lunch with J and M", while O preferred to discuss what kind of chocolate present she'd be bringing him back from Arizona.

Despite Z being on spring break, we actually had a pretty full end of the week/weekend of activities to keep us busy. After dropping off mommy (and excitedly talking about the train as we drove alongside/beneath it - one of these days we'll actually ride the thing), we did a little shopping for O's friend P's birthday and other sundries; O picked out a new toothbrush to complement Z's (from a recent very positive dentist visit!). On Friday, Z and I ran errands and had a daddy-son sushi lunch while O played with his friends at his nanny's house, and on Friday evening, we attended one of O's friend's birthday party at an excellent bounce house. Generously they let Z come along as well, and both boys had a blast; both boys particularly enjoyed the transparent maze-like tube paths they had taped to the walls, which you could send whiffle balls hurtling through and across the entire warehouse. Z actually tried a sandwich, and O was in love with the ice cream cake.

On Saturday we had a lovely brunch at our friends D and S's house, where the boys proceeded to rifle through baby K's toys and find (but very nicely share) her one toy car; we also had a nice dinner with mima. And on Sunday, with rain once again falling (and seemingly permanently; someday we'll get enough dry weather to finish that house painting!) we all piled into the car and visited another of our favorite indoor play areas, which as a bonus is situated in a mall with a number of coin-operated vehicle rides and a carousel. Alas, I was quarter-free, so the boys snagged a free ride when another kid went on the carousel, but were content to sit in non-moving cars and trains. And then they played like crazy, after which we all sat in tall stools at the counter of the mall's deli, eating grilled hot dogs (or not - Owen: "I don't like the brown parts") and French fries. Everyone knew that mommy was coming home tonight and was very excited about it; looking forward to her flight landing soon, and we'll all be happy to welcome her home (though hopefully not too early) tomorrow morning!

House painting

While early (pre-6 am) wakeups are still often the norm for the boys, very occasionally they'll leave us to sleep for a bit and go play together in their fabulous new playroom; it's particularly amusing to hear O coax Z out of bed (the latter firmly believes that he's supposed to stay in bed until his clock's light turns green, at 7 am sharp) with the promise of toys and games. Yesterday was one of those occasions, and it was such a great feeling to come in and see the boys playing nicely, applying stickers to their many vehicles. This morning I was amazed/thankful to hear them entertaining each other without us for a second day in a row. Meh and I were both enjoying the extra snooze time until I heard Z complain that his shirt was wet and then heard him run out of the play room. Hmm. What I saw when I entered was the kind of thing I thought only happened to men with yellow hats or the parents of precocious pigs: we have some art supplies designed to generally be used under adult supervision, and O had decided that it was a good morning to paint some Cars pictures, with six different little containers of paint opened, and several large puddles of different primary colors on the carpeted floor. To his credit, most of the paint and the brushes were still on the little table (the picture itself was the typical kids' supersaturated mud-brown), but yikes! We got the boys cleaned up and dabbed up the room as much as possible; the damage was pretty localized, and the paint is hypothetically "washable", but we'll have to test that with our carpet cleaner as soon as we can get some more detergent for it. Ah well, now it's *definitely* a kids' room!

Completely unrelated, but also matching the subject of this post, we'd noticed strips of paint starting to peel off the house a few weeks ago, and discovered another joy of our house's previous (original) owners' installation techniques: the siding was apparently never primed before the first ever coat of paint was applied. Whoops. So we're booked for our second repainting in 5 or 6 years, and it likely won't have much more staying power. Regardless, it will still be fun to get to transform our house's exterior color scheme once more!

O and Z: The Musical

The boys have gradually been introduced to a few live action films over the past few months, and their favorite at the moment is Annie. Special thanks to Grandma and J for sending it to O for his birthday; his interest had actually started with a mix CD that Meh had helped contribute to for a friend's baby shower a few months ago. Anyway, both boys have quickly been picking up on the tunes and lyrics, and have their favorites that they request in both the car and now on the TV. Z even has a number of new quotes in his arsenal, but the sing-along is by far my favorite: