Last Prize

Tonight Meh and I had date night, going to see a special screening of a beautiful newly restored print of Meh's favorite unicorn film at a fun city movie theater that serves up food before and during the show. Before and after, the original author of the book (and writer of the screenplay) himself was signing books and memorabilia. We enjoyed the movie (cheesy music, several corny lines, and all!), and then Peter S. Beagle himself took to the stage to answer questions and then help draw raffle of various prizes (artwork, posters, original film cels, etc.).

At the very end, there was one extra special raffle prize whose winner would get to go up on stage with Peter -- and yup, Meh won! She was so excited that she almost bit it getting up onto the stage, but she recovered and was rewarded with a shirt slightly modifying a quote from the movie, and whose explanation was a regaling of the story that somehow Peter Beagle was the first to author a story involving a female unicorn. Meh also picked up a book (unicorn-themed, by a Seattle writer who was at the screening as well) and a cool tote bag that had the entire text of the book printed on it in tiny but legible type, and forming the silhouetted shape of the lead character. What a fun and magical evening!

Hello ladies

Everyone is home -- hooray! All five of us are mildly exhausted and I suspect it will take a few days for everyone to adjust back, which will take us right to Z's pending birthday party and grandma and John visiting this weekend; as I said, a very busy summer! Meh reported that L was amazing on the trip -- very social, smiling at everyone she met, and making cute happy sounds in the morning that made her all of Meh's choir-mates' favorite roommate. Oh, and L started rolling over on the trip as well; I was sent a video of her just barely almost making a back-to-front turn.

OMG TRUCKS!!1!#@!

The promotions and warnings had been coming for weeks, but today was finally Truck Day at O's preschool -- and it did not disappoint. Ambulance, Seahawks truck, SWAT team truck (O popped his head out the top hatch), and many more. The drivers were all fun too, clearly super proud of their vehicles; the cement mixer guy had a bunch of toys and even a Xeroxed coloring book that he'd had growing up in the 1950s!

Meh braved the entire morning with L in tow, bringing yummy baked goods as thank you's for the many truckers, and first helping O's class and then volunteering with other parents later in the day.

When asked which was his favorite for today's class documentation e-mail, O commented: "The fire truck, because I liked it."

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.

Airborn

Z's birthday is on Thursday, which meant this weekend was his birthday party! Despite hectic schedules all around, Meh still managed to make for a wonderful celebration of Z turning 6. His interest in airports hasn't abated, and when Meh asked him what kind of cake he wanted, he immediately said "airport cake". I then made the mistake of doing an online image search of them for him, and he's been requesting "pictures of airport cakes" ever since, so the bar was even higher than usual. Nonetheless, mommy outdid both the internets and herself, with an excellent cake featuring a runway with a "plane taking off" (Z was insistent that it wasn't landing), a terminal building (the tower was an inverted ice cream cone), and of course many airplane vehicles that immediately became Z's (and thus also O's) favorite toys. The boys' wonder at the cake first thing Sunday morning was only topped by the guy arriving with a bounce house (Cars-themed, just to push the boys' interest to eleven) that was to become the entertainment of the party. He apologetically indicated that due to scheduling, he'd have to leave the bounce house a few hours longer than we'd booked -- oh, the suffering.

Of course it wouldn't be an airport party without Meh making awesome accompanying goody bags for the kids, decorations around the house, and a kids activity (our own recreation of the fun "build an airplane out of high fructose corn syrup" adventure we had a few months ago). Everyone had a wonderful time -- once the party itself wrapped up, O gave Z a birthday present he apparently saw at the store and thought was perfect for him. Didn't seem to matter that O himself helped open it; both boys enjoyed the foam dart rockets for a good five to ten minutes.
But I think my very favorite part of Z's birthday festivities was late in the afternoon after dinner time, where we had one more family-only bounce house jumpathon. The boys were forlorn to see it deflate this evening, but as Z likes to say, "we can always go in the bounce house another time".

The Ten Year Pitch

This morning, O and I got to have some daddy/son time while Meh was at work and Z was working with L. I let him choose where we went, and he recommended one of our favorite beach parks. An excellent idea, but I didn't anticipate O wanting to go all the way down to the beach -- and then into the water, "just like at grandma and John's house!" I rolled up his pants (yes, he wasn't even wearing shorts) as best I could, but that didn't do much when he decided the next step was to sit down in the lake. Ah well. On the plus side, a father and son came up to the lake with a remote controlled tug boat, and we had great fun watching them. Then they kicked it up a notch by attaching a barge behind the tug and putting a toy bulldozer in the barge. O's mind was sufficiently blown, and it was super amusing seeing Meh's disbelief when he later described the scene -- it took my pictures to prove his story true.

Today is Meh and my tenth anniversary! I can't believe it's already been ten years; while in some ways I feel like we've known each other forever, I look back at our wedding photos and sometimes think, oh, that was just yesterday. Even when O, Uncle B, Aunt J, and I were at the sandwich shack right across from our wedding venue a few weeks ago, it really didn't seem that long ago that the two of us were walking down the aisle, then dancing and celebrating with our friends and family all Sunday long. Celebrating our anniversary, I continued the silly tradition of making an overly elaborate book full of attempted (and probably mostly failed) jokes; the format for this year's valiant effort was "pilot" scripts (yes, in traditional format) for send-ups of a variety of TV shows we watch (Mehd Mehn, Game of Tones, True Caffeine Free Blood, etc.), bound up in a silly TV Guide format. It was enjoyed even if I clearly spent too much time on it. Mima watched the boys so we could celebrate with a lovely dinner (complements of John and grandma, celebrating their 10-day anniversary!) at a tasty local restaurant. A very happy anniversary to my soulmate, my best friend, my very pretty and cozy wife of ten years!

Got birthday milk?

Meh has been having an epic and extended birthday celebration! The boys were very excited about planning mommy's birthday; I made a card (with kudos to the Keep Calm-O-Matic), and the boys signed their names (Z insisted on adding the date) and drew pictures for mommy. O drew mommy's face, "but there were no legs because the face was too low". We'd talked about what we wanted to do, and the boys agreed that bringing her breakfast in bed was the way to go; when I asked O what we should bring her, he said, "well... I'm going to bring her a glass of milk. Because milk is so yummy for breakfast." Sure enough, Thursday morning, O immediately wanted to pour the glass. I was able to stall him for a bit and he helped me pick out other breakfast items, but from the moment we co-poured some milk, practically before I could even gather the plate of food and tea, he was already walking it up the stairs -- very carefully, but I still dashed after him to make sure the milk actually made it intact. Meh seemed pleased with her breakfast and the card, though she was mildly concerned by our secret birthday dinner date night -- not to worry, it turned out great, at an excellent restaurant (special thanks to friend J for the recommendation!)

Tonight was the birthday party proper -- Meh booked a small painting party with a few friends. It's apparently the new thing (grandma reported that she'd been to a similar event a month or so ago), where you all go to an art studio, drink wine, get your own easel and paints, and a professional artist guides your group through the process of painting a specific image. From the sound of it, the girls all had a fabulous time -- Meh returned home with an excellent picture of iris flowers (and some yummy leftover cake, sushi, and cheeses for me to enjoy too). Happy birthday weekend to Meh!

I Heart Pancakes

Meh continues to astound with her amazing and creative food presentation skills, from a hot dog octopus to ongoing bento box portions of Z's favorites for school lunches. This morning she took it to the next level, making the boys and me tasty heart-shaped pancakes for Valentine's Day, and serving them along with strawberries and boxes of heart-shaped chocolates. And on heart-shaped plates of course. Somehow getting this all done despite the boys being up at 6 am. Amazing!

Z actually commented on them for quite a while (and tried the chocolate) before requesting his classic Cheerios. In the meantime, O ate/smushed his way through at least one heart (and a few of his chocolates) and was still talking about them at dinner tonight. Mommy is the very best!

Cooking by the book

One of Zachary's (and now Owen's) favorite book series is the Frances the Badger series. Meh even scored points with the boys by discovering the audio book rendition of a few stories from the series, delivered fabulously by the actress who played the suffragette mother Mrs. Banks in the Mary Poppins film. Now almost every time we get in the car, Zachary happily asks for "Frances stories!"

So clearly the book and CD gets a lot of mileage, and we've always thought the description of the "chompo bar" Frances gets her sister for her birthday sounded pretty darn yummy. Earlier this week, Meh decided to actually make it - and the results were indeed extra tasty. For those keeping score at home, it's nougat (I'm a particular fan of the UK pronunciation "noo-gah") covered in caramel covered in chocolate covered in nuts - like some kind of nutty Milky Way. And of course Meh made it all from scratch. Zachary still hasn't ventured a bite, though Owen is a huge fan. Hooray for the amazing concoctions of Meh, and thanks to author Russell Hoban for inventing the concept!

Walkout

First, Owen set a new sequential steps record this past week:

In more recent news, it's Memorial Day weekend, which means the Northwest Folklife Festival at the Seattle Center! Meh's Balkan women's choir had performances both yesterday and today. (You can hear yesterday's here - scroll down to Dunava.) The boys, mima, and I accompanied her yesterday, hoping to have an improved experience over last year's rendition, where poor mima had to cut across the entire auditorium with a crying Owen right as the set started. This year things went much better; the occasionally sad kids were not Owen, and mima and he had a great time smiling and listening to mommy's group rock the Balkan house.

Zachary, on the other hand, wasn't a fan of the venue and decided as they were getting ready to start that he wanted to go "this way!", pointing toward the exit. So he and I ended up spending most of the set roaming around the outdoor food areas, watching the monorail arrive and depart, and listening to the bagpipes (which he liked much better) -- I did walk him back inside twice, but both times he insistently pointed back towards the great outdoors.

While Meh's group had been warming up, mima and I hunted for lunch with the boys. The "faire food" has certainly improved in quality there in recent years, and this time we stumbled upon a shockingly good vegetarian food cart. Unfortunately it's based in Oregon, so I may never find out the secret of their amazingly good vegan cheesesteak - I'm tempted to e-mail them and ask for the recipe. I was wearing Owen while we strolled Zachary, and he started making like a little bird when he saw me eating it -- I offered him some, and he proceeded to chow down on several goodly sized bites of mima and my shared sandwich (we also split a decent veggie reuben).

Three little words

We're already back into the routine here: Zachary is up by 6 am, we occasionally snuggle for a bit, and then he's ready to come downstairs for breakfast. Owen joins us as well so mommy can get a little sleep. Very occasionally, we all go back to sleep for a bit - alas, not this morning. But there was an exciting moment when we got downstairs -- we read one of Zachary's favorite books, and when we were done, he looked up at me with his first three word sentence: "read book again". Truly the son of a librarian -- go Zachary!

Owen continues to smile and coo and interact with us more and more. Baffy time continues to be super cute - he's initially angry when we put him in the water, but as soon as he's modestly covered by a washcloth, he's very happy and kicky. Like his brother, he does really prefer to be up -- and not just on your shoulder, but with some kind of altitude sensitivity that requires you to be standing as well. And the car continues to be a, well, rough ride.

Sunday was Meh's birthday! She and I had a very nice date night (sadly, she had to do the organizing by herself since I was in Japan beforehand) at a new-ish restaurant with Mr. Owen accompanying us in his car seat. He slept through the appetizers, but decided he wanted to have some dinner as well and ended up needing some "up" time during dessert. But it was still a wonderful evening with the best wife and mommy on her birthday - happy birthday, Meh!

Six Iron

Neither of us can believe it, but Monday is Meh and my sixth anniversary! Meh already got me a wonderful and amazing gift back in May, and I wanted to do something special for her too. Consulting the list of traditional anniversary gifts, the sixth year is apparently "candy, iron, and wood". Iron? Who comes up with these things, the mining industry? Is next year lead? (No, it's actually copper, as well as 'desk accessories'.)

In the end, I did a slightly updated recreation of how I proposed to her seven (yikes!) years ago. And yes, part of the surprise was doing it a few days early (hey, if she can surprise me in May...). The pictures hopefully tell it better than I can describe -- Meh arrived home last night to find a pop-up card, then there were arrows made of lego candy blocks (see, candy!), which I used to lead her on a small course around the house, with small gifts (books - does that count as 'wood'?) at each stop on the course.

At the end of the course was a book that I'd created for her, incorporating a bunch of inside jokes into some of Zachary's current favorite reading materials (with many apologies to Dorling Kindersley, Curious George, Dr. Seuss, and others). Alas, I couldn't figure out how to get the book actually printed onto board book material - but I think I captured the spirit pretty well at any rate. Oh, and I even incorporated 'iron' with a picture of our scary old fireplace. There was much laughing at the silliness, and reminiscing with pictures of us and the little man over the years, and then we each ate a few bits of those lego candy arrows.

Happy anniversary, pretty wife!

What do May showers bring?

Apparently they still bring pilgrims -- in this case, from Texas.

It's hard to believe that already nearly a year has passed since friends M & K moved to Fort Worth. We've kept in touch through phone calls, e-mails, and duelling blogs, and I had that visit soon after they arrived, but it was still wonderful to find out that they were coming to town this weekend for an M-delivered lecture tomorrow. And it was even more exciting when we learned that they are expecting, and that Meh and I were allowed to host a baby shower for them!

Meh of course had been planning for months, but everything really came together in the last few days, with amazing efforts both artistic and culinary. Art-wise, Meh's crafting generated a vast array of cute baby-themed decorations adorning everything from windows to the dining room chandelier; a trivia game matching character names to children's books; and tiny vials of mints and chocolates for the attendees. Which brings us to the food, which was simply beyond -- tea sandwiches, scones with fresh whipped cream, a lemon tart (thanks to friend S for his recipe!), brownies, cookies, cupcakes... Wait, why am I enumerating them when one of Meh's artistic deliveries was a lovely menu?

Zachary had taken a long morning nap (a side result of his continuing 5 am wakeups?), so he was rearing to go for the afternoon, running around between (and occasionally into) people's legs before moving outside and circling the porch and yard with or without his pushcart. I think he went in his swing about four times as well. Entertaining him was a pretty fulltime job, so I didn't get to spend a ton of time with the other shower attendees, but it seemed like everyone had a wonderful time and enjoyed getting to catch up with M & K, celebrating their pregnancy, enjoying the incredible spread, and soaking up some of the beautiful summer weather.

Portrait gallery

For the past few months, Meh has been hinting excitedly about a surprise that she's been planning for me for our anniversary. Our anniversary is in July, so I was impressed and/or worried that the project was being worked on this far in advance. Granted, I've done the same to her for years, with what she apparently considers maddening hints of 'I think you're going to like this' and knowing (but not revealing) smiles. Anyway, so I figured turnabout was completely fair play, and I looked forward to July. But then it was explained that it was actually both a father's day and anniversary present, so was it okay if she gave it to me in June? And then, I think Meh got a little impatient and excited to show me, because this morning, there they were, displayed beautifully on our fireplace mantel!

Meh commissioned an artist to create a portrait of us (for our anniverary), and a second of the little man (for Father's Day). What an incredibly wonderful, personal, and totally unexpected gift! She apparently worked with her on picking out pictures, drawing approval sketches, picking the color palette, and creating the final portraits. I was completely oblivious to what might be in the large cardboard tube that arrived a few weeks and her several trips to Michaels last week for matting and framing.

Here's the little man pic, along with one of the photos the artist used as a reference. (Portraits without even meeting the subjects in person? Impressive!)

The pictures are simply perfect on the mantel, and we've all been enjoying them. Best presents ever, and I certainly don't mind if they're a month (or two) early!

This old house

Economic downturn? "Bah!" says Zachary; he's enjoying his very own new digs this week.

It started with his latest shipment of diapers, which arrived Wednesday in a giant cardboard box. Of course, why restrict the fun to the actual functional goods when we know how he loves to play with the box itself. (And trust me, boxes are certainly more fun than trying to diaper the little man.)

So he was crawling in and out of the box, and I propped it up on its side and closed the two flaps with him inside, and he found that hilarious. But then Meh had a go with scissors and tape, and quickly transformed the box into Zachary's very own playhouse. He was of course wary of the roof (as well he should be in the damp climate of the northwest), but appeared to appreciate the furnishings:


And today, he actually wandered inside to perform his very own inspection (such a knowledgeable new home buyer, and at such a young age!) before signing the paperwork. Now if we can just find someone to finance a mortgage...

Guess who's (not) coming to dinner

Saturday was the big wedding day! Zachary had again been displeased with the so-called hotel crib, and ended up sleeping in bed with us. It was impressive that even in a king sized bed, he managed to nearly push both Meh and myself out of it; I think he was sleeping diagonally by the end to maximize his space. This meant that he was again up pretty early. So we decided to get him outside once more, since the walks seemed to make him happy. We journeyed the few blocks from our hotel to the famous Carnegie Deli, where he was clearly exhausted and not particularly happy.

Two minutes later he was asleep in the little umbrella stroller, and slept through the whole meal - the juice we'd gotten for him was for naught (though he drank it later in the park). The waitstaff kept coming over to fawn over him. I was surprised by how empty the deli was, though then again, who's already up and out to breakfast at 8 in the morning on a Saturday? Since we hadn't been sure how long breakfast would take, we were actually already in our clothes for the ceremony, so we decided to wander up through Central Park towards the wedding venue. (Incidental trivia: Manhattan streets are apparently roughly 1/20 of a mile. Where I grew up, they were 1/12 of a mile. So whereas I was impressed that we eventually made our way up 43 blocks to the venue, it was actually just over 2 miles rather than nearly 4.) We had a nice walk with the little man, who was mostly happy, and kept getting distracted by passing dogs. We ended up making it up to the venue just in time for one of my wedding duties -- warning park-goers hanging out by The Pool that a wedding would soon be occurring.

The wedding itself was simple and beautiful; the family walked down from 100th Street and had a small ceremony by the pool. B and J had written their vows, and they both looked so happy -- everything was just perfect! Zachary was getting fussy after the wedding while the families were organizing lunch back down toward the hotel, and we were concerned about him getting angry in a cab (or waiting for a delayed lunch), so we popped into a local Ethiopian restaurant (blissfully empty, though the food was great) with friends V, S, and their twins, who had met up with us at the park after the ceremony, and Zachary enjoyed a lunch of grapes, cheerios, and quite a bit of injera, while the grownups caught up. Zachary eventually wanted to explore, so he crawled around the restaurant (occasionally stopping to pick up and eat one of the cheerios he had scattered - ew!).

After wrapping up lunch, V and S were gracious enough to drive us back to our hotel (they'd even brought a third carseat for the occasion!) on their way out of the city, and we visited with Zachary's grandma and bubbie for a bit before getting ready for the wedding reception.

The reception was at the glorious Bryant Park; there were photographs in the park followed by a cocktail hour on the roof of the restaurant, followed by dinner and dancing in the restaurant itself. Zachary fell asleep before the photographs (leaving all of Meh's wedding photos with him in the ergo on her front), but woke up at the reception and was getting increasingly unhappy/frantic. We took turns walking him outside and soothing him with a funky projected animated plant thing in the restaurant (don't ask), but eventually it got to be too much for him (and Meh), and they ended up having an early evening. Definitely appreciating the concept of the babysitter and baby-free wedding reception, which we'll make an attempt at this coming weekend with Zachary's last flights for some time, down to LA. The rest of the wedding was, though somewhat lonely without Meh, certainly a fabulous evening of dinner, dancing, and celebrations. The Michigan gang performed this classic tune for the groom. If you can understand any of it from this posted performance, more power to you.

How does "Happy Birthday" sound on a zither?

It's nearly inconceivable that Zachary is already a year old - happy first birthday, Zachary! I'm so glad that I got back in time for it -- when he woke up and came into bed with us, we sang him happy birthday and he gave us a big smile, before climbing all over me and pulling at my face. Then it was present time. He'd received cute cards and a variety of gifts (toys, blocks, books, clothes, a giant puppet theater, a tricycle, and much more) from friends and family over the past few days - thank you so much to everyone for their generosity and for helping us celebrate his birthday!

I'd brought him his first proper Paddington Bear from Hamleys (don't worry, I selected it after that conference call), along with a bobby (British policeman) rubber ducky and a battery-powered floating turtle that sprays water out of his shell. Zachary was somewhat interested in the last two when we used them for baffy time, though I think Meh and I enjoy the spraying turtle more than he does. Meh got him special baby crayons, a pirate doll, and three excellent books (including a replacement for the ABC's book we loved but had lost months before). And of course Meh brought her mad skills to bear to properly celebrate his birthday.

Meh makes amazing cakes. (Ask her to read that sentence aloud for proper 'Meh' emphasis.) And pies. And cupcakes. Really, if it's dessert, and she makes it, it's going to rock. But she truly outdid herself for Zachary's birthday. After brainstorming a variety of themes over months, she struck on the brilliant idea to create an alphabet block cake with a "1", a "Z", and objects that begin with the letter Z. For those who aren't yet zither enthusiasts, enjoy the Wikipedia entry, though my favorite was the amazing zebra. Of course the cake also matched the party's theme colors of brown (chocolate cake), white, and blue (fondant) -- friend J approved emphatically, as it was close to her own wedding colors.

A principal requirement of the first birthday is the first exposure to serious amounts of refined sugar, and Zachary didn't disappoint, with a series of faces and grabbed fistfuls of cupcake and frosting to keep everyone entertained. Note also his birthday hat and the clearly-designed-for-one-occasion '1st Birthday Boy' bib.

Ferry Tale IV: A New Hope

Yesterday it was back to Port Orchard for one more Balkan women's choir recording session. Zachary slept through most of the ferry ride and even a drive over to a coffee shop with mommy once on the peninsula. We dropped Meh off at the session, and the two of us headed back up to the downtown area. What a difference a few months makes (to the town, not just the little man); this is clearly a summer town (even if the weather disagreed, in the lower 60s and overcast/rainy much of the morning) -- the streets were packed with cars and pedestrian traffic, the docks were full of moored boats, and there was a cute farmers market/fair thing going on to keep us entertained. We saw flowers, fresh fruits and veggies, someone was selling dried jerkies of various flavors, and cute arts and crafts.

Eventually the little man got hungry, so we found a picnic bench and enjoyed lunch together - cereal, fruits (fresh and dried), some pita, and of course cheese. He was happy and active, and enjoyed watching all of the activity from his stroller. He also took a sippy cup of water and successfully held it and drank from it as we walked around the fair a bit more. Next we stopped off at the town's bakery to catch up with his little friend R, the son of the two owners of the bakery. Again, such a difference - during the off-season, it was always just the two owners, R's grandmother, and maybe one other staff member. This time, we didn't even see R's parents -- I finally spotted his dad on the way out, intently working in the back on some pretty impressive-looking wedding cake designs. But we did visit with R and his grandma, and the two boys vaguely showed interest in each other in between climbing and cruising around the bakery's tables and chairs.

We still had some free time before Meh's recording session was due to wrap up, so the two of us went to check out a county park that we'd seen signs for on previous visits to the city. Little man was making the whimpering I'm-close-to-asleep sound, so I put him in the ergo and walked around down to the lake. The weather had cleared and we had beautiful views of the beach, so we hung out for about an hour.

Back at the recording facility, we played outside in a giant grass lawn. He was obsessively grabbing at and pulling up the grass, then focusing in on a single blade and trying to grab it. When I and the engineer's wife scattered grass on our laps, he brushed it all off. Oh, and we found a pine cone, which he picked up and almost put in his mouth before switching to more standard swinging and batting of it. We headed back home on the ferry, where he was active and smiley the entire trip. And we finally caught the faces that he makes when you first pull out the camera and point it at him - squinting smiles, upturned chin, and all! Such a good little man.