Crowd-pleasers

Zach is becoming endlessly entertaining: on the beach, he stood there with the bucket on his head playing peek-a-boo; in the house, he sat next to a tray of nectarines and sampled a bite of each one. After a while he settled on one nectarine, put it carefully into one of Grandma's pink Crocs, and proudly carried it around the house. The fun ended when he put it on the floor and plopped down on top of it. Splat.
Here he is again pretending to talk on the phone.


Luke is happy to be part of the swirl of activity. At dinner we made sandwiches and he insisted on putting his together, then Sam's, then mine, and then proudly carrying them all out to the table. When Liz and Ken came, he of course made a point of interviewing tham about their car, checking out their keys, and then leading the charge out to the car to practice sitting in the driver's seat.

"When Liz was a little girl, I used to call her 'Charlie' for a nickname," Dad told him. "Where was I?" Luke wanted to know. "You weren't born yet - that was a long time ago, probably 50 years ago," Dad told him. Luke considered this for a few minutes. "Were there dinosaurs?" he finally asked.

Just a quick story from this evening - We took a trolley tour around town and Joe stopped at the fudge store before we got on the trolley. When Sam and Lily and Luke (sitting all together in the front seat) saw the fudge bag, they started chanting, "We want fudge!" Suddenly for some reason (it was a rowdy group on the trolley) everyone else on board joined in until the whole crowd was chanting, "We want fudge!" Joe had to stand up in front of the crowd and good-naturedly promise everyone a piece to get them quiet. Tomorrow: Horse and carriage rides.

House rich

Let's see how well I can do this with my thumbs (on my blackberry). Not having a computer for a week is quite a handicap. We're in an amazing, enormous, and yet cozy house, two (flat) blocks from the beach. It has been alternately fun and challenging for me with the two boys. There are plenty of hands around to help, but there are plenty of times (or always, in Zach's case) that I'm the only one who will do. Plus Papa has a wicked knee injury that has sidelined him and kept him out of most of the activities (though he's still hobbling up to his third-floor bedroom) and he hasn't been able to help as much as he would like.

Speaking of bedrooms, I think the reason I like this house so much is because of our super-cozy spot in the attic. Luke, Zach, and I are all together in a room that is big but feels small-ish because of the low dormer ceiling. I love how all three of us get to wake up together. Usually we spend a few minutes laughing and mugging in the morning before we head down to the chaos downstairs.

Luke loves being with his cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents but he sure misses his dad. I think it's most apparent when we're at the beach and he doesn't have Dave to dig a hole with him or slowly coax him into the water. Today we were at the beach for only 90 minutes when Zach petered out and Luke decided it wasn't worth it to stick around. It's hard to balance their needs because Zach (and the rest of the cousins) want to be in the water while Luke wants to be in the sand. He dug for a while by himself today, then called it a day.

It's always a relief at the end of the day when all six kids are in bed. Tonight Joe and Sara went out and bought ice cream - now the grownups are all sitting around and slurping up dulce de leche, carmelized pear, and chunky monkey. Aaaaahhhh. Don't tell the kids.

Cream of the crop

Ahhh...I hate to write over "Magic and Dirt," one of my favorite recent posts, but I have to soldier on for posterity. This morning we had the Most Fun Ever at a local farm picking blackberries, eggplant, tomatoes, green peppers, and basil. Luke, it turns out, is really quite good at picking blackberries and was delighting in showing me how many more blackberries he had picked than me. Zach liked the idea of picking blackberries, but he soon realized that picking up mud and throwing it was much more fun. I would love to have a picture of us at the farm but I didn't bring the camera and it was one of those times when it was far better to enjoy the moment than to be snapping pictures. Instead here's one of Luke and Zach playing with the car seat box, which is by far the favorite toy in the house at the moment.

Zach has made quite a few strides in the past few days. For instance, he didn't use to drink with a straw and now he only wants to drink with a straw (like Luke). Also, I never gave him corn on the cob before and suddenly it's one of his favorite foods. I think he likes gnawing on the cob just as much as eating the actual corn. Oh, and it helps that it is the Best Corn Ever from the farm stand down the street. Mom has promised to keep going back there every day to make sure our nightly corn is as fresh as possible.

I'm not going to stay on the computer long; there's a big thunderstorm swirling around tonight. We had some scary lightning on the way home from the library. "Batten down the hatches!" yelled Luke, as we ran into the house. It's all part of good summer fun.

Magic and dirt

One thing we sorta forget about when we come here in winter is just how green it really is throughout most of the year, especially summer. Even though the heat is stifling this time of year, the trees and hedges and vines make a total canopy over all of the yards in the neighborhood, rendering them marginally comfortable - as opposed to completely oppressive - for outdoor activities.

Lucky for us, the next door neighbors on both sides have kids, which means they have cool play structures and equipment to play on. Today Luke discovered the joys of the tire swing hanging from one of the big trees next door. The movement on a tire swing is different from the herky-jerk back-and-forth of a swingset swing. Once you get on, you just kind of glide to and fro, changing direction with the slightest shift in weight, but never once coming up against a sharp angle. Luke was skeptical at first but once he started getting with the flow, he didn't want to get off. "This feels really nice," he announced dreamily, to no one in particular. In a way, it was sort of hypnotic to watch him drifting back and forth through the thick air, with the sound of cicadas buzzing above us and ...

...wait a minute! Isn't there another kid somewhere? Where's Zach? Ugh! Any time you turn your head for a second, Zach will find his way to the nearest pile of dirt. Like tonight when Rosemary and Fred came over for dinner and for a moment all attention was on Luke so Zach worked his way over to the potted plants and started methodically emptying the soil onto the dining room floor.

"You know, you did magic tricks for my mom at her birthday party once," Luke told Fred after dinner. It's true, as we pulled up the pictures to confirm: There we were, 36 years ago this summer, at my fourth birthday party, and there was Fred, '70s-style hair and clothes, hamming it up for a crowd of little ones who are now in their thirties and forties. Tonight Fred brought a few tricks for Luke, who screamed and applauded and couldn't stop laughing. It seemed like magic way back then, and somehow it does now too.

Breakthrough

There we were, at the end of the longest airport security line I have seen in recent memory, and even though the situation looked brutal from my point of view, Luke was undaunted. "I am the excited-est person in the whole world!" he declared.

Luke loves being on vacation, and he especially loves going back East to my parents' house. And if you think about it, what's not to love? Doting attention from grandparents ... A basement full of tools ... Crazy wildlife sightings (cicadas, rabbits, chipmunks, ant lions) ... The complete Calvin and Hobbes treasury ... Blueberry iced tea and strawberry jam ... Chocolate donuts from Wawa ... Proximity to Uncle Joe's house ... the list goes on and on.

But since that first excited morning, we've had a roller-coaster of a time here. Luke and Dave have both been sick from the get-go, so that is dragging everyone down. Plus it's been in the high 90's in the daytime, cooling off only as low as the mid-80s at night. And even though we are loving every minute we get to spend with Dave, we are all dreading his eventual departure (tomorrow) and the two weeks we will spend without him, which is almost unimaginable.

On the flip side, we've had one big development here that is so amazing that I can't let it go unmentioned. I haven't written much about this because it's kind of personal for Luke and because it has caused me such extreme anguish ... but ... drum roll ... Luke seems to have finally given up his iron grip on the Pull-Ups and is now doing his big business the same way the rest of us do. "You know Mom, you were right - it really does feel better this way," he told me tonight. God bless four-year-olds and their lovable, innocent candor.

Zach hasn't paid much attention to this major milestone for Luke because he has been too busy building synapses and making massive developmental leaps of his own. He's added some words to his vocabulary (balloon, bear, baby, banana) and one of these days he's bound to learn that there are words that start with letters other than "b." He's also entertaining us by carrying large objects across the room, pulling toy trucks while making truck noises, and playing peek-a-boo with any willing participant (mostly me).

It's worth noting that I started writing this blog three years ago, for the sole purpose of recording our trip back East and to Cape May. Who knew that anyone else would ever read it, or that I would continue writing for so long? Now, three years later, we're headed back to Cape May again and it's been fun to compare notes from the last time. My life has gotten incredibly more complex and wonderful and challenging and whatever other fill-in-the-blank adjective you can think of ... and just like then, I don't have any great words of wisdom to wrap it all neatly together. I'm just sitting here trying to get as much written down as I can before my eyelids crash from sheer exhastion. But suffice to say that all told, things are good. I'm happy to be here, I'm happy to have gotten here from where I was, and I'm looking forward to where we are all going.

The natural

If anyone doubts that there's such a thing as having inherent "ball sense," all they have to do is come and watch Zach, just two weeks into walking, dribble a soccer ball (see Zach blog pic for details). In fact, the best time to do this is during Luke's soccer class, when you can see all of the four-year-olds stumbling over the ball, missing it, and generally being goofy, while Zach quietly makes his way up and down the sidelines kicking the ball with complete competence and accuracy. Imagine him in ten years.

Oh, and speaking of balls, here's a pic of Zach and Daniel together at their gym class. If Zach's face looks a little different, it's because this picture was taken about three hours after his lip-ripping incident so he's a little puffy. In fact, he was unhappy that whole day except for the single hour that he was at the gym, so it's nice that Bruce managed to capture that picture.



I'm blogging this morning because Dave took both boys with him to run a race (in the double stroller we borrowed from Scott and Teresa). I don't have that much to say today but I do have the time to say it, so I'll just stick in a few random pics (all of the high-quality pics are courtesy of Bill-o) and thoughts.

Zach is surprisingly self-confident around the house. I'm sure he doesn't want to be in the high chair any more (even though we put him there) because most mealtimes he heads straight for the snack table and sits down. Also - and I can only mention this because Luke can't read all of these words yet - the other day Zach wandered off into the bathroom and I found him up on the stool in front of the sink, very calmly brushing his teeth with Luke's toothbrush. Yeah. So let's not mention this to Luke.

Luke isn't reading yet, but it's not too hard to imagine. He's really into spelling right now. "Do you want me to shut the d-o-o-r?" "Why can't I have a p-e-t?" When I took him to see WALL-E he really didn't seem to like the movie, but since then he has wanted to buy a book about the WALL-E robots (grrr...movie merchandising) and now he is really into telling people to "HALT! H-A-L-T!" like the security-bots...

OK - Took a little break there. Turns out that when Dave gave me a free morning, I really did need the rest. I felt a little tired, went back to bed, and woke up TWO HOURS later, feeling like, what just happened? Zach has slept through the night for the past two nights (if you consider sleeping through until 5 or 5:30 sleeping through the night, and I do) so that is a relief, but I have a LOT of sleep to catch up on. My sleep deficit is as wide as it is deep.

Funny thing is, if Zach actually sleeps through the night on a regular basis, I might really start to enjoy long summer days with these beautiful boys. This afternoon Luke took a nap (a rarity) and while Dave was working downstairs, I took Zach over to the school and we sat in the swing together looking at the clouds and letting the breeze blow on our faces. I found myself thinking, how much longer can life stay this idyllic?

Update, 7/15: Apparently only until 12:45 am. That's when Zach woke up last night, and again at 2:45, and finally at 5 am. Who knows what is up with him. But let's hold back on the idyllic visions for a while...

Brothers and Men

Our Fourth of July weekend started on Friday with a kids' parade and a whole bunch of bab-ms (that's "balloons" to Zach). Then we hauled a carload of toys, swimsuits, changes of clothes, and other equipment over to Suzi and Boom-Boom's for an afternoon at the pool with Tony, Joanna, and the cousins (for the first time all four boys were together). Finally, after a barbecue feast at Grandma Bobbie and Granddad's that evening, we realized that in one day we had already packed in more than a weekend's worth of activities.

(Side note: Zach encountered a situation at the grocery store that required him to use almost his whole vocabulary at one time: A balloon escaped and floated up to the ceiling. Zach was going nuts pointing to it and saying, "Uh-oh! Bab-m! Uh-oh! Bab-m!")

On Saturday, Tony and Joanna and their crew came to our house and somehow the boys all gravitated to the water (imagine that!). And of course when I say boys, I don't just mean the young tots. From what I understand, Dave and Tony have never met a pool they didn't want to go in. And of course the trend continues in the next generation.

Another side note: Luke absolutely adores baby Eli. He just can't get enough of him. Of course Eli is adorable and smiley, but I think it also has something to do with the fact that Eli is not currently able to take any of Luke's toys. Contrast that with Zach, who only is interested in a toy if Luke is currently using it. I put Luke and Zach in the bathtub together with some foam letters and numbers, and Zach had no interest in the letters I gave him; he only wanted the ones that Luke had carefully put up on the wall to spell a word (H-O-N-D-A or some such). I know Eli will be the same way soon enough, but for right now, he can do no wrong in Luke's book.

Today, Grandma Bobbie and Granddad and Suzi and Boom-Boom hosted an amazing, beautiful party in honor of our beloved boys, brothers, and men. Zach wandered around, knocking over sodas along the way, on a mission to put every single pretzel in his mouth and spit it out. Luke made the rounds at the party finding out what kind of car everyone drove and checking out their car keys. The cousins hugged and mugged and basked in all of the attention. Now we're all tuckered out and ready - maybe - for a somewhat more normal level of activity. But I still love these busy days anyway, just as I love all of these beautiful, busy boys.

Arrrr!

Just a few more party pics rolling in ... Setting up the pirate outpost (Zach is in the foreground sitting in the monster wagon); kids running down to the water (yes, some of those are girls wearing boy shorts - it was a little crazy that way); Luke glomming down pizza.

Leftover totals include: four pizzas, three dozen cupcakes, several dozen beers and sodas, and one very large bag of pirate booty. Oh, and thirteen bandannas. Anyone want one? It's a great look for the summer. Really. As Luke would say, "I'm serious."

Party of the first part

Still recovering from Hurricane Pirate that happened at our house yesterday. Everyone who was expected showed up - 17 families, 32 kids - on time, at 4pm sharp. So it was like a sudden mob scene (like a progressive dinner) where one minute you're walking around the house whistling to yourself and the next minute you're surrounded by sixty of your closest friends.

I set up a treasure hunt for the kids to do on the way down the hill to the beach; so once we gave everyone their bandannas, loot bags, and treasure bag instructions, they were off, down the hill, and once again the house was empty enough to hear the (metaphorical) crickets chirping. Then Zach and I rounded up the cupcakes and fruit and wheeled the wagon down the hill to join the mob.

At the beach it was a crazy scene of joy. We hadn't really thought about it, but most of these kids who know each other from school had never been to the beach together before. So they ran down to the water and splashed and splashed, and then they all ran back, sandy and disheveled, to our little tent city when the (13!) pizzas arrived.


Then it was time for more running around until someone mentioned the magic word: Cupcakes. We didn't even have to say another word and all of a sudden there was a crazy mob of kids surrounding the food table. I didn't make the cakes this year; instead we ordered a pirate cupcake-cake from the supermarket (a bunch of cupcakes frosted together to look like a cake on top but you just pull them apart to eat them). Everyone was happy, and there was blue frosting everywhere, which is always a good sign.

Or, as Hatcher's dad Stu told us, "As my grandmother used to say in India, any day that ends with a frosted cupcake is a good day. Or something like that. Something might have been lost in translation."

More pics as I get them...

Chip off the ol' block

OK, let's get this out of the way first: Zach took a spill at the park on Wednesday and tore his frenum (the little piece of skin that connects your top gum to your upper lip) and chipped a tooth. It was a trauma that involved lots of blood, tears, and his first trip to the dentist. The funny thing was, he had recently split his lip and there was a lot of blood and I assumed that's what it was again, so I was being all calm-mom at the time. But then it kept bleeding, and I couldn't even see into his mouth to see what was wrong, and...yecch. It wasn't until we got to the dentist later in the afternoon that I got a good look at all that was going on in there.

Anyway, by today, two days later, he's completely happy and you would never know there was a problem except for a few scratches on his face. They all bounce back from these things much faster than the mom ever does.


The day before the accident, Zach thoroughly enjoyed himself at a kid-party in which he found himself surrounded by a gaggle of lovely "older women" (4-year-old girls) who thought he was the cutest thing they'd ever seen. One girl in particular was so taken with him that she followed him around the party: "Zach, do you want this toy?" "Zach, do you need a towel?" "Zach, can I give you a kiss?" There were other young babies at the party so I'm not sure exactly why they were so taken with Zach. Maybe because he jumped right in to their games with the hose-spraying and the ball-tossing. Or, who am I kidding, maybe because he's just so darned CUTE. Ahem.

Luke has decided that his favorite car is no longer a Maserati, it's a Bugatti, the fastest street-legal car on the market. Let's see...a love of fast, Italian cars. Does this remind you of anyone else named Luke?

When we made pizza last week we made our dough from scratch, which involved using yeast, and I spent some time trying to explain to Luke what yeast was. Apparently he's been thinking about it because on Monday he told me, "Mom, the next time we make pizza I don't want to put those creatures in it."
Creatures?
"You know...the 'beast.'"
The beast? "Oh, you mean the yeast."
"Yeah, the yeast. I don't want to use that."
"But then the pizza won't rise, Luke."
"I don't care - I just want flat pizza."

So I had to explain to him that all pizza crust, and all bread for that matter, uses yeast, but he still was skeptical. When we went out for pizza on Tuesday, he interviewed the man extensively about why the pizza dough had yeast in it. Now he's hung up on whether a pizza is "yeast pizza" or not. Great. Just what he needs - a reason not to eat one of the few foods that he does eat.

So - to sum up for the week: lip split, bad; party, good; fast cars, good; yeast, bad. Just another (crazy) normal week around here. Time for a rest.

These feet were made for walkin'

What is WITH me and these matching outfits? It's like I've lost my mind...forsaken all principles that I had held so dearly for my first 38 years. But these shirts were a gift. And you know, they're kinda cute. And send the right message. So let's just enjoy it for what it is right now. I won't keep doing it into their teens.


Let's start with the headline: Zach is walking. Yesterday at Dave's office he took three, four, even five steps right into Dave's arms. Zach seemed pretty pleased with himself and Luke was absolutely going out of his skin with excitement. I now realize that it took so long for Zach to walk because he wanted to be able to walk while carrying a ball or something heavy. So there's no experimental tottering for him - he's moving straight to the big tasks.


Here's a funny thing about Zach, and I'm not sure if I can find the right way to say it, but...I'm starting to really like him. I mean, it's not just maternal devotion at this point. He has a little personality and it is beginning to be a lot of fun to interact with him. Here's an example: He loves being in the bath when the faucet is running because he likes playing with the stream of water. Sometimes when he's super-dirty I'll fill the bath, then let it drain a little so some of the dirty water runs out, and then I'll turn the faucet back on to refill. Zach is hip to my little strategy, so he tries to con me into turning the faucet back on. He'll pull out the drain stopper, let a little water run out, then put the stopper back in, then look back up at me with a grin, as if to say, "So are you gonna run the water again or what?" Last night we must have done eight or nine rounds of this, and every time I turned the faucet back on he did a little sitting-down victory dance of glee in the tub.

Luke is swept up in hero worship of his big-kid friend Sean. We had a chance to see Sean a few nights ago at a picnic at the big kids' school and Sean (who is just a sweet, funny, all around great kid) took Luke under his wing and had him running all over the playing fields, doing big-kid things. Prior to that, Luke had been clinging to my shirt throughout most of the evening, but once he worked his way into Sean's orbit he wasn't even looking for me. Perhaps a sign of days to come. Sigh.

Slice of life from the hair salon where Luke got his hair cut yesterday:

Luke to hairdresser Linda: "Do you drive a Nissan?"
Linda (gasps): "Yes...how did you know?"
Luke points to the keys on her beltloop and apparently one car key has a tiny Nissan logo on it. Linda starts laughing and laughing. Sandra, the hairdresser next to her, pulls out her keychain.
Sandra: "What kind of car do I drive?"
Luke: "Mercedes!"
More laughter. Sandra and Linda call over to the hairdresser next to them to pull out her keys.
Teresa: "OK, what kind of car do I have?"
I am thinking, Luke is never going to get this one.
Luke: "Infiniti!"
By this time everyone in the salon is gasping and murmuring. I think we're going to have to take this show on the road.

I'm going to add one more little picture in here; this one of Dave, who has been working himself to the bone day after day and night after night. I call this the "JFK" shot because it reminds me of a certain Oval Office picture. He's been gone a lot - working, to keep us afloat - but now he's home, and when he's home, the house just hums with happiness.

Last night, to welcome the beginning of summer, we made pizza on the grill outside (Swiss chard and pepperoni, of course). Luke had his chef's apron on and was in an absolute frenzy taking orders and preparing the pizza toppings. The pizza was beautiful, all four of us were home for dinner together, Zach was cracking himself up over something, and there was a nice cool breeze on the back patio. Today we got soaked and covered in sand at the beach. In other words, it's a perfect weekend so far. Let the summer begin.

Reward Day

Zach grabbed the spotlight this morning and he never quite let go. From the moment he woke up, he started standing (from a sitting position, without holding on to anything), and every time he pulled himself up he gave us a huge grin and waited for applause. By the time breakfast was over we were all laughed and clapped out and Zach's face probably hurt from beaming so much.

Oh, and did I mention that he doesn't want to ride in the stroller anymore?

After brunch with the family we went over to Grandma Bobbie and Granddad's to hang out for a while. Luke turned down an offer to walk over to the elementary school ("I've seen it already," he sniffed) so Dave, Suzi, Boom-Boom, and I took Zach over to the playground there. Again, it was probably more undivided attention from a bunch of grownups than he's ever had, and he was loving the spotlight. He stood, he crawled, he went down the slide unassisted, he talked about his favorite things ("Ba! Ba! Ba!").

Later, in the pool, Zach continued to amaze us all with his perfectly natural frog kick and his willingness to put his face in the water. The first few times he choked a little bit but the last time he brought his face out and, whale-like, spouted a perfect little stream of water out of his mouth.

Speaking of balls, Zach nearly went bananas over at Suzi and Boom-Boom's house when he saw the Laker game on the television. Here he is pointing to the TV: "Ba! Ba! BA!!!!"

I'll switch over to Luke now to mention that -- even though he's not a father -- he received two of the Best Gifts Ever. Grandma Bobbie and Granddad bought him a sword, and Boom-Boom got him a real-life hazard light (courtesy of Ebay). The hazard light is from a Saab, but Luke insists it looks like one from a Ford. I guess he'll have to collect them all to be sure.

Brief interlude from Luke:
Granddad: "Luke, I hear your dad took you to a baseball game."
Luke: "Yeah..."
Granddad: "Who was playing?"
Luke: "Not my dad. It was a bunch of guys we don't know."

So between standing and clapping and walking and swimming, we had a full day that wore everyone out. The boys both fell asleep on the way home and I couldn't stop looking at them in the back seat, these two little angel faces with their rosy lips and long eyelashes. "It's a reward day," said Dave. As in, after all of those long, hard days, it's time to finally enjoy a day like this one.

Astonishing

No pics today, but some great new developments this week. Well, not on the potty or the sleep front. But still...

Zach is amazing me every day with his -- I don't know a better word for it -- athleticism. He throws a ball and it is spot-on. He literally kicks a soccer ball around the yard without even knowing how to walk (he holds on to someone's hands). Yesterday we were at the school and some family was playing with a bunch of balls. Zach sidled over to their basketball and was sitting there patting it while they played another sport. Then the man came over and said, "Hey, little buddy - can I trade you this ball for that ball?" He took the basketball and gave Zach a soccer ball. Zach instantly reached for my hands to stand up so he could kick the ball. The man was blown away. "Hey - he knows the difference between a basketball and a soccer ball!"

Luke is getting ever sweeter toward Zach and the fighting seems to have diminished for the moment. Nothing gets Luke more excited, in fact, than Zach standing up and taking steps. "Excuse me, everyone," he shouted in the middle of the gym the other day. "Look at Zach standing up!"

In fact, I think Zach is just plain tired of sitting. Yesterday we were walking with the sit-n-stand stroller and Zach insisted on getting out and pushing. Luke was getting a little tired and cranky so Luke climbed into the front (baby) part while Zach pushed from behind. Now there's something I should have taken a picture of. Something tells me I'll have more opportunities.

On the food front, something even more remarkable happened yesterday. "Mom, I think we should make a pizza," declared Luke. "It should have ham and pepperoni and chard on top."

Chard?

"Yes, chard. But it has to be chopped into really skinny pieces."

So we went to the farmers' market and bought some Swiss chard, brought it home and cooked it, chopped it into skinny pieces, and put it on a pizza along with some pepperoni (no ham in the house). Did Luke eat every single bite ravenously? Yes, he did. I think that's the only green leafy food item he's eaten in a year. He wants to make another pizza this week. You think I'm going to stop him?

A boy can dream

Thank you, City of Torrance, for giving us an entire day's worth of entertainment -- for free -- that was better than any amusement park. It was Open House at the Torrance City Yard and for Luke that meant hazard light heaven.

There were diggers, wood chippers, fire trucks, steamrollers, industrial-sized lawn mowers, trash trucks, street sweepers, skid steer loaders, police cars, city buses -- you name it, they were letting the kids climb all over it. You can only imagine the hazard light possibilities.

Most kids (ahem) wanted to honk the horn. "Only one honk, please," said a city worker as Luke climbed into the cab of a cherry picker. Luke gave him a look of total bewilderment, as in, why on earth would you want to honk a horn when there are hazard lights to be turned on and off?

My personal favorite was a city bus that they had jacked up on risers so that you could walk under it and see all of the machinery underneath. "This is really nerd heaven," observed Dave, after he walked through the Water Department's display on how they fix broken water mains.

Incidentally, there was a long line of kids at a little display where you spin a wheel and it lands on a prize. I thought about leading Luke over there, because I love the giddiness of seeing what prize you win as much as the next kid, but then I changed my mind. Luke was having the best time he could possibly have, so why should I distract him for the benefit of some cheap plastic toy?


This was all happening, by the way, in the context of Luke and Zach both having bad colds (sorry to everyone in the greater Torrance area who might have picked up a little virus along the way). Zach was having a particularly hard time yesterday, and had a slight fever when he woke up from his nap. Here you see my attempt to cheer him up with his first-ever popsicle. Worth noting: As he smeared the sticky, sticky melted popsicle juice all over himself and his highchair, he said his first, "Uh-oh!" So of course we've been saying that all day.

Our other big project is giving Zach opportunities to practice walking. Here is Luke, doing his best. I have to confess that immediately following this photo opportunity, Luke and Zach somehow veered off to the side and started walking backwards and they both crashed into the plant and the media cabinet. Sorry, guys. I know you'll get there, but it'll take a few bumps along the way.

Like Father

Most of you know Dave as the kind of guy who always seems to stumble into free upgrades, complimentary bottles of wine, first-class tickets at coach prices, and that sort of thing. So it was entirely unsurprising that when Dave took Luke to an Angels game at the last minute last night, expecting to buy tickets at the ticket window, a boy and his dad came up to the two of them and offered them two tickets to sit in the Diamond Club section behind home plate (face value $98 apiece) for free because they weren't going to use them. Of course they had the time of their lives, eating hot dogs, laughing with the other kids and families, and working their way through cotton candy puffs the size of a small refrigerator.

Why do things like that happen to Dave? Is it his permanently sunny disposition? Is it because he puts himself in the psychological position of always being receptive to good things? Is it that when something happens to him, whether bad or good, he always finds a way to make something good out of it? Or a combination of all of the above? And will Luke, the chronic complainer in the house, ever pick up some of that good karma?

Speaking of which, it has been an adventure getting finicky Luke to eat any main-course lunch or dinner item besides hot dogs, pizza, Wahoo's rice and beans and teriyaki chicken, and the occcasional tamal (or tamale for those of us non-Spanish-speakers). Luke is so particular that he can even tell when I try to fake it. Last week I gave him leftover Wahoo's rice and beans, but we were a little low on beans, so I added some canned black beans. He poked through his meal suspiciously. "Some of these beans are not right, Mom."

Once I practically pleaded with Luke: "What if I went down to Wahoo's and talked to the chefs and they taught me exactly how to make their teriyaki chicken and then I made it at home? Would you eat it?"
"Ummm....no."

So it was a great surprise last week when Luke voluntarily tried a turkey sandwich (sliced pepper turkey from the deli) on olive bread and decided that it was his new favorite lunch. Several meals later, I ran out of that particular turkey, happened to go to a different store, and bought some more pepper turkey that was ever so slightly different (pepper scattered throughout the turkey rather than just on the top).
"Is this the same turkey?" Luke demanded suspiciously.
"Yes," I told him firmly.
"You are rapidly losing your credibility," admonished Dave.
Nevertheless, Luke declared the turkey "good" and finished his sandwich.
Today we went back to the original store and Dave reminded me that we needed more turkey. "How far down are we on the other stuff?" I asked.
"I'm not sure," admitted Dave sheepishly. Turns out he never even touched the second batch of turkey because it looked different. "I'm an adult - I get to make my own choices," he said defensively. At least we know where Luke gets it.

Brief interlude with some thoughts from Luke:

On car racing: "I know I'm not supposed to say this, but I really like it when they crash."

On dumping sand on Zach's head: "I know I'm not supposed to do it, but my brain tells me to do it anyway."

Zach is moving ahead, literally, two steps forward, one step back. He has a few little words - "bottle," "kick," etc. - and he is really, truly working on walking (it's a long drawn-out process). He can stand without holding on to anything and he can even clap or hold a book or ball at the same time. And his mechanical mind is clearly at work. Yesterday he was walking the walker to the edge of the patio. I dashed off to catch him before he reached the steps, but he stopped himself right at the edge. He then sat down, pushed the walker down the two steps, carefully climbed down the steps, then righted himself and the walker and resumed walking on the grass. Whoa.

Sleep, however, is a disaster. Luke was complaining the other morning that he didn't want a baby anymore because he didn't want to be awakened in the middle of the night. I have to say he wasn't alone. "You'd better shape up," I confided to Zach the other morning. "You're the least popular person in the house right now."

But today Luke and Zach are best of friends, and I suppose just as infant-hood is fleeting, so will be our sleeplessness. Tomorrow he might finally walk, and tomorrow night we might all sleep in peace. So we hope.