Mange

It takes a village to raise kids, and right now Dave and I are a tattered, broke-down, mangy village. We are basically just holding it all together with duct tape and chicken wire.

I had told myself a while back that I was not going to Beach Bucket again until I finally had time to get a haircut. (A haircut! OK, color too. But that requires two hours of kid-free time which I simply Did. Not. Ever. Have.) When I finally got in there over the weekend, I learned that the last time I had a haircut was October 4. Sheesh.

I don't think there was any one thing that got us so low; I think it was just a steady pummeling of obligations and circumstances. I have a new boss and massive new demands at work and at the kids' school. Dave is suddenly in ultra-busy mode with real estate. Luke has been drowning in homework. Zach has been struggling with Zach stuff. And last month, out of the blue, our Tuesday-Thursday nanny quit, leaving us scraping for basic childcare coverage.

What we needed was just a few days to get off the treadmill. That's why Ski Week couldn't come soon enough. Just a few days without meetings, without homework, without getting pummeled by life. Now Luke is enjoying a few days in the desert with his buddies (sob! I miss him already!) and Dave and Zach and I are heading off for a one-night getaway.

To recap, let's turn to Zach's interpretation of the month of January:

And to show that even if people want to bring you down, you can still come out on top, here is Luke in his role as Bill Gates for his American Heroes presentation:

Duct tape and chicken wire, people. That's all you need.

Off the grid

Boys, from the back of the car on the way home from the mountains: "We want ice cream!"

Jeanne: "I have an idea. There's this place I've been wanting to go to that's supposed to be amazing, and it's in Pomona."

[Pause for a few minutes of Googling and phone-mapping]

Jeanne: "OK - it's here - Dr. Bob's. This Yelp review calls it 'the best ice cream on the planet.' But you're supposed to call because it says the hours are 'irregular.'"

Dave: "Let's do it."

[Dialing phone; calling the place; confirming that they are open.]

[Driving, driving, driving...past the address and we're going past the abandoned L.A. County Fair facilities (they're only open in the summer) but there's no ice cream place in sight. Dave pulls over and gets on the phone to Dr. Bob's again.]

Dave: "OK, so they are on the fair grounds. The guy told me to head on in and tell the guard at the gate that we have an 'appointment with Dr. Bob.'"

[Driving up to the gate. Apparently the guard is convinced by the 'appointment with Dr. Bob' line. We zig-zag through abandoned stalls and stands, all the way to a large, nondescript building in the back of the fairgrounds. On the front window there are signs that look promising: 'Single scoop...double scoop...hot fudge sundae...banana split...' but the building is completely locked down. Then we catch the eye of some guy inside and he signals us around to the back. We clamber around the building and through the delivery entrance into a warehouse-type room with large freezers and boxes ready for crating.]

Ice cream lady: "Hi! We're not scooping or anything today, but I've got lots of different pints I can sell you. Here's a list of what I've got in stock."

Luke, reading down the list: "Salt caramel. That's all I want."

Dave "Black raspberry - that sounds good!"

Zach: "Where's chocolate?"

Ice cream lady: "Well, we have this thing called 'Works.' It's three different kinds of Scharffenberger chocolate..."

Zach: "That's what I want!"

[We finally settle on pints of salt caramel, Works, black raspberry, and chocolate mint. The lady is apologetic; there's nowhere to sit and eat it. But we improvise by finding some logs next to an demonstration garden and a duck pond. Sitting there with four giant pint containers, we nearly break the plastic spoons on the hard-frozen ice cream, but once we get a taste of it, we all agree that it's pure heaven. And then we have a good laugh about people who just go to, like, an ice cream store at the mall.]

Cold snap

Here we are, up in the mountains in our cozy cabin. Zach is excited because we were able to light a fire: "This is the first time I've ever sat in front of a litten fireplace."

Luke is excited because there is a lot of snow and ice to chop and throw. And of course, sticks to collect. Our cabin is up in the treetops; beyond these trees there is a spectacular view of our ski slopes.

We went sledding at a big public park today, and the sledding was a little bit rough (and crowded). But the boys found a big "hut" created by some overgrown trees and vines, where they spent most of the time inside. Luke, giving a tour of the place: "This is the living room. Here's the smithing room [with a big stone table for forging weapons]. And over here's the crafting room."

Then Dave found this enormous felled tree. Once he made a commitment to count the rings, it was hard for him to stop. Suffice to say that the tree was over 300 years old.

Snow kings. Yeah, we're cool like that.

Swingers

You might actually look at these pictures and think that the boys do something other than ask for screen time, 24-7. If only that were the case. But still.

 Luke at his golf lesson. He's a natural, according to the coach.

Zach warming up for the baseball season. He's a natural, according to the "coach."

Cave explorers. Yes, we have caves near us. L.A. has everything - did you know that?

Hiking up near the Hollywood sign. This was a great afternoon because we did the Hollywood hike and then we went to see the kid-friendly comedy show at the comedy club in Burbank after that. A real L.A. afternoon.

We ski! Even me!!! We are currently up in the mountains enjoying a total Southern California ski weekend. Saturday was a day full of ski lessons for me and the boys while Dave hit the slopes. Guess who's a natural at skiing? All of us!

Luke, surprisingly, is a speed demon. He seems to not care if he falls down, so he flies down the hill and picks himself up right away if he topples over. He now has the swagger and confidence of a lifelong skier. Zach, on the other hand, had confidence going into it ("I don't need ski lessons - I already KNOW how to ski!") and quickly proved himself a standout in the "Little Bear" classes. The instructor told us, "He has an incredible sense of balance. There were about 20 different times when he should have fallen over but he somehow managed to stay standing up."

And I, who had the least amount of confidence going into it, was a standout in my beginner class. Turns out, skiing is just like rollerblading, and I'm all over that. I voluntarily moved myself up to "advanced beginner" just so I could get off the beginner flats and onto the bunny hill. Of course I'm no black diamond skier, but I had a great time just getting out there. My favorite moment of the day was riding up the ski lift and then doing a run down the mountain with Luke. Me and Luke skiing together - who woulda thunk?

Another factor that helped was the warm SoCal ski weather. Of course it's 12 degrees at night, but in the daytime it warms up to mid-fifties, which makes for perfectly comfortable ski weather. We peeled off most of our layers by mid-day; then the layers went on by the time we headed back to our cozy cabin for dinner.

Apropos of nothing - Dave was trying to give the boys (technically just Zach) a semi-serious lecture about how once you use toilet paper, you put it in the toilet, NOT the trash can: "Once you use the toilet paper, do you bring it into the kitchen? No! Do you put it in the mail and send it to someone? No! Do you fold it up and put it in your drawers? No! Do you send it to the moon?... "

At which point Luke interjected, "That'd be one small step for man, one giant wipe for mankind."

Vacation happenin's

Cookie makin'

Crystal growin'

Machine buildin'

Pizza cookin'

Stella pettin'

Birthday celebratin'

Cake eatin'

Sleddin'

Shovelin'

Snowball fightin'

Burger nommin'

Xmas lights

Second annual stromboli competition = good-natured rivalries, old-fashioned aprons.

Christmas morning - Sam's got all eyes on the money from Grandma and Grandpa's Bag o' Bucks. 

Lily and Zach play with their new cats.

Sam wrangles his snake flashlight while Luke shoots his bow and arrow in the house (Don't tell Grandma!)

Dapper dude Sam gives Zach some video tips.

Bubble kids? Lily and Zach take a spin inside the Incredi-Ball.

Serious shooter: Luke loads up the foam shooter machine at the FunPlex.

Zach at the wheel of his bumper car.

Whatever tickles your fancy

 

"From Zach. To Santa in the North Pole."

 To Santa:

1) Please I want a cat book

2) Cat backpack to bring toys for Kaya

3) New skateboard wheels

4) Diamond armor

5) Sword, any kind

6) Colored paper

Thank you. Zach.

Anyway.

So we have this toy Santa that giggles when you press a button on its tummy. Actually, it's more of a hysterical laugh than a giggle. "Heeheehee. HaHA HA HA HA. HO HO HO HO!!" and on and on like that. It's really kind of scary.

The other day Zach came up with a brilliant prank. He decided to slide the Santa under Luke's pillow so that it would make the Santa laugh sound when Luke put his head on the pillow. I agreed that it would be a crazy prank, and we laughed about it, and I forgot about it.

Fast-forward to 9:00 that night. Zach was sound asleep; Luke had stayed up late and was crawling into bed in the darkened room. He put his head down on the pillow and..."Ha ha ha. HEE HEE HEE. HO HO HO HO!" Luke must have jumped at least a foot in the air. He was furious at Zach, and I could barely keep a straight face. Luke is still looking for retribution, by the way.

Luke and I have a standing date to look at Jay Leno's headlines each night. I love the fact that he thinks they're funny because it's EXACTLY what I used to sit around and laugh at when I was a kid. Here's one of his recent favorites:

The sound of a kid laughing really, really hard? Priceless.

Desert calm

What have we been up to? I'm too lazy to pull together a cohesive theme, so let's just call it "stuff." Here's Luke and our "part-time" cat, Kaya. Kaya has all but moved in to our house. She waits outside the back door all day and all night for the boys to come and pet her. And when she thinks we might be eating or sitting in the front of the house, she comes and waits by the front door. I have never seen a cat so happy as when she is with one of the boys. She would be happy to let them pet her for hours.

Here's Zach leaving his mark on the beach (thank you, Dad):

And here's the resort we arrived at late on Friday night in the desert. Try to imagine your perfect fantasy of an old Spanish hacienda, with twinkling lights, holiday decorations, and torch-lit pathways, and that was where we stayed. Am I tempting any of you East Coasters with vacation ideas?

We had one small blip in our vacation: The massive kid-friendly pool/waterslide complex at the resort that we were hoping to take advantage of was CLOSED for renovations. Shouldn't they have told us that beforehand? Realizing their mistake, they gave us half off our room rate, and they promised us a next-to-nothing rate for the next time we want to come back after the pool complex is open again.

Nevertheless, we did some swimming and hot-tubbing... Dave got a nice long massage while I took the kids to the movies... I took a yoga class with a great view of the mountains...and Luke took the opportunity to do some golfing in the morning:

Now bring on the holiday madness!

These things actually happened

Luke, speaking to an adult friend, about the events of Saturday: "It was kind of boring. We went to a movie premiere. Then Mom and Dad went out and we had two different babysitters and we stayed home all the rest of the day."

Friend: "Well, you know, moms and dads need that grownup time together once a week or so."

Luke: "Once a week?!? No, they haven't done that in about three years."

***

Zach: "Dad, I need some milk!"

Dave: "OK, but what word is missing?"

Zach: "Milk."

***

Luke: "Mom, you really shouldn't have left that bread out all day."

Me: "Well, I was going to put it away, except I got distracted because I was entertaining two kids all day."

Luke: "How am I going to eat dinner, now that I'm consumed with guilt?"

***

 Zach: "Dad, I need crazy glue! Oh, wait - let me get some pants on first."

Golden state

Scene: It's finally a little big chilly outside. It's late in the afternoon, and it's just about sunset. We've taken the kids and grandparents down to our new favorite rocky beach. And - cut to the mining operation:

The boys' hard work has been rewarded with outstanding samples of quartz and granite. But the sun is setting fast, and the wind is picking up. Time to head back up the hill. We round the corner just in time to catch these magnificent clouds:

And that's why I love fall.
Off to eat some comfort food and snuggle up under a blanket now...

All Hallow's Eve

Hey - didja know I spent about three weeks gluing more than 800 teeny-tiny red squares to a box to make Zach's Minecraft TNT costume? Good thing I didn't have anything else going on during those three weeks...

I didn't make a thing on Luke's Chop-Chop (Skylanders) costume, and whaddya know - the shield that came with the costume broke before we even left to go trick-or-treating. Gotta love those costumes made in China. This picture isn't so great because he's holding his massive trick-or-treat pillowcase/candy bag over his legs, so you can't see the full effect, but he's pretty cool anyway:

...And in unrelated news, I just emailed Dave about the Christmas tree I'd like to buy this year (a living tree that gets delivered and then picked up). Bring on the crazy holiday season!

Backyard Follies

Does anyone remember when our good friend Katie gave us these banana tree stumps over the summer?

Zach literally went bananas over them, and he has been a dedicated caretaker ever since. So now, three months later, who's grown more, Zach or the banana trees?

There's another interesting new diversion in our backyard lately: A neighborhood cat named Kaya has basically taken up residence in our backyard. She's an incredibly sociable cat who seems to crave all of the attention and care she can get from two little boys. In the morning she's waiting outside the patio door for them to greet her. At night, she'll hang out accepting cuddles and patting until after the sun goes down and we finally close the door. I think she might be perfectly happy to move in with us if she didn't already have a home (and if Dave didn't sneeze every time he looked at her). What's great about this for Luke is that he has a new best friend and companion in the backyard, who can instantly calm, relax, and improve a mood. And Luke, who is having a rough time, sure needs that.

What's curious about this for Zach is that it has inspired him to start a graph of sorts. Each day when he sees Kaya outside the door, he runs to his graph first, marks off a check mark for another visit, and then goes to see her. Why the graph? Who knows how his little mind works, but I like to think he is laying the groundwork for a lifetime of scientific discovery.

Orange and black and blue

I realize that Beach Bucket has basically evolved into a sounding board/complaint forum, so why should today be any different? On Friday afternoon Zach had a little friend over and we were hanging up all of the Halloween decorations. Foolishly, I put a chair up on the (brick) front porch and stood on it to hammer some nails for hanging decorations. Either I tottered or the chair collapsed, because I fell down the brick stairs (breaking the chair) and mashed my left ring finger and lacerated/bruised my right arm from elbow to wrist (it looks like a wild animal clawed me all the way down my arm). But the play date went on.

By dinnertime Friday my finger was purple and sausage-sized so I knew I needed to go to urgent care. So I spent Friday evening getting x-rayed and splinted/wrapped up.

Then I went home and...rested? Hahahahaha. No, then I realized I was going to need some pumpkins for a play date so at 11pm I went to Ralph's and bought 6 pumpkins, somehow managing to get them into the car with one hand.

Saturday morning we hosted a family pumpkin-carving play date with a mom and two little guys who are close in age to Luke and Zach. We were having such a good time they stayed until 2:30 pm.

Then we cleaned up and...rested? Hahahahaha. No, then Luke and I were signed up to volunteer at our school's booth at the town fair, which we worked at until 6pm.

Then we came home and...chilled out? Hahahaha. No, then Dave and I had to get all gussied up to go to the annual parent party for our school. We had a great time and Dave left at 10:30 only because he had promised the babysitter he wouldn't be late. I stayed until (gulp) 11:45pm.

Sunday morning, I...slept in? Hahahaha. No, at 7:15am Luke's friend came over and by 7:45am I was driving three young boys to Knott's Berry Farm for a special event. By this time I was feeling a little queasy and my finger was hurting, but we still had a good time.

We got home in the middle of the afternoon and I realized I couldn't be vertical anymore. So I took a nap, with ice on my finger, and was basically out of commission for the next three hours.

Then I had to drag myself out of bed to make dinner and do school lunch prep for the week. And Monday morning I was back on the road again, to tour a produce warehouse in East L.A.

Throughout all of this Dave has been incredibly supportive even though he is up-to-his-eyeballs busy with work. This week he discovered a strange rash and it turned out to be shingles, which is exacerbated by (what else?) stress.

Doctor: "Is there anything stressful going on in your life?"
Dave: "Well, I'm working two jobs and they're both really busy right now."
Doctor: "Is there any way you could just work one job?"
Dave: "Uh...no."

I don't think we're going to need Halloween costumes because we both look scary enough as it is anyway.

Happy October!

Two half men

I don't know what is in Zach's head. I really don't. But given some of the things that come out of his mouth, I imagine that his brain is kind of like a pixelated version of Pee-Wee's Playhouse, littered with Minecraft zombies, TNT, and talking pieces of fruit. Good thing we keep exposing him to weird stuff like Tim Burton movies, right?

Exhibit A: Zach is doing his homework at the dining room table and is feeling overwhelmed. With a heavy sigh, he puts his head down on the table and declares, "I wish this house would just fill up with...cheeseburgers."

Exhibit B: Zach is struggling to eat an ear of corn at dinner. Finally he puts it down in exasperation and announces, "I need longer teeth."

Further inspection reveals that one of his teeth is in fact loose. This will be the very first tooth he has ever lost (as opposed to the one that was pulled). Now he is totally freaking out. "You need to GLUE that tooth back in, Dad! I cannot lose it! I have to keep it in FOREVER!!!"

(I don't remember Luke losing his first tooth - is anxiety a common reaction? I guess it's kind of alarming to have blood in your mouth and then lose a part of your body, but the Tooth Fairy makes up for that, right?)

Luke is having a tough year, with more homework, and a general feeling of being put upon (especially by his challenging brother). The other day I asked him to tell me what he was most proud of, and I thought his list was interesting: "My Lego sets. My Skylanders. Being best friends with Blake. Going to movie premieres."

That afternoon we dragged - no, seriously, dragged - Luke to the beach, and he was even more annoyed once he got there not to see any of his friends there. But he hung out with Dave and they wound up having a great time engineering an extraordinary cave with four separate interconnected tunnels (miraculously, we managed to keep Zach away so he didn't break it). That night Luke told me, "I wanted to add something to the list - I was really proud of that tunnel."

Luke's karate teacher is preparing to bring a group of students to Poland for the world championships, so he's been teaching some Polish to the karate class, mixed in with Japanese phrases. On Monday Luke came home and announced, "In karate, I learned how to say, 'I'd like one more beer' in Polish!"

Like I said, things are weird over here.

What he said

Picture day!

Backstory: These smiles conceal deep-seated resentment that they are being called upon to wear collared shirts.

Completely unrelated: Luke and I usually like to end the day cracking up by reading Cake Wrecks or Awkward Family Photos together. But the other day we discovered a site called Garfield Minus Garfield that has developed a cult following among comics connoisseurs.  It features Garfield comics (Luke's favorite, of course) that have completely removed Garfield, leaving only Jon saying random existential things into the air (From the site: "It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.") Example:

I LOVE the fact that Luke finds these funny. His sense of humor is absolutely sublime.

More unrelated news: Here are some choice quotes that have come out of their mouths in the last week:

Zach: "Mom, when I run with broken glass, I am very, very careful."

***

Dave: "Luke, what new and interesting thing happened in third grade today?"

Luke: "Well, yesterday we had tea with the Queen of England. But nothing really happened today."

***

Zach: "Mom, I am so mad at you I feel like throwing kale chips all over the house." (Burrrrn)