Coconut Palm

"A Coconut Palm Tree," by Zach. 

By the time you read this, Zach will be off on his new adventure at his new school. He got so many sweet hugs from his classmates and teachers as they bid farewell to him today; it was enough to bring tears to my eyes. They really are going to miss him - he is truly fun and funny to be around - and he made some nice little buddies there. Yet even with all of the fuss over him today, Zach is seemingly unfazed; it's me who's all emotional about the whole transition.

Nevertheless, we are ready to start a whole new chapter. So, as Captain Jack Sparrow says as he sails off at the end of "Pirates of the 'Curvean'" (sic) - "Bring me that horizon!"

Orange-y Glow

I did it - I survived cooking my first Thanksgiving dinner without a stressball meltdown! I think, right? Feel free to cast opposing votes if you think otherwise but I am going to go out on a limb here and say that it all went pretty well. Of course the dinner wouldn't have happened without help from every. single. person. out of the 10 who were there. I didn't get to take a lot of pictures, but the ones that did come out all seem to have a nice warm glow to them, which is perfect, because that's how the whole night felt.

As I wrote in Jolly Tomato, I put the kids fully to work on this dinner project. By 6:45 am on Thanksgiving morning, they were up and working in the kitchen, slicing apples and making little pie-dough cut-outs for the apple pie. On Wednesday, Bobbie delivered the most fortuitous phone call of the day - right before I was about to start making the pumpkin pie - to let me know that she was bringing over an enormous pumpkin pie, so that allowed me to cross one more thing off the list. And Suzi gave me much-needed moral support after I told her that I had an anxiety dream about forgetting to cook the turkey. Oh, and of course Dave was absolutely true to his word when he told me, "Just focus on the cooking - don't worry about the rest of the house," and sure enough, he took care of all of the table/chair/furniture re-arranging details.

All of this is in stark contrast to the previous week, which was Stress City. Zach is going to be changing schools, and this involved many meetings, consultations, phone calls, and piles and piles of paperwork. The end result (I hope - he starts on Dec. 1) is that he will be in an incredibly supportive environment with lots of help to give him the extra skills he needs to get ready for kindergarten. But all of the machinations leading up to this point have been time-consuming and anxiety-provoking.

At least things are quiet at my office, right? No, in fact, some ill-informed lunkheads decided last week that the best way to protest tuition increases/California's budget problems/big banks' stranglehold on our country (pick one, there's no rhyme or reason to what exactly they were protesting) was to shatter the glass door in our entryway. So my office wasn't exactly an island of calm either.

Where was I going with this? Well, I'm just sitting here writing while Dave took the boys out for a flu shot (talk about taking one for the team - !) and thinking about a relaxing weekend of tree-trimming and gingerbread house-building. And maybe a trip to the beach. 

Hang 10

Lots to say; no time to say it. I am on overload right now. So for now I'm going to have to leave you... hanging.

Puss in Socks

The boys both have off from school today. They have been fighting in the house all morning. Now we're almost late to the movie I already bought tickets for so I rush, rush, rush them into the car. And it's only once I get to the theater that I realize - Zach is wearing socks but no shoes, and we have no extra shoes in the car. Urgh. But the weather's fine, and who cares, really, so I just take him in to the movie theater.

I've promised the boys popcorn so we wait in the interminable line and as the minutes tick by I'm hoping that no theater official gives me a hard time about my four-year-old sliding around in a pair of white gym socks. Finally - we're one group away from being served. I watch the cashier hand an extraordinarily large soda to the lady in front of me, and then - inexplicably - she passes it to the very small child next to her, who then attempts to hold it with one hand while he tries to stick a straw in the top. You can imagine what happens next.

FOOOOSH! The soda crashes to the ground, and waves and waves of soda head right toward us; and in particular, right toward Zach who is standing there wearing only socks.

How do I get myself into these situations? Really, is there anyone else who has this kind of stuff happen to them on a regular basis?

Fortunately I scooped him up in time, but the cashier stopped ringing people up at that point and came out from behind the counter to set up "caution" cones for the wet floor. So the small lake of sticky soda wasn't actually mopped up, it was just cone-d off for the time being while I stood there holding Zach and waiting desperately to order.

Is there a lesson to be learned here? Yes, I believe there is: Wait for the DVD.

All Streppy

It's a real bummer when I'm sick, because the whole house suffers. So I try not to get sick, and when I do, I try not to complain. But seriously - has anyone had strep throat recently? It has got to be the most painful thing that can happen to your throat short of swallowing hot coals. I was in such total and utter misery with a sore throat this weekend that I finally broke down on Sunday night and shuffled over to urgent care. Sure enough, it was strep, and I was in so much pain that the doc gave me Vicodin in addition to antibiotics and steroids to reduce the swelling. Blah, blah, blah - yes, I know other people's medical troubles are boring. But really - it was just not cool. The ability to swallow is an important one.

Monday was due to be a challenge because I was still in pain but it's my stay-at-home day with Zach. If you work, you generally have somewhere else to send the kids and you can go ahead and be sick at home. But if you stay home, there's no such thing as a sick day. You're kind of just in it, for better or worse.

Luckily (luckily?) Zach noticed a flat tire on my car, which became a welcome distraction for the morning. The AAA guy came and put on the spare, and then Dave and Zach drove it over to the tire place for a quick repair. In the meantime, I crawled into bed and promptly fell asleep for the next two hours. When I woke up, Dave was working and Zach was playing quietly with trains downstairs. How's that for indulgent?

But then by noon I really had to get my game on. Dave had to leave, and Zach was itching for something to do. I suggested the local botanic garden, which meant I wouldn't have to drive or walk too far. Zach packed a picnic for us to eat. And - happily - once we got to the botanic garden, he was content to sit right next to me munching on his food and then rubbing sticks together "to make a fire." In the meantime, I was starting to think that sitting in the sun was the best cure in the world.

Then things really started picking up: Zach ran down to the playground below the botanic garden, where he romped for 15 minutes until I had to pull him back up the hill so we could go and pick up Luke. We picked up Luke, went back to the house, and then packed up to go to the lake to feed the ducks. We fed the ducks, then took Luke over to karate. And when we finally drove away from the karate studio, Zach said, "Mom, can we please go to the beach?" How could I resist? So we walked down to the beach and spent a the next 45 minutes on the beach looking for shells and following bird tracks.

Then I sent Dave and the boys off to Long Beach for dinner and I laid down on my bed to contemplate: Wasn't I supposed to be sick today? What happened to "taking it easy?" And more importantly - could I make it to the Thanksgiving cooking class I signed up for that night? The doc told me that if I felt better after 24 hours on antibiotics I could head back out into the world.

So I did it. I just can't stop myself, I guess. I went to the cooking class (thankfully, I was not required to cook; just sit there and observe, so I didn't spread any germs) and I got all kinds of great recipes and ideas for Thanksgiving. I might just try them out on some of you. Strep-free, of course.

Scare and a Half

I have more pictures than words to fill this space today; Halloween came and went faster than you can blink an eye.

Luke went as the Scream ghost, complete with a mask that bleeds when you pump the blood through a little heart-pump device. It wasn't too easy for him to see through the mask in the dark, especially when he was trying to climb stairs while trick-or-treating, and apparently it was sweatier than a locker room inside. We made it through about four walk streets before he was begging to get to our final party destination just so that he could have a drink of water. When we got to the party, he found his friends and they positioned themselves at the front of the house handing out candy. Even though he's too proud of his costume to admit it, I think he was happiest mask-off, handing out candy.

Side note: For reasons too complicated to explain, I bought the mask but no robe. We were set to borrow a robe from Luke's friend, but we were never able to follow through on that. So on Saturday, I hauled out Dave's grandma's trusty 1952 sewing machine and I whipped up a scary Scream robe. That is one nice-looking robe, let me tell you. And it sure beats last year's costume (the death eater robe that ripped in half before trick-or-treating even started) in quality and durability.

Other side note: This picture was taken by one of the moms in Luke's class. She's a professional photographer and she captured these great portraits of every single kid in the class acting our their costumes.

Zach went as Batman Cat, which he repeatedly had to emphasize to people as they exclaimed, "Oh - look - it's Batman!" To which he would patiently point out his handmade ears and tail, and explain that he was, in fact, a cat. 

Dave and I had to laugh when we reminisced about our first trick-or-treat outing with infant Zach in a stroller. I think he's walked every year since then; and he's never once complained about walking (probably a little more than a mile, all told), or about the insane crowds of people on the walk streets, or about carrying a heavy load of candy. This is a kid with priorities, after all.

On Friday Zach had a Halloween party at school, and afterwards I took him and his friend Brensan to a pumpkin patch. What good luck I had to have two of the most photogenic kids on the planet at a pumpkin patch, in costume, at the most picture-friendly scenery of the season, with the two of them laughing hysterically and romping through the whole afternoon. I'm going to hold off on publishing pics of Brensan, but this one of Zach should give you an idea of what was going on. They had an epic hide-and-seek game going through the folds of a teepee at the pumpkin patch, and it was a great opportunity for me to experiment with the "kids and pets" setting on my new camera (i.e. things that move fast).

Last but not least, the beloved pumpkin race was on Sunday. Zach and Dave built their Happy Cat with speed in mind; I made Lego Man solely for looks. And true to form, when it came time to race, Lego Man went on a diagonal, did a little spin, and came to a stop facing uphill on the race course, as if posing on a runway for the crowds. Happy Cat, however, was off at a blazing pace in his heat until - BAM! - he got sideswiped by a massive wayward pumpkin careening off in the wrong direction. We didn't get a chance to enter him again, so that was it for this year. But for next year, we're thinking big. We're going to build a pumpkin that has it all - looks, speed, and built-in pumpkin defense systems.