Crawl, walk, run

A big milestone is seemingly just around the corner: L appears to be on the verge of crawling -- forward, that is. She already can scoot herself backwards fairly consistently, if slowly. If you dare to look away while she's on the ground, when you check back in mere seconds later, she'll often have rotated herself as well as moving surprising distances. Often you get an audible warning of this because she'll start complaining when she's backed herself up into a wall or piece of furniture.

So so close -- go L! (Or, perhaps, no need to rush - it's actually nice knowing at least one of the three is still fairly contained?)

I love sushi

After another in a continuing series of OMG-I-must-get-energy-out-of-these-crazy-boys-so-let's-get-them-to-the-park-ASAP, this time featuring the boys climbing up a train play structure to precarious positions and alarming heights and still somehow not breaking their necks, it was lunch time. We returned to the boys' perennial favorite conveyor belt sushi restaurant, where the waiter knows all of our names and, when handing us the bill, knowingly says, "See you again... next week!".

Mommy and L came to join us, and L had her first taste of tofu from Meh's miso soup. She was a big fan, and gobbled up nearly all of the solids in the soup before she was done. Speaking of gobbling up, while Z stuck with his standard fare of cucumber rolls (first ejecting the actual cucumber), O has been consistently expanding his own repertoire of sushi, and a crazy smorgasbord of cucumber rolls, potstickers, edamame, and of course a dessert cake pop.

Tomorrow's Their Wedding Night

Yesterday was the wedding of friends J and L in beautiful Montecito at the posh Biltmore Four Seasons. It was a lovely occasion, full of music, laughter, dancing, glorious weather, impromptu performances, a documentary, and more -- more on that in a bit. Mima and papa graciously watched the boys, but it was a bit early for L to try to go cold turkey with a bottle, so the three of us jetted down to Santa Barbara for the weekend. On the plane, L had herself a lovely snack of cheeks of mommy.

Each morning we were there, L was up crazy early, so I tried to let Meh sleep a bit by taking the little girl for extended strolls around the downtown and all the way down to the beach. Sometimes she dozed again, other times she crowed or raspberried, but it was nice, relaxing, and peaceful. During the day, in between the ceremony rehearsal, we also got to catch up with friends (some of whom I hadn't seen since college) -- and L got to enjoy her very first dip in a warm salt-water pool overlooking the ocean at an equally luxurious beach club opposite the hotel -- she decided she liked the taste of the water and had a lolling tongue for the remainder.

The rehearsal dinner was a joyous affair, with a women's ukulele group serenading the bride and groom, followed by a few toasts; Meh had contributed immensely to my own effort in this regard, a (thankfully pre-recorded) duet performance altering the lyrics to a certain recent animated film number that the boys might have been watching on auto-repeat back in Washington even while we were at the dinner. It was appropriately silly and self-deprecating to get some applause, and the main goal of entertaining the bride and groom was (hopefully) accomplished; while I suspect I should probably pull it down at some point, for now it can be found at this link. L was a hit of the dinner, wearing the fabulous outfit you see here and smiling/cooing/screeching happily at everyone she met.

The wedding day arrived and was again just perfectly "them". The hotel had sourced a very nice babysitter so Meh and I could go to the kid-free wedding, and as a wedding party member I think I was there starting at like 9 am. The last piece of music before the ceremony itself started was the fabulous Muppets Take Manhattan's "Somebody's Getting Married". The ceremony featured multiple references back to their favorite lyrics, and the officiating rabbi had been director of my college Hillel when I was there. The reception was no less excellent, with beautifully decorated tables and a cascade of loving dedications to the happy couple: a faux documentary telling the story of their meeting that J's friend T had made (L, meh, and I had contributed a few clips remotely from Seattle), a surprise rendition of a number from "A Chorus Line" by the bride and her acting friends [they had done a recent production], first dances with the parents and in-laws, and warmth and joy all around.

The weekend was capped off with a goodbye brunch the next morning -- as if the weekend couldn't be topped, the brunch took place at the same beach club overlooking the Pacific, and as we were sitting there eating, a pod of dolphins decided to start leaping and frolicking in the waves outside. Perfect! Congratulations and mazel tov once more to J and L - more pics here!

Six months, four shots

L is now six months old! (Or, as O prefers to think of it, less than a week until he's officially four and a half.) She had her checkup yesterday, and the poor girl had to get four different shots! That made her a bit fussy/sad, even to the extent of a low grade fever that kept her and us up last night - pobre Eleanor! The stats:

• Weight: 17 lbs 11 oz (75th-90th percentile)
• Length: 26" (50th percentile)
• Head Circumference: 16.55" (25th-50th percentile)

School daze

And just like that, summer break is over and everyone is back to school. Today was a day of many firsts: Z's first day of first grade (he was happy to see the bus again, and the same bus driver to boot!). It was O's first day of preschool. (He was initially shy at dropoff, but after he and I hung out for a bit, he saw several familiar faces from last year, and was nearly immediately off and running). This was also my first day back at work after an amazing parental leave (which remains one of my favorite benefits at my employer) - I presume I'll be digging out from the e-mail backlog probably through early 2015. It was also Meh's first formal day as a stay at home mom. And L of course had her first day wearing yet another fabulous outfit, including an excellent jean jacket.

It was also practically the first time I've gotten the three kids actually posed in frame of the same picture - and kind of even in focus. We'll still have to work on them actually, you know, all looking at the camera or even (gasp) all simultaneously smiling. Or even somehow assembling all of us in front of the camera short of getting some kind of portrait professional. But hey, it's a start!