Second Tooth

He's been wiggling it and talking about the tooth fairy since the first tooth came out, and sure enough, Z's second tooth came out while brushing his teeth after bath time last night. Unfortunately yesterday was Seattle's hottest day of the summer yet, and between that and the excitement, both boys were ridiculously energetic and uncooperative for way too long past bedtime. O didn't get to sleep until nearly 10 o'clock, and when I tried to sneak in for the tooth fairy to replace the tooth, he stirred a bit, so I had to abort until this morning. Somehow it all worked out, and Z was pleased to open his tooth fairy pillow pocket to discover an Eisenhower dollar coin. Of course his first thought was that it was chocolate gelt, but eventually he got the idea and happily plopped it into his piggy bank.

I forgot to mention Z's reaction to his tooth fairy present for his first tooth. The morning after putting his tooth under his pillow, I showed him how to pull a rolled up dollar bill out of the same pillow pocket; he unrolled it, looked at it, and proclaimed, "It's a picture of a man!" Indeed it is.

Sign Language

There's a fountain outside of the sushi restaurant we frequent. The last few times, the boys have decided it was a good idea to walk along the edge of the circular fountain. Today, O noticed the prominently displayed sign and commented, "It says no peoples in here." Not a bad guess. Z proceeded to accidentally step into the fountain wearing shoes/socks approximately 10 seconds later.

Air brush

Both boys are pretty big into drawing -- crayons, markers, pens, and (as pictured) magnetic boards. The subjects are mostly cars and vehicles, though with a plane flight in the near future, airplanes, airports, catering vehicles, and "tunnels" (Z's description for jetways) are gaining popularity. Z has additionally increasingly focused on numbers, letters, and words. Lately I've noticed him even practicing spelling words in the air when a drawing instrument isn't readily at hand -- and today, Meh witnessed that when he was displeased with how he'd formed an air-drawn letter, he actually "erased" it with a brush of his hand and drew it again!

Strawberry Festival, Hold the Strawberries

If you ever thought sandwich board or staked-into-the-ground advertisements were a total waste, today proved that wrong for us. The boys were up early and wild as can be and needed a morning activity before we could take them to lunch (you can imagine how early it must've been when the lunch place opens at 11), and as we started driving down towards the local u-pick blueberry farm, I spotted a sign for a "Strawberry Festival".

Intrigued, we made the u-turn around back to one of the boys' favorite local parks, where we parked the car to find O and Z nirvana: bounce houses (they sampled one), the actual playground/water toys of the park, pony rides, a train ride, and a main stage with their favorite band jamming away. Z immediately sat in a seat and smiled at the band while O started dancing in the kiddie mosh pit area. Z eventually joined him and they had a blast dancing to the rest of the set; at one point a giant Geico Gecko danced through (because what says Bellevue like an insurance icon?), which Z loved and O got immediately shy of.

Next we were off to one of the several giant bounce houses, a perennial favorite -- we're actually considering renting one for Z's next birthday if we end up celebrating at home. Then everyone was hungry (and it was starting to rain), so we grabbed space at a table in the festival's giant tent and I hunted down faire food, namely hot dogs (declined by the boys despite O strongly requesting one) and elephant ears (eagerly consumed by O). (If you were wondering about the festival's namesake, I couldn't for the life of me actually see any fresh strawberries, just the usual faire Shishkaberry chocolate-covered strawberry stand.) With the rain still coming down, our time at the festival was over -- and it was on to some indoor play to wrap up a lovely family morning.

Revisionist History

Last day of school! Z celebrated the end of kindergarten with another themed day; last Friday was silly hair day (he went to school with a number of colorful clips pinning his hair up in goofy tufts), and today was wear-your-pajamas-to-school day. O was not to be outdone and insisted on wearing his own PJs to his nanny's house.

Over the past few days, Z has been bringing home many of his long-term school items, but it's still hard to believe the end of the year is already here. We'll definitely miss the "Over the weekend I..." sentences and drawings he brought home, many of which were increasingly relevant and super cute (he brought one home that apparently had been on the wall of fame at school about swimming in the pool at nanny and poppy's, complete with an excellent self-portrait of backfloating in the pool). Next week he starts the summer camp that he had a blast at last summer, and the week after that we'll be in Michigan for grandma and John's wedding!

All of the parents from his class got an e-mail a few days ago from his teacher indicating that there had been a typo in the school yearbook and that they would be receiving a "correction", as a row of kids photos had apparently inadvertently been clipped from the yearbook. We didn't actually order the school yearbook this year, but the correction came home in everyone's backpack -- a strip of sticker-backed paper with 7 students' pictures and names -- and yup, the classic image of Z was one of them. So there ya go, we got the focused portion of the yearbook we would have been most interested in after all!

Dental Record

It finally happened - after putting O and Z to bed (followed by their inevitable winding each other up, chatting, and running around mostly in their room) tonight, when Meh went to check on Z, he had a gap in his mouth: his increasingly wiggly loose tooth had finally fallen out! She asked where it was, and at first he indicated that he'd swallowed it -- but a shake of the blankie and the little white piece of calcium fell to the floor. We've been reading Meh's favorite childhood book on the subject, so Meh quickly showed him that she'd put it in a tiny pillowcase underneath his pillow so the tooth fairy might come to visit. Now of course we've just got to remember to book that visit before we go to bed tonight. Congrats on your first lost tooth, Mr. Z!

Fathers of Flight

Happy fathers day to all of the dads out there! Ours was a family affair; the Museum of Flight had a special dad's day celebration, so we caravanned with mima and papa down to the facility. The boys were super excited and talking about it the whole way down, and when we arrived, the many outdoor (and indoor) planes didn't disappoint! There was even a giant lego table, where a lego guy (enthusiast? professional?) had dumped out mounds and mounds of random parts, and kids got to assemble their own vehicles of choice to go on display for the day. There were a number of famous flying vehicles (Enterprise, Millennium Falcon, Battlestar Galactica, flying DeLorean, etc.) all made of custom legos as well. O made a very impressive 'something', then explained to the man that he was going to leave it right *there*. Z in the meantime found the front half of a 737 with seats, and decided to sit down and wait for the flight to depart.

Then we heard there was some sort of build your own candy plane project, and we *had* to go check that out. A tube of smarties (fuselage), a fruit leather (wings), and rubber banded Life Savers (wheels) later, we had both a clutch-toy for the rest of the trip (for each of them) and a snack for the ride home - score! We crossed the street to the (I believe new) annex, which had a giant space exhibit, including a scale model of the space shuttle that Z was super pleased with, before heading outside to check out the original prototype 747, a circa-1970 Air Force One (O apparently decided to make himself at home and tried to remove the plexiglass preventing people from sitting in it -- I expect a Secret Service visit at any moment), and a Concorde. The boys definitely would have been pleased to stay the whole day! As we learned later in the day, Z will indeed get that wish -- he's right back here next Wednesday when his first week of camp's field trip brings him "back to the Museum of Flight... another time!"

Fire squad

Several months ago when we got our utility bill of all things, I noticed a corner of it announced that the local firehouse was going to be having a pancake breakfast. Since our favorite monkey had a related adventure, I knew this would be right up the boys' alley -- but I wasn't sure if I could brave taking them alone, as Meh works this weekend. Enter Uncle J, who volunteered to come along, and with whom we spent a lovely morning -- first at the breakfast and then having a lovely sushi lunch. Thanks for helping me wrangle our little firefighters, Uncle J!

From the moment I mentioned the activity this morning, both boys were super excited. O even ran upstairs and put on the little fireman's costume jacket (which he was reluctant to take off even when we got to the very sunny and warm event), and both boys insisted on wearing their bright red hats. When we arrived, a number of activities were in full swing: they were demonstrating the jaws of life on an overturned car in the parking lot (O: "Why is that car upside down?"), wrapping up the torching of a room to demonstrate what happens with and without sprinklers, getting ready to dash up their practice fire escapes with hoses, and of course serving lots and lots of pancakes and eggs. The boys would have none of it though, making a beeline through the table and chair-filled firehouse to the ambulance and fire truck themselves, which were parked outside. A nice fireman helped each of them up into the cab of the fire engine, commenting on their hats ('real' firemen don't wear such things anymore apparently), and then they dashed up onto the back of the ambulance for a fabulous photo op. It was an excellent morning activity, followed up by a hearty lunch with uncle J.

Loose Tooth

On Friday morning I noticed a gap in Z's teeth, and yesterday Meh commented on the same -- when we asked Z about it, he touched it, and you could see one of his bottom front teeth moving quite a bit. It's Z's very first loose tooth! Fear not, the internets (source of all truth) indicate it's typical for kids to start losing baby teeth by the time they're turning six, so he's only slightly on the early side. But very exciting times - the thought of loose teeth jarred some childhood memory for Meh, and she's planning to hunting for a library book that she remembered reading about rabbits and loose teeth.

Meh has been having a very full weekend of activities with friend I's wedding shower (magnificently executed by Meh and several other friends from what I hear) and some quality mima time involving toes and tea. The boys and I took the opportunity to go to a friend's birthday party yesterday (the boys were very well behaved, though O did insist on raiding J's entire fabulous collection of toys and emptying them out all over the family room), and then today we all checked out the castle park O and I visited in our day-of-four-parks. When I attempted to circle the park looking for parking, I instead found more street parking along with a bonus mini-playground. The boys were very excited about the see-saw ("Zachary, go up!" was O's helpful suggestion/command to Z), and we then got to do a lovely nature walk in the fabulous summery weather (in June no less, quite novel for Seattle), right past the fire station (and multiple firehouse ambulances and engines) to the bigger park, before looping back around through the forest and having a nice snack and more play time at the smaller playground.

Trickle Down Economics

The boys have not had a ton of chores around the house, but as they (O in particular) have been increasingly obsessive about new toys any time they spot one in the store. I've actually taken O to the big Seattle area grocery-sporting goods-department store several times just to cruise past their displays of vehicles. Both boys have actually made piece about sometimes browsing toys without actually buying them -- they can put them on their "wish list", which, despite I suppose the readily available electronic or paper versions, are currently completely within their minds and subject to change with each visit. Still, we'll have a pretty good idea of what to put on the actual birthday and holiday wish lists when the time comes.

Still, wish lists only get you so far, and it was perhaps time to start teaching the value of a dollar. So over the past few weeks, we've started giving them a weekly allowance for setting the table (O, who yells at us or Z if we inadvertently do the job for him), clearing the table (Z, who does a great job of carefully bringing the plates over from the table, only to fling them at high speed/height into the sink if we're not there to help guide him with the last step), making beds, cleaning up toys before bedtime (my personal favorite), and yes, occasionally just for listening us (as in "if you can't stop fighting, you're not going to get your allowance this week").

At the end of the week, they each get 50 cents to put in their piggy banks (a bus for O, a ceramic car for Z), as well as 50 cents to put into the tzedakah (charity) box. After we save up a bit, they'll get to choose where to donate that money to (O lately has indicated he wants to give it to the zoo to "help the animals have snack".) The boys have been enthusiastic about the process thus far, and yesterday was the first actual purchase for O; Meh took him to a local dollar store and he picked out (shock of shocks) a small orange taxi matchbox car. He's been proudly toting it around, and yes, occasionally even sharing it with "the brother".