Oy fae

We've long had a fairy door in our house (and have enjoyed touring a cluster of them in at least one city near grandma and John). But in the last few days, O has had renewed interest in them. I think it at least partially comes back to his ongoing love of the TV show Jake and the Never Land Pirates, and his desire to figure out how to fly off to Never Land. Last night he left them a snack (bread, milk, and honey - Meh's expert knowledge of fairy lore suggests these are among their favorites). This morning when he came downstairs, they'd written him a tiny thank you note. His mind only temporarily and mildly blown, tonight he dictated a note back to them via mommy, asking if they could give him some fairy dust so he can fly (but, as he told us, "only in emergencies"). We may have to rethink this make believe route...

Holding down the fort

Z's school has conferences all this week, so he's had short school days. Coupled with ongoing rain, that left Meh looking for extra entertaining indoor activities -- and out came the PVC pipes from the sukkah, which she reconfigured into this excellent fort! The boys had a great time with it, and Meh brought down everyone's pillows and bedding to make believe they were camping out -- alas, when enough of Z's sleeping materials made it downstairs, he suddenly got very concerned and sad. I'm not sure if he thought this was going to be his new bedroom or if there were just certain props that he only wants associated with his bedroom and sleep, but he wasn't okay with things until every last piece of the bedroom (both his and O's) were back in the bedroom. But overall they're so cute and happy with the fort, and were back in there playing back and forth with cars this morning!

Don't let the light go out

Z has been a huge fan of holiday light displays this year; there's a particularly large one on our route home where he'll frequently say "Look at all of those lights! Woahhhhh!" as we drive by. Many afternoons he'll ask when all of our neighbors' displays will be going on, and in evenings before we go upstairs at bedtime, he'll have to peek out the window one last time and talk about all of the lights. Last night, he was asking when the lights would be going on, and it was already pretty dark -- clearly some neighbors are on the ball and already taking down their Christmas lights. When I indicated this, he got worried and then teary-eyed, even though there were still a few viewing options to choose from. Holiday lights have also started to infiltrate his drawings, both on houses, trees, and the always favorite telephone poles.

Meh had the excellent idea to see if we could create our own local solution to this inevitable end of the holiday season, and today picked up (on super discount no less!) some white holiday lights with which to adorn the hidey hole. It was a huge success! Then we topped it off with a family dinner (after O's first day back at school - "that was a short day, mommy!") and a tour of the Bellevue Botanical Gardens' excellent annual Garden d'Lights. While the mist gradually turned into full-on rain and there was a long walk due to some construction in the gardens, the boys were happy with both the temporary exterior lighting and the beautiful interior displays, including animated lights for a "river", and both flowers, decorations, and a number of animals (Z spotted a monkey in a tree; O liked the snowman made completely of lights).

House painting

While early (pre-6 am) wakeups are still often the norm for the boys, very occasionally they'll leave us to sleep for a bit and go play together in their fabulous new playroom; it's particularly amusing to hear O coax Z out of bed (the latter firmly believes that he's supposed to stay in bed until his clock's light turns green, at 7 am sharp) with the promise of toys and games. Yesterday was one of those occasions, and it was such a great feeling to come in and see the boys playing nicely, applying stickers to their many vehicles. This morning I was amazed/thankful to hear them entertaining each other without us for a second day in a row. Meh and I were both enjoying the extra snooze time until I heard Z complain that his shirt was wet and then heard him run out of the play room. Hmm. What I saw when I entered was the kind of thing I thought only happened to men with yellow hats or the parents of precocious pigs: we have some art supplies designed to generally be used under adult supervision, and O had decided that it was a good morning to paint some Cars pictures, with six different little containers of paint opened, and several large puddles of different primary colors on the carpeted floor. To his credit, most of the paint and the brushes were still on the little table (the picture itself was the typical kids' supersaturated mud-brown), but yikes! We got the boys cleaned up and dabbed up the room as much as possible; the damage was pretty localized, and the paint is hypothetically "washable", but we'll have to test that with our carpet cleaner as soon as we can get some more detergent for it. Ah well, now it's *definitely* a kids' room!

Completely unrelated, but also matching the subject of this post, we'd noticed strips of paint starting to peel off the house a few weeks ago, and discovered another joy of our house's previous (original) owners' installation techniques: the siding was apparently never primed before the first ever coat of paint was applied. Whoops. So we're booked for our second repainting in 5 or 6 years, and it likely won't have much more staying power. Regardless, it will still be fun to get to transform our house's exterior color scheme once more!

Bunk Mates

As a special birthday present, we finally transferred the top mattress in Z's bunk bed back to the top bunk so O could sleep "up high". (As you may recall, it's been sitting on the floor where O has been having slumber parties nearly every night.) Alas, he bailed on it the first night and ended up sleeping back in his own room (a very rare event for Mister O). But last night O talked all the way home about sleeping in the top bunk, and after bathtime and a few stories, he eagerly climbed up the ladder all by himself. He got snuggly with another of his birthday presents, the ladybug equivalent to Zachary's turtle night light. A short bit of chatting later, both boys were conked out in actual beds, Z's floor once again accessible to all.

I forgot to mention, Meh also had our amazing organizer friend S come over while I was out of town, and the boys' playroom and other converted areas are now complete. We have a newly smaller but cozy bathroom, a separate laundry room (soon to be supplemented with fancy organized wall shelving), a bunch more space freed up in the furnace room (which is now a more proper pantry), a cozy understairs 'office' space for Meh, and of course the boys' aforementioned new playroom and hidey hole. Everyone is very pleased with the changes and updates, and we all feel like we've gotten some fun new spaces to explore and use.

Slumber party

O has been, shall we say, exploring his sleeping options in the past week or two; last week, he apparently ended up in Z's bed, which Z was none too pleased about. Meh found Z quietly sitting (sulking?) on his stuffed bear seat at a concerningly late hour when she got home from work. And a few times in the past week, I've put him to bed only to have him open his door and then both boys to dash back and forth between bedrooms - this was particularly frazzling when I was solo while Meh was at a conference. So in some ways last night's experiment was bound to occur sooner or later: O was climbing into Z's bed during story time, insisting he wanted to sleep with Z. So Meh pulled down the mattress from the top bunk onto the floor, brought in O's blankies, and the experiment began. We almost immediately had a Berenstain Bears moment when the boys simultaneously declared that they wanted the lights on (Z) and the lights off (O), but managed to make peace with the compromise of the lights off but Z using his night sky-projecting turtle. We heard a very cute conversation from downstairs, but they did indeed both go to sleep in the same room successfully. Perhaps this is the start of a shared bedroom?

Hidey Hole

O had his bi-annual dental exam today, and Meh reports that he did fabulous with all of the related activities. His favorite parts were getting to brush the teeth of a pink dinosaur (with a giant toothbrush) and of course picking out a toy at the end of the visit. He also did great with the various parts of the exam, including his very first x-rays, where he got to wear the heavy vest (when I asked him if the heavy blanket was okay to wear, he said "it wasn't a blanket daddy, it was a jacket!") and hold said dinosaur while biting down on the film and everything. Actually, he was very intent on bringing home a toy for Z as well, so they gave him a second token - what a thoughtful brother! His teeth themselves were healthy, though it seems pretty clear already that some kind of orthodontics may be in his future; the x-ray that came home had some pretty seriously skewed baby boy teeth.

The remodel continues to progress, and the boys' "hidey hole" is just about complete. They're huge fans, both spending a fair amount of time bringing toys and pillows into it. Hopefully all of the downstairs will be wrapped up soon as well; as Zachary continues to remind us, "there's NO POTTY downstairs!" There's also an impressive pile of what used to be in the new hidey hole space that we need to weed through, including high school and college documents as well as plenty of other detritus that one collects when they have an attic to store things in. Meh and I have been trying to take quick tours down memory lane when the boys allow - today I found a Microsoft newsletter from when I was an intern there (yes, they used to have a printed 'newspaper') and some college pictures. Hard to believe this stuff is more than 15 years old!

Let's close with a video; one of the final items that came in the excellent Costco Disneyland vacation bundle was a gift card to the Disney Store. Meredith went over there earlier this week and picked up some excellent Buzz (O) and Woody (Z) pajamas for the boys. They were pleased to say the least, as demonstrated by their high energy bedtime, um, sprint:

Tear down this wall

With a major renovation to at least three rooms about to start, we're going to have workers going up and down the stairs. This meant that it was time to at least temporarily pull down the safety gates that have been fixtures at the top and bottom of the stairs for years. We actually pulled them down for nearly a week when Z was around three, but then O started to crawl/walk, and back up they went. As to the renovations themselves, we're pretty excited even if they're mostly minor rooms -- we're fixing up the bathroom and mudroom (the previous owner was apparently a, um, self fixer-upper, with varying quality results - highlighted recently by tiles cracking and/or starting to come up from the floor), moving the washer/dryer from the furnace room to the bathroom (hopefully opening up some storage space), and perhaps most exciting for the boys, finishing out the little subattic into a tiny room that will be an extension to the guest bedroom (which itself will be turning into their playroom). So a fair amount of change is coming - look for pictures when things start to shape up!

Boxing Day

I forgot to mention, before going on holiday break, Z came home from school with this drawing. He also came home with one of a Christmas tree, and what I think were intended to be plus-sign stars -- but the way he makes plus signs really looks like crosses; much hilarity ensued when Meh mentioned this on Facebook, with a few folks getting perhaps a bit up in arms about keeping religious holidays out of the schools.

With the influx of new toys and the general clutter of the holiday season wrapping up, Meh has taken the opportunity to do some excellent reorganizing, clearing out a few drawers, optimizing our phone 'charging station', and grabbing a few new plastic boxes to house the boys' growing collection of legos and train pieces. And speaking of boxes, one of the boys favorite Chanukah presents was a fabulous kid-sized cardboard house from mima and papa! Here they are enjoying it with mommy:

I think it's actually intended for coloring or painting, but since we don't want to be planting suggestions that crayoning walls is a Good Thing, they were completely happy with climbing around in it, and eventually transferring a menagerie of stuffed animals into it. At some point O decided he needed to enter through the window, so one wall is a bit more of a suggestion than a contiguous piece of cardboard at this point -- but a huge success with the boys!
We got to celebrate many nights of Chanukah with mima and papa; they made us dinner (twice!) and we had them over for candelighting and present playing several times as well. The night before last, we all enjoyed the boys' new Lego (sorry, Mega Bloks) playground set. It's been fabulous to see O playing make believe:

And Z ran through a few verses of one of his favorite songs:

Whistle while you work

As a setup for today's impressive childhood linking of seemingly disparate relationships, I must explain that for a long time, Meh and my signal when trying to find each other in large crowds or stores or whatever is a certain whistle (for our musical listeners, a descending major third). I continue to use it when I come home to see where everyone is, and that often draws the boys out of their activities for welcome home hugs and snuggles.

So, onto the story, which is admittedly far shorter than the setup: O discovered a collection of straws under our sink today, and managed to bend one so that it caused a whistling sound. Meh whistled back to him from the other room, imitating the sound he was making but apparently somewhat close to that major third I mentioned. O responded by saying "daddy!". Z added, "more whistle!"

Friends J and S returned from their intercontinental adventure (with baby L impressively in tow for the journey) and brought Z the perfect gift for his newfound kippah love: a Thomas crocheted kippah. He's happily worn and talked about it, though he's often tempted to try to pull it off (while still attached with clips) to take a peek at the friendly train.

And on the topic of Jewish observances, happy Sukkot! Meh impressively went to Home Depot, got some PVC pipes and attaching corner pieces, and put up our most stable sukkah yet! We didn't really have enough branches to make proper s'khah, but we did have a fabulous fish and chips dinner in it this evening -- after which I suggested Meh shake the lulav (or at least our stand-in, some romaine lettuce) and etrog (substitute one lemon).

Getting into hot water

Our finalized photo shoot pictures have come back, and as expected from the previews, they came out amazing! The full set is here. Keri is such a wonderful photographer, the experience was so nice and relaxing, and we're just so pleased with the results -- lots of great shots of the boys being happy and having fun.

We've done plenty to our house over the years, some of which is visible (painting, fireplace, bathroom remodel, etc.), and much of which isn't (crawl space clean out, attic insulation, etc.) But today's update is perhaps the most practical and immediately utilitarian in my mind - instant hot water! We got a heat transfer pump installed today, reducing the often 2+ minute wait time for hot water (even at the downstairs sink like 15 feet from the water heater!) to near zero. I know, dorky. But suddenly washing the dishes isn't a delayed experience, and the boys' bath time gets rolling just a bit quicker. Zachary actually climbed in today right as I turned on the faucet and was a bit surprised (though happily) by the "warrrm water!" Indeed, in addition to the pump, our hot water heater was replaced and it seems to put out some nicely warmer water. It's the little things.

When I go to offload a batch of pictures from our camera, I continue to be occasionally surprised by mystery pictures not taken by Meh or myself; Zachary keeps picking it up and doing his very own photo shoots, in between asking me to show him the most recent pictures of himself and Owen. Lately he's been equally entertained by our London pictures: "picture of mommy with another cupcake!". Owen in the meantime continues to surprise us with more and more words -- and more of them in a row as well!

Free standing

Owen's latest accomplishment: standing up without any furniture-provided assistance. Meh saw him do this several times yesterday, and then during bath time he kept trying to demonstrate his newfound skill to me as well. Hooray, but please remain seated while in the tub!

Today I finally assembled our new toy/puzzle/book-holding cabinet that Meh had excellently chosen from our favorite Swedish flatpack store. Zachary even helped me hammer in a couple of dowels, though both boys preferred the actual packaging for entertainment.

With the cabinet complete, Meh has started the reorganization, and it's already such an improvement over the many piles and stuffed glass door cabinets in the family room. At last we can see all of the books that we've (or at least they've) been totally ignoring! The funniest part was when Zachary started to "clean up" by pulling vehicles out of the cabinet and putting them back in their old pile in the family room. He thought it was really funny when we explained that the cabinet is the new place to park the fire truck.

Foodie

Owen loves to smile at people, and if the smile gets big enough, sometimes the tongue gets involved as well, as demonstrated here:

A piece of trivia we emerged from Owen's four-month appointment with was that he can start trying out foods - if he shows an interest. And as mentioned in the last post, for the past week or so, Owen's been very focused on us as we eat. So after our early apple-licking experiment, yesterday was the first true food sampling: first some mashed avocado that we'd gotten with lunch, and then back at home the same apples from the early trial, presented in slightly more pureed form. The avocado was accepted (though I found bits of it on his bib later), and the applesauce was a hit. He also tried out this mesh food-sucking pacifier thing that Zachary had never really gotten into. Congrats to the tiny man on his latest milestones!

It's been a beautiful weekend here so far, and we got to finally agree to Zachary's request of "want outside!" and enjoyed some time in the newly completed back yard. Zachary really wanted to play with the sprinklers (which he adorably calls "skippy"), so we decided to let him go in his birthday suit (with a sunhat, crocs, and plenty of sunblock of course). He had a great time, and Owen was happy and smiley sitting on the deck the as well. I resisted the urge to post more of the compromising shots of him; we'll have to save those for bar mitzvah and/or wedding montage videos.

The constant gardener

After last Monday's (mis)adventures getting the boys to bed by myself, I called in some reinforcements last night, and Mima graciously assisted. Things went a little bit better, though Owen still took a while to calm down from the getting-into-pajamas sadness. We'll master this yet!

Happy seventh anniversary to the prettiest wife and best mommy in the world! We both admitted to each other yesterday that we'd totally dropped the ball on gifts for each other. Still, other folks I've spoken to use their home improvement projects as their mutual anniversary 'gifts'. So it's completely appropriate that we've just about wrapped up our backyard relandscaping. The yard had gotten pretty rough and tumble over the past few months (I'll blame it on knowing that we were going to be relandscaping), but even before that, a combination of invasive plants, fence repairs, and digging/pacing by Korby had left our yard in not great shape. Meh made it a goal to get it reorganized, and to give us some good kitchen garden space as well. She actually even got a head start last year; our first crop of blueberries from the front yard relandscaping came in this week and were super tasty - even Zachary tried a few, though he caught a tart one and gave up on the rest.

The plans looked fabulous, and over the past month or so, we've watched as the entire backyard has been transformed (full set of pictures here), with new plants, rebuilt stone steps and wall, a "dry riverbed" feature in the back, a new sprinkler system to keep everything from dying, and an expanded kitchen garden area on the side of the house that Meh has already filled with yummy veggies, fruits, and herbs. We also got a new shed in the back corner and are looking forward to dismantling the lean-to thing that had been the "shed" when we moved into the house. All in all, a very cozy backyard addition - and wrapped up just in time for our anniversary! Now if I can just get the replanted lawn to take, we'll be good to go; Zachary's clearly impatient to go tromping around, occasionally looked out at the yard and stating 'I want go outside!'

Beware the Ides of March

After an epic struggle against gale winds and massively delayed flights, Zachary and Owen's Uncle B and Aunt J arrived late last night from New York. A huge huge thank you to them for bravely dealing with the delays and headaches to join us in meeting Owen and getting to catch up with Zachary! There was even some high quality playtime with Zachary and snuggle time with Owen this morning before the big event; today was Owen's eighth day, and thus his brit milah.

Friends S, R, and I all had completely coordinated the setup - again, we've got such wonderful, devoted, and supportive friends! Despite getting held up and detoured by a police blockade after a shootout a few miles down the road (never a dull moment!), they arrived and put out an amazing spread of food and decorations. There was even a giant blow-up balloon of Thomas the Tank Engine, which Zachary kept pointing at and talking about throughout breakfast; by the afternoon, I'd transferred it up to his room, where it's been getting equal attention to the circling airplane mobile overhead.

We used the same mohel as for Zachary, who was again extremely helpful and patient in explaining the various traditions. Mima and grandma were again the kvatters (bringing the baby in for the ceremony), and friend J honored us by acting as the sondek (who holds the baby during the ceremony). Owen did pretty well, though he did have his own input into the ceremony, peeing on folks when the diaper came off. (The experienced mohel had had me set aside some extra diapers and wipes for just such an eventuality.) Owen's hebrew name was announced as Lev Shlomo (לב שלמה). Lev (Hebrew for 'heart') is for Meredith's great grandmother Lilian, and Shlomo (Hebrew for 'God's peace') is for my dad.

After the ceremony, there was a wonderful smorgasboard of yummy foods to celebrate with: quiches, bagels with all possible fixing, multiple kinds of full-size (direct from New York, thanks Aunt J!) and mini-cupcakes, two slightly over-toasted challahs that I'd baked (but neglected in the final frantic minutes before people started arriving), fruits, couscous, little tartlets, and even a cake from our favorite bakery. I think we'll be set foodwise for the rest of the week! Full bris photo coverage (fear not, there isn't that kind of coverage) can be found here. Huge thanks to all of our friends and family who were able to make it on a weekday (and despite the, ah, aforementioned police incident), and we certainly look forward to Owen getting to meet everyone else (and getting to have slightly quieter and, ah, painless visits) in the days and weeks to come!

The (Extreme) West End

Zachary's new bedroom continues to come together, with a new shelf (yup, another of the ones that had finally taught me the value of attaching shelving to studs in that mildly disastrous guest room incident) now populated with some of our favorite items from friends and travels, including a Muji "city in a bag", a group of fun wooden toy buildings shaped like London landmarks. Meh had also picked up a cute wall decal of a London double decker bus (from a UK-based Etsy-listed artist, no less) that we mounted right inside Zachary's door. He came to check it out and was very excited by the "busssss" and its wheels. The decal came with all of the numbers, so you could specify the bus number. I of course took on the challenge of figuring out the most appropriate route for his bus. The "ideal" route (which hits both Trafalgar Square [near the hotel we typically stay at], Oxford and Piccadilly Circuses, and Golders Green/Finchley [where our friends N & S live]) was the unluckily number 13, and while we aren't particularly superstitious, that just seemed unnecessary for Z's room. So we instead opted for the route number that matches Z's month and day of birth, the number 8, which still reaches Oxford Circus, Tottenham Court Road, and St. Paul from its origins in East London. Nothing like a little piece of the East End on the Eastside -- of Seattle, that is.

Turn the lights down low

Another step towards transitioning Zachary to his own room: last night I installed a dimmer in his new bedroom. The previous binary on/off switch had been a problem over the last few days; his clothes have made the move into his new room, and when I'd try to get him dressed while (sadly) it was still dark outside, there was either random guesses as to clothes or brief flips of the light. For his end, Zachary likes to turn on the lights and then squint/smile/hide his eyes. Alas, he's started doing this in our room as well, which is not exactly the best way to open your eyes at 5:30 in the morning.

House Hunters

Huge news from the east coast -- Mima and Papa are looking to move out to Seattle! The idea had been tossed around for a few months, and this weekend they took a first big step, with a brief visit to start looking for homes. We all got to hang out together in the mornings and evenings, and somehow in between they managed to see something like 30 properties during their three and a half day visit.

There were a few promising options, including one that we stopped off to check out late in the afternoon of their last day before taking the little man down to a play area at the mall and dinner at his favorite digs. One option there hadn't been available to investigate on the spot, so Zachary and I returned there yesterday afternoon with the realtor. Zachary did a great job, happily looking around without getting into too much trouble. The only hitch was when we came back up the elevator from checking out the parking garage, when he decided it would be fun to push the 'emergency assistance' button -- whoops. But the property's realtor was right there and she assured us it was all fine.

Better get used to these bars, kid

Zachary's bed is built! I wrapped it up yesterday morning by hammering 60 plastic nails into the cross slats -- yes, as fun as it sounds, especially when the nails are both stubborn and right up against the edge of the bed frame. But once it was done, the mattress was hoisted up into the bed (first the bottom and later the top bunk), and Zachary immediately had to explore. He's just a little too tall to stand on the bed without his head hitting the slats for the top bunk, but he had no trouble climbing in and out of bed. We had snuggle time while watching the planes (comfortably visible from the bottom bunk), though he wouldn't quite go to sleep with the eternal dogfight in progress. Still, he's definitely enjoying spending time in his soon-to-be new room!

Who's the fairest?

We of course have plenty of pictures of the little man around the house. But it wasn't until yesterday that Zachary started looking at one of his baby pictures and saying "Zaza" (his name for himself) and then "bah-bah" (baby). Meh said he spent quite a while looking at (and talking about) himself.

The transition of the guest room to Zachary's bedroom is back on track now that we donated the futon that had been occupying the office. Today the guest bed made its way into the office, and Zachary and I continued putting together his bunk bed. Well, really I put the bed together while he ran around on his mattress playing with a truck, a plastic hammer (too bad I didn't actually get to the hammering part yet), a book, and of course talking about the circling airplane mobile. He was actually a little concerned when he walked into the room and there was no "ba" (bed) to be "up" in, but he got over it pretty quickly, and climbed around the bed frame as I assembled it. Still to come: his snazzy new Swedish dresser, rearranging some bookshelves, and painting his room's back wall.

Quick story on the paint -- Meh and he went to Meh's favorite home improvement store to pick up paint yesterday. He was having a great time looking around and up at the warehouse roof, of course particularly enjoying it when Meh took him through the ceiling fan section (alas, none of them were actually functional). She ordered the paint and picked up a few other paint supplies while it was being mixed. When Zachary showed interest, she showed him (and told him about) the paint brush. He picked up on the brush aspect and started trying to comb his hair with it, smiling the whole time. Silly little man!