To infinity -- from scratch

O has fairly consistently indicated he wanted to be Buzz Lightyear for Halloween this year. What did Meh do? Make the most amazing jetpack with wings. From scratch. She really is simply amazing!
Both boys spent much of the day modeling (and, perhaps more importantly, very nicely sharing) the new jetpack.

Lost and found

We set out today with an aggressive itinerary of errands to run; after dropping off mommy at work, the boys and I headed to the barber shop for synchronized kids haircuts. Z actually got to start his trim first, and O happily sat watching Cars for perhaps the bazillionth time. Then once O started his hair cut in the adjacent chair, Z got a super case of the giggles and flinches -- just in time for the poor stylist to start trying to trim the back of his neck. She was mildly stressed about accidentally shaving him bald as his head and arms kept jumping around, though she did a great job and Z eventually emerged with a well executed big boy haircut, though also with the back of his shirt covered with hair from all of the squirming. O has continued to be super shy around people he doesn't know and kept nagging me to ask the barber for a lollipop (but refusing to ask her himself, even though she was completely hearing everything he said). Alas, our barber shop has stopped stocking lollipops -- I'll have to start remembering to pack them for future trips.

Before heading onward to lunch, we had to go grab some groceries. On the drive there, Z started saying "Where'd bunny go?" I was able to sort out that his favorite toy magna doodle's four little animal stamp magnets had fallen out of their holders. When we got to the store, I found a few in the door well and another under his seat -- but no bunny. I moved all of the seats around, looked in all of the nooks and crannies, but no dice. Z was asking about bunny for much of the rest of the afternoon with increasing concern, and I felt like I was living the live action version of one of the boys' old favorite books. Finally, after picking up mommy at work, I stopped back at the barber shop on the way home, and sure enough, in the middle of the parking lot I spotted a tiny little yellow plastic bunny magnet -- intact, though from the scratches in the magnetic surface I think probably run over once or twice. Z was super happy, and our very own version of Knuffle Bunny ended, much like the book, with a happy ending.

Backwards letters and numbers

Z's favorite toy of late is the magna doodle. In part from noticing the etched ID codes on the windows of our car, he's become fascinated with backwards letters and numbers, and will frequently either draw them backwards or sit in front of the hallway mirror, draw them forwards, and then hold them up to the mirror to see how they look in reverse. Did I mention he's also a huge fan of the percent symbol? This has even become a favorite toy to bring in the car, winning out over (gasp) toy vehicles. He seems to understand this is a bit of a game, often commenting after he draws a backwards letter, "Why did you draw backwards letters?". Tonight at dinner he had some letter cookies, and when I glanced over I noticed he'd flipped all of them over on his plate as well, saying "It's backwards letters and numbers!"

Booth babes

Happy Sukkot! Those Jewish new year holidays really do bunch up, don't they? The boys and I went to friends J, S, and their kids L and E's house for a lovely dinner. There were a number of other kids there, a fabulous outdoor sukkah, and even a plastic indoor one for the kids to play in when they were done with the outdoor fall weather. The food was excellent as well, though the boys wouldn't know it, declining to even sit down let alone try the dizzying variety of salads, brisket, chicken, and more. Finally I was able to get them to at least sample some challah and fruit -- and they did have a great time in the sukkah proper. O was continually trying to understand what the Etrog was and if we were going to "eat it like a lemon". After pondering starting a new babies eating etrog meme, I think I'll just have to ask Meh if she knows any citron recipes.

Love is all you need

The day of atonement saw us returning to the children's service at a local shul. It was a brisk 30-minute affair, and Z had to go potty as soon as we got there -- so for him and me, more like 20 minutes. Still, it was great to see O and he singing the songs (even later on during the day), and Z continued to do a solid job of sounding out words and phrases in the mahzor. The rabbi's sermon (well, more of a story for the kids) was ironically one that I'd just read in my own prayer book at home, though he modernized it to include some silly contemporary references (including a reminder of the high demand for a certain product I'm working on -- does that mean he would condone me getting back to work during the holiday? :)

Today we all went to Seattle's Greek Festival, where we met up with several friends and actually ran into a few other friends and coworkers as well, many of whom were using this as their super early Seahawks tailgate party. It was a loud and hectic affair, but the boys had a fabulous time. There were some Greek musicians (at one point Z pointed over to them and said "It's mommy's music", clearly identifying some musical parallels to Meh's Balkan choir) and of course a coin-operated car that the boys clung to for a few minutes before getting down to serious lunchtime. O was a particular fan of the small circular waffle French fries -- covered in feta, though he shook the cheese off and preferred the fries straight up. They also had a baklava ice cream sundae concoction that he gobbled up.

Lately O has been increasingly frequent in demonstrating his solid passive aggressive skills -- specifically, if you do something that displeases him (translation: suggest he's not making a good choice or, heaven forbid, actually discipline him), he *won't* say he hates you. He'll just talk about how he loves everyone but you. "I just love mommy, and Z, and mima, and papa, and Lola, and grandma, and J, and of the people in the whole world, but not you, daddy." It would perhaps break my heart a bit if he wasn't doing this every 5-10 minutes with either or both of us -- though interestingly he rarely applies this tactic to Z.

Pedestrian effort

On weekends that mommy works, my goal is generally to find us at least one major activity a day - sometimes it's errands, when the weather cooperates we'll try to go to the park, when it's pouring rain (more often than not in the last few days, though today was thankfully beautiful) we'll find some kind of indoor play area. Yesterday was fairly typical -- the always energy-burning fun of the local mall play area followed by distracting O from the evil/brilliantly positioned cupcake shop right across from it, and completed with a sushi lunch (the waiter there knows us so well that he always concludes the meal with "See you again [insert arbitrary day of the week]!"

With the weather back to sunny for today, after dropping off mommy, I decided it was time to get back outdoors while we could (and O agreed, he wanted to "go to a park we haven't been to before"). So we drove over to the rarely visited Kelsey Creek park and farm. After playing on their playground for a few minutes, we hiked up to the farm proper and got to visit with some sheep, chickens, roosters, bunnies (all grazing and/or drinking water, but ignoring us), and a couple of sleeping pigs. Then Z was hiking away from us and I saw some goats and a horse down the path, so I figured sure, we'll follow him and visit with those animals. Then he kept hiking and suddenly we were on a trail. Again, I figured it was probably some kind of loop through the park (I'd checked a few maps beforehand and saw a pair of less-than-one-mile loops), and Z did an awesome job of sounding out the trail signs to see where we should go next. Alas, O wasn't quite as into the hike as Z, frequently panting dramatically and saying he was getting too tired -- so there was a fair amount of piggy backing. Anyway, we were gradually ascending alongside the creek, and eventually Z read a sign that put us .1 miles from the road that bounds the park. I figured there would be a bench or something there and we'd just stop for a snack then walk back along the road until we could cut back in on another path. Nope -- no benches, and no more trails as we proceeded to walk the southern circumference of the park back to the entrance. I've roughly estimated that we did a 2.5 mile hike -- not bad for Z, and even O was down and walking a fair bit. What I'd forgotten was that this road is pretty much a high speed divided highway; thankfully there was a wide sidewalk for most of it, which provided immense entertainment for Z as he kept turning around to catch vehicles whizzing past. We eventually did just camp out in a shady spot on the sidewalk, where the boys proceeded to devour the entire stock of snacks contained by the backpack. Hiking is hard work! Anyway, an unexpected but all in all successful adventure; we returned to the park where the boys insisted on playing on the playground once more before we finally headed back to the car and then home for some chill time before mommy was done with work. Hooray for positive outdoor experiences, even accidental ones!

Curtain call

Happy Jewish new year to those who observe; may you be well inscribed for a good year! O's second day of preschool wrapped up early for Rosh Hashana preparation, so I collected both boys (Z's school was a slight madhouse for their only second day of class, but I found him smiling in the elementary school lobby waiting for me with one of his teachers and one of his friends), and we then walked (with two of O's other classmates, friends J and A) literally across the street to a local synagogue's children's service. It was actually a decent turnout considering it was a 3 pm service, with maybe 30 kids and their parents. While I tried to get the boys to sit with me, they saw a gaggle of other kids up on the steps of the bimah and decided to join them - totally fine, though I noticed a big sign in front of the ark indicating there was an alarm set that would go off if anyone touched the doors. While the boys ended up getting the closest of all the kids to the sign, thankfully nothing was actually triggered. Towards the end of the service, plastic shofarot were distributed to all of the kids, and the racket that ensued... well, perhaps only slightly louder than World Cup vuvuzelas.

There was a little time to burn before meeting up with friends, mommy, and mima for a holiday dinner, so the three of us hopped down to a local park to burn some energy -- and for Owen to repeatedly ask me (and warn Z) about the geese and ducks leaving poop all over the footpath. At last it was time for dinner at friends J, A, and E's house, with a number of other young friends and their parents in attendance. Dinner was as hectic as you'd expect with 7 (!) kids, but it was wonderful to get to catch up with friends and the boys even shared E's toys pretty well with the others (in between fighting with each other). On the way home, O was telling mommy about how much fun we had at the "movies". Confused, I asked if he was talking about when he saw "Planes" a few weeks ago, but slowly from his descriptions I figured out that at the synagogue, the fact that there were rows of connected chairs, and that as we were leaving he'd noticed some dark, heavy curtains blocking off a larger area of the shul's sanctuary that wasn't needed for the kids service, meant that we'd clearly been to see a film. A live action one where he and O ran around and blew plastic shofars, but sure, it almost makes sense.

Today we took the boys to another kids' service at another shul, one we took them to perhaps two or three years ago. O made sure both his and Z's plastic shofars were in the car, and even carried his in with him (garnering compliments from a few greeters), though I warned him that we shouldn't play it in the synagogue (he agreed: "because it's too loud!"). There were songs and stories with a guitar-playing rabbi, Z did a great job of reading some words from the prayer book, and the boys had a good time once more. Hooray for positive Jewish experiences, and happy 5774!

School lunch

First day of school! This year, both boys were off to class this morning. Kind of a stuttering start to the school year since Thursday and Friday are Rosh Hashana, but at least there are a few days to start to get acclimated to the classroom, meet teachers and new friends, and in general start to get back into the fall swing of things. For Z, we were mildly unprepared by the bus actually being early (same driver as last year; her voicemail had even said "hooray!", as Z is one of her favorite kids to pick up), since driver V had warned us she'd probably be pretty late on the first day. Still, we managed to throw on Z's clothes and new raincoat (as if on cue, the weather flipped to rain today) and get him out the door and onto the bus in time to head out. He brought home a nicely colored first day picture, signed with his name -- and he'd then continuing on around the perimeter of the paper to count the numbers up to 20 - now he's just showing off!

O in the meantime had an excellent first day at preschool. He comes in knowing two friends (and actually one of the teachers was a counselor at Z's camp this summer), and in the picture they e-mailed back after day 1, he was happily chowing down on apples and honey and then sitting with friend A watching one of the teachers read a book. But when we asked him what his favorite part of his first day was, it was his "special lunch"; mommy made him a sandwich shaped like a school bus, and he was apparently exclaiming about it for the rest of the day. He at the whole thing "but not the crusts", as he told us later in the day. Z's similar school bus sandwich didn't get nearly the ecstatic verbal reception, but his lunch container similarly came home nearly empty. Happy first day to everyone!

He's a pirate

With huge thanks to friend R for the heads up in advance, after a tasty brunch with mima, papa, and Uncle J this morning, we headed onward with Uncle J to visit two tall ships temporarily docked at a nearby pier. The boys were super excited; O insisted on wearing his full pirate getup (we had to talk him out of wearing it into the restaurant), complete with hook hand. They were nearly onboard the Hawaiian Chieftain before we'd even gotten out the camera. The timing worked out well and we got to say hi to R, M, and their son J, who were also aboard. These ships apparently sail the Pacific coast from their Grays Harbor home, teaching people about 18th/19th century seafaring life. Oh, and also starring in practically every film that requires a ship of the vague general period; the second ship we boarded, the Lady Washington, was featured in Pirates of the Caribbean, Star Trek: Generations, and the Once Upon a Time TV show. Meh was of course pleased to follow in the steps of Jack Sparrow, while I was happy to occupy the same bridge as Jean-Luc Picard. (dorks)

The boys had an excellent time exploring the ships, looking over the edge of the ship at the water (I had to remove O's hat for fear it and/or he would go overboard). And O was very intent on operating most of the ship using his hook. More pictures of the boys and their plunder here.