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!

Day tripper

We were so excited to hear a few months ago that friends E and A were getting married! Alas, the wedding timing was such that Meh wasn't going to be able to travel down to San Diego, and it was her now-rare work weekend as well, so I figured I'd be out as well. But the fares cooperated and mima graciously offered to watch the boys yesterday, so I took a solo trip down first thing yesterday and am flying back momentarily -- just a few minutes in the airport to, ahem, catch up the blog a little bit (it falls behind so quickly!) and check in on work.

After my required southern California grilled cheese pilgrimage, it was on to the wedding! In addition to the Seattle crowd, I got to hang out with childhood friend B and his wife R -- I kept forgetting that they're good friends with E and A, and it was great to see them again. The wedding was fabulous and so very "them"; everything from using Rhapsody in Blue as the processional music (played by E's childhood piano teacher), to stopping the presses immediately after the ceremony to turn the cameras around and take a picture of all of the attendees plus the wedding party, to an epic Jewish hora (where E had to rile up the band to have another go when they thought they were done!), to a well choreographed and very sweet first dance, and just a wonderfully festive evening overall. More pictures here.

There was even an after-party back in the hotel lobby; I finally threw in the towel a little after midnight. O's friend J was actually down here (his mom, friend K, and I actually did a Seattle a cappella trio performance for E's walk down the aisle) and was off to Legoland with his dad and grandparents as R and I headed back to the airport -- we'll be using them as a scouting party for our inevitable future trip to the home of everything that Z and O love!

Classroom Etiquette

When Meh dropped off O today at school, she made the mistake of loitering in the classroom to jot down the names of his classmates for his upcoming birthday party. O noticed this and said "You're disturbing the class mommy. You need to leave now."

We had a lovely rest of our visit with Grandma and J, with trips to the park, meals at some of the boys' favorite restaurants, and even a rare date night for Meh and myself, returning to the Italian place we used to go to when we were first dating. The boys are of course huge fans of Grandma and J, and Z has already been talking about how "we'll definitely see them another time -- after Tiny comes!"

For a very important date

I've been hearing bits and pieces from many of our friends scheming about it for months, but today at long last was Tiny's baby shower, an Alice in Wonderland-themed tea party! For my own part, all I could contribute was sneaking a tiara and clock into grandma's bag to be used in some way at the event. But it sounds like it was a fabulous affair, and the boys and I returned home to an alarming collection of pink things along with a custom-made Alice in Wonderland trivia quiz where I'd be lucky to score any correct at all. Meh reported that she was really overwhelmed by all of the creativity, thoughtfulness, and love of her friends and family; the pictures really say it all. The food and ingenious decorations all looked amazing, and Meh is already planning out how to incorporate many of the items into Tiny's "Alice in Wonderland"-themed room.

While the girls were at the shower, J and I took the boys to a local children's museum, where we met up with the spouses and kids of a few other shower attendees/planners. The kids had a superb time as always, though I think they ran J and me a little ragged. O got to show off his mad K'nex skills, working with me to build (what else but) a car, and Z had a great time mostly involving the large truck cab. The shower was still going when they shut the children's museum down, so we and the H boys headed onward to (where else but) Red Robin for dinner. Alas, there was a bit of a crash and burn on trying to get the boys' food order in first (it instead was forgotten, twice), but everyone I think had a nice if exhaustingly complete afternoon out.

Hello ladies

We finally picked up O's class pictures today (they were taken in *blush* November), and they did not disappoint. As grandma and J (who arrived today) would say, "What a rascal!"

If you're gonna build a time machine...

One of the fabulous presents Meh and the boys got me for my birthday was an official Lego Back to the Future DeLorean. Z was certainly interested in looking at the box, talking about the DeLorean, reading the license plate, helping pick out the dates it should go visit (our birthdays, Halloween, and also December to see the holiday lights) and eager for me to assemble it. And I don't think I was quite prepared for just how into it O was going to get. For the past ten days, he has spent probably at least 30 minutes a day demonstrating his excellent fine-motor skills (and patience, actually occasionally even sitting in a seat for minutes at a time!); I hunted down the specific parts we needed to put together, and then he did most of the actual assembly. We'll ignore for the moment that he was constantly asking if it was time to add the wheels, as that is his favorite part of any vehicle he makes. Thankfully we were able to overcome the fact that the box somehow came missing at least two parts -- Meh's giant canvas bag full of childhood Legos saved us with some appropriate size and color replacement parts. Anyway, all of this led to the completion of the DeLorean tonight! O was super excited to show it and drive it around, though being a Lego model, it's a bit on the fragile side and the gull wing doors kept popping off -- I'll probably take the completed creation to work in the next day or two for more permanent display. But super impressive, complete with rotating wheels to convert to hovermode, a tiny time control panel (with the destination date set to the invention/patent of Legos), Mr. Fusion, 2015 license plate, hood-mounted 1955 time control circuits, and more! Hooray for fun presents and good bonding time with Mister O and Mister Z!

And her little dog too

After O's school yesterday, Meh decided to introduce the boys to the MGM classic Wizard of Oz. (Z actually had a head start; as I mentioned, one of his favorite pinball machines at the museum on Saturday was the Wizard of Oz one; the spinning house and yellow bricks perhaps makes a bit more sense to him now.) Both boys were enthralled. O insists his favorite character is the witch, and he'll even do a little version of her evil laugh if you ask him. Z commented towards the end as Dorothy bids farewell to her Oz friends, "she's sad because she doesn't want to go home". It's been fabulous to hear them both singing the songs; Z's rendition of "We're Off to See the Wizard" is about as magical as a pair of ruby slippers -- I'll have to try to record it. To top it off, Meh has a copy of the original L. Frank Baum book -- we're going to start reading it to the boys, chapter by chapter, tonight! O already saw a few pictures and was wondering why they looked different than in the movie. I tried explaining that the pictures came first, but he was still concerned -- one challenge we have trying to read books to him with illustrations is that he'll immediately start asking questions about the pictures, even if the text would give him in the answer if he'd wait long enough to hear it!

Another ferry tale

Continuing to take advantage of Meh's newly freed weekends, today we all journeyed to Bainbridge Island. We had a bit of a slow start (and some routing challenges from the phone's turn-by-turn directions), but eventually made our way to the ferry terminal. The boys remain big fans of boat travel, and we even took them out onto the blustery upper deck for a few minutes before going back inside for a snack. Once on the island, we sought out their children's museum, and the moment we entered the door we knew we had a winner, with O and Z running over to both an electric car and a table full of wooden blocks. There were a number of faux "retail" stores inside as well - a grocery store, a restaurant, and a bank with an ATM. I wasn't quite sure if O was thinking heist as he grabbed a stash of play money, ran over to the electric car, and pretended to drive, but it was all super cute. The upstairs of the museum was even more fun, with a bunch of golf bar-driven physics games, a giant kid-controllable pneumatic/hydraulic dinosaur, and a big soapbox derby car that both boys somehow squeezed into.

The boys had fun for hours, only tearing themselves away when it was time to go find some food in the cute downtown area. We ended up eating at a bakery and listening to a street performer; it might have almost been relaxing if O hadn't insisted on climbing up and walk along the lip of a raised flower/tree bed. After our late lunch, it was time to return to the car and ride the boat once more back to Seattle, having a tasty snack and wrapping up a very nice if exhausting day on the island.

Pinball wizards

Today we all met up with friends R, M, and their son J (who is clearly among O's best friends at school) for an adventure into the city. Dropping the car at the park & ride near their house, we hopped the bus, crossed the bridge into the city, and got delivered via the giant bus tunnel to Seattle's excellent International District. There was a... park? Community center? Some kind of open outdoor area where there was a well-maintained ping pong table, and M and I had a few rallies with O and J. Then it was onward to Chinese food lunch with some new friends of R and M's who had just moved into the city. O actually tried some noodles; alas, it was a leisurely affair and at one point Z did fall apart and need a break outside. Anyway, after lunch, we walked another block to the fun (if mildly sensory-overloading) Seattle Pinball Museum, where admission got you all the free plays you could ever want of like 50 pinball machines. Z was in general more interested in watching than playing, but O had a few turns at some pinball games. Z's favorite was the one non-free-play machine in the museum (of course!), a nearly one-of-a-kind 2013 MGM Wizard of Oz table complete with a giant screen and miniature spinning Dorothy's house to shoot the pinball through, as well as a host of twinkling and shifting emerald and ruby lights -- he really does love holiday lights!

In the evening, the boys gave us an impromptu bathtub concert. (If you're wondering, Z's singing one of Meh's choral breathing exercises.)

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).

Dropping the ball

Happy new year! We had a nice low-key birthday brunch (and by low-key I mean only about a dozen kids plus their parents and our other friends) for me this morning; it was great to catch up with everyone. Yesterday we really needed to find a way for the boys to expend some energy despite the rain and cold weather, and nominated a local trampoline place where Z had previously gone to a birthday party (and allegedly just jumped around the entire time). The boys were both super pleased. Z stuck with the main jumping area; O tried the foam ball pit, though I'm not sure he quite caught on to the whole jumping in thing.
It was somewhere between hilarious and stressful to see the other kids in line waiting for him to squirm his way into and then back out of the foam blocks -- they were all very polite and tried to be patient, but O definitely backed up the queue with his attempts. Last night for the countdown, we went to friends R, M, and their son J's house; it was fascinating if somewhat exhausting to watch just how amped up O was to see his friend J after a little over a week off from school. They're thick as thieves and were tackling each other the whole evening. When the pile of boys neared Z, I saw him pick up a toy and duck away into the corner. All in all, the boys did a good job lasting until the ball dropped (thank goodness for time zone differences), and they even kind of sort of slept in a bit this morning.

Letter numbers

We're all very excited by Meh's new work schedule, which kicks in next week; currently she works every other weekend (including this one), but starting next year it's only one weekend a month! The boys and I have been passing the weekend with a number of different activities, but one of their favorites remains biking around at Z's school playground.


O is getting braver by the moment, and will pedal for minutes at a time all by himself. Z is still a little less certain, but does well when I help guide the handlebars a bit, and sometimes he'll even go off by himself. Uncle J came along today and Z did an awesome job biking around by himself between us.

Of course, biking can certainly help you work up an appetite; snack time on the playground is almost as popular as the bikes themselves.

One of Z's other favorite activities has been a renewed interest in the Bananagrams letter tiles. He's generally very insistent that the letters go the correct way, even for nearly symmetric ones like the S's -- so I was surprised the other day to see him placing I's sideways and E's upside down. Finally today I figured it out: he's using them as dashes and 3's. I's and O's also nicely double as 1's and 0's. It's always impressive to see the words and sentences that he's spelling; this one felt to me like some kind of sea shanty.

Movie palace

O stacked pretty much all of our embarrassingly large collection of toy cars on the piano today. I complimented him on the epic parking lot, but he declared that it wasn't a parking lot; he'd apparently had such a great time at the movies yesterday that he decided to make a movie theatre -- the cars on the piano were in the stadium-style seats, and they were all apparently watching "Frozen" projected on the wall behind the kids' little trampoline. Silly man.

In addition to setting up his diorama, we also took the boys to one of their favorite parks today. There's a giant boardwalk through the woods to get to a playground shaped like a castle, and Z kept talking about going through the forest "and then we'll go home". Great fun was had by all - hooray for holiday break family activities!

Reinforcing the cliché

Last night, we relived our own new tradition of driving around with mima and papa to view Christmas lights, finding no less than four excellent multimedia displays that featured radio broadcasts synchronized to their displays. The boys really enjoyed it, with Z frequently exclaiming, "Woahhhh... look at all those lights!"

How does a cliché become a cliché? Yes, the traditional observing of a movie and Chinese food was in force today. First we took the boys to a 10 am screening of Disney's newest film, where we met up with friends J and the H family. The previews were fairly extensive, though perhaps not all entirely age appropriate; the upcoming Maleficent was obviously a bit dark and had O asking why she had horns on her head -- though not if she was a "bad guy" (one of his new favorite phrases). The film itself was very fun and O was super entranced; he's been talking about the two princesses ever since. Z on the other hand had a bit of a hard time sitting still, getting the giggles at one point and then a bit upset (unrelated to the movie) at another, so he and I took a break out in the hallway. But both boys definitely mowed through a large popcorn pretty effectively!

On the way out, O was insistent that he open the theater door. They had what looked like that spray-on-snow on the glass doors, but when O went to push the door, his hand slid through what looked more like shaving cream. He wasn't quite ready for the slipperiness, and went sliding into the door, covering half his face and jacket with the stuff. So back into the bathroom we went, while Meh and Z were in the car wondering what had happened to us. Anyway, afterwards we headed onward to enjoy some tasty Chinese food at a local establishment - alas, no adventure bites from the boys this time around. And then, a full morning out of the way, it was time for a December 25 nap!

Fast friends

I've posted some pictures in the blog, but haven't really discussed how the whole new bikes thing has been going. The boys have gone riding several times now with minimal crashing, and today I attempted to take them again. We piled the bikes and helmets into the trunk and drove over to Z's elementary school, which features a nice combination of flat areas and a gentle downhill sloping ramp, offering a decent proving ground. Anyway, we arrived, I got the kids out of the car, and then it started hailing -- and I mean hailing buckets. We quickly got back into the car and listened to some Mercy Watson, trying to wait it out as the car was pelted and then soaked as the hail changed to rain. 15 minutes later, it had finally calmed down to a drizzle, so we decided to make our play.

Z is doing great and is able to pedal himself around parking lots and even down the shallow ramp to his elementary school's playground. He hasn't quite figured out stopping yet -- today after coasting down the ramp, I saw him slowly roll all the way into a gentle bump of his school building, "Top Secret" Pinto-style.) O is seemingly simultaneously hyper-cautious and a thrill seeker -- he'll spend much of the time on the bike yelling "Help!" even while I'm actively holding his handlebars, and then alternating that with "Let go daddy! I'm going to do it myself!" If he starts to go forward at all, he'll start braking and again yelling for help. So riding bikes generally entails me walking O and his bike around and occasionally helping Z when he gets stuck in front of an obstacle. Anyway, the boys had a good time.

Then we heard our visiting friends M, K, N, and J were heading to the fun and scenic Seattle park that I'd taken M to years ago when UW was courting him for grad school, so we dropped off the bikes and headed into the city to join them. We arrived to find a bunch of tourists (presumably many local) enjoying the spectacular view from the top of the park, including someone(s) who had arrived in a giant white stretch hummer; the boys I think would've been happy enough to just watch it for a while, but I eventually encouraged them down the many stairs to the park proper where we met up with the S family. Again, the boys had to find the dangerous way to enjoy themselves, walking up the steep slope on the wrong side of a rock stairway railing. But we survived, and then it was clearly supper time - so off to one of M and K's favorite local Thai restaurants.

I was dubious that the boys would volunteer to try some "adventure bites", but O completely surprised me by eating fried lotus root (it helped that I called them "wheel fries", which they totally were) and also gobbling up most of a bowl of white rice. And both of the boys drank nicely from tall grownup glasses of apple juice - good job expanding your palettes! There was also much silliness between O and N; O insisted on sitting next to her and the two of them have clearly become pretty good friends in such a short time.

Our nightcap was at a walkable favorite cupcake establishment. O was almost swayed to a cake pop by N's choice, but instead stuck with a vanilla cupcake with blue icing. Again, he and N sat next to each other and talked their way through the whole dessert course. Z in the meantime chose a classic chocolate with chocolate frosting and then chocolate shavings in the frosting. When I glanced over to see how he was doing, I saw that he had somehow eaten each of the individual chocolate shavings first -- and then moved onto the icing. I couldn't really get Z to try the actual chocolate cupcake, and in the end with things getting late and the kids winding down, I took one for the team by eating the now licked-clean cupcake myself. It was acceptable. On the walk back, O alternated between wanting to hold N's hand (cute except perhaps when trying to cross major intersections) and then dashing forward along with Z (cute except when he ran too fast and bit it on the concrete -- no scrapes or scratches that I could tell). It was so good to get some bonus time with the S family, and we hope they have a smooth rest of their trip away from home, and a safe journey back. We'll have to get back to Texas to see them again soon!

Sprechstimme

While Z has always been one to recite his books, on occasions where I've tried to be silly and sing bits of the books while reading them, he's always stopped me and told me I was reading it wrong. But in the past day or so, he's suddenly taken up the call himself -- sometimes with little melodies, and sometimes just more of a lilt, but nonetheless singing some of his favorite tales. It reminds me more than anything of what in college musical history class was the 20th century avant garde technique of speak-singing, though thankfully Z prefers to stick with more traditional dominant/tonic tonal relationships and accessible rhythms rather than going full-on Schoenberg atonal on us. Anyway, here's this morning's rendition of P.D. Eastman's "Go, Dog. Go!". (Irony: the local children's theater did a musical of this same book a few years ago. Time for a revival?)

Sometimes a carrot is just a carrot

Snow day! Just in time for the holiday break, the last day of school was at first delayed (for O) and then outright cancelled (for both boys), with a covering of maybe an inch or two of perfectly snowball-packable white stuff. We all headed outside bright and early (the boys got to try out their new snowpants, which O indicated were "warm and cozy"), and set about making a snow man. O helped me roll out the three body segments, Z stuck in the arms, and both of them helped with rock eyes -- Meh contributed a carrot nose from our CSA box, which O positioned on the face.

Then it was time for sledding! No need to hike all the way to the school; Meh pulled out the disc and the boys took turns dragging each other up our little hill and then pulling each other down (with parental supervision of course) -- they didn't get tired of this for a good half hour, and it was interspersed with snowy time on the swing and a snowball "fight" (where O would ask for a snowball and then refuse to actually apply it until people turned around so he could smoosh it into their backs). Hooray for early exercise, and all in the comfort of our yard and away from the not-yet-plowed streets.

Soon enough it warmed up and started moving on to freezing rain, so we went back inside and got ready to greet our guests -- friends (and fellow bloggers) M, K, N, and J are visiting from Texas for a few days, yay! We all met up at the boys' favorite local sushi joint, though I neglected to confirm that N would share the boys' appetite for cucumber rolls. But it all worked out okay, and we then headed back to our place for an afternoon of kids playing, napping (well, J at least), and just getting to catch up. After some early O/N disagreements, the two of them became fast friends -- the costume trunk and little play theater hadn't gotten such a workout in quite some time, and there was quite the show by Buzz, the Princess, and, um, a horse. Oh, and there was also pizza.

By this time, things had warmed up substantially and all that was left of the snow in the yard was a rapidly melting snowman. As the snowman's head melted, the carrot nose fell out and somehow pivoted as it fell down into the snowman's bottom segment to become, er, something possibly indecent. O just kept asking why, of course. Because! Anyway, it was so good to see our friends for the afternoon, and hopefully we'll get to catch up again before they head back out after the long weekend. Have a great time in Seattle, S family!

O, brought to you by the letter Z

I didn't mention that last week Z had his dentist appointment, and did fabulous - no decay, good looking teeth, and he did awesome following instructions from the hygienist and dentist, letting them use the 'buzzy brush' and 'Mister Thirsty'. Go Z! This was particularly impressive as they were running so late that they actually gave Meh a gift certificate and offered profuse apologies for her, Z, and O (yup, he was already out of school for the day) for having to wait so long -- they were literally the last patients out of the building. On the plus side, both Z and O were given tokens to claim toys from the little gumball-style vending machines they have at the post-appointment checkout area; Z got a plastic ring and O got a superball.

Also last week, Z brought home my new favorite piece of completed "table work", where the exercise appears to have been to name, spell, and illustrate three things that begin with the letter O. I love his "otupus" (in kindergarten, they encourage kids to creatively spell out by sound; focusing on correct spelling comes later, once they've clearly mastered the sounds of the various letters), but our favorite is that he thought of including his brother -- and even gave him a little smile and a hat. Well done, Z!

Corporate Headquarters

Tonight, O asked me if we could go to "Mikkel". I asked where that was, and somehow we were able to walk through his logic to figure out that he thought that was the name of a store -- the store that makes nearly all of the cars and other vehicles that he's always interested in. From there it was only a short leap to realizing he was saying he wanted to go to Mattel. Note to self to investigate possible tours of their El Segundo headquarters the next time we're in Los Angeles.

Today was a very fun third birthday party for L, the son of friends J and S. They held it (apparently sight unseen beforehand -- brave!) in an area of Seattle I'd never really explored, though it was blocks from the grassy field north of Boeing Field where the boys and I have occasionally gone to watch planes land. Anyway, in the midst of this mostly industrial neighborhood was a giant indoor sandbox. No really, that's what it's called, and it looks like a converted airplane hangar or factory that has been covered with a foot or more of high quality sand. On one side of the complex was a volleyball match; on the other was a kids birthday party complete with many sand toys, vehicles, slides, and more. The boys and I had a blast, and the birthday boy was clearly having a ball as well (literally: he had a beach ball in hand for much of the event). Towards the end, Z and O both ended up way in the back corner where there were a pair of slides I hadn't even seen when we'd come in. It really does look like some kind of avante garde art installation seeing this much sand in front of solidly colored walls of nearly the same tone.
"aire de jeux de sable à l'intérieur"
(2013, assorted plastics with children on sand)

Mister O's Wild Ride

Today when we dropped off mommy at work, O suggested we go to the "park by the pool". Impressive that he still remembers where we used to have swimming lessons many months ago. I luckily had a towel in the trunk to wipe down the damp slides and swings (another mom who showed up soon afterwards had a towel of her own; in this area I suppose we train ourselves that the odds are ever in our favor of rain or mist), and the boys had a great time swinging, running around, and yes, riding these dinosaurs mounted on industrial springs. O in particular apparently wanted to both test out some of his personal whiplash theories and see the images from my camera as I was taking them: Tonight was one of our favorite activities at the local community center: a parents' night out! The boys had a great time apparently running around in the gym "with a bunch of balls" (said Owen), then having dinner (pizza, which I don't think either of them actually ate), dessert (which they emphatically did eat, actually bringing it home in the car with us), and the beginning of a movie. Alas, mommy and I are such party animals that their film (which we emphatically approved of) was actually just starting when we showed up at the end of our date. Ah well, we'll have to bust out the DVD for the boys again soon -- but they and we all had a fabulous time!