Hot pants

O wanted Elsa pajamas; Meh found "sisters forever" fabric featuring both Elsa and Anna, and made a pair of fabulous pajama bottoms. With his choice of top from his existing collection, O has declared that he is now "Lightning Elsa Anna McQueen."

Work back schedule

The day has finally arrived -- maternity leave has wrapped up and mommy is back at work! I'm taking my full leave in August when the girls are back from Bulgaria, so I'm taking intermittent vacation days to both watch L and chaperone the boys to and from school for this week. We of course had to organize a visit (both so L could get a snack and to let her say hi to mommy's co-workers). There had actually been a few library visits during Meh's leave, most of which for whatever reason seemed coupled with massive diaper explosions -- at one point Meh had to dash to the bathroom to change L, and a coworker who thought she was leaving apparently got on the library PA system requesting she return to the desk! Thankfully, today's visit was a bit less eventful diaper-wise, and L was all smiles and coos as she met various coworkers. Then we went back home for a nap before heading out to pick up the boys from camp.

Planes, trains, and automobiles

The boys' big cross-country road adventure has come to its conclusion, with two successful 4+ hour flights interspersed with excellent fun times with grandma, John, their dog Winston, their boat, four playgrounds, and much more! On Wednesday, the whole family piled into the car and drove to the airport, where mommy and L said goodbye to us with hugs and kisses, before the boys each took our own backpacks and bravely walked into the airport and through security. I left in plenty of time for a snack (O had to grab some French fries from the classic Seattle fish and chips outlet) in the airport's excellent windowed promenade, where the boys watched and commented on various airplanes and ground support vehicles.

Then after some playtime at the indoor playground and two loops in the subway car around the terminal, it was time to board the flight. The three seats they got us together were in the very last row, which while originally seeming like a nuisance, was actually a blessing when O needed multiple trips to the restroom and I could trust that Z was going to be literally on the other side of the wall from us). The boys did great entertaining themselves with their various toys and snacks, and the aforementioned car cases were a particularly huge hit. (And bonus: the felt road had enough traction that even through some turbulence, the cars didn't roll off the tray tables and onto the ground.) My favorite was the notes that Meredith had packed in their bags; Z liked his so much that it found an honored place on his armrest, where he re-read it several times during the flight and talked about the airplane she'd drawn on it.

We had an excellent time with grandma and John! There was of course a trip out in the boat; the boys brought snacks (and insisted on wearing their slick new sunglasses, also courtesy of mommy's backpack packing skillz) and talked about everything they saw from the boat (especially, shock of shocks, cars driving by on the roads). O insisted on paddling, while talking a mile a minute about which direction he wanted to go, what was an island, why that bird was swimming away, and so on. Z joined in on the paddling as well -- it was all fun and games until O accidentally dropped his paddle in the lake, and Z thought that was so funny that he let his go as well. Thankfully they floated and I was able to fetch them (over a slight O tantrum when I wouldn't let him climb halfway out of the boat to scoop them out with me).

In addition to many excellent hours of reading and playing games with grandma and John, we also made multiple visits to what O and Z described as "four parks!" -- the local elementary, middle, and high schools are co-located, and all of their playgrounds are adjacent; so when the boys got tired of the elementary school one (or O got too concerned about a spider he'd seen up in the play structure), they kicked it up a notch and went to the middle school edition, which had this strange seesaw-like contraption to play on.

I think we can emphatically say that a highlight of the trip for the boys was a visit to Greenfield Village. Despite the on-again/off-again rain, they had an amazing time there, and it was so fun to see kids responding to it, well, probably about the same way as I did when I was their age. We even were able to coordinate roughly 5 minutes of conversation with my good high school friend J, his fiancé J, and his parents J and J, who were all visiting the grounds at the same time. (That's a lot of J's.) hobo-style. J's dad even had some kind of season ticket that got us discounted rates - thanks J! After riding the train halfway around the perimeter, we exited, declined lunch at the fun period restaurant Meh and I had enjoyed last time, and instead had lunch at a cafeteria-style restaurant that served perhaps the cutest preparation of a kids meal -- a sandwich, cookie, and fruit all wrapped up in a handkerchief attached to the end of a wooden stick, Once I explained what it was, the boys almost immediately associated it with their favorite current book, and O had to turn his handkerchief into a bandana before the tour of the park grounds could continue.

But the big win of the day was the park's spacious new playground, with a class Ford model T (that made noises when you pumped the pedals or adjusted the gears), toys to climb on, a metal tube tunnel, slides, swings, a tilt-a-whirl thing, a large water toward to climb, and giant sandpit with pivoting canisters to fill and dump -- all with horse drawn carriages and Model T's cruising by outside the white fence. The boys easily spent more than an hour here; while I was able to get O to come with me and ride the excellent carousel, Z stayed in with grandma and John and just played and played and played on the playground. Speaking of the carousel, there were a number of animals to choose between riding; O opted for the dog "because it looks like Winston"; while initially shy, he and Z really got to be good friends with their doggy step-uncle (?!) over the week.

The class reunion was a lot of fun as well; it was wonderful to catch up even briefly with friends from high school (a surprising number of folks had actually become teachers -- some even within our own high school's school district) -- and at one of our culinary classmate's excellent and tasty new restaurants to boot. The class video (I forgot we even had one) was rolling in the corner, there was a photo booth for grabbing pictures, photo albums, toasts, class memorabilia, and all in all a fabulous evening.

More pictures of the trip can be found here. A huge thanks again to grandma and John for being such wonderful (and patient!) hosts!

Trip planner

Tomorrow the boys and I head off for a new milestone -- a boys' plane trip (4 hours no less) without mommy or L. We're visiting grandma and John in the Great Lake State for a brief summer holiday, along with my 20th (well, actually 21st) high school reunion. Mommy has been hard at work getting some amazing stuff into their travel bags; O continues to ask when he can open his backpack, and I too am looking forward to seeing them discover a wealth of legos, snacks, drawing books, stickers, and (my favorite) these adorable little car cases Meh created complete with 4 pockets and a little road for the cars to drive on. Plenty of snacks and a few movies as well -- overall a wealth of entertainment options. Let's just hope they don't burn through them in the first 10 minutes off the ground!

It's going to be a fun adventure, and we're excited to spend time with grandma and John, but we're going to miss Meh and L a lot! O keeps asking if we'll be able to talk on the computer, and what direction grandma and John's house is from here, while Z insists to himself that "we'll definitely see them again another time".

Mamaloshen

One of the most surefire ways to get L to laugh is to start spouting Yiddish words at her. This video perhaps isn't the strongest example, but often she's in stitches from the various words and phrases we come up with -- some of which she perhaps shouldn't be repeating until she's a grown up. She'll also sit in rapt attention while you read books to her; this girl is most definitely an interested and engaged reader already - now where could she possibly be getting that from?



Father's Day has arrived - hope all of the dads have a very happy one! We had a very nice family brunch at mima and papa's house. O's class project was excellent, a fabulous popsicle stick-framed picture of himself answering as he does most questions, by tying it back to cars. Z did a nice fill-in-the-blank project at school as well. And all three of the kids did a super-cute mommy-organized card that featured all three kids' hand silhouettes on the outside, and more trivia questions inside. ("What does Daddy like to do? Make Xboxes.") True to form, Z aptly signed by heavily leveraging his new favorite book/punctuation mark: "happy fathers day! Zachary! Happy birthday - love mommy", while O continued to demonstrate his proficiency in writing out his name.

Caught in a binder

Seemingly every weekend we're back at the boys' favorite park. Thankfully this time L and mommy were able to join us, and the boys were very cute about checking in with her as she smiled and cooed on the blanket (in between snacks for all and her nap time). My main concern with the upcoming birthday party is that every time we're back, another part of the park appears to have broken -- a few weeks ago, a climbing apparatus had caution tape on it; last week, a rocking horse was gone and replaced with a construction cone; and today, one of the two infant swings was just totally gone from the frame. O of course has been full of questions as to why the play structures are gone and who removed them/put up the construction signs. Z in the meantime is insistent that "they're going to fix it!" Here's hoping the city has got budget allocated for repairs!

The weekend has also been featuring ever-warming weather, so we were able to have some dining al fresco opportunities. Mima and papa came over for a grilling good time; the boys were very happy to enjoy the newly added woodchips in the background (unanticipated bonus: they apparently repel more of the insects!), push each other in the swings, and step from stump to stump by the house. L in the meantime was very happy to be outside with the family, smiling big smiles at everyone.

Tonight was O's end of the year class picnic; friend J actually took him and classmate A over to it at a fun park near their school, and I joined up soon after work, finding the entire class crazily climbing all over the playground. Soon enough we were able to herd the kids back to the picnic shelter for dinner, cake, and a small ceremony where each of the kids' parents received their "documentation", a giant binder featuring printouts of the year's activities. In addition to art from the kids, these had involved a full series of excellent nearly daily e-mailed documents that had captured the kids' activities over time, generally richly accompanied with pictures and ridiculously cute quotes from the individual kids on their thoughts about the concept or activity. It's amazing to have such a rich capture of O's life between the ages of 3 and 4, and leafing through the early entries it's wonderful to see just how much he's grown. The kids were off for more post-sugar wildness, running around the park with a few kites, before I eventually coaxed O back into the car and home, happy and exhausted, for bath and bedtime. Even though school continues through the summer, congratulations on a rough equivalent to "graduation", Mister O!

Getting the giggles

Meh had insisted that L had been laughing for her a few times already this week, but I hadn't yet witnessed it -- until this morning. So adorable, and we caught a bit of it on film, er, digital sensor:

OMG MOAR TRUX!!1!$$@#@!

(Sorry, if it was obnoxious enough to use as a blog post title once...)

This weekend was another busy one for the boys -- and not too shabby for Meh and L as well; Meh walked a 5K with L then went to an all-girls tea birthday party for friend E that was apparently adorable. On the boys' side, first O's friend M had his 4th birthday party at his house on Saturday. All mapping software failed us, and there was a large caravan of cars hilariously wandering about a residential neighborhood and turning around. The direction failure was in the same general vicinity as our friends I and J's house, and as we finally found the correct residence, I realized they were next door neighbors -- small world! The party was a wholly pirate-themed affair -- and of course both boys got into the act by wearing full costumes over to the party (once they arrived, O immediately dumped his spyglass and sword to go play). Neither was swayed by the friendly (though also pirate-costumed) face paint artist they had at the party, but both were in love with the incredible indoor two-story treehouse (!) that I think was M's guest kids room.

Then today was the perennial crowd favorite Touch a Truck. There were a number of excellent options to explore this year, including a city metro bus that was handing out foldable papercraft metro buses, Comcast handing out squeezable foam service van toys (there's a joke in there somewhere), several fire trucks, a city electrical vehicle, and, Z's favorite, a construction/traffic redirecting truck complete with cycling signaling mechanism. Unlike at O's previous event, there was apparently no guidance not to honk the horns, so a blast or toot was forthcoming every few minutes, somewhat to O's dismay -- no, that didn't stop him from asking me to blast the big rig's horn, though his hands were tight over his ears when I did it. But fun times all around, and even shared with friends -- I'd mentioned to friends R, M, and their son/O's friend J, and they arrived for some group exploring. We even got to ride a trolley retrofitted as a bus to and from the remote parking lot. It must be just about summer with so many fun things to keep the kids occupied on weekends - yay!

You and me and the bottle makes three

Today's milestone for L (or at least for me) was that we tried, and she accepted, a bottle for the first time! Meh's women's choir was performing at Folklife, and while I'd initially pondered taking the three kids, I recalled a number of past performances where I'd had to quickly flee in the middle of the set when one or more got sad. I wasn't quite ready to try that yet with three kids solo. Ah well, we'll have to settle for the streaming edition -- congrats to Dunava on what sounds like was a solid and well-received performance!

In the government-documented milestone department, L is also the first internationally prepared kid in our family; her new passport (good, ridiculously, for a full 5 years) arrived yesterday -- one more step completed on the path to her and mommy's upcoming choir trip to Bulgaria! Still can't believe that's going to be happening, and that it's only one among a number of trips coming up this summer -- in just a few weeks the boys and I head to Michigan to visit Grandma and John as well as for my (slightly belated) 21st high school reunion.

A pattern has been developing in our weekends as we start to move from spring towards summer: the boys get too bonkers to stay home, so I take them to a local park while L (and sometimes mommy) naps. This one is still Z and O's favorite. Per the picture, yesterday O was literally climbing the walls. It's always amusing when there's another kid in their general age range there, and O has to (very shyly, and preferably with daddy company) approach the kid and find out their age and name. Once the social ice has been broken though, he's friends for life; as we were driving home yesterday, he was asking when we'd see the boy he'd met at the park again, and if he could have a playdate with him. We may need to move onto kids business cards or something (and yes, as soon as I typed this I checked -- of course those are already apparently a thing).

Party animals

It's been another birthday party weekend, with two separate events to keep the boys occupied. First we went to an incredible gym at a local athletic club I didn't even really know existed, where there was a blow-up bounce house, basketballs, and much happy giggling and running around. Later on in the party room, Z ate multiple pieces of pizza (crust-first, naturally; we've started briefly discussing his own party, and he keeps talking about how "there will be pizza" -- so there you go, we may have our food option selected!), and both boys enjoyed the cake, O getting impossibly more of it on his face than in his mouth, and Z delicately eating the cake away from under the frosting, which he left behind. There were gift bags with a much coveted pair of red-bulbed flashlights that kept both boys up for the past two nights, as well as a mix CD - alas, no Frozen tunes (wait, I think that should be considered a plus?), but the boys were game to listen on the drive home.

Party two was earlier today, at a favorite local children's museum. In addition to the usual building, pneumatic tubes with silk scarves, running around, climbing through a big rig, and water toys, there was an art project where each of the kids got to make their own crown. Both boys were totally into it; Z's featured a few months of the year (May and June being the most prominent), while O's was a more abstract self-described "rainbow forest" of marker scribbles and hand-smears. The previous party's lack of Frozen content was more than made up for here, with cake, plates, and decorations all nicely themed to the kids' favorite current film.

In L news, she's been doing some nice grasping and has moved on to coos when she's happy, and thankfully slightly less frequent sadness in the car. The boys continue to adore her; I still struggle to get shots of Z's interactions (he does great at soothing her, and sometimes helps unbuckle her when it's time to get out of the car), but O is more than happy to mug for the camera when I catch him interacting with his sister.

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."

Proud papa

Happy mothers day! The birthday march of April and May continues; papa's birthday was last weekend. Mima and papa had retreated to a lovely island inn, but this weekend we got to come celebrate with them for mother's day brunch. The boys ate alarming numbers of chocolate chip pancakes while we had slightly more adult (and super tasty) fare courtesy of papa.

Afterwards, of course it was time for a park adventure. The boys' current obsession is this one, and we've even already booked out the covered shelter location for Z's upcoming birthday party. The park's namesake rhododendrons have started to flower, and one of Z's favorite activities is to circle through the "forest" (sometimes he describes it as a tunnel) and spot the various colored bushes. O for his part enjoys burying and digging up treasure in their giant sand beds (when other kids happen to bring or abandon shovels) and spinning dizzily (alternating between asking to be spun faster and slower) on a rotating playground disc. Today a bunch of the dandelions were in full fuzz mode, and he was picking them and making wishes. O: "I made a wish. I actually made lots of wishes. They were all about cars."

L continues to enjoy morning and afternoon time to both interact with her family and get to check out her toys. We've been seeing increasingly frequent and successful partial rolls; here she made it from her back onto her side to say hi to some friendly stuffed animals:

Everything is awesome

O and his school friends have been continuing to try to find opportunities to play outside of school, which has been wonderful to see. He and friend A have playdates frequently on Friday afternoons, and friends M and A have either booked, or expressed interest in booking, future playdates too. When I speak to their parents, they mention their daughters have also apparently started declaring their intent to marry O. When I ask O, he always insists he's going to marry friend J instead. Oh, those pre-school love triangles. Anyway, friend J proactively invited us for dinner last night while I was picking up O -- while I correctly presumed his parents didn't actually know about the invite (and I politely declined), we did go ahead and make plans for today at their house for playing and watching the Lego Movie. Of course, Meh and I were enjoying the bits and pieces we could see (in between interacting with the boys, fetching snacks, negotiating toy sharing, changing L, etc.) more than Z and O were, so into the Netflix queue it goes!

While L was conked out on Meh's shoulder, we noticed that she even sleeps daintily -- notice the extended pinky.

Two month stats

Eleanor's two month well-check was yesterday. The gratuitous stats:

• 11 lbs 1.5 oz (25th-50th percentile)
• 22 1/4" length (25th-50th percentile)
• 14.9" head circumference (25th percentile)

Meh reported that L even started to coo a bit yesterday morning -- though alas, that was followed up by several shots at the doctor's office that had her sad for much of the rest of the day. As the boys would (and do) say: "It's okay, little lady." Poor pretty and super cute girl!

Birthdaze

We're deep into birthday season here; last weekend was of course mommy's, but also one of Z's bus-mates invited him to a (for me) sensory-overloading affair at Chuck E. Cheese. While I remembered the animatronic music band, I don't think I recalled that restaurant staff would intentionally rile up the kids for a countdown to the live action appearance of the mouse, literally for the last minute telling the kids to scream as loud as they could. Z did great, and he also discovered the joys of skee ball, eventually redeeming a fistful of tickets for laffy taffy. This weekend there were three more parties (alas, we only made it to two of them) for friends of the boys. Yesterday, O's friend J celebrated his fourth birthday at the School of Rock. It was great fun (and mass chaos, as one would expect) celebrating with electric guitars, keyboards, microphones, shakers, and oh so many loud drums. I felt for the teacher, who was trying to teach/explain while the kids were clearly pretty ready to just get on with the singing and dancing.

And today we had an indoor bounce house birthday party for O's school friend D; both boys were invited (and L as well!), and had a blast jumping and running -- though I really need to start to remember lighter clothes for the high energy parties, as O was a sweaty mess whenever he came to check in with me.

On the topic of L, she's started having a bit more quiet alert time especially first thing in the morning when we come downstairs. She seems to enjoy occasional tummy time along with time on her back looking up and smiling at her sheep mobile, pull toys, and her always interested/interesting brothers!

Daily planner

In addition to an awareness and interest in the goings on of the day, Z is really into days and months. When he gets on the school bus, he often will cheerfully say "Happy Monday!" (and yes, when it's Monday) to the driver. In the morning, he always checks in with me - "Today is Monday. Yesterday was Sunday. Tomorrow will be Tuesday." He also distinguishes days of the week based on whether "we'll make lunch" (Monday through Friday) or "we'll do something fun together" (Saturday, Sunday). And new months are a point of interest as well - "Today is May; yesterday was April." (Close!) Anyway, Meh thought Z would enjoy having his own calendar of day-by-day activities. He's been checking it every day this week and talking about what's on tap for the day -- but this morning we noticed he had a pen out and was at the calendar making his own modifications. And indeed we were able to (hopefully?) make that appointment work; next I'll have to show him how to make it a recurrence. Nice job, Z!

Sound the alarm

Transitions can be hard for all of us, and Z has often shown concern or gotten upset when transitions near; on Monday mornings, he's sometimes a bit anxious about getting ready for school and the yellow bus. On days when Meh or I have an evening rehearsal, he'll sometimes fall apart a bit when we get ready to leave (though it's interesting to see that he often tries to cope "rip off the Band-Aid" style: as soon as we say we're going to be leaving, he waves/yells "bye" and tries to coax us out the door).

Anyway, we've long used the "two minute" warning rule for any transitions for the boys, where "two minutes" can, in wall clock time, be equivalent to anything between 10 minutes and 30 seconds. In speaking with some other parents at a recent birthday party, we're not alone in this particular time dilation technique. But lately, Z has been increasingly been interested in time (and days, days of the week, months, etc.), so we've used various countdown timers so he can watch the two minutes pass or have some kind of alarm when the time is up. The other day, when I said it was time to get dressed for school, Z said "...and Z's going to set his alarm!" A few minutes later, he said "beep! beep! beep!", and immediately grabbed clothes and started putting them on. Go Z!

I thought that was just him imitating a generic alarm, but the next time he "set his alarm", when it went off, he said "ching, dah di-dah di-dah dah, ching, dah di-dah di dah dah...", which I eventually correlated back to my phone's musical alarm sound. He's also used Meh's different phone alarm sound for a third variety. He alternates between those and the beeps (which I've realized are quoting the kitchen alarm). All in all, these (plus the actual alarms) have really helped him deal better with transitions - nice work Z!

A circus atmosphere

We picked up the boys from their sleepover at mima and papa's house last night (everyone had an excellent time, and there was apparently even sleep!), and headed onward to meet up with O's friend J and J's parents R and M for Mercer Island's apparently long-term annual circus (a preschool association fundraiser). It's held at the high school, which is tucked away (and huge - the only one on the island?), but when we approached we knew we were at the right place from the crowds and over capacity parking lots. Finding a side street, we walked over to the fair, and were greeted with everything from ponies and monster trucks to a school bus bounce house (the boys impressively recognized it from a previous encounter last summer), a dunk tank, and more. Then we walked inside and got to hear some musical acts (the "Bus Boys" were on while we had snack -- a band composed of school bus drivers) and wander around a giant set of carnival games. The boys of course flocked to the vehicle themed ones, where O test drove a balance bike, both boys won several obstacle course "races" on tricycles, and got to bounce on a large contained trampoline. A very fun if exhausting morning!

After that, it was time for lunch. Sushi, of course.

Personal space

Happy birthday to Meh! When I asked the boys a few weeks ago what they wanted to get her, O replied "flowers". Z supportively added "yes". A very nice thought; when I asked what colors we should get, O immediately replied with his favorites -- green and blue. Then he thought a moment more and added: "and also purple and pink. And also black." I took all of these suggestions (well, minus the black) to the local florist, who was a big fan of any order being transcribed from 4- and 6-year olds' instructions, and O and I got to pick them up last night on our way to meet up with Meh and Z for birthday dinner at mima and papa's house. He was very pleased with the results, though he was concerned that he couldn't see the (green) vase while it was in the box for transport. Anyway, birthday dinner was a splendid affair, with yummy food, the boys singing "Happy Birthday" (in between repeated performances of "Let it Go" and "What Does the Fox Say", of course), a tasty cake, and then capped off with a birthday present that everyone could enjoy (hopefully even mima and papa) -- a boys slumber party at their house.

I had illusions of taking Meh and L out for dessert, but we were all so tired that we just went home for a quiet evening, likely to be followed soon after by bedtime. Action packed! I will share this e-mail from mima of her conversation with O soon after we left:

Mima: Where is Owen?
O: I am in the bathroom. I want some space.
Mima: Can I come in?
O: Yes, as long as you don't talk to me.