Art imitates life

We may have to pick up this upcoming new book just based on the title.

A very Lego® birthday

It's Zachary's second birthday! Wow, how the time flies - still can't get over it already being two years since we first met him. In honor of his favorite toy, Meh made the party Lego-themed, with cupcakes topped with blueberry butter cream frosting topped with lego fondant that she had hand-made, rectangle by rectangle and dot by dot. (The dots involved pushing a piping tip onto a sheet of fondant, then popping the small circle out with a toothpick, brushing it with water, and placing it on a rectangle. For. Every. Single. Dot.) The five kids who attended got cute little pails with chocolate Lego men (not sure where Meh found the mold; mima and she made red and yellow men), along with stickers, crackers/cookies, and of course some actual (well, generic-brand) Legos.

Unfortunately, the little man himself was a bit under the weather today; he was ready for his morning nap fairly early, didn't sleep well or long through said nap, and was getting progressively fussier and splotchier as the day wore on. Meh put him down for his afternoon nap fairly early, in the hope that he'd feel better by party time. Meh took a nap herself after all of the morning preparations. She woke up about the time that we needed to leave, and the little man was still asleep. So papa and I packed up the car, drove over to the grocery store for ice and ice cream, and headed onward to the park for his party.

Luckily most of his guests arrived fashionably late, and many of the kids were entertained by the 'happy second birthday' balloons or just headed for the ginormous playground (which claims to be the largest in the state). The birthday boy himself arrived flanked by mommy and mima about an hour after the scheduled start time, feeling very refreshed by his nearly 3 hour nap, and ready to play with his guests. He (and everybody else) had a great time -- happily exploring, swinging, and then sitting in the middle of his pile of presents on a picnic table. He couldn't quite express interest in opening them, though once a flurry of trucks and trains started to appear (our neighbor's four-year-old daughter assisted with the actual present opening), he was definitely excited to play with them.

One of his favorites, which had him in stitches both at the park and later this evening, was a little car that revs its engine, actually peels out for about 5 feet, and then stops and giggles. Zachary pretty much follows suit. I myself was particularly pleased with one of those marble rolling Rube Goldberg type toys, which according to the box is designed (I'm not making this up) to "develop early engineering sense". The most Seattle toy award goes to a cute recycling truck, itself made of recycled milk cartons, with separate little slots for paper, plastic, and aluminum. Oh, and the box itself (also made of recycled materials) is printed with icons for the three recycling types, so you can cut it up and use it with the recycling truck. Brilliant!

The birthday cupcake itself went something like last year, with the little man pushing it away without much interest. But that's okay, we all enjoyed plenty of cupcakes for him, and he had a wonderful time at his party -- happy second birthday, little man!

Table for four

Mima and papa are very appreciative of good food and always take us to wonderful restaurants when we visit, so we made reservations to take them to the incredible Herbfarm last night. (The last time Meh and I had been there was more than two years ago, for our last real date before Zachary was born.) This time the menu theme was 'Basil Banquet', with all different kinds of basil featured in every one of the nine courses (including a cinnamon basil ice cream for dessert). It was fun to be back for a second time; as before, the owner took us on a tour of the herb gardens beforehand, explaining and passing around herbs for us to taste, smell, and/or look at. And when we were seated, the sous chef and sommelier round-robined through the nine courses and the wines that would be paired with them. Somehow they manage to always be elegant without being ostentatious: the sous chef described a dessert, and then added that the flavor it most reminded him of was lime Skittles.

The food was exquisite (equally impressive was how they flawlessly dealt with each of our dietary restrictions), and it was a wonderful evening with a classical guitarist strumming in the corner. At around the halfway point we simply had to get up and walk around a bit, and went back out to visit the restaurant's two "recyclers", truffle-hunting pigs-in-training Basil and Borage (significantly bigger after two years!), armed with a little pail of food to feed them.

A brief story about mima and papa's experiences with Zachary so far: on the day they arrived, Meh and they took him to a toy store (in part because it had a picture of Thomas in the window). A little girl in the store accidentally dropped a ball she'd been playing with, Zachary picked it up and brought it back to her - such gallantry already! They even had their first time alone with him today, when both Meh and I were working -- he slept through most of the morning, then they took him to one of his favorite (as in lots of overhead fans) restaurants for lunch before picking up Meh after work. It was just a few hours, but I came home to find everyone pretty exhausted; the little man certainly takes a lot out of you!

Tomorrow is Zachary's second birthday - suffice it to say that Meh has some pretty amazing treats planned for the occasion. It's unbelievable that he's already going to be two; time really is advancing in fast motion!

Papa can you hear me

Just in time for mima and papa's visit, Zachary has started saying 'papa'! We can only hope the word 'mima' follows close behind. Regardless of if he can say their names, he was extremely happy to meet up with both of them for lunch today. He'd been napping around their flight's arrival time, so Meh and he joined us at the restaurant, and he was super smiley and giggly, and clearly pleased to see his grandparents. (I'm pretty sure the chandeliers above us ranked a close second, as he kept tipping his head backwards to watch them.) I had to head back to work, but I arrived home to more fun family playtime.

Mima and papa brought Zachary a "Thomas the Train" set, complete with cranking bridge and magnetic crane, and he's been enjoying pushing the train cars around. The train set is even the same rail gauge as Zachary's Ikea tracks, so we'll have to be sure to build some sprawling and complex paths around the house at some point.

Beach boys

Friends N & S (and their boys J & R) are still visiting from the UK, and this afternoon Zachary and I met up with them and some other friends at the very fun Carkeek Park on the Puget Sound. I'd never been before, and we'll definitely have to go back - there's an actual playground that we didn't even get to check out in our rush to explore the beach. Zachary got his fill of all of his favorites: rocks, driftwood to climb onto and over, sandy beaches, the chilly waters of the sound (he *loved* having his feet in it, and liked it even more when I'd pick him up and drop him back down into the water; needless to say we both go a bit wet by the end), a fairly low flyby of what we think was the new double-decker Airbus, and yes, even a passing enormously long freight train. Of course the train garnered the biggest smiles, though thankfully no attempts to chase it this time; from the moment we heard the whistle in the distance, I knew I was going to have to get him in for a close view from the bridge and stairs that go over the tracks and down to the beach. This video is only a pale rendition of his full excitement:

The view was pretty extraordinary, so I'd be a bit bummed if those tracks don't take passengers anymore. Apparently before we'd arrived, S reported that a truck with some kind of adapter thing had been driving down the railroad tracks - seeing a truck or two was about the only thing missing from Zachary's ideal afternoon!

Heavy Drinker

Particularly with the continuing heat (though thankfully we've backed down a bit from the crazy 105 degrees from earlier this week), we've been focusing on Zachary getting his liquids. Related to the drinking came a breakthrough earlier this week - he signed for milk (as he often does; I think he'd try to subsist on milk alone if we let him), and when Meh asked him if he wanted milk, he said "mih!". It's been repeated more and more consistently since then.

Yesterday, Zachary and I had lunch with friends J & S at their house. With the increasing heat (and his newfound skill verbally communicating a desire for milk), he's been an even more selective eater (though I did watch him eat three kernels of corn the other day), and requests milk more often. Thankfully today he seemed more comfortable, and both ate more and drink more juice ("juice" generally meaning water with a splash of juice).
After lunch, we played outside under J & S's deck, which Zachary decided was the perfect place for spinning. He's really goofy-looking when he spins around, because he locks his eyes opposite the direction of the spin for some reason, which I'd think likely makes him even dizzier. He did encourage J to spin along with him, and then laughed and watched.

Beyond 'milk', other sounds are starting to come into the mix as well - "dada" occasionally relating to me (though typically when I ask him who I am, I'm still "mama"), more "yeah" and "go", and my new favorite would have to be the seemingly random syllables he'll throw at an animal when he doesn't know what sound it's supposed to make. One of our favorite games lately is for him to complete my sentence - I'll say "uhhhb...", and then he'll happily reply "baka-waka". The extended "wah-baka-waka" remains one of his favorites, and he even developed a joke around it yesterday:

Catch Meh if You Can

Meh surprised me last month with tickets to see a new musical previewing in Seattle before it heads for Broadway. The show was last night, and we had such a fun date night! We started with dinner at a tasty tapas place we'd never been to, and lucked out when we discovered that their valet parking was both free and time-unlimited. Then we strolled the few blocks over to the theater, where they had costumed flight attendants out front handing out bags of peanuts - silly!

Before the musical began, the artistic director (who of course has a blog) came out and explained what a preview entails, that the show is constantly being tweaked in response to audience feedback, and that they really appreciated our participation in the process. And then for only the third time, the show was presented! The music was fun and there were some great numbers; a few minor glitches were covered brilliantly by the actors (one almost cracked himself up when a pratfall off the stage almost became a real one). The cast was fabulous as well; Aaron Tveit (playing Frank, DiCaprio's character in the movie) had some showstoppers, and Tony-winning Norbert Leo Butz was hilarious as the obsessive FBI agent Hanratty. The audience loved it, and there was even an 'in' moment where Hanratty did a film noire bit and said "It was hot. Practically August hot," with a knowing look to the audience.

Curiously, I haven't been able to find any reviews of the show online; I'm not sure if the local papers are holding off on the moving target that a preview must be, or if a gag order is part of the preview process. But it runs for another week here, and then is off to Broadway. I recommend everyone check it out!

(500) Degrees of Summer

It's hot. Really hot. Driving home with the little man, my car's external temperature gauge measured 98 degrees today, and while it's generally pretty inaccurate, I saw similar numbers on the news and weather-related websites. My work even put out an e-mail advisory to turn off extra computers, unplug refrigerators, and still be prepared for buildings unable to sustain normal working temperatures. And this is just the start; tomorrow we may hit triple digits - yikes!

Readers in much of the rest of the country are probably flashing a big 'W' our direction, but you've got to understand that these temperatures are uncommon enough here that most homes don't have air conditioning. Thankfully we invested in portable units for both bedrooms, but the downstairs thermostat is still reading 86 at 9 pm, and Zachary's unit was working hard to hold at 78 earlier today (ours is meagerly struggling at 83; I hope it isn't about to break or something). At least it isn't too humid, but this is still pretty darn yucky.

All of this severe weather means two things: maximizing time indoors, and finding water activities when outside. Today we did both -- first we met visiting London friends N & S (and their sons J and R) at the excellent and never-before-explored Seattle Center Children's Museum. The place is enormous, and like other 'museums', boasted a wide array of vehicles, arts and crafts areas, and play areas. Meh's favorite was the grocery store, which had a dizzying array of canned and boxed goods, scanners, and about thirty kids pushing miniature shopping carts around. I liked the giant central 'forest' path/cave, which Zachary ran through several times before climbing into the camping tent at the center of the path area. Zachary also spent quite a bit of time behind the wheel of a livery-appropriate King County bus, as well as sitting in the back seat waiting for it to 'gooo!'.

We then walked outside to the giant Seattle Center fountain, which was on in full force; J had a wonderful time running around in it, and there were even a few synchronized musical numbers launching spray hundreds of feet up into the air, just to come crashing back down on the happily screaming kids. Finally, we all headed to the air conditioned confines of a new kaiten sushi place and enjoyed a lovely lunch together. It was so good to catch up, and it sounds like they're extending their visit to further enjoy Seattle - hope we get to see them again in the coming days!

When we got back this afternoon, it was water, shade, and indoor play with a fan going full blast. Here's how Zachary prefers to keep cool:

(not pictured: servants waving fans while feeding him grapes)

Bachelor party

Meh and several of her friends are having a girls' weekend up in Victoria, so Zachary and I have been having our very own guys weekend here. Today was action-packed, with a grocery trip (which he talked and sang/screeched through), a walk to the park, a bit of play time at said park (with a chatty 5-year-old who was trying to get him to play with her, or at least move out of the way rather than trying to climb the slide she was sliding down), backyard playtime (where he helped me water mommy's flowers and herb garden -- of course it rained a few minutes after we finished), indoor reading time, and music listening/dancing time with friend J (who joined us for dinner while his wife S is also on the trip). A very full day for the little man, and he seemed to have fun - though every once in a while he'd look at me and say "mama", as if wondering where she was (Meh is convinced that he just thinks both she and I are named "mama").

We both do miss mommy very much, though we thankfully did get to video chat with her this morning from her hotel room. Well, Zachary mostly ran around rather than chatting, but did smile and wave when he sat down for his snack. Sounds like Meh's having a great time, but we're still looking forward to all being back together tomorrow evening!

Go for it

Zachary had a new word yesterday! He's been signing "more" for multiple purposes (variably meaning: yes, maybe, help, switch to the next piece of music, clapping, go, itsy bitsy spider, and a few other things we can't quite decipher). Meh figured it might be time to try to help him start to differentiate a bit. So while he was in his favorite backyard swing, whenever it would come to rest, Meh started saying "go" and simultaneously signing 'go' to see if he could indicate that, rather than just 'more'. He skipped right past the sign, instead saying "go!". He did it several times during the swinging session, and repeated it for me later in the evening, when I asked if he'd had fun on the swing. And he said once more for me today when we went for a walk and I asked him if he wanted to play or keep strolling when we got to the park.

Don't touch that dial

It's a girl! Congratulations to friends M and K on their new baby N!

One of Zachary's favorite (perhaps obsessively so) toys is the little magnetic toy radio attached to the fridge, with several "channels" of music, and multiple songs per channel. (Incidentally, I've seen this same radio at virtually every home I've visited - I think this might be "the" toy, moreso than legos, books, blocks, or anything Elmo-related.) After breakfast, the radio is often his first stop. And when he's got way too much energy, he'll run over to the radio, push the button to start the next song, run back to us to read perhaps a half page of his book, then run back over to select the next song before the previous one ends. It's like toddler "musical chairs" or something.

Anyway, he's had it playing the 'alphabet' station for quite some time (where he laughs and smiles when I announce the song name by rote, imitating the toy's announcer-like voice), and I was about ready for any kind of change from those same four songs, so I flipped the switch to the 'numbers' station. He ran back over, gave me a hard look, and flipped the channel back to the alphabet, before dashing back for more reading time with mommy!

Here you can hear and see the radio in the background while he quickly cycles through Mike Mulligan to get to his favorite page:

I think at the very end of the video he's turning to go feed the Fridge DJ another quarter...

A seat at the table

The true Seattle summer is back in full force, with temperatures in the upper 80s if not 90s. That might be a bit mild for some of our readers, though I suspect most of them at least have air conditioning to retreat to -- no such givens here, and our thermostat was reading 89 earlier today. Yuck! We've coped with air conditioned drives, trips to cooled malls, filling up the little man's pool, semi-shaded walks, and giving up on shorts (for him at least) by late afternoon.

Today, Zachary and I met friend J for lunch. J had made a tasty lamb dish and invited us over to share it -- but the little man's high chair was in Meh's car at her work, so we didn't have a seat for Zachary. I put him in a chair at the kitchen table, where his eye level was high enough to see what was going on, and he did a great job of reaching up onto the table to eat his various lunch selections (alas, the lamb dish was declined). I'd even put his food options on a proper (plastic kids) dish, and after initially wanting to pick the dish up, he carefully would pluck up the foods he wanted before shoving far too many rice cake bits in his mouth at a time. The only focus challenge was the fan in the front hallway, which Zachary kept trying to turn around in the chair to watch. Eventually he did end up on my lap, but it was still cute to have the three guys all sitting around the big boys' table enjoying a meal together.

His cup overfloweth

Those three new cups I had to track down online for Zachary? He's already chewed off part of those straws, so we were back where we started. Monday I offered him one of the cup styles he'd previously rejected, and he wasn't really interested. Tuesday, he drank maybe a quarter inch of juice from it. But today, Meh gave him the cup, and without batting an eye, he grabbed it and happily drank. He also drank milk from it, which was unprecedented! So much for long term drama, though I'm certainly not complaining.

We've been trying to offer him non-regulated flow cups (or, what the rest of the world just calls "cups") as well on occasion. Tonight he actually did great until halfway through, then he decided to upend it. Still, it's progress!

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!

New construction

Happy fourth of July! We actually split our celebration up over several days; on the third, friends S (of J & S) and S (of D & S) invited us to join them at the horse races. We left at 5, so Zachary finally got to have some extended playtime with his babysitter (during the winter, he was already asleep by the time she'd generally start sitting) while we had an evening out. Neither of us had ever been, and we had a lovely time. I even placed two bets on the last race with some technical assistance from J, though neither horse came in. On the plus side, after the races were done, they had an excellent fireworks display, launched right from the middle of the track; it was a longer and more impressive show than some of the Seattle ones I've seen in the past few years, and you couldn't beat the view or seats!

Mima and papa mentioned a few weeks ago that they wanted to get Zachary a playhouse for his second birthday. This past week, Zachary and I got home one afternoon to discover two large boxes in front of the garage. The original plan was to store the playhouse in the garage until mima and papa come to visit next month. But realizing that August is often already late fall for Seattle (okay, maybe not that bad), we all decided that putting it together before the visit would maximize Zachary's use of it.

So yesterday, after returning from a nice Fourth of July afternoon of hanging out with friends J & S (twice in 16 hours!) at a local park (where Meh brought some incredible strawberry cupcakes with white chocolate frosting she'd made) and putting little man to bed, we set out to begin assembly. I sorted the 40 pieces while Meh did an excellent job sorting the various bolts and washers into nicely labelled cups on a tea tray. (Only Meh could make flat-pack construction projects actually cozy!) I got three walls up before it started getting too dark and buggy -- plus the neighbors had started their 4th of July pyromaniacal ways and I wanted to avoid falling fireworks debris (after last year's "show", our yard was covered with cardboard tubes).

This morning while Zachary took his nap, I wrapped up construction. When he woke up, I let him go outside and explore his new playhouse. He went right for the windows (which Meh had rubber-banded together to keep them closed; I think I'll go invest in some magnetic strike plates today), and had no interest in the side of the house with the door until I physically led him to it and opened it. Then he was in love! He immediately ran inside and started trying to figure out how to decorate the two cute little shelves -- with combinations of his watering can and the removable sink bowl that came with the house:



The most entertaining part of assembly was seeing all of the miniaturized elements - tiny hot and cold water taps (I had to consult a real faucet to confirm that the instructions actually had hot and cold backwards), miniature shutters, a cute little doorframe overhang, the small interior shelves, and even a small mailbox - at last I've got a place to deliver all of those credit card applications he's already been getting. Thank you mima and papa for such a wonderful gift!

Affirmative action

For a long time now, 'no' has meant, well, only Zachary knew; head shaking could mean "No, I don't wan't more juice", or "No, I'm really thirsty, give me juice", or even perhaps "No, I don't think the Mariners have what it takes to make it to the postseason this year". Over the months, we had a few guesses at what might constitute 'yes', but none has won out.

So we've been trying to get him to nod his head yes, and we've been saying 'yes' when he responds to a question by clearly agreeing in action. And yesterday we had a bit of a breakthrough - Meh reported that she was saying 'yeah' in response to Zachary agreeing with questions she'd asked, and suddenly Zachary looked at her and repeated 'yeah'. It was a one-time response, but it's something! Later in the day, he said 'yah' (as opposed to 'yeah') when Meh read him a particular book, on the page that has a pirate. He repeated this for me this morning; my best guess at the moment is that on a few occasions, I've pointed to the pirate and said 'yarrrr!' or something like that.

Also new today - Meh has always done hand motions for the itsy bitsy spider, a song that Zachary's a big fan of. Today she let him lead, and he actually kind of sort of initiated many of the motions:

Walk and talk

One of Zachary's favorite afternoon activities remains the family "walk". Kind of a misleading term, since for him it's more of a jogging stroller ride, generally to the local park, where he runs around like a crazy man on the play toys. Anyway, he likes the walk so much that we'll occasionally notice that he isn't playing with his toys or asking us to read books. Here's how it usually plays out:



If you actually inquire with the magic word ("Walk?"), he'll make a really happy sound and then run over to the stroller, often jumping in head first. But yesterday, he first responded by smiling at me and saying "Walk!". I figured I'd misheard and it was just 'dah', or maybe he got interrupted in the middle of a 'wokka wokka'. But later in the stroll, I asked him if he was enjoying his walk, and he again happily repeated "Walk!". I even got him to say it on the phone for mommy, but she only heard "bah". Fear not; today he did repeat it for her when she suggested a stroll.

Groupie

Zachary's been to several live music concerts - orchestral, Balkan, Celtic, a cappella - and loved most every form of musical entertainment (or, ironically, at least been lulled to sleep by it, particularly when it was loud?!) But yesterday marked the first time he attended a show designed specifically for his demographic, and his reaction went far beyond mere enjoyment. A Seattle-based children's music trio (comprised of three guys who are actually teachers between gigs) was playing at a local library, so mommy took him. He spent the entire concert kicking, clapping (not yet in rhythm with the music, but he's got time!), and laughing -- along with 70+ other kids. Once the crowd thinned a bit toward the end of the concert, he even got down on the floor and danced and spun around to the cheery tunes. As Meh described it, the only bad parts were when a song finished; as with his concerns about recorded music, he'd begin frantically signing more even if the band had some shtick to do between pieces. But the music was fabulous in what Meh described as an 'early Beatles' style, the singers appropriately silly and goofy, and a CD had to be purchased.

I got to hear a sampling on the drive to our date night (hooray and thanks to Meh for organizing it!), featuring a lovely stroll through Woodinville's wine country, dinner, and a film that managed to make Meh cry only four times. But we both did like it a lot, and drove home rocking out to more of the tunes of Recess Monkey.

A good foundation

Zachary's been frustrated trying to assemble Duplo lego structures on the fluffy shag carpet in the living room. (Meh has separately been frustrated trying to keep said fluff from invading every other room of the house, but that's another story.) I'd occasionally help him out by building large lego bases for his structures, but they'd still eventually topple over to hollering and occasional tears. So it was time to take the next step, and this morning, we introduced him to a big green flat duplo surface (sorry, a "building plate"). First he wanted to walk around with it and play with it like a regular (albeit awkwardly large) toy, but as soon as I showed him that his legos would attach, he got very excited with it and started building up crazy Zachary structures on the floor. Gravity and sound engineering practices are no obstacle for the little man, but at least the plate might give his towers a fighting chance.

The big sleep

...was not meant to be this morning; still clearly on Eastern time from our trip, Zachary was up before 4 am. We went downstairs to let mommy sleep just a bit longer, and he was again excited and happy to be home, pulling out and dumping out his legos to build another tall and crazily unstable creation.

Mommy began her 4-day-in-a-row work rotation this morning, and put little man down for a nap before she left, at around 8:30 am. At about 10:20, he woke up very angry. I changed his diaper and snuggled him with his blanket on the changing pad on the floor, and before I realized it, we'd both fallen asleep! At 11:20, we both sort of woke up - I'd somehow ended up using a small bit of blankie for a pillow. Zachary stood up, pulled his blanket out from under my head, threw it back down on the floor, and collapsed back onto it, asleep again. I snuck out (though not downstairs; I didn't want to leave him sleeping outside of the crib!) and did some work in the office until he woke up for good (and very happy) at a little after 12. Crazy three-and a half hour napping man!