Hot pants

O wanted Elsa pajamas; Meh found "sisters forever" fabric featuring both Elsa and Anna, and made a pair of fabulous pajama bottoms. With his choice of top from his existing collection, O has declared that he is now "Lightning Elsa Anna McQueen."

Work back schedule

The day has finally arrived -- maternity leave has wrapped up and mommy is back at work! I'm taking my full leave in August when the girls are back from Bulgaria, so I'm taking intermittent vacation days to both watch L and chaperone the boys to and from school for this week. We of course had to organize a visit (both so L could get a snack and to let her say hi to mommy's co-workers). There had actually been a few library visits during Meh's leave, most of which for whatever reason seemed coupled with massive diaper explosions -- at one point Meh had to dash to the bathroom to change L, and a coworker who thought she was leaving apparently got on the library PA system requesting she return to the desk! Thankfully, today's visit was a bit less eventful diaper-wise, and L was all smiles and coos as she met various coworkers. Then we went back home for a nap before heading out to pick up the boys from camp.

Planes, trains, and automobiles

The boys' big cross-country road adventure has come to its conclusion, with two successful 4+ hour flights interspersed with excellent fun times with grandma, John, their dog Winston, their boat, four playgrounds, and much more! On Wednesday, the whole family piled into the car and drove to the airport, where mommy and L said goodbye to us with hugs and kisses, before the boys each took our own backpacks and bravely walked into the airport and through security. I left in plenty of time for a snack (O had to grab some French fries from the classic Seattle fish and chips outlet) in the airport's excellent windowed promenade, where the boys watched and commented on various airplanes and ground support vehicles.

Then after some playtime at the indoor playground and two loops in the subway car around the terminal, it was time to board the flight. The three seats they got us together were in the very last row, which while originally seeming like a nuisance, was actually a blessing when O needed multiple trips to the restroom and I could trust that Z was going to be literally on the other side of the wall from us). The boys did great entertaining themselves with their various toys and snacks, and the aforementioned car cases were a particularly huge hit. (And bonus: the felt road had enough traction that even through some turbulence, the cars didn't roll off the tray tables and onto the ground.) My favorite was the notes that Meredith had packed in their bags; Z liked his so much that it found an honored place on his armrest, where he re-read it several times during the flight and talked about the airplane she'd drawn on it.

We had an excellent time with grandma and John! There was of course a trip out in the boat; the boys brought snacks (and insisted on wearing their slick new sunglasses, also courtesy of mommy's backpack packing skillz) and talked about everything they saw from the boat (especially, shock of shocks, cars driving by on the roads). O insisted on paddling, while talking a mile a minute about which direction he wanted to go, what was an island, why that bird was swimming away, and so on. Z joined in on the paddling as well -- it was all fun and games until O accidentally dropped his paddle in the lake, and Z thought that was so funny that he let his go as well. Thankfully they floated and I was able to fetch them (over a slight O tantrum when I wouldn't let him climb halfway out of the boat to scoop them out with me).

In addition to many excellent hours of reading and playing games with grandma and John, we also made multiple visits to what O and Z described as "four parks!" -- the local elementary, middle, and high schools are co-located, and all of their playgrounds are adjacent; so when the boys got tired of the elementary school one (or O got too concerned about a spider he'd seen up in the play structure), they kicked it up a notch and went to the middle school edition, which had this strange seesaw-like contraption to play on.

I think we can emphatically say that a highlight of the trip for the boys was a visit to Greenfield Village. Despite the on-again/off-again rain, they had an amazing time there, and it was so fun to see kids responding to it, well, probably about the same way as I did when I was their age. We even were able to coordinate roughly 5 minutes of conversation with my good high school friend J, his fiancé J, and his parents J and J, who were all visiting the grounds at the same time. (That's a lot of J's.) hobo-style. J's dad even had some kind of season ticket that got us discounted rates - thanks J! After riding the train halfway around the perimeter, we exited, declined lunch at the fun period restaurant Meh and I had enjoyed last time, and instead had lunch at a cafeteria-style restaurant that served perhaps the cutest preparation of a kids meal -- a sandwich, cookie, and fruit all wrapped up in a handkerchief attached to the end of a wooden stick, Once I explained what it was, the boys almost immediately associated it with their favorite current book, and O had to turn his handkerchief into a bandana before the tour of the park grounds could continue.

But the big win of the day was the park's spacious new playground, with a class Ford model T (that made noises when you pumped the pedals or adjusted the gears), toys to climb on, a metal tube tunnel, slides, swings, a tilt-a-whirl thing, a large water toward to climb, and giant sandpit with pivoting canisters to fill and dump -- all with horse drawn carriages and Model T's cruising by outside the white fence. The boys easily spent more than an hour here; while I was able to get O to come with me and ride the excellent carousel, Z stayed in with grandma and John and just played and played and played on the playground. Speaking of the carousel, there were a number of animals to choose between riding; O opted for the dog "because it looks like Winston"; while initially shy, he and Z really got to be good friends with their doggy step-uncle (?!) over the week.

The class reunion was a lot of fun as well; it was wonderful to catch up even briefly with friends from high school (a surprising number of folks had actually become teachers -- some even within our own high school's school district) -- and at one of our culinary classmate's excellent and tasty new restaurants to boot. The class video (I forgot we even had one) was rolling in the corner, there was a photo booth for grabbing pictures, photo albums, toasts, class memorabilia, and all in all a fabulous evening.

More pictures of the trip can be found here. A huge thanks again to grandma and John for being such wonderful (and patient!) hosts!

Trip planner

Tomorrow the boys and I head off for a new milestone -- a boys' plane trip (4 hours no less) without mommy or L. We're visiting grandma and John in the Great Lake State for a brief summer holiday, along with my 20th (well, actually 21st) high school reunion. Mommy has been hard at work getting some amazing stuff into their travel bags; O continues to ask when he can open his backpack, and I too am looking forward to seeing them discover a wealth of legos, snacks, drawing books, stickers, and (my favorite) these adorable little car cases Meh created complete with 4 pockets and a little road for the cars to drive on. Plenty of snacks and a few movies as well -- overall a wealth of entertainment options. Let's just hope they don't burn through them in the first 10 minutes off the ground!

It's going to be a fun adventure, and we're excited to spend time with grandma and John, but we're going to miss Meh and L a lot! O keeps asking if we'll be able to talk on the computer, and what direction grandma and John's house is from here, while Z insists to himself that "we'll definitely see them again another time".

Mamaloshen

One of the most surefire ways to get L to laugh is to start spouting Yiddish words at her. This video perhaps isn't the strongest example, but often she's in stitches from the various words and phrases we come up with -- some of which she perhaps shouldn't be repeating until she's a grown up. She'll also sit in rapt attention while you read books to her; this girl is most definitely an interested and engaged reader already - now where could she possibly be getting that from?



Father's Day has arrived - hope all of the dads have a very happy one! We had a very nice family brunch at mima and papa's house. O's class project was excellent, a fabulous popsicle stick-framed picture of himself answering as he does most questions, by tying it back to cars. Z did a nice fill-in-the-blank project at school as well. And all three of the kids did a super-cute mommy-organized card that featured all three kids' hand silhouettes on the outside, and more trivia questions inside. ("What does Daddy like to do? Make Xboxes.") True to form, Z aptly signed by heavily leveraging his new favorite book/punctuation mark: "happy fathers day! Zachary! Happy birthday - love mommy", while O continued to demonstrate his proficiency in writing out his name.

Caught in a binder

Seemingly every weekend we're back at the boys' favorite park. Thankfully this time L and mommy were able to join us, and the boys were very cute about checking in with her as she smiled and cooed on the blanket (in between snacks for all and her nap time). My main concern with the upcoming birthday party is that every time we're back, another part of the park appears to have broken -- a few weeks ago, a climbing apparatus had caution tape on it; last week, a rocking horse was gone and replaced with a construction cone; and today, one of the two infant swings was just totally gone from the frame. O of course has been full of questions as to why the play structures are gone and who removed them/put up the construction signs. Z in the meantime is insistent that "they're going to fix it!" Here's hoping the city has got budget allocated for repairs!

The weekend has also been featuring ever-warming weather, so we were able to have some dining al fresco opportunities. Mima and papa came over for a grilling good time; the boys were very happy to enjoy the newly added woodchips in the background (unanticipated bonus: they apparently repel more of the insects!), push each other in the swings, and step from stump to stump by the house. L in the meantime was very happy to be outside with the family, smiling big smiles at everyone.

Tonight was O's end of the year class picnic; friend J actually took him and classmate A over to it at a fun park near their school, and I joined up soon after work, finding the entire class crazily climbing all over the playground. Soon enough we were able to herd the kids back to the picnic shelter for dinner, cake, and a small ceremony where each of the kids' parents received their "documentation", a giant binder featuring printouts of the year's activities. In addition to art from the kids, these had involved a full series of excellent nearly daily e-mailed documents that had captured the kids' activities over time, generally richly accompanied with pictures and ridiculously cute quotes from the individual kids on their thoughts about the concept or activity. It's amazing to have such a rich capture of O's life between the ages of 3 and 4, and leafing through the early entries it's wonderful to see just how much he's grown. The kids were off for more post-sugar wildness, running around the park with a few kites, before I eventually coaxed O back into the car and home, happy and exhausted, for bath and bedtime. Even though school continues through the summer, congratulations on a rough equivalent to "graduation", Mister O!

Getting the giggles

Meh had insisted that L had been laughing for her a few times already this week, but I hadn't yet witnessed it -- until this morning. So adorable, and we caught a bit of it on film, er, digital sensor:

OMG MOAR TRUX!!1!$$@#@!

(Sorry, if it was obnoxious enough to use as a blog post title once...)

This weekend was another busy one for the boys -- and not too shabby for Meh and L as well; Meh walked a 5K with L then went to an all-girls tea birthday party for friend E that was apparently adorable. On the boys' side, first O's friend M had his 4th birthday party at his house on Saturday. All mapping software failed us, and there was a large caravan of cars hilariously wandering about a residential neighborhood and turning around. The direction failure was in the same general vicinity as our friends I and J's house, and as we finally found the correct residence, I realized they were next door neighbors -- small world! The party was a wholly pirate-themed affair -- and of course both boys got into the act by wearing full costumes over to the party (once they arrived, O immediately dumped his spyglass and sword to go play). Neither was swayed by the friendly (though also pirate-costumed) face paint artist they had at the party, but both were in love with the incredible indoor two-story treehouse (!) that I think was M's guest kids room.

Then today was the perennial crowd favorite Touch a Truck. There were a number of excellent options to explore this year, including a city metro bus that was handing out foldable papercraft metro buses, Comcast handing out squeezable foam service van toys (there's a joke in there somewhere), several fire trucks, a city electrical vehicle, and, Z's favorite, a construction/traffic redirecting truck complete with cycling signaling mechanism. Unlike at O's previous event, there was apparently no guidance not to honk the horns, so a blast or toot was forthcoming every few minutes, somewhat to O's dismay -- no, that didn't stop him from asking me to blast the big rig's horn, though his hands were tight over his ears when I did it. But fun times all around, and even shared with friends -- I'd mentioned to friends R, M, and their son/O's friend J, and they arrived for some group exploring. We even got to ride a trolley retrofitted as a bus to and from the remote parking lot. It must be just about summer with so many fun things to keep the kids occupied on weekends - yay!