Have a Lego

Another Luke birthday and if I only had two words to describe it, those words would be "cold" and "Legos" (but not cold Legos). It's only about 25 degrees, and with 25 mph winds, that makes it just about zero, right? Luke wanted to play with his new Legos outside at one point, and he insisted on going outside without a jacket on, but it was only a matter of seconds before he was back inside, putting on every possible layer.

The real birthday celebrations started two days ago, when Luke came out to Joe's a day ahead of everyone else for a sleepover with his cousins. Let's just say there was a lot of Wii involved and not so much sleep.

Yesterday Dave and Zach and I arrived here for the real action to start. Five boys and I piled into Joe's car and headed to the Lego store for about 30 minutes of pure, unadulterated joy on Luke's part. Then we came home, weighted down by big yellow bags, and settled in for a night of Lego building.

I thought we were going to order in, but what do you know, Joe just happened to have some filet mignon lying around, and he made some chimichurri-style sauce, and Sara made some Mexican-inspired Puerto Rican beans (her description) and rice, and before you knew it, it was as if we were dining at the finest restaurant in town.

Today we built a Lego cake and Joe made a pizza-and-pasta feast. There were 12 of us altogether once Mom and Dad, Uncle Larry, and Aunt Marie arrived. Good food, good times. I love you, my six-year-old boy.

A very blimpy Christmas

Presents from Santa... Waiting for the cousins... Joyful present chaos... Christmas at the Marriott... fishing for presents... the annual song-fest.

Joy, Anticipation

Lemonade Limbo

I guess it's pretty clear from the pictures that right now we're back home wearing t-shirts, not chattering in the Philly suburbs. Oh, we'd like to be there. And we spent about $70 in assorted cab rides, tips, and airport food yesterday trying to get there. But a little weather condition had the final say in whether it was going to happen or not, and by 3 pm we were headed back home from the airport, defeated. (All things considered, it was still better than being in Charlotte, where the flight before us had been diverted - and where there were most likely no hotel rooms to be found.)

Luke was tremendously disappointed (I nearly had to drag him out of the terminal) and so I had to give him one of these little pep talks about how sometimes when life hands us a bunch of lemons we have to make lemonade. So we got home from the airport and literally made lemonade. Really, like the stuff you drink. It was a little bit of a necessity both to lift our spirits, and to give us something to drink: I had done such a good job of clearing out the fridge before we left that we had nothing else left besides a few lemons.

But then we found ourselves in a weird sort of limbo. We hadn't planned to be home at all; what were we supposed to do? Dave hatched a plan to drive us all down to Legoland, which sounded great in theory, but we both knew that we'd pay a hefty entrance fee to get into the park, and all Luke would want to do would be to go to the Lego store. So we came up with an alternate plan: We'd give Luke one of his Lego presents early, and let him build it over at Suzi and Boom-Boom's house, while Dave and I took Zach to a little-kid amusement park nearby.

Luke was thrilled that "Santa" mysteriously dropped off a new Lego set and Zach was delighted about the opportunity to ride a "bumpy train" at "Special Other Legoland." But what I didn't take into account was how much fun I would have there. I can't even remember the last time Dave and I took Zach somewhere special by himself, and the last few times we've been anywhere amusement park-y, we've had to contend with Luke moping and complaining because he doesn't really like going on rides. So this trip freed us all up to have some fun.

Plane rides? Wheeeee! Kiddie train around the park? Let's do it again! Train table play area? Let's hang out for as long as we like! (I call this Zach's "Blue Steel" pose, by the way.) It helped that this was my kind of amusement park - small, uncrowded, no lines for rides, and not hyper-commercialized.

At one point when Zach and Dave were in the plane ride, Dave convinced Zach to try to say hi to me down below. So when he saw my face, he began to greet me in his own Zach-ish way, slow and deliberate. "Hi...Mommy...I'm flying...in a plane...up high..." By the time he'd finish his well-crafted little sentence, the ride had made a full revolution and he'd see me again. "Hi...Mommy...I'm flying...in a plane..." and so on.

Afterward we all reconnected and went out for pizza together. Luke had a great day because he was building Legos, and Zach had a great day because he had our undivided attention while he went on ride after ride. "Mom, from now on when I have a bad day I'm going to call it a lemon day," Luke told me as I was tucking him in. "But today was definitely a lemonade day."

What goes up

Before we get to some of the more current stuff, I don't want to forget to mention that Zach had his first holiday show (with his little class from school) last Thursday night. The idea was that they would all go up to the front of the auditorium (dressed in green) and sing two little songs along with their teachers. Of course, like most two-year-olds, Zach had other ideas about what was going to happen. He refused to go up on stage without Dave (which gave Dave some time in the spotlight in front of all the other parents) and made himself maddeningly hard to see during the performance (standing behind another girl). But Bill (and Suzi, our faithful audience for all family spectacles) got a few shots of Dave and Zach waiting together at stage left after the performance.

For the past few months when we've talked about Christmas, Zach has been saying, "Christmas is coming... I'm going to be a blimp for Halloween." Then he started modifying it to say, "I'm going to be a blimp for Christmas." And then later: "I'm going to open a present and it will be a blimp." I didn't want to promise him anything, but... We had our traditional gift-giving day with Dave's family this weekend, and Suzi and Bill got Zach the biggest blimp any two-year-old could ever want. Of course he loved all of his gifts, especially the "car carrier-ier-ier-ier" from Grandma Bobbie and Granddad, but he's made a point to keep the blimp near at all times. Mostly he carries around the blimp during the day, and then it hangs on the ceiling of his room at night.

Luke has been driving himself mad with Lego anticipation, and he got some of it relieved on Sunday when Suzi and Bill gave him a Bionicle, and Grandma Bobbie and Granddad got him a cool robot Transformer. So here's a picture of him doing what he'd be happy to do all day long if he could.

Sunday night we got to enjoy one of my favorite So. Cal. traditions - the annual holiday fireworks at the pier. This year we walked down to the beach with the boys (no stroller), all lit up with various glow-sticks and bracelets, and the mood was happy and festive. When we snuggled together on the sand to watch the first few fireworks, I had no sooner finished saying, "This is my favorite fireworks show ever," - and those words were hanging in the air in a little voice balloon - when Zach announced, "I don't want to see the fireworks, I want to go home." So unlike last year, when he thought they were hilarious, this year he thought they were a little too close and scary for comfort. Maybe next year will be my favorite year instead.

Somehow Luke seems to have worked a notch up in his maturity level. Usually when he and Zach are arguing about something, it's a knock-down, drag-em-out fight until the end. But lately Luke has been resolving things himself, whether it's giving Zach a piece of his cookie, letting him choose the TV show, handing over a toy, or doing whatever it takes to keep the peace. I don't know if he's trying to be "better" than usual for Santa's benefit, or if he just has started to notice that things are much nicer around the house when he and Zach aren't clawing at each other, but either way, I'll take it for now. We'll see if it lasts beyond December 25.

Me, me, me. Oh, and how about some more about me?

I think it's safe to say that for a large majority of the time, I'm focused on doing things for someone or everyone else in the house. So this weekend marked a strange little twist in that I spent the whole time making everyone do things that revolved around me. Prior to my swim meet (the Southern Pacific Masters' regional championships) I had been thinking, "How many 41-year-olds are really willing to get out there and practice swimming and then spend the weekend going to a swim meet?" Turns out, the answer is "The ones who are REALLY good." It was a little humbling to learn that I was seeded 11th out of 11 in my age group for my first event (50 fly), and even though I swam what I thought was a great time, I came in 9th out of 9 (two people didn't show up). I felt even worse that I didn't even earn any points for my team after all that. So I had to change my focus a little bit, and turn it around so that every time I was up on the starting blocks I'd do a little self-check: Am I having fun? Yes. OK, good. Carry on.

Altogether I swam 6 events and two relays. I got fourth place in the 100 IM and 100 fly, 6th place in 50 breaststroke, and third place for a 200 medley relay I swam with some teammates (the picture above is of me on the starting blocks while my teammate swims in). I earned my first ribbons in 23 years, and I experienced the joy of having the family (Dave brought the boys and Suzi and Bill came too) cheering for me at the start and finish (and also the crazy new option of having some folks watch me live online at www.liveswim.net).

The people at this meet amazed me. There were some 60- and 70-year-old grandmas strutting their stuff in Michael Phelps-style full-length swimsuits. There were some 80- and 90-year-olds racing, which seems like accomplishment enough. There was an elderly woman in a wheelchair who got some help gently lowering herself into the water, then went on to swim a very competent 100 backstroke. And then there were people setting national and world age group records left and right. All day today I kept thinking about those people: On Sunday they set a world record in a swimming event. Today, instead of spending the day lounging around in a posh hotel room while a publicist fields calls from corporate sponsors and the media, they are probably sitting at a desk somewhere, largely unnoticed. Phew. Seems unfair, somehow.

So now that I spent an entire weekend away from the family, it's time to throw myself back into the familiar here at home. No one gave me a ribbon or a medal for making dinner, but I did get some hugs and kisses and drool on me as a reward, so there's that.

Last thing just because I feel like throwing it out there: Zach doesn't seem to know the word for "belt," but he handed me my belt this afternoon anyway and said, "Here, Mommy, put on this stripe."