Mischief of one kind and another

Happy Halloween! We actually got to have a dry run early this year, as friends Z and A had a Halloween party at their house on Saturday night. I was all adventurous and brought the boys solo (Meh had a choir concert) -- they were a bit overwhelmed to arrive and discover not only an awesomely decorated house (laser lights, music, giant spiders with webs, and Halloween-themed everything [including hand towels in the bathroom!]) but also that they were the only boys in a sea of like ten little girls. We walked into the play room where they were doing arts and crafts jack-o-lanterns, and O was mystified that there were no cars in sight. But the boys had a good time overall, snacking on fun Halloween-themed foods (deviled eggs with spiders made of olives on top, cookies that looked like fingers, etc.) and watching a motion-activated skeleton on the piano start singing a song every time they walked past. O got to realize his months-long-ambition to be Buzz Lightyear, while Z reprised his Max (of Where the Wild Things Are) costume from last year. O thought that was it for the Buzz outfit, and was already requesting to dress up like a Power Ranger for "real" Halloween -- even though we're fairly convinced he still doesn't have much idea of what Power Rangers actually look like. (He and some of his friends "play" Power Rangers at school, which from his descriptions sounds mostly like something between tag and cops & robbers.) Thankfully I talked him into a second showing of Buzz.

Today was Halloween proper, and we fully celebrated the occasion. Of course, the day had to start with awesome mommy-created Halloween-themed lunches for the boys. I wore my costume to work (one of the few - c'mon, coworkers!) and had to resist the urge to constantly reenact the condescending Wonka internet meme. Mommy and O came to visit me at work, where there was trick or treating around our central cafeteria area as well as one of those little trains making a circle around campus -- alas, there weren't many train cars and the line was moving painfully slowly. O persisted for quite a while but eventually did grow bored, so we moved on to candy collection and snacks. In the meantime, Z marched in the school parade in full Max attire.

In the evening, everyone got back into their costumes and it was time for some trick-or-treating! Meh and I were the unlikely pair of Willy Wonka and Violet Beauregard. Mima and papa (Indiana Jones) joined up with us as well for the first half of the loop around our neighborhood:

The prize for coolest Halloween costume in the neighborhood went to a little two-year-old Ghostbuster (complete with custom made outfit and proton pack), whose mom had somehow modded an actual Ecto-1 vehicle out of a motorized kids cart for him to ride between houses. It was pumping out the Ray Charles Ghostbusters theme and was a hit with all of the parents (though most of the kids I'm guessing had no idea what it was about).

Of course the evening had to wrap up with a recounting of the candy, as well as choosing two choice pieces to eat this evening. O appeared to take the slightly larger haul, though both of them will likely have Halloween candy to last through the new year. Z was particularly careful in evaluating each piece of candy before choosing a bat-shaped lollipop. Happy Halloween once again -- far more pictures here.

Three's Company

If it's cleared to announce on the social networks, I suppose it's okay to post a blog entry -- we're expecting! Meh is due right around O's birthday in early March, and for the first time in more than 60 years, my family will be welcoming a girl! Meh's logic for announcing now was that of course we'll be taking Halloween pictures tomorrow, and her costume is Willy Wonka's Violet Beauregarde turning into a blueberry -- so she wanted to get out in advance and explain the joke as involving a pregnant tummy. :)
O has been more excited than Z (who internally is probably thinking "here we go again") -- he keeps talking about the baby in mommy's tummy, though we had to explain a bit more than we'd expected about it being a different part of her tummy than where food goes. This promptly got reflected back to us in this reported conversation with one of his teachers:

O: That's a cute baby! (as a mom goes by pushing a stroller)
Teacher: Is that baby cute?
O: Yes. I have a cute baby.
Teacher: You do?
O: Yes, in mommy's uterus.

Working for peanuts

A blissfully empty day in the family schedule, and we tried to take full advantage of it. O really wanted to "go to the mall", so we decided to take the boys to at least a different mall with a new play area. Foiled again -- the play area was torn up for remodeling (though hey, at least there was an indoor crane there to look at). On the plus side, opposite the play area was the Lego store, so we went in there and browsed. The boys were super excited by all of the Lego vehicles (Meh made me promise not to look at one particular section, where I suspect a potential Chanukah present lives), and there were several tables/stations for making your own inventions as well.

Mommy had some clothes to return/exchange, and it was still a few minutes before the restaurants would open for lunch (at 11 am mind you), so we wandered outdoors to some of the fun fountains -- the boys enjoyed watching the water sprays, but were clearly very focused on mommy coming back. We had a very nice lunch at an old standard. Then O and Z clearly still needed to burn off some energy, so we headed up to a favorite park for some exercise time. Granted, park activities generally end in more parent than kid exercise (pushing on swings, holding them up on zip lines, spinning the boys as they sit on merry go rounds, etc.) -- but still, somehow they usually seem more tired afterwards; go figure.

O has recently rediscovered our big wheels style tricycle, and has been asking us to clear the garage of vehicles so he can drive it around a bit. Since the weather was actually decent if still a bit wet, and the boys clearly had even more energy, we opted to walk up to Z's elementary school playground when we got home. O rode the tricycle, and alternated between peddling like a mad man and "letting" me help push him. He was very concerned that I not even touch the push handle if he could make forward progress solo. Anyway, when we got to the playground, the boys had a fabulous time -- Z kept talking about "recess", and really enjoyed pushing his brother around on the tricycle. Plus there weren't any spectacular crashes or wipeouts, so I'll call it a win.

The day wrapped up with dinner at another of the boys' newer favorite restaurants. Z continues to improve his reading, and at this restaurant it's particularly challenging to identify which of the many signs he might be sounding out at a given time (the walls are covered with large font reviews of the restaurant). Today he was working his way through announcing that "burgers are boss" -- while happily munching on a giant hot dog. In the meantime, O was having a wonderful time and making a spectacular mess shelling and eating peanuts. I still haven't gotten him to actually try the restaurant's tasty-looking grilled cheese sandwich, but it's a bit alarming just how many of their tasty french fries he can consume. Hooray for full family days!

Furlough / A guy walks into a bar...

It's been a long but good week! While the time in many ways flew by, and it was great to visit with family and friends, it's still very good to be back home after a solo trip to both Washington D.C. and New York. I hadn't seen my bubbie (grandmother) in quite a while, and as it's going to be challenging to get the whole family back east (though O is already frequently talking about it being our next flight destination), and I was en route to a conference in New York, I decided to fly first to DC and then take the train into New York.

The timing was somewhat fortuitous I suppose, if there's something positive to be said for a government shutdown; my aunt was off work because of it, and it was really nice to get to spend time with both her and my grandmother. I also got to have dinner with my uncle and cousin. There was good conversation, multiple rounds of gin rummy (my bubbie can still run the table), and of course lots of showing of the boys' pictures and catching everyone up on O and Z's continuing adventures and silliness. I did find some old family pics, and it was neat to see photos of my grandmother at my age, with my aunt and dad when they were kids.

I caught the evening train the next night to New York (productively getting a ton of work e-mail done with the free wi-fi), exited Grand Central station, walked a few blocks to my hotel, and walked into a crazy club scene -- I mean the lobby of my hotel -- at 10 pm. It was really quite the happening place; friend M who I caught up with later in the week indicated she'd had a date there. I rolled my bag to what I thought was the check-in desk, only to realize from the wide array of bottles behind the desk that it was actually the bar - whoops.

Of course everywhere I went, I was thinking about the boys and Meh; my route to the convention center took me past the horse stables (is there anything more incongruous in the middle of Manhattan?), and I snapped a picture of them getting ready to start their day. Similarly, I thought of my favorite librarian when I saw the New York Public Library lions. And I also was proven wrong by O in absentia; he has frequently said that any tow truck with its lights flashing is a "police tow truck", and I've tried to patiently explain that tow trucks aren't operated by the police. Sure enough, my first morning, an NYPD tow truck was getting ready to haul away an illegally parked vehicle.

The conference went very well; it was good to both catch up with a number of fellow audio folks and the talks I delivered seemed well received. I also got to meet a number of students in a "speed mentoring" session, and a bunch turned out to be in town for the conference from the technical college in my own home town -- small world! There were also evening social events; one of which was next door to an unlabeled storefront that must have been some kind of art space housing (I kid you not, see the picture) some glowing flying dogs with wings chained to what looked like a scrapped car engine. I have no idea, yet somehow I think it would not have been out of place if transported to my hotel's lobby. Anyway, I showed the picture to O tonight and he though it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen.

I was also able to catch up with a number of old friends for meals or coffee, and had an alarming number of kosher deli meals (yes, the links are correct; I ate at Ben's twice). And best of all, I got to spend time with my brother B and sister in law J, moving out of the slightly pretentious hotel for the weekend to stay at their very cozy new place in Brooklyn, along with sampling some of the best bagels in the borough. We had such a wonderful time hanging out, catching up, seeing some nice exhibits at the Met, and more. My brother and I also stopped by the movie theater that will be premiering my good friend J's documentary film in a few days -- alas, the operators of the theater were clueless and didn't even know that it was coming, so I couldn't find any publicity photos. Ah well -- huge congrats to J, and go see the film!

B and I also went to the not-yet-completed 9/11 Memorial, where there are a very emotionally moving pair of inverted fountains with etched victims names, the Survivor Tree (which somehow survived both the original disaster *and* Hurricane Sandy last year), and a building that will house a museum in the future, all adjacent to the nearly completed 1,776 foot tall One World Trade Center. A meaningful, respectful, and understated memorial; well worth the queue and substantial security.

I of course picked up presents for both the boys (two new toy subway cars that cover Uncle B and Aunt J's current commute routes) and Meh (a pair of black and white cookies, one from one of the most posh bakeries in town and one that was slightly more humble [authentic?] -- we'll have to see which she prefers). And at last I was back on the plane home -- another trip in a few weeks to LA and then I think I'm home for quite some time!

Kid Rock

Uncle J has headed back to Texas for a visit, and some of his items are in storage at our house in the interim. O was mystified by the big black guitar case that had magically appeared ("Is it a viola?" "Whose guitar is it?"), but when his curiosity had him starting to open the case, I redirected him to Meh's own guitar. She captured the following O performance. I "think" the first song is about toy cars, but many of the lyrics and the song's title were, shall we say, left open to interpretation.

Mister Bump

Several times last year, Z would return home from school wearing a brightly colored bracelet -- this indicated some kind of 'head injury', though thankfully they were all minor. There would also be an official paper write-up describing the injury ("bumped into a door", etc.) in his backpack. Mister Z came home yesterday with a bracelet, and *two* head injury write-ups -- poor Mr. Bump! Apparently there were two voicemails on the answering machine, but only the second merited a phone call to Meh's cell; when she asked if this was the same one again, the school indicated, nope, another bonk.

In slightly happier news, Z continues to amaze us (and amuse himself) by using repurposed Bananagrams tiles to spell out words and now increasingly long and complex sentences. Sometimes I'll visit the dining room table to see he's left a little message for us -- once it was "mommy is cozy", though as I tried to snap a picture of it for Meh, he scattered the tiles and started a fresh sentence. Meh was amused/mock saddened by the image below (Z later answered his own question, even if not quite correctly).

3DO

O had his very first class trip yesterday, to a very fun local farm. Mommy volunteered to be one of the drivers, and from the sounds of it, everyone had a great time -- and I do mean everyone: it was apparently most of O's entire school in attendance, not just his class. They walked through a hay maze, visited with turkeys and ducks, and even got to ride a tractor ride to pick out pumpkins. Friend A's dad J brought a fancy tripod rig and even took a cool pannable panoramic picture of the class.

Later that afternoon, Meh and I received an e-mail from his teachers. He apparently rarely takes a nap at school (often coming home to tell us that his friends couldn't sleep because he was talking to them), but they told us that they'd captured a picture of a rare O nap the previous day -- yes, hood up, and crocs on his hands.

O has also started a year-long project where they will apparently be drawing self-portraits. At the parent conferences/orientation on Tuesday night, Meh and the other parents in attendance were shown a pile of the kids' first draft drawings and tried to guess which one was their child's. Meh (and many other parents) guessed that the one that was just a little unidentifiable squiggle was their child's, but we were both pretty impressed with the one that turned out to be sketched by O - nice drawing, O!

How do you like them apples?

Friends J and S and their kids L and E invited us to go apple-picking this weekend, at the same place where Z took his first bite of an actual non-sliced-up fruit about three years ago. Meh unfortunately had to work, but I got the kids into the car with snacks and road trip music (it's about an 80-minute drive to the U-Pick apple orchard) in hand. O promptly conked out, so Z and I chatted about all of the fun things that we saw -- there was a parked classic steam locomotive, a building that looked like a crane (it was, appropriately enough, a crane supply/rental shop -- a ton of them were parked behind it), a car repair shop with a tiny old Fiat up on the room, the largest telephone pole either of us had ever seen, and an alarmingly large collection of drydocked boats spanning several miles of the highway.

O had perfect nap timing, waking up as we pulled into the farm. It was much the way we remembered it -- the boys even played on the same pink toy tractor that Z had on our last visit. (Despite the suggestion from the picture, O was not particularly unhappy about Z's turn; he was just waking up.) Then it was time to pick some apples!

The weather was glorious -- 75 degrees in October? The kids got a ride in the cart (which we promptly dumped at the first row of the orchard), and Z helped push. It's a bit later in the season this time, so some of the apple trees were already bare. Others had dropped *lots* of fruit, and what I thought might be a couple of flies turned out to be giant swarms of very happy bees. We gingerly stepped through and found apples to eat and to bring home for snacks and lunches (I put one in the boys' lunch today). Z found one particular apple that he was sampling for the better part of an hour. Then there was a hay ride. Well, the hay wagon part anyway; I think they do rides around Halloween. The boys had a great time; it took forever to coax them back out to help us pick out a pumpkin to bring home.

To wrap things up, they were pouring glasses of fresh apple cider; O was thrilled to sip one ("It's like apple juice. Only warmer.") on the walk back to the car. As we got into the car and buckled up, I told O about all of the fun stuff Z and I had seen on the drive up. He didn't believe me that he'd fallen asleep and taken a nap through it all, so I had to basically call out all of the landmarks in reverse as we drove home. He'd excitedly say "Oh! I *do* see that!", then immediately demanded I let him know what the next thing was that we'd see. Tourist.

More pics here.