Yuletide

The children are nestled all snug in their beds. Jim is nestled all snug on the couch. Sugarplums are all consumed, stockings emptied, carols sung. It was a beautiful Christmas. One which I will describe to you after a brief trip back in time to last Saturday night, when Jim's sister and brother-in-law arrived from Ontario for a four day visit.

Or should I say, a four day eating tour of the Northwest. I am not sure why, when company comes, we feel obligated to eat like every meal is our last, but if you're feeling underweight, start making your plans to visit. We hit the schmancy brunch buffet, our friends' house for fake Christmas feasting, an Indonesian place, dinner out at a restaurant (grown-up restaurant!), dim sum, and hot pot. By the end of their visit they were begging for vegetables.

Jim hatched a scheme whereby instead of dropping our company at the bus station for their trip to Vancouver, we would rent a minivan and just drop them at Vancouver itself. So we got a hotel reservation and had a quick trip to the... I don't know what Vancouver's city nickname is. The awesome, neato city? The trip up there was silly in the sense that we relied completely on technology to guide us (modern technology, not the less-recent advances like cartography and printing on paper), and technology was all, whatever, you guys, I had somewhere else to be, and I didn't actually SAY I was going to be available on Wednesday. There was some bumbling, in the automotive sense. But we got there, saw my in-laws' in-laws (who were genuinely charming), and made it to our hotel in time to wander around Robson Street on a bustling Saturday night.

We got tourist Thai takeout, which wasn't bad, and ate in our hotel. The girls think every hotel is a combination of the Taj Mahal and Never-Never-Land. Naomi was excited about "breakfast service," which sounds even more snooty than room service, somehow. We spent the morning (post "breakfast service") in the super deluxe pool and hot tub. Now I am feeling sad, and missing that hot tub. Sigh. On the way back to the States, we made a way too quick stop at Granville Island to see if things were still hopping at the public market. Answer: yes!

Christmas Eve, I am sorry to say, there was some shopping. Not too much, and mostly groceries, but sorry, and thank you, retail workers. In the evening, we went to the children's service at church, which featured not only a living nativity, but also Muriel's first ever choir performance. I am happy to report that my stage mother routine was limited to instructing her not to suck her finger or pick her nose while on stage. And she nailed it! Singing good and loud, knowing all the words, no unfortunate actions with hands or dress. At one point two of her little choir mates were showing us their naked torsos. Fortunately Muriel was not influenced by them.

When we got home the girls put out Santa's cookies and went to sleep with remarkable alacrity, considering the number of church cookies apiece. Jim made us a late Christmas Eve dinner, non traditional in the sense that it was a seared ahi tuna salad, but traditional in the sense that it was super tasty and lit by tea lights in jars with glue-brushed wrapping paper on them. Blah blah, stockings, blah blah cinnamon roll dough, blah blah up way too late. But then... a Christmas miracle! Both girls slept in till SEVEN THIRTY! Sleep, the greatest gift of all!

We made it back to Christmas- I knew we could do it. Santa brought the girls what they asked for in their super cute letters to him- "glass" slippers, aka, those plastic sandals with the princesses on them. They are horrific (slippery, clonky, foot-deforming, and to me somehow emblematic of early female oppression training), and I am so grateful that Santa is around to bring presents that I could never in good conscience purchase and gift. I was gratified that they liked their cheesy bathrobes, a gift that cost me a good deal of time and frustration, because really, shouldn't there be a zillion kids' bathrobes around for Christmas purchase? Eh? I got Jim some practical garment-category gifts, some nougat (his kryptonite), and a carom board. He got me a beautiful necklace and an e-reader which I am not going to name because the last time I put the name of a gadget in here, I got a weird spam comment right away. If you are curious, it is the e-reader that is associated with a retailer that goes by the name of a big river somewhere that has lots of feisty crocs and whatnot. And so far I LOVE it. The e-reader, not the river. I am afraid of crocs.

Anyway, hours and hours of sweet harmonious play (the sort that makes you feel like having kids wasn't a bad idea, as it turns out), lasagna for Christmas dinner, more cookies, another screening of "White Christmas," nice long chapter of Naomi's new chapter book, second Knuffle Bunny book (which Muriel got for Christmas), everyone asleep, dishwasher humming, third cup of tea, and here we are. I feel like the happiest, luckiest person around tonight. Merry Christmas, Friends!

You Know, Stuff

Let me begin by saying that I had a birthday a couple of weeks ago, and on the official card as well as several auxiliary cards, drawings, and signs, Naomi saw fit to refer to me by my first name. Happy Birthday, Jenny! Love, Naomi and Muriel. Hmm.

And speaking of stories that are now way out of date, I bring you, the Turkey Twilight Zone. Long ago now, Naomi's teacher sent home a big black and white turkey drawing with the words "Family Turkey Project" on it. The idea was that we were supposed to work together to decorate it and bring it in by a certain date. Naturally, on the night before the certain date, I scrambled around to put my oh-so-creative plans into action. I had them tear up red, brown, and yellow construction paper, I had them glue craft feathers on the tail. We found a googly eye to affix to the turkey head. We added a necklace of macaroni.

Naomi returned the turkey, and the next day we noticed that the turkeys were decorating the windows of the office. Neat! I went to find our masterpiece (which was totally janky compared to some of the super fly turkeys the other K families cooked up), and I found it. But then I wondered, who is this Timothy, and why is his name on our turkey?!


Oh wait, here's our turkey.


Holy crap! Timothy's mom, call me!! We are separated at birth! That, or you need to get those cameras you hid in our house out RIGHT NOW!

What other out of date stories can I come up with? In early November, I took Muriel to visit our friends in Chicago. So fun! It was great to remember what having a littler little was all about, as well as to spend some QT with Muriel. She did great on the trip, except for some inexplicable and very heartbreaking homesickness when we first got there. I believe, too, that it was good for her to be the big kid for a while. And really, it was wonderful to see our friends. Yea, friends!

We went to the Oregon coast for Thanksgiving. The Oregon coast is totally rad, I recommend it to anyone who likes stuff that is scenic and amazing. We even saw the Goonies house, whilst in Astoria, and it was, well, a bit anticlimactic. But yeah, the rest of it was pretty fantastic.

My parents came at the beginning of this month, and I over-scheduled the poor things. There was lots and lots of rushing from this awesome holiday experience to that. Sorry, Parents! But the kids were genuinely delighted to have their grandparents around, as was I.

OK, let's see. That big project that kicked me around from the end of summer and all through fall is FINISHED! At least, finished in the first part, version one is released kind of way. Woo to the hoo. Jim has now taken over as the harried, overworked one, but it's all good, because he is a. employed, b. working at a company that is on the upswing, and c. challenged like never before. Naomi is working hard at her job, which is being in Kindergarten, and Muriel is a productive citizen of preschool, like always.

Oh, Christmas Open House! These are the before pictures. No afters.







Yes, this is how they dressed for the party.

I am excited, enthused, delighted, gleeful, and jolly at the approach of Christmas. Jim's sister and brother-in-law are coming this weekend, and we can't wait to see them. Things, people, are good. Happy Holidays to everyone. Now I have to go find a replacement for the NY Jets Mr. Potatohead that I bought for my nephew but that is, alas, after all, out of stock. Wish me luck!

Nothing to See Here

So many things have happened, and I should be writing about them and uploading the appropriate photos, but it just feels like there are so many other important things to attend to these days. I gotta build up the muscle again, I think. In the mean time, here's a snap from our trip to the Seattle waterfront over the weekend. My parents came to visit, and I woefully overscheduled their dear selves, though they got through almost all of it without complaining. In this shot, just before or after a carousel ride, but definitely before a harbor cruise and locks tour on a big boat, Naomi and Muriel get to know the carved denizens of one of Seattle's tourist traps.


Anyway, back at it soon. So glad December is here, but wishing there was some way to prevent the short little days from whizzing by so fast. Any suggestions?

Got One for Abby

If you are anything like me and indulge in the occasional read of an advice column or twelve, you have probably encountered the Dear Abby letter trope in which someone receives a message from a dearly departed in the form of a lucky penny find. I am not sure why some choose loose change as their communication medium over radio static or curtain rustling. Here's what I do know: When I was a newbie technical writer at my very first job-job, I attended one of the monthly birthday cake gatherings in the hall between the cubes. Someone brought up the nifty, novel new quarters for each state. The first one had just come out. Because my social shtick is very often Seinfeld-esque, my input was something along the lines of, "What is the deal with Caesar Rodney? Does ANYBODY know who that is? Is that really the best you could do, Delaware?!"

I am older now, so I would probably not be so willing to mock a state for knowing its own history better than I do. But my enthusiastic snarkiness (a word that perhaps had not yet even been coined) caught the attention of one Liz, a supervisor on another project. She told me later that it cracked her up how worked up I got that there was going to be someone on a coin I had never heard of. Nice of her not to say that it cracked her up that I had never heard of Caesar Rodney. She became my first real mentor, an attendee (if not instigator) of some of the best happy hours of my life, and a very good friend.

Liz's body was something of a traitor to her, and for the last few years that we were in Minnesota, she wasn't working anymore. This was a loss to the technology industry, she was good at her job, smart and funny, and (just for the record) extremely well-dressed. When we moved away, I had less and less contact with Liz, getting too wrapped up in my own busy life. It had been, regrettably, a very long time since I spoke with her when her husband contacted me on Friday to let me know that she had passed away. I am so sad that she is gone, and mad at myself for not letting her know more often in the last few years what she meant to me.

This morning we were actually running a bit early for church, for ONCE, and I had time to remember to dig out some change for the girls to bring in for Jalineda, a Hatian girl that our Sunday school kids sponsor. Naomi said she wanted to look for the really shiny coins she had found the other day to bring along, but not wanting to squander our rare time edge, I told her I'd find the shiniest quarters from our change jar. The first one I pulled out shone like it was brand new. Delaware, the First State! Caesar himself riding across the front.

First Ever Post from Device that Shall Remain Nameless

Jim is always encouraging me to use the "Device" and claiming that it is really easy to type on, etc. I have been, and remain skeptical. But here Muriel and I are in Chicago, with the "Device," so I'm taking a crack at it. I am enjoying the auto-correct...

We are visiting our old and dear friends, and a new friend, their one-year-old daughter. What fun to be away from home, see friends, and remember the toddler years. Muriel is mostly doing well, except for a brief and glorious fit earlier today, and a really very poignant and early bout of homesickness when we first arrived. I am doing a poor job of taking photos, and not doing so greet on this so-called keyboard, so let's just take this back up on the west coast. Good night, Chicago!

Originally, I named the device, but it has already resulted in my first ever spam-ish comment, so, forget it. It's a four-letter-word, rhymes with shmyshmad.

Harvest Dance

I just now heard myself telling Naomi that Gramma would cry if she could hear the way Naomi talks back to me. My closer: "Don't make Gramma cry!" And, good night.

Just got back from the Harvest Dance, which is what passes for a school Halloween party these days. On the one hand, where did you go, bobbing for apples? Where are all the fun games and costume contests and cupcakes with big globby marshmallow ghosts on top? On the other hand, pizza, Costco chocolate chip cookies, 400 glow necklaces, and a dark gym full of super happy elementary school students dressed like Clone Wars characters and fairies jumping up and down to the Black Eyed Peas makes for a pretty agreeable evening, as it turns out.

Light at the end of the work tunnel, I bask in your glow. In November, NaNoWriMo. Think I can do it? More on that soon. Happy Halloween, friends!

10 20 2010

So many neat dates this month. What with the ten and the twenty ten? Anyway. I am entirely habituated to working on my computer until 11:00 p.m., and it is so weird and exhilarating to be on the play computer at 8:30. Woot! Although yes, obviously, in my new found free time, I should be doing something that doesn't involve a computer. Agreed. Bye.

But wait, I have to write a post! So let's see. In September, I went to Portland for a girls' weekend that involved dancing (Club Fez!), art fairing, running, pupusa eating, karaoke singing (Whatta Man debut!), and napping. Maybe some whiskey sours. Also in September, Jim heard that he would be getting an interview at his contract place. Then, sometime in the beginning of October, he had the interview, and got the job. Yea!

Also in October, we went to Boise for a long weekend. While there, I ran my first half marathon. Woo! I have been training for a while. It was easy enough for about the first eight miles. After that, not so easy. 11 and 12, really not so good. But then it was over! The kids had a good time pal-ing around with my friend's little boys.

This week I am in the midst of what feels like fifty school-related things. Cookie dough sale fundraisers, "spirit wear" sale, signing up for Kindergarten teacher conferences, signing up for preschool teacher conferences, visiting the book fair, figuring out whether or not we actually returned "The Dinosaur that Lost Its Roar" to the library. Yikes.

But! There is a light at the end of the work tunnel, and I am so relieved. I can actually do housework, and daydream about the holidays, and watch old Futuramas with Jim. Ah, the life I left behind. So, maybe see you again sometime, you guys!

One Month Later

How can a month have gone by since my last post? This raises the question of whether, in the name of habit-building and accountability and whatnot, I should just post what we had for dinner or breakfast every day, or whether I should just take a picture of the same thing and post that. Man oh man have I been slacking.

I have an excuse, but it's a super boring one. I have been working like mad. Jim got a job, also, which means that the awesome epicurious dinners have come to an abrupt halt. Crap! I mean, Yea! His job is rather far away. So there is a new routine being built, of who drops off whom and when, and who picks up whom (and then the other whom) and when, and what will be prepared for dinner, except, oh, I needed to buy that before I prepare it, I guess, and then who will WORK TILL ELEVEN EVERY NIGHT?! Why yes, I am a mite touchy on the overwork issue.

But of course many great things have been happening. Naomi loves Kindergarten. I already blew my capslock allotment on that last paragraph, or of course I would have typed that Naomi LOVES kindergarten. She really does. She is so into it I feel like I am doing her a favor every day, taking her there. And this delights me up and down, except for occasionally when I am tired and hungry at the end of the day and she is there, digging in the dirt with some fifth grader at the after school program, and begging me if she can just stay a little longer. Ug.

We have already been to one ice cream social, which I bet you a hundred dollars both girls will remember for the rest of their lives, just because it was crowded with jovial people and there was ice cream with m-n-ms to put on top and they ran around willy nilly with their friends and hunted around for teachers Naomi knew so they could all shout hello. Tomorrow I'm going to a principal's coffee, whatever that means, and I've also received an email about getting involved with the planning and execution of the Harvest Dance (which I have to admit sounds pretty rad). So yeah, basically our whole family has joined a cult. Your tax dollars at work!

The weather has turned, from...enh... to eh. I mean, now it's gray and rainy. We're all reconciled. Whatever. There's something comforting about knowing that all hope is lost. In the weather sense. We are coming up on the fifth anniversary of our move here, so that has got to have some bearing on my reaction. Another sunny day or two (or, let's be honest, 14) might result in us getting another three or four cherry tomatoes from our sad little garden. I don't have high hopes, let's just say. And again, that's OK.

Speaking of the back yard, as we kind of were, there is a rodent living in our shed. This goes beyond blech and straight to horror movie, because I have seen the thing and though it is not quite as large as those creatures in the fire swamp, it is not exactly going to be winning the lead in any adorable children's books. Jim tried a medieval skewering trap of some kind, which the beast laughed right off. Last night our vanquisher set up something like a tray of super power sticky stuff, the idea being that the rodent gets trapped in the stuff. So large is our rodent, though, that even though he is stuck in the sticky stuff, the tray of sticky stuff is not where Jim left it. So, ugh ugh ugh, the thing is clomping around the shed with one giant foot. I have no idea what is going to happen next with the rodent. It can't leave through its little shed exit with that big thing on its foot, right? Pretty soon, someone is going to have to go in there and have a giant rodent showdown. Volunteers?

Muriel is finally getting the hang of preschool. She has really bumped the coloring and letter tracing up a notch. Seriously, though, she is always on her game in the cuteness department. She has a trademark wave she gives to anyone who makes eye contact. I don't think it's fair to all of you to go on and on about how cute Muriel is. Just take my word for it.

So tired. Not working any more tonight... But some day soon we will have some kind of family experience, and photograph it, and things will get back to normal with this so called blog. Till then, good night friends!

The Whole Story

OK, so last week my friend is in town with her kids. Even though her kids are small, and ours are small, we decide to do the duck boat tour. For the uninitiated, this is a giant open amphibious vehicle that is driven around town, and then into water, just because it can. So we ride through Seattle with the predictably brisk air in our faces, listening to our actually quite hilarious captain/driver crack jokes and play song clips. At the end, she throws us one last quip, holding up a pair of staggeringly large tighty whities, and claiming that some passenger on the last tour left them behind.

This moment, perhaps not surprisingly, stays with Naomi. She has forgotten nearly the entire tour, so focused is she on the giant underpants. She asks me, whose underpants are they? Why did they leave them on the duck boat? So, in the first of many foolish decisions, I explain that they are novelty underpants, and that they come from a joke store. She asks what other kinds of things you can buy at a joke store, and all I can come up with (foolish decision the second) to tell her about are whoopie cushions and fake dog poop. Oh, and squirting flowers.

Somehow we get around to making plans to actually GO to the joke store, Saturday after nap. So the whole morning, they are scheming about what they are going to buy. Naomi chuckles to herself all day at the prospect of tricking someone into sitting on the whoopie cushion. Muriel walks around the house chanting "FAKE DOG POOP. FAKE DOG POOP." They both take a surprisingly good nap.

We head to the joke store, which is of course far, far away in Seattle. We peruse. We shop around. We see a lot of wares. But we have a very difficult time finding the specific things we are looking for. So Jim, all forbearance, asks the store employees for help. This store, by the way, is something of a Seattle institution. So the employees, not surprisingly, are of the painfully hip hipster variety. One of them points out the selection of tricks offering ($10.99!!!) that includes a fake ice cube with a bug in it, and super hot cinnamon gum (?), as well as the coveted whoopie cushion. He informs us that they do not carry fake dog poop. Similarly, they do not sell squirting flowers.

Naomi finds a squirting camera, and for Muriel, it's a magic wand not quite dissimilar enough from one we have at home. Whatever. We go to the counter. I give it one last try with the clerk, explaining that my three-year-old has been chanting "fake dog poop" all day, and she says, are you ready for this? "I have never even heard of fake dog poop."

To which I say, venerated Seattle hipster joke shop, that if your shop is so clogged up with bacon band-aids and "terrified pickle catapults" and "emergency yodel buttons" that you can't stock a squirting flower, and if your brand of jokey irony is so far evolved that you cannot appreciate such classics as fake dog poop and whoopie cushions, well then, shame on you. Shame!

On the plus side, the shop is right up the street from the most famous hipster ice cream joint in Seattle, which we hadn't yet tried. And in between was a really cute, tiny, extremely delicious sushi place. All's well that ends well.


Before.
After. Squirty camera and wand in possession.
And earlier, the whole gang. Love having visitors!

Slacker

OK, it's not that nothing has been happening. Well, OK, nothing has been happening. It's been vaguely summery, we've had some regular times. School has been attended. Work has been attended to. Maybe that's it- I've been working a lot, it seems like. So there, that's my excuse, no posting because of all the darn work!

Jim, on quite the other hand, has been enjoying his free time in a way that is of course enviable, but also, pretty nice for the rest of us. By this I mean that he hunts around for a recipe in the afternoon, buys the appropriate groceries, and when I get home (late), there is a fabulous dinner waiting. Seriously, this guy. What a cook! He is also getting better and better at "Starcraft," or whatever that game is called. Woot!

Muriel is going through a period of bed invasion. This happens occasionally, and it doesn't last forever, and a few gentle kicks to the back of the head is a small price to pay for a happy child, right? Last Saturday morning, all of us were crammed in together, and Muriel was expressing her discomfort thusly: "I'm all bunched up with people!" Yep, that is what happens!

Naomi is newly entranced with the idea of summer camp, thanks to a visit to Camp Kookooskoos in The Trumpet of the Swan. She has set up their "cabin" in the living room, and has shifted her pretend play to include summer camp tableaux. The pretending part hasn't changed- she still says, Mommy, pretend I was at summer camp, and you were the director of the summer camp and I was a camper, and Muriel was my kitty who came along with me (Muriel: mew!), and it was time for bed, and you said, all campers, time for bed, and I took my kitty (Muriel: mew mew!) and we got into the bunk.... and so on.

Next week I am taking OFF from work and I am so HAPPY that I am capslocking it up in here. My friend is coming from Boise with her two sons, and there will be much cavorting and sunscreen and water play and so forth. Pictures from that, to be sure. In the meantime, this is all I've got- the kids out with Dad on a stay-home-from-school-just-for-fun day. Looks like it worked!

Hooray for Vacay!

Vacation! Vacation! On Friday early, we took the interstate to the ferry and the ferry to Vancouver Island, home of Butchart Gardens and lovely Victoria. Because we are sentimental and predictable, we booked a room at the same hotel we stayed in last time, which was as delightfully shabby and relaxing as ever (though they no longer offered room service at breakfast- BOO!).

Here's what I liked about the vacation: Being away from work, computer, television, and home, in a lovely city, with breathtakingly beautiful weather, and frequent consumption of ice cream.

Here's what the kids liked about vacation: Being in the hotel, and running around on grass. I don't know how long this period is going to last, anybody else know? But in the meantime, I can plan all our future trips around having a hotel room and being within walking distance of a big grass field.

The first field was at Butchart Gardens, a place bursting with plants and flowers and tourists. The Victoria Symphony was rehearsing at a little bandshell near the carousel, and the lawn in front of the bandshell was lush and irresistible. Cue somersaulters! At the first field, we talked about cartwheels, and, after a super masterful demonstration by yours truly (ahem), Naomi took it upon herself to acquire and practice this most vital skill. So upon arriving in Victoria, and strolling postprandially down to the second field, in front of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Naomi's vacation destiny was sealed. We spent most of Saturday fielding demands to return to the cartwheel place. Also known as the somersault place. Also known as a perfectly grand place to lie in lush grass and be appreciative of beautiful surroundings, Canada in general, fantastic, amazing weather, and loopy, carefree children.

For the record, we also went to Miniature World, which I thought the kids would be more into- I think they are too miniature yet to fully appreciate the miniature splendor of the place. We wandered the streets of Victoria. We stumbled into a kids' concert put on by four members of the aforementioned Victoria Symphony, which involved Aesop's fables acted out and set to music. When they called for the kids to come up to the front, Naomi hung back, and Muriel jumped right up and found a seat with the crowd. We had some dim sum at a restaurant in Chinatown where all the cart pushers felt compelled to compliment Jim on his beautiful girls and then tell him their own life stories. All in Chinese, of course. Oh, and every time one would come by and chuck Muriel on the cheek, she would say, loudly, "Oh, she is such a nice lady!" Hee.

The Natural History Museum was great, once again. They have a new room called the Ocean Station, which features a fantastically realized steam-punk decor theme that would shame the set designers from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The woolly mammoth was impressive (though less scary since they discontinued the thunder and lightning effects). The First Nation exhibits were beautiful. The old-timey townscape was the most fun for the girls, I think. As with Miniature World, I think the museum is still just a bit over their heads. I am going to keep bringing them back, though, because when they do finally arrive the right age for this museum, it is going to be crazy museum bliss. And with a big green field right across the street!

And now, the photographic evidence...


Don't worry, everyone got their cone back. Sitting in the shade on the edge of the Italian Garden and eating the most indescribably delicious gelato brought me instantly and magically in touch with the feeling that I was really, truly on vacation. Ahhhh.

Check out the size of Naomi's mango sorbetto. We gave her a little help with that, loving parents that we are.



By far my favorite busker, and the source for Naomi's quote of the trip. She asked if it was the real Darth Vader, and of course because we are those irritating parents, we asked her if she thought it was. She said, "No. Darth Vader is the worst bad guy in Star Wars. If he was the real Darth Vader, he would have been a lot more bad to us." Fair enough.

These two got along pretty well on this trip:







To be fair, I must also include Muriel's quote of the trip, uttered upon smelling a flower at the elaborate gardens: "Oh, it smells just like ketchup! My very favorite thing!" Hmmm.

Vacation! I miss you already!

The Fourth and the Third

Before I forget, tonight when I was reading Snow White to the girls, the straight up Disney Little Golden Book version, and we got to the part where sweet cheerful Snow White, oppressed by her wicked stepmother and slaving away as a scullery maid with a song in her heart, "dreams of a handsome prince who will come and carry her away to his castle," Naomi said, in her most dramatic voice, "PLEASE, Mom, don't say anything about Snow White going to college and getting a real job!!" Ha! Of course I started to laugh and could not stop, and every time I turned a page, I was reminded again of her exasperation with my tiresome moralizing, and kept on laughing. And every time I laughed she would put her hand over my mouth, which made me laugh harder. So that is the hardest work I did all day today, trying to get it together so I could make it to the end of Snow White. Whew.

I have been remiss in not posting about our big weekend at the beginning of July, and especially in not giving Muriel her birthday due. So, here you go.

On the Fourth, we took the ferry over to Bainbridge Island for some small-town Independence Day shenanigans. The weather was, in short, ridiculous. Here's us on the ferry, sweaters, hot coffee, gray skies. A lovely November day:



When we got there and the parade started, we actually had about 30 minutes of beautiful sunshine. I love this picture, because Muriel's birth story folklore always starts with the Fourth of July parade we went to the day before she was born, and here she is, rocking the parade with her awesome Murielness.


And this one is too nice not to include.


Muriel's birthday was a fun day. Of course it started with the ceremonial pancake face.


Please stop looking so grown up!

I had to make another cake, since I inexplicably ruined the one I made the day before. Oh well. This gave Muriel ample chance to play dress up.


OK, that's better.

Muriel's party was at a park one town over, on a beach on Lake Sammamish. Because I am a moron, I did not pack extra clothes for the girls, and after approximately one minute of beach play, Muriel's lovely birthday party dress was a wreck. Fortunately my friend is not a moron, and lent me her kid's extra clothes so as to prevent Muriel from wearing a towel to her own birthday party.

Muriel's chums from her old school turned out in force (OK, three of them came), and hot dogs and cupcakes were had by all. We even had partial sun! Which this summer is indisputably the best you can ask for.


I love the way Muriel stood up so solemnly and so pleased when it was time to sing Happy Birthday. I have the hardest time trying to put into words what makes Muriel so amazing. I really think, and I'm not just saying this, that she has a kind of inexpressible quality to her. I'll say what I can, though- she is funny, and brave, loving, and fierce, smart, musical, graceful, comical, and delightful. Oh, and 3!

Again with the Bullets

You know if I have gone this long without a post, there is going to have to be a bulleted list. I know from my so-called career as a so-called technical writer that a bulleted list is supposed to consist of parallel items. This means that the items should be the same sort of items. So, what the following items have in common is...er, that they are things that I am now bothering to mention in the bulleted list blog entry of today.

• I went to a charity cocktail party a few weeks ago in support of an organization that my friend is involved in. If you have never been to a charity cocktail party, it is basically a cocktail party where everyone is hipper and more Seattle-ish and more socially and politically active than I am (none hard to achieve, really), and where there is very nice wine and super snacks. And at the end, you write them a check. At least, this is my generalization based on the one event. But here is the interesting part: the supremely swank lake-side mansion where this soiree took place, lent to the organization by the owner for this event, belonged to... the guy who invented Pictionary. Awesome.
• Speaking of drawing games, Naomi and Muriel have invented (and continue to try to engage us in) the world's most impossible drawing game ever, the working title of which is "Guess What I am Drawing with My Nose." As in, drawing invisibly in the air with my nose. So, it's a fun game, in that it is funny to watch your kid industriously draw something in the air with their nose, but it is not a fun game if you are the sort of person that enjoys succeeding at a game, because really, you are never ever going to guess. Wait, unless Muriel is doing the drawing, because she always draws Thomas the Tank Engine. Then Emily. Then Percy.
• This maybe deserves its own boring post, but I would like to take this opportunity, while I'm thinking of it, to encourage people to consider super amateur backyard birdwatching. This involves buying the Sibley guide, or some similar reference, learning the five kinds of birds that normally visit your yard, and then when you see something out of the ordinary, cracking open the reference and adding another bit of bird knowledge to your world. It is a shortcut to nature awareness (for kids especially, but for grownups too), because birds are everywhere, and when you start looking for them a little more, it becomes a little treat when you see one. During a recent run, I saw some gold finches and a cedar waxwing (a pretty good looking little fellow!) besides the usual Red-wing Blackbirds and swallows by the lake. Yesterday we got to see and hear a murder of crows ganging up on a raptor (maybe a kestrel) in a nearby tree. We also recently spotted some quail, which are not supposed to be around here. I'm just saying, it's fun.
• Jim subbed last night on a soccer team, and today has been walking around like an old cowboy at the end of a very long cattle drive. He had a good time, and played well, by his own modest account. This, in combination with the fact that someone was kind enough to hip us to the fact that we do get Univision on channel 51, and that Univision is kind enough to actually screen the World Cup games so Jim doesn't have to go sit in the "bar" part of the Mexican restaurant at the mall food court that we frequent, means that we are a little bit soccer happy around these parts. So right- Jim is Chinese, and grew up in Malaysia, and so of course is a lifelong fan of... Germany? We were happy to see them beat Inglaterra this morning.
• At the end of this month, meaning, this very week, Muriel is going to switch schools and join Naomi's school. This way, they will be at the same school for the summer before Naomi heads off to real school at the end of August. I am just a teeny little bit in denial that this is upon us, not only because I haven't really bothered to have a conversation with the good people at the new school about what to expect from Muriel, and what Muriel should expect, but also because I think, embarrassingly, that I am going to be a little bit wrecked at leaving their baby school behind. We have been going to that school every day for almost four years now, and they have been extremely good and loving to our children. I remember when tiny little drooly Naomi was ready to move from the baby house across the street into the toddler class, it was weirdly emotional for me. I made the teachers these (I realize now) overly elaborate commemorative gifts, and had a hard time not crying when we said goodbye to them. (This is all the more embarrassing given that of course we saw them all the time afterwards.) Anyway, wish me luck, is all I'm saying.

This is getting long, and I haven't even gotten to the part where I get your help in cracking the karaoke code, or force you to endure a tireless rant on the crap crap crappy weather we seem endlessly saddled with. Something to look forward to, right? But since you have read, or skimmed (no blame!) this far, here are a couple of photos from the all girls Strawberry Festival Outing 2010. See for yourself on the weather.

Aw, sisters.

We got the cop pedal car. I had to sit up front to pedal, so I kept telling Naomi she was the perp. She didn't get it.

Bollywood dancers. I am so taking a class, you guys.

Jumping house: three tickets.

Smaller jumping house with ball pit: two tickets.

Photographing children through jumping house mesh: Priceless.

We did get some strawberry shortcake. And look, warm enough to take off our sweaters!

ZOID

Naomi has a little mortar board that she sported last Thursday as she graduated from preschool in a wild not-quite-ceremony at a local park (an event I missed on account of being in Arizona). The kids' hats were made of white paper, and each kid decorated his or her own with markers and stickers. Naomi's has a smiling heart, stars, several stickers that say "Super Job!", and something that looks like a field notebook illustration of an agave plant. I picked it up while I was clearing off the table tonight (it made it into the house after a week in the trunk of the car), and for a few moments I could not figure out why someone would have written the word "ZOID" on the side of it, in black marker. Oh wait, 2010. Yeah, that makes more sense.

Today we had some friends over for brunch, and I did rather a poor job of having my act together in time to be any kind of hostess to them. Jim made a really delicious frittata and some bacon, which vied for first place in the yummy food category. My contribution was the doughnut muffins we made once before, and they did not come out well at all, never mind the part where they took forever to bake (?). I also forgot the fruit salad I had made, until about 3/4 of the way through the meal, promised a kid an English muffin and never delivered, and put my guest in the position of jamming up toast for my children. Oh well. I need to maybe practice a bit more on the entertaining. I'm feeling rusty. We still had a nice time, and they either did as well or are super gracious and good at feigning enjoyment.

Also, Naomi did me proud by marching into the house to show off the roly poly bug she had caught and was holding in her hand. Things got a little out of hand later in the day, when she amassed a half dozen or more roly polies and created a mini-dystopian nightmare ecosystem for them in a little tupperware dish, with smooth pebbles, sorrel leaves, and absolutely scale-proof walls. There was a weird interlude where she tried to convince us to let her poke holes in a jar lid and make a home for the bugs in there, or get a caterpillar and let it turn into a chrysalis, etc., and there was actually a point where she was on the verge of throwing the kind of fit that would seem more appropriate coming from a teen whose friends were all getting cars for graduation while she was not. Then we were in the dumb position of arguing about what comprises quality of life for a roly poly bug with a five-year-old who is convinced that a roly poly bug loves her and will be broken-hearted if she releases it to the wild.

In the afternoon it was off to Vince's, an Italian joint in south Seattle (or Renton?) that puts the Old back in Old School. It has faux brick wall covering, red-checked vinyl tablecloths, red glass jar candles, lasagna, gnocchi, spumoni, chianti, and most importantly, pizza, pizza, pizza. Our friend C. turned five today, and had the maturity and discernment to request a party at Vince's. The party room was decked out, the balloon/face painting guy was talented at balloons and just so-so at face painting (and weirdly, camera shy and not shy about it). I ate a lot of pizza, helped out with some pin the tail on the donkey, got briefly hit on by a very drunk retiree when I sneaked into the bar for a glass of red, handed out some cake, and emerged from the frescoed cave of Vince's party room into a brilliant evening still blazing with sunshine. In some ways, birthday girl C. is responsible for one great aspect of the life our family enjoys now, having dearest friends nearby who share so many of our experiences. Thanks for being born, little one.

Oh, one more. The girls were tired from the sunshine and pizza and cake and high jinks, and were more than willing to snuggle up in bed for a story (only a few chapters of Doctor Dolittle left!). Muriel sat leaning on a pillow, with a blanket over her lap, and Naomi leaned around me and saw her, and said, "She looks so beautiful. But she always looks so beautiful." Hee! And what? But so cute. OK, happy Saturday. Hope the sun is back tomorrow!

Away Game

This past weekend plus I traveled solo to Arizona, to attend some graduation-related celebrations. It is hard for me to believe that my niece, a person in the same generation as my own kids, is now out of high school and into the adult world (so to speak). Two nephews finished up 8th grade this year as well. My kids are in the second wave of grandkids, which means I also got to see a three-year-old niece, an 18-month-old niece, and a ten-month-old nephew. Graduates! Teenagers! Parents! Preschoolers! Siblings! Babies! And all in the zillion degree comfort one can only find on the face of the sun, or Phoenix in the summertime. (When I arrived back in Seattle on Sunday, the temperature differential between the two places was right around...50 degrees. Yikes!)

As sometimes happens when you are away from your children, or when they have experienced something out of the ordinary, my kids emerged from the other side of their Dad-only weekend something like six months older, and in Naomi's case, really, it feels like two years older. She is bursting with these long, excited ideas about things, which just pour out of her. She's always been reasonably chatty, but the enthusiasm and clarity she has when she talks about all these ideas has me flabbergasted. I have doubts about this lasting, though I hope it does, but for now I am really enjoying her new persona.

Wait, though, not all of it. On Sunday afternoon she became convinced that we should go swimming. It was already too late to go- we had to figure out dinner and stay on track for the inexorable march to bedtime (especially since Muriel had eschewed her nap). She did not like my answer, and began a ruthless lobbying campaign. It wasn't a friendly one, either. She suggested we vote. I voted against. She and Muriel voted for. "We have more votes, so we should go swimming," she said. I am pretty sure I didn't teach her about voting, so...? I told her my vote was bigger than hers and Muriel's. The idea spigot opened, and she began explaining that if Muriel stood on top of her, they would be bigger than I, and that would prove that their votes counted for more. I was laughing out loud at this point, and of course that made her furious (this is a great problem of ours- when she gets really serious about something, it is often side-splittingly funny, in the most charming and wonderful way, and I have only so much control over my laugh impulse). So I had to go along with her plan, and held Muriel up on her shoulders. Sure enough! The two of them are bigger than I am. But we still did not go swimming.

Both girls were extremely tired after dinner, so we jumped into Muriel's bunk to read a quick story. Occasionally they ask me to make up songs before bed, which, like the results when they ask me to make up stories, are super random and usually ridiculous. They always involve some player from whatever we just read or looked at (an elf, a seal, a snowy owl) getting ready for bed and falling asleep. This time, because I was thinking about how glad I was to be back with them, I sang a song about two girls whose mother goes away for a trip. The refrain had "Come back to me, Mama" a few times, and I noticed after the second repeat that Naomi was rubbing her eyes. "That song is too sad!" she said, and then started to cry for real. Which of course made me cry. Dumb, dumb Mama. What was I thinking? And then Muriel said, "Mom, something is coming out of your eyes." Hee. I had a reasonable save with a song about Brown Bear, headed to his lair with his brown bear hair, and then some loud snoring noises. Whew!


The ladies out luncheoning with Dad at the German Deli. Javol!

Don't Let the Moon Break Your Heart

OK, here's the latest. First, the girls have both started singing this old song from a k.d. lang album (Shadowland)- "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes." For the longest time, they only sang the first line of it... "Don't let the stars get in your eyes, don't let the moon break your heart..." over and over and over. Which was cute and weird and funny and maddening all at the same time. Which come to think of it is a reasonable summary of much of parenting these days. Now Muriel knows more of the words, and it is the bomb when she sings it.

Remember when Naomi was speaking faux Hindi all the time? Well, now she can write in faux Hindi! Is there nothing her preschool won't teach her? If I weren't so lazy I would scan the drawing of a bobble-head doll she made (which she insists on calling a bobby-head doll, and that's funnier anyway, so why argue?) which has all the relevant information along the top in faux Hindi. She also loves drawing paisley patterns, expanding her standard repertoire of hearts, stars, flowers, and swirls.

The other day when I picked her up, her teacher told me that Muriel had almost made her cry that day. During their visit to the diaper room, which, Miss Beth informs me, is where they often have a chat, Muriel told her that she was not going to be at the school much longer, and she wouldn't be seeing her anymore. Muriel is going to change schools next month, so she and Naomi can have a summer together at the same school before Naomi starts Kindergarten. I am never that sure what Muriel knows, though. With the second one, I find it is hard to ever believe that she is not still a baby, so when she starts walking and talking and demonstrating her capacity, I still can't believe it's anything other than a marvelous trick the baby has learned. But here she is, conducting a little therapy session with her teacher about the upcoming sense of loss both of them must face together. Yikes.

It seems like maybe I have written about something similar to this before, but it's happening so much lately, I can't resist mentioning it again. Naomi and Muriel get along very well together, but they are two very different little people (also, people like to say that they look so much alike, but to me, they really don't at all). And each of them is now old enough to observe the other, occasionally, with some distinct person detachment, if that makes sense. So a few times lately, one of them will do something, and the other will make eye contact with me, and we will acknowledge together something about the other. Mostly it goes like this: Muriel does something hilarious, like talking about something and then throwing a really theatrical face very smoothly into the narration. Naomi will look at me with a big smile, like, "Did you see that?!" Or, at the end of the day, during the tired and grouchy time, Naomi will become overwhelmed by her feelings of whatever (this happens, um, often), and cry and cry, and after a while Muriel will look at me and say, "She's still crying!" There is something about this acknowledgment of the other kid as a person having their own separate personhood that feels mysterious and monumental at the same time.

Now School, New School

I didn't really post about Mother's Day, so let me say that it was a good, fun, weekend of sunshine and family hijinks. Friday night we had a real grown-up dinner date, Saturday we went to the farmer's market one town over, and later had a picnic at Kubota Gardens in Seattle. For both events I practiced not thinking about rushing on to the next thing, and I have to admit, it was worth the effort it took. Sunday I FINALLY got the little present Naomi had been agonizing over handing over or withholding since she had brought it home several days before- it's a frame she decorated, and drew a picture for.


In the afternoon, she and I took a bike ride around the new school she'll be going to. I can't believe I haven't thought of doing this before. She loved peering into the classroom windows, seeing the art work, reading some of the words written on large signs around the walls. And a few days later, we stopped in on the way to school, now school, to drop off her registration for Kindergarten. This girl, who seems so big and grown up at her preschool, who is clearly the oldest in her Sunday school class, who definitely runs the show when she and Muriel are playing, seemed so Little compared with the kids walking around at the elementary school. As an aside, when we talk about elementary school, she talks about Kindergarten, first grade, and last grade. Are they in first grade? Are they in last grade? Hee.

Friday I took Naomi to her five-year-old checkup, also known as her must do before Kindergarten check-up. She was super good and healthy, growing right up the curve like she is supposed to. She had a vision test, at which she stood up straight and tall and got around (after a slow start) to reading the letters in her actual five-year-old voice and not the baby talk voice that sometimes comes out when she feels the need to be silly as a mask for shyness. The nurse asked questions about what she can do: Can she name four colors? Can she count? A couple of other funny ones, I can't remember them now. The nurse also gave her a sheet of paper with three symbols on it that she had to duplicate, and on the back she was to write her name and draw a picture of herself. She got right to work with the ballpoint pen, and of course did not stop with a picture of herself- she had to be wearing a crown and a dress covered with stars and be accompanied by a cat and a smiling heart face.

When the doctor came, it was a joyful reunion- we haven't seen her in over a year, not only because our children have been remarkably healthy, but because she has been out on maternity leave with her second little boy. She is the nicest, best doctor ever in the world, to borrow the superlative favored by my children. Not only does she take very good care of our children, and support and reassure us copiously about our decisions around their health, but she also appears to take real delight in seeing them, and in how they are growing, and just generally gives the kind of sincere and believable positive family feedback that you need every so often. Even though Naomi hasn't seen her in a while, she remembered the doctor, and how much we like her, and immediately adopted the half-spazzy dork behavior that takes over when Gramma first shows up, for example. It was funny.

Then, the shots! I had told her she was getting a shot, but it turned out to be four. If it had been one or even two, she would have come through with her extreme courage intact. But with two in each arm, I can't really blame her for crying, which she did only for a moment. When it was all over we helped ourselves to a sticker (purse dog wearing a sweater won out over Thomas the Tank Engine and Spider Man), and headed to the mall food court for pancakes (her choice for lunch). I had sort of envisioned a chatty mother/daughter luncheon, but we both just sat there eating, paying maybe too much attention to the other people around us. Still, it was fun to be with just her. She ate a lot of pancake! Then it was back to now school, her little arms sticking out of her sleeveless dress, two bandaids each.

Found Some Flow!

Well, it has happened: Muriel and I have been invited to partake in a play date with Muriel's little classmate and... her nanny. Her mom is the one who has been trying to set it up. She contends that Muriel is her daughter's favorite at school, despite the fact that she refers to her as Mario. I don't know that we will be able to make it happen, though I do feel a little compelled to try to accept the formation of some friendships through (and for) Muriel, since it occurs to me that we are amassing quite a delightful group through Naomi (something I didn't really anticipate...). And perhaps the nanny too is a delightful person and we will get along famously. I don't know.

Anyway, I am already a week away from last weekend, and partway into the new one, but I am still going to look backward to report on the kinds of grownup play I cooked up for myself. First, Saturday was May Day, so there were some cheesy May Baskets (paper cones) with bouquets cobbled together from our front yard. The flowers included lilac and lavender, and as a result were spectacularly fragrant, if a little garish and raggedy. Also, I finally tried out our good friend's bread recipe, which is of the wait around a long time, but don't do much manual labor variety. It was about ten times better than the bagels- delicious!


Last but not least- the sewing! Hand sewing is not something I am very good at, but I am just going to have to come right out and admit that it is ridiculously fun and enjoyable. I had a project in mind for Mother's Day LAST YEAR, and bought the fabric and cut it up according to the pattern. I just never got around to actually sewing it. So last weekend, with only a few days before the mailing deadline, I started to crank out the little birds (resulting in a total of 6).

Although the sewing was fun and relatively easy, the attaching of the birds onto the sticks, and the balancing of the whole thing was well nigh impossible. Jim was a huge help, and deserves a medal for coaxing me to keep trying with the final construction when I was ready to quit (and had in fact announced it officially). Even finding a box to ship the thing in was a pain. Oh well. It's there now, so like it, Mom!


My kids, of course, have no trouble finding their flow. I was thinking I should post once with all the "Pretend..." statements that I hear one or the other of them make in a day or two, and of course immediately after I thought that, Naomi busted out with the longest ever "Pretend..." statement. It was something like, "Pretend we were mermaids, and our parents had died, and we were under the water, and you were there, and we said, what the? Who are you? And then you asked us if we would come and live with you because you loved us, but then you had to make a spot where the water wouldn't come out, so we could live there with you, so you did, and then we came to live with you?" (Um, and so on...) Here's the "somersault court" that Naomi and Muriel constructed. The double somersault is quite something.

Busy Busy

Have I been off my posting schedule! Sorry about that. We have had lots of nice things happening, so really, no excuse but busy for me.

Here in the PNW we are in that period of completely disjointed spring weather, where a day starts out glorious and leads to a torrential downpour, followed by brilliant sunshine, followed by gray foreboding, followed by hail, followed by sun, followed by drizzle. This is normal, and boring (yes, it is boring to talk about the weather, I know!), but I bring it up because its disorienting effect is amplified by my work situation, where I work for hours ensconced in my little interior office/cave, and then go to the kitchen to get some water, and look out over the lake. Visit 1, lake is blue, but it's dark where we are. Visit 2, lake is dark gray, but it's sunny where we are. Visit 3, it's pouring, lake is misty and vague, and so on.

This weather also makes it more or less impossible to dress appropriately, or more importantly, to dress one's children appropriately. The consolation is that at some point and maybe multiple points during the day, whatever you're wearing will be exactly right. As my friend likes to say, broken clock = right twice a day!

Weather grousing aside, hooray that spring is upon us, bringing with it the promise of longer days and more motivation and planting things outside and bike rides and the whole shebang. This past weekend, I went to visit my girlfriend in Boise. It was supposed to be a Girls' Weekend in the grand tradition, but it turned into kind of a Mom Plus One weekend when her family needed her back urgently. The lesson of course is that Girls' Weekends work better when enforced by distance, and also, that they are super trumpable, and appropriately so. While I was gone, though, there was some Dad/Daughter gardening going on, which is worth a picture:


This reassures me that they did not just watch movies the whole time I was gone, though, who am I to complain either way?

Going back in time a bit, here we are at the beach walk put on by our church a couple of weeks ago:

There was some kind of extremely low tide condition, and to celebrate Earth Day, a couple of our church members who are certified beach naturalists or some such thing invited everyone to bring a picnic to this lovely beach park in West Seattle and get to know some tidal creatures. At church before we left, there was a puppet show to help teach the kids how to handle (or mostly, to not handle) the creatures. This was terrific for me, as I was teaching Sunday school, and it was truncated for the puppet show. Woo!


We saw sea stars (WA has some rad purple sea stars, as you know), anemones, which is fun to try to get Muriel to say, fish, crabs, and the amusing telltale squirts of underground clams.

Naomi was also very focused on creating a collection- she started with white rocks but kind of went from there. The naturalist told us that this was a protected beach park- you can't remove anything. So Naomi arranged her collection and left it on a drift log.


And Muriel thought it was even funnier to do the same thing with our shades.


OK, and one more thing before I forget. I read an article yesterday on a parenting blog I visit once in a while (here's the article) that really spoke to me, about how being overly busy really does make you unhappy if there is no room in your busy for activities of play or flow (flow being, I think, a kind of grown up play). How's this for a quote:

"Busy-ness does not make us happy. Muller reminds us that the Chinese symbol for busy is composed of two characters: heart and killing."

Being too busy does make me unhappier. But the happy understanding I got from this article is that even though being busy is kind of unavoidable, if I make time for play here and there, the busy-ness doesn't have to prevent the happiness. Though it helps to know how to achieve the flow...

Circles vs. Triangles

Today on the way to school, Muriel said, "Circles. Mom, I really like circles. But I don't like triangles." Good when you know your mind, right?

Here's some photos from Cali:

At Alex's house, you don't have to play music on your old saucepan!

Balcony view from the girls' bedroom.

This moment, brought to you by ice cream, happened while I was away at work. I miss all the fun!

San Diego Zoo, on a particularly beautiful Friday.

Yes, the cuteness. These three had a good time together! Also, check out my sweet backpack.

The beach in front of the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego. And more ice cream!


This was in Long Beach, near the aquarium. Something about this place- the hills, the grass, the sunshine?- made the kids run around like maniacs. Muriel rolled down a hill over and over, and kept stumbling around. Then there was the tree climbing, the wagon pulling, and the overall cutting loose. Crazy kids!

Yes, indeed, it was quite a trip. I admit, I see why so many people think it's a good idea to live there.