7/14/08 Day Camps

Day camps started today! Even though we have deadlines in the morning again, it doesn't seem as onerous as s c h o o l.

Nevertheless, it turned out that Julian's day camp was moved back to the Y's building itself, while Gabriel's was at a nearby elementary school. Katrina went to Melissa's, and I found myself back driving all 3 to different places again! Another two hours a day spent driving around, plus another half hour picking Julian up in the middle of the day (pre-K camps are half-day). This has to stop!

Julian was obviously having a grand time when I picked him up from Lil' Chefs daycamp, throwing a paper airplane around the huge room where the kids were waiting for pickups. The camp director told me they'd made two cookies and frosted and decorated them, and Julian put them together into a sandwich.


On the way home, he fell asleep in the car, then woke up. When he came inside, he said he was tired, and went into his room and napped until I woke him up at 4:15pm! Then he had a fun snack: yogurt and raspberries in a smiley-face.

It makes me feel like a mom again to do little things like this with him, discussing the differences between raspberries and strawberries, or that if you eat one of the eyes, it's now an alien.

Gabriel was ensconced in a Malcala (?) game when I picked him up from daycamp. He was bounding with joy about the robots they built in the Lego Engineering camp. Katrina lit up around all those kids, and launched right into her infectious giggle to draw everyone around her into her game.


The boys haven't watched any TV at home since we moved here 6 weeks ago. Of course, we were away for some of that, but the real reason is that we still haven't set up the VCR to record (VCR?! Two engineers in Silicon Valley are still using magnetic media?! Lame city!) They've had almost no computer time either (chess, or lego.com games), since the office is cramped, so we're way up on our "screen time" budget. Tonight, they had a chance to watch (we'd have rigged something up), but they had to clean up for the cleaners coming tomorrow, and blew it.

Julian absolutely loves the soundtrack to the movie Les Choristes, and plays it so often on a boom box (more media lameness) that I make him put headphones on so I won't get tired of it. It's so cute, he sings along out loud, basically saying the sounds of the words that approximate French.

Gabriel meantime is right back at it on the piano, figuring out chords (partly from the little screen on the electronic piano), and now also trying to find and play chords on the ukelele. Saturday we went to a party of a coworker's of Dave's, and they have a piano, which Gabriel asked and was allowed to play on. A mom of a cute 2-year-old girl whom Julian befriended sat and watched her daughter and Julian play, within sight of Gabriel, and was blown away by how many songs he played, with chords, and some that he made up. It did seem surprising when I told her that the only lessons he's had was a very very short introductory group lesson. She said he was asking her all sorts of questions about the piano, its keys, and chords that she had no idea about. Same here!

Watching him from someone else's perspective, and on a real piano, it is striking how he puts things together, how driven he is. He's not that experimental, it's more of a technical approach, finding what notes complement each other. He and Julian sing constantly, but Julian makes up tunes and words; Gabriel will repeat songs he knows. But even if Julian is more "musical," whatever -- Gabriel is very driven and very curious. He really, really needs music lessons.

Or not. Not everyone takes to formal training. If music really is in him, it's irrepressible. If he's not into practicing scales every day, so be it. Music seems to have found him, and he'll find his way within it one way or another. Paul McCartney never learned to read music either.

Though I have many, many things to do during my remaining three weeks off work, I'm finding myself very torn again about going back to work. On the one hand, I know I'll miss the structure eventually, and there's also the new need for me to work. On the other hand, I like my time at home and not feeling such intense pressure to keep the day rolling, and hating the moment when I walk in the door with all three of them and have to jump right into dinner-making. The first step of being happy with your life is knowing what you want -- a simple first step that I can't seem to make!

7/14/08

7/13/08 Bicircles

The boys were riding their bicycles in the backyard tonight, in such tight circles that they both high-centered their rear tires with the pedals touching the ground and lowsided several times.


(Funny, I used to practice riding tight circles on my motorcycle as well, since duck-walking a bike into a parking spot isn't an option for me and my short legs, and I had to have good parking-lot skills.)

Katrina picked a strawberry today from our little backyard patch -- does it get cuter than that? Meanwhile, the boys were hiding all the outdoor toys to "fool" me, and then barricaded off the "hiding" place. Good clean fun.


But lest I paint too rosy a picture, the boys were actually pretty annoying this morning, constantly making obnoxious sounds and throwing things, relentlessly tormenting Katrina...it finally broke when we separated them and I took Gabriel and Katrina to the supermarket, while Dave had a nice time alone with Julian and then took him to the (oooooh) hardware store. Lift and separate, you know.

It's still hazy here for much of the day. Last night, that resulted in more weird red glows from the sun, though it's hard to capture in photos.


I went for a short run at Rancho San Antonio tonight, and was rewarded for my troubles by a wasp sting on my back. But, remembering a scene from Huckleberry Finn, in which Huck Finn is rewarded for some act by being allowed to view Tom Sawyer's sore toe, something no little boy could resist, I used the wasp bite on my back as incentive for the boys to quickly get their pajamas on. What kid can resist seeing a nasty bug bite? (though it's not that nasty-looking, just creepy-feeling)

I was grateful to get gas tonight for $4.41 a gallon. At least prices have stabilized for now. I heard on the radio today that the highest prices in the nation are in San Francisco, the lowest in Tucson.

7/13/08

7/12/08 Regress and progress

Is Katrina saying her first sentence? She most certainly says a blob of words, repeatedly, that sounds much like "I want a bicycle!" And I'm sure she really means that. But is it one long word to her, or an actual combination of individual words? Language development -- fascinating. She's repeating back and imitating words all the time now, using phrases she's heard just once or twice in the correct context, and makes intonations that sound very much like actual questions or statements. A language explosion right now.

Meantime, her brothers...Dave took the boys to the BMX park today, for the first time in months. They were both really excited about going, but Julian has suddenly gained some fear about it, and won't go up or down the start-stop plateau or even any of the smaller bumps. I'd expect that of a 4-year-old, but it's hard to imagine that he was zipping up the plateau when he was still just 3.

When we were in Pennsylvania, we visited a longtime family friend at her home in nearby New York. Sally lived on our block in Brooklyn and her daughter Hillary was my kindergarten chum and is still a friend today. Incredibly, 40 years later, my mother and Sally ended up within 10 minutes of each other in the same area of NorthEastern Pennsylvania, though Sally is right across the border in NY.

ANYWAY, Sally invited us to her beautiful riverside home with a small pool, and the kids all went to play in the pool. Gabriel wanted to play on a toy tube, but I told him he had to show me he could swim across the pool first. Easy, the pool was barely 10 yards long, and he's passed much harder swim tests than that. But he got out a few strokes over his head and panicked, treading water and crying out in terror, and I had to reach my hand out to rescue him. Later, at my Mom's place, he wanted to swim on a noodle in the pond, a far more dangerous water situation. Again, I insisted he show me he could swim just a short distance, and once again, he panicked and had to be rescued.

So much for starting swim lessons at 4 months old.

In fairness, the boys haven't really been swimming in months, not since they got tired of swim lessons last December. I'm sure it'll come back quickly, but apparently swimming is not sufficiently ingrained to instantly come back after a 6-month layoff. Come to think of it, my swimming wasn't really established until 4 summers of sleep-away camp from 6th-10th grades.

We're slowly digging out at home -- I can't believe I have yet more unpacking to do, from our trip now. And I still haven't finished unpacking from the move! At least I finally found my cookbooks; I was really getting worried about them. I feel much more settled now that I have them, isn't that funny?

7/12/08

7/11/08 Home again!

We're back! Got in last night, everyone in bed past 12:30pm, yet kids up by 7am. What's that about?!

Is it good to be home? Yes, but as with every trip back East, I find myself torn about where "home" is. I loved being around the trees, soft rolling hills, lush green, the earthy scents and fragile foliage...so familiar. The practical side of me remembers well how old winter gets around February, so it's hard to imagine moving back East, but as it was my childhood place it's very much ingrained. And now, my own children were enjoying playing at my Dad's house the same way I did, so that too brought on much of the feeling of being "at home." I have bipolar tugs of wanting to be in a charming rural area with historic old barns, but also wanting to be in a dense, exciting city, and somehow ended up with neither in the suburbs.

Of course, home really is where the family is, and while all my origin family is back East, my immediate family's home is California. And that's not all a bad thing, even if California is in much the same state as we left it: with a constant haze in the sky putting an eerie red cast on the sunlight. I hear we missed a nasty heat wave, though we had our share of sticky humidity back East too. Last night at the airport, Gabriel, Katrina and I waited for Dave and Julian to get our car out of long-term parking and pick us up at the curb, and it was so warm I was down to a T-shirt. This is unheard of in San Francisco on a July evening!

Everyone recalls my great angst about flying with a toddler, a justified angst, and there were times in the airport before boarding the plane that I knew everyone was thinking "PLEASE don't seat me next to that screaming baby!" Fortunately my worst nightmares were not met. The redeye to the East went well; Katrina had a hard time falling asleep, but once she did, she stayed zonked through a bumpy landing. On the way back, she was a lot of work to keep entertained, but no screaming disasters. She kicked the seat in front of her a lot, which fortunately held a patient young teenage boy.

The travel disaster we almost had was nearly missing our plane on the way home. I'm not sure how this happened, but it took a really, really long time to get from the rental car to the gate, what with all the elevators we had to take, often having to wait for them. One elevator started to close when Julian was in it and we were negotiating the SmarteCarte into it, and it took some frantic work and someone's help to pry the doors open. And that's after a HUGE cart of luggage almost fell on him exiting an elevator on our arrival trip! Julian and elevators were not a good mixture this trip.

We were also late to the airport because I made another fundamental navigation mistake: never, EVER take the Garden State Parkway to Newark Airport, and definitely don't take the exit that says "I-78 Newark Airport" because it sends you the wrong way on the Interstate and expects you to know to get off at the first exit and turn around, without signs of course. Freakin' New Jersey!! But it's my own fault; I've made that mistake at least 3 times now.

Then we faced a long, LONG security line, with our plane already well past boarding time. I cut ahead and asked if I could go through security right away so I could sprint to the gate and ask them to hold the plane. But first I went down the wrong spoke to the wrong set of gates, and had to run all the way back, down a long corridor, then all the way to the end of another spoke. I made it to the gate and found that the plane had another 15 minutes of boarding, but I didn't have my phone or a way to contact Dave, who was still going through security with the kids. So I ran back to find him, but couldn't. After some frantic searching of the security line, a nice security guard let me use his cell phone to call Dave, who answered and said, "Where are you? We're on the jetway!" SH*T! I'd passed them somehow! ANOTHER sprint through the crowded airport to the gate, where I was the last one on the plane. No time to buy food or guilty-pleasure junk reading.

For all our narrow miss, we sat on the plane for an hour and a half before it took off, as the lines on the taxiway are long that time of day. Once we were in the air, things overall went well, and from there, it was a real relief to be home.

One amusing (?) incident: the boys got cheap foam pop-guns that shoot little foam "bullets" from Target while we were in upstate NY. I packed them in their checked luggage, partly with the hopes they'd be forgotten about. But Julian remembered on the plane before we took off, and asked loudly: "Are our guns packed in the luggage?" Yeah, great question to ask on a crowded airplane!

We started off at my sister's family's artloft in Peekskill, then just the Doudnas went to Pennsylvania, where we stayed with Bonne Maman and Papa Paul for July 4. My brother and his lovely girlfriend Anney came too, then my sister and her family, then Papa Paul's son and his girlfriend, so we had a big group for July 4! The one thing we didn't have was fireworks, unfortunately -- inexplicably, the nearest town's big parade and celebration was on July 5, a Saturday. It was a wonderful, relaxed visit, and grandparents and grandkids enjoyed each other greatly.

Then we drove to my Dad's place, "we" being my sister and her family, and my brother and his girlfriend (in my brother's bad-ass new pickup), and us. Dave flew in, rented a car (a 2-door Mustang that I hated), and joined us too. We'd rented a nearby farmhouse to sleep in, as my Dad's old 3BR-1BA house couldn't easily accomodate 6 adults and 5 children. The nearby farmhouse was an active dairy farm when we were kids, and we used to visit it and try to milk the cows, so it was interesting to be there as adults.

A highlight was visiting my Dad at his new residence and getting to know his new lady love and her family. Incredibly, she also has a daughter who lives in Sunnyvale! What are the odds! Her other daughter lives in an affluent community in Massachussetts, and they very kindly invited us all for a visit, including Dad and his lady. Their house was stunning, a beautifully restored 1907 3-story mansion on expansive grounds that include gardens, a lovely pool, and tennis courts. It was a wonderful place to visit and enjoy lunch and get to know this family, and spend time with Dad and his friend, amongst others who completely understand. Dad's lady friend is a little more together than he is, but they're really very similar in their cognitive levels and seem to find great comfort in each other, as we did with her family.

The kids had a great time playing outside at my Dad's place. It was interesting watching play erupt between any combination of them: sometimes it was just the boys, or just the girls; other times the play was more aligned by age, other times it was completely random. They really didn't have a lot of toys to speak of (though the foam guns were a big hit); mostly they played in this little "beach" area (where a plow accidentally dumped a bunch of sand by the road last winter), or rode bicycles up and down the dirt road, followed the hapless cat, and did any number of kid-things. The house is small and not well-suited for 5 children playing indoors, so thank heavens the weather held, though we were treated to a rousing thurderstorm right as we said goodbye.

A random selection of photos:

At a lovely county park in Peekskill


Ronan's "new" pickup, a big hit with the kids


Bonne Maman and all 5 grandkids, not exactly staged and Katrina wasn't cooperative, but it's the only shot I have


Aidan and Julian explore what we call the cornfield (and it did used to have corn)


Ronan and his girlfriend left early after dropping off the pickup -- bye Ro!


The kids playing outside Dad's house


Dad and Norma, with Norma's visiting son-in-law and Norma's daughter, at her house(estate!) in Massachussetts. A first-ever photo that includes all the Doudnas and all the Engels! I really regret not getting Norma's other daughter, other son-in-law, or two handsome grandsons, in the photo.


Preparing a salad in Dad's very, very rustic kitchen (use matches to light the stove and oven)


The cousins, under an old crab-apple tree where Dad used to send us to finish crying, hence the name "the crying tree":


Despite the arduous travel, for me our summer visit with family is an annual highlight, and I hope it becomes so for the kids too. I know at some point they'll want to do their own thing during the summers, so I'm glad they're forming a solid foundation for extended-family relationships for their whole lives to come.

7/11/08

7/3/08 The full crew

My sister and brother both arrived in Pennsylvania this afternoon. I finally got to meet my brother's girlfriend! And perhaps almost as importantly, his "new" F150 pickup. The kids took an instant liking to jumping up and down on its bed.


I went running again today, this is a scene along the way in lovely rural Pennsylvania.




The boys played outside with these tiny baby scooter toys until rain forced them inside.


Gabriel and Aidan played checkers for HOURS today, advancing the play to chess by nighttime.


After the rain, Julian and Anney (bro's girlfriend) played ball.


We also set up a ping-pong table in the garage, on which I narrowly beat my brother. Then we showed the boys how to play (my niece had a fever and was resting inside). I can see this won't come easy -- just hitting the ball at all was a challenge for all three, but the one who made contact the most -- and got it across the net and hit the table to top it off -- was Julian.

Katrina took a break from our now thrice-daily power struggle about meals and actually ate some broccoli. She was still glued to the little scooters, and loves this little antique one because it's so easy to push around.


Tomorrow, Papa Paul's son and his girlfriend and two dogs arrive too, so we'll have a very full house for July 4!

7/3/08

7/2/08 Hanging' in Penn.

Great day, doing what we do best but don't do enough: hang out!

First to our longtime family friend's house on the river. Kids played in the pool and with a solar-powered fountain, Mom & I chatted and tried to catch up and keep a toddler from drowning. Plans to go letterboxing nearby foiled by said toddler's desperate need for a nap.

Boys went hiking with grandparents while I stayed back with toddler who had taken a mere 7-minute snooze in the car and never took a real nap. Sigh.


Not so bad, we hung together. I caught up on the phone with another old friend from high school. When they got back, Gabriel was all about blueberries, having come across a big patch of not-quite-ripe blueberries. We had some store-bought ones and he devoured them.

Katrina's having a fabulous time with this old little scooter, not at all intimidated as it starts to careen down the sloped driveway.


Baby to bed early (see previous about NO NAP), driving me crazy with being very picky about when/where/how to eat anything. Dinner was strawberries, 4 bites of rice, and Corn Chex. Boys to bed in time for grownups to watch Juno, decent movie.

me, up late again, will pay tomorrow!

7/2/08

7/1/08 Made it!

Flight went well! Exhausting under the best of circumstances, which we basically had. Katrina had a hard time falling asleep in the carseat, but did eventually and stayed zonked throughout the landing. Boys were great. Saturday night/Sunday morning is the time to fly East, as there's the least traffic and lines. My brother meeting us was essential -- even with him, we still needed Gabriel to push the stroller.

We spent a night at the Engel family's "artloft," then left Monday afternoon for Pennsylvania, from where I type. Katrina especially is having a fabulous time playing outside. Julian has a temperature today. Gabriel enjoying Bonne Maman's piano. Days are filled with little more than looking over the garden and playing Go Fish, and that's great.

We're hoping to be joined by more family this weekend; we know my brother and his girlfriend (who I've never met!) are coming; my sister and her family and hopefully Papa Paul's son and his girlfriend too.

I'm having fun cooking with my highly skilled and creative mother, the master!

photos later, maybe.

7/1/08

6/27/08 The Lesson

I'm really not going to miss the drive to and from Melissa's, but I am going to miss Melissa. I feel bad too that Melissa is going to miss Katrina. As opinionated and un-cuddly as Katrina is, she's no troublemaker, doesn't whine or cry much, goes wit the program, and takes care of herself.

On top of it, I'm probably going to put Katrina back at Tonya's when I go back to work, and right now Melissa and Tonya are on the outs. I don't want to know why; I tell them both that I can't live without either of them, they've been friends for years, and I hope they make up soon. But I have a bad feeling Melissa will actually be a little jealous that Tonya gets Katrina.

But the one tiny bright side to the now-ex-driving is the time I "spend" (sort of) with the boys in the car, listening to them talk or sing or whatever. Today when I picked up Katrina with the boys, Julian had a Curious George book. He's memorized much of it, but he was also making a serious effort to read words he doesn't remember. When he got stuck on a word, he'd ask Gabriel to read it to him, and this developed into Gabriel instructing him on how to read. "What's the first letter, Julian?" "Sound it out!" "How do you pronounce -- ?"

One time I heard Julian say a word "serr-ren," and then Gabriel correct him to "siren" -- I'll be darned, Julian really is sounding out words and trying to read them.

Gabriel tired of this after a while, or sometimes cut Julian down: "GOD Julian, I can't believe you don't know the word 'scream'!" I handle this by jumping in with, "Wow, Julian, you're reading SO well, I'm so proud of you! Gabriel, what a terrific teacher you are!" Gabriel has no choice but to agree. Then I praise Gabriel for helping Julian so much, which really, he does.

I also take any opportunity to tell Gabriel that he wasn't anywhere near as good at reading at Julian's age. Truth is, I don't actually remember how well Gabriel read at 4-1/2, but a memory lapse is ample fodder to take big brother down a peg or two.

At home, Julian continued through the rest of "Curious George and the Firefighters," reading right up to The End. He persisted through some competition from his sister, who sat right down next to him and said "BOO? BOO??" requesting the book (most of what she says is intonated as a question). She was easily distracted by a pair of shoes. I'm delighted at his effort and interest. He really, really wants to read, and that's going to be the biggest factor in his success.

Good thing, because I paid a deposit today to enroll him at a new school. I don't know how I came to this exactly; I made my improved commute a little worse by moving him, but I do feel better about it than where he was. I especially felt good talking to the director of the new school and hearing her say she'd been there 7 years. Continuity is a really good thing in childcare and teaching.

I got one room under control in our rental house, finally! Katrina's room, the easiest one possible. In doing so, I uncovered a box of toys that included a pair of sunglasses, which Katrina latched right on to. It was SO funny watching her walk carefully around, almost with her hands out in front of her, because she's not used to the shaded view!


Gabriel came home from CDC early today with a temperature, and Katrina has the most horrendous and painful diaper rash (BRIGHT glaring red, raw and bleeding spots). Just in time for our redeye flight tomorrow!

6/27/08

6/26/08 Day "off"??

Amazing how many things go through my head during the day, then when I sit down to write, it's all gone.

I have so many things to do that no one thing seems sufficient at the moment. Gridlock is a serious problem. I did tackle my primary task today, which is an application for a pension for my Dad, but more questions than answers arose. Do they really need to know the name and address of his first employer?

My friend Tracy was here visiting, so I saw her and her 5-year-old daughter this morning. She was the first friend I made when I moved here, which makes us friends for 20 years now. She's a San Jose native who transplanted to North Carolina when her husband's job got moved, but all her family is here. (Including her sister, who manages my nearest Trader Joe's!) So I get to see her whenever she visits, including today. I was sorry to hear they're probably never coming back -- the quality of life in Wilmington N.C. is just too high. Sigh. We had a nice breakfast at Hobee's, and I brought Julian along for her daughter to play with.


(circa 1989, left to right, Alisa, me, Ehud (Zohar dance teacher), Tracy)

Exterior demolition started today. No walls, no doors -- no house! I stopped by briefly with Tracy, but the guys carrying out huge boards with long rusty nails sticking out didn't seem too keen on two women and a child on the jobsite.


Couldn't deal with dinner, so we went to Spoons. I ask the boys to take Katrina somewhere all the time now, so this scene is increasingly common for us, but the overwhelming cuteness never fails to elicit smiles and "awws" and occasionally even a hand over a heart from others. The boys' sincerity and Katrina's delight are indeed very heartwarming.


6/26/08

6/25/08 Last day of work

I packed up my stuff in my cube today, knowing there are good odds I'll get kicked out in favor of a "real" employee before my return Aug. 4th. It's bittersweet -- in some ways I'm glad to have some unstructured time; in other ways I'm going to miss the peace and sanity and unimportance of work.

Katrina was impossible tonight, crying and throwing anything I offered her for dinner -- reminding me why I'm wary of the full-time mom insanity, especially with a testy toddler. I'd overshot, given her dinner too late and now she was in a tizzy. In desperation I offered her Joe's O's (Cheerios, really), and she stopped in her tracks. "oooh!" she said, greedily grabbing the cereal. That was it, problem solved, door opened, and then she ate a modest dinner. I'm always one instant away from the remedy throughout the storm, just never knowing exactly what key I have to turn in what lock to make it suddenly stop.

Julian has a new fascination: a map book in my car. Now he's asking, "Can we go to China?" "Can we go to India?" (wonder where he got those ideas!). Then, "Can we go to Africa?" "Can we go to a lake?" and asking Gabriel to read him what the names of rivers or anything he sees as a body of water in the map book. He's not impressed by our imminent trip to New York though, apparently that travel isn't sufficiently painful.

Gabriel...entering a new obnoxious phase, in which he giggles uncontrollably, doesn't do anything he's supposed to do, stays up way too late, makes stupid sudden annoying noises. Basically, just being a little kid, but to the usual Gabriel extremes. Still, when he's not like that, he's delightful. Even, dare I say it, sweet!

The boys made a fabulous discovery in our rental house's backyard today: strawberries! We have a strawberry patch! How COOL! I had to admonish Julian for eating one before showing it to me, as that is in general bad practice. Once I confirmed that these were actually strawberries, I let them go to town, picking only ripe ones that pull off the stem easily. I so enjoyed their delight in finding strawberries.

I went running at Rancho San Antonio tonight, about a 6-mile route with moderate climbing. I'm far from completely back in the saddle, but as difficult as my last run was, I didn't have any foot problems. Tonight, I can feel a little pain in my left arch, but nothing that would bench me. It was far, far cooler this evening -- chilly, even -- and I ran with energy and strength and had a great time.

A big contributor to this is getting good, solid, high-quality sleep. I've always been a great sleeper, so the trouble sleeping I've had in the past year is really disappointing, but I am certain now it's mostly migraines that cause that. I haven't had any bad headaches in about two weeks, and have had consistent good normal solid sleep too. Combined with not being in constant pain, good sleep goes a very long way toward making me myself again.

Just in time to be undone by air travel with a toddler....

6/25/08

6/24/08 Progress

Whew, busy day.

Work.

Meeting with contractor & architect at the jobsite (formerly known as "home"). Lots more problems prevented, little things shifted, can we get enough headroom to eliminate a step on the landing. Staircases are always hard.

This is where we used to give the kids baths.


Then architect put on her interior designer hat, and we met again at the kitchen designer's place. They thought there was too much of a mixture of finishes throughout the house and that I'd find it chaotic. Truth is, I'd probably never notice, but I'm not design-savvy that way and am very (too?) tolerant of chaos. But, I do want it to look nice to other people, and I do like to be in places that look nice, even if I don't know what "nice" is until I'm not in it.

The color scheme for the kitchen:


Hard to tell in photos, but, clockwise from upper left:

stain sample for doors, windows and trim.

flooring (red oak)

glass sample for kitchen cabinets

cherry butcher block

cabinet paint color (off-white)

countertop (small square slightly offset)

island/pantry/entertainment area wood stain color

(cherry butcher block again)

Let's put this in perspective. The real color in the kitchen will come from my "shu-shef."


After these draining, but uplifting, meetings, I picked up Julian. Gabriel wasn't back from his field trip to a beach boardwalk, so I went to pick up Katrina at Tonya's. Impulsively, I decided to stop by another daycare/preschool on the way, just to check it out. I've known about this place for some time, and while it has the downsides of not being super close and not providing lunch, it's much brighter and cheerier and has a very nice outdoor play area. And note how I described it as being "on the way." It's 5 minutes from Gabriel's school, and another 7 minutes to Tonya's (12 if I catch reds). Not ideal, but still a big improvement. I'm considering it.

Much to do, no energy or enthusiasm to do it tonight!

6/24/08

6/23/08 Laughing and crying

Last night the boys were in a giddy mood. It's usually cute, but there are times that excessive goofing around amounts to defiance, and sometimes it just doesn't mesh with grumpy baby, a late hour, tired parents, and much to do. Sometimes the only way out of it is crying.

So last night before bath they ran and "hid" in their closet, which has a small spring-loaded latch on the inside to twist to get out, instead of a full-on knob. I told Dave to just ignore them and let them get tired of hiding in the closet, but an even better outcome emerged: they didn't know how to get out! The little latch didn't look like a doorknob, and they thought they were trapped. Giggling turned to silence, then to screaming and crying and frantic calling for us. I had a hard time taking it seriously. Dave meandered over to free them, then showed them how to get out and had them practice. Dorks! At least that finally broke their hysterics and they cooperated with the rest of the routine after that.

Katrina was in a good mood tonight, mostly, though that can turn on a dime. Tonight she was being very silly sitting in her high chair, tossing her head back and forth and laughing, but when I tried to film her, her mood turned to a mishmash of laughing and crying.


Katrina went to Tonya's today, as Melissa is on vacation. It's a slightly shorter drive, but it's a much less annoying one, since the best way to get there isn't a major winding around neighborhoods. Still, I'm not sure I'm ready to sign up for another year of driving to three separate places. Then again, how can I possibly raise a toddler -- especially this one, without Tonya or Melissa?

6/23/08

6/22/08 Playdates

A banner month! The park, two weekends in a row, plus a playdate at home this afternoon. I had nothing to do with that; a coworker of Dave's has a 6-year-old boy who's visiting here for the summer, and Dave's coworker suggested we get them together. When they arrived, Gabriel and Julian were heavily ensconced in some running game, but to my relief the new boy fit right in. Nice kid.

I took the three to the park for a 2004 Las Madres event, and that was really nice. Much cooler than yesterday, and all three had playmates since their longtime pals the White kids were there. Though, Katrina is mostly indifferent to other kids, except where their shoes are involved. Fortunately the rightful owner of a pair of sandals, a 4-year-old boy, was very gracious about letting her most un-graciously insist on playing with them.

I expected a struggle when it came time to wrest her away, and was not disappointed. She cried and fought the whole way to the car, then was set to cry the whole way home (and it was naptime too), but a wondrous thing happened. Gabriel and Julian sang the alphabet song to her the entire drive home (which is considerably longer than it used to be!). It was very sweet, and mostly worked, against all odds. I took her straight from the car to bed.

Doing stuff with the kids is a forced break from the constant pressure I feel to get things done at home, things that are hard to do in bits and pieces. A new thing has arisen now too: my architect/interior designer thinks there are problems in the kitchen design and wants to meet next week to review it. I thought we were done with the hardest thing to do! It's silly to stress about it, I'm the customer after all, but it's so easy to doubt myself when people I trust and rely on have second thoughts. I'm annoyed at how much this bothers me. Meantime, we've got to get our front door decided before leaving on our trip in 6 (!) days.

So what am I doing sitting here blogging, when there's a perfectly good 7 minutes I should be spending doing....aaaaahhhhh!!

6/22/08

6/21/08 Hot Run

I went running this morning while Dave picked up The Three from sleepover, figuring I'd catch the cooler morning. Nice plan, except we're in the midst of a heat wave, and the morning was also really hot.

I planned a route that included my favorite trail (Upper Wildcat Canyon), one I haven't run in months. But to get there involves some decent uphills, and they hurt. Usually after a few minutes of uphill, I hit my stride, but this time it took every scrap of willpower to keep going, from giving myself nearby goals ("make it to that tree!") to thinking about how I'd been wronged by ex-boyfriends to forget the pain. Neither worked, but I finally plodded to a vista point where I let myself rest, choking for breath. I even sat down, and that proved to be a big mistake -- my feet and hands felt swollen and strange, and I felt dizzy and almost faint.

It was very hard to get going again, especially since I had another half-mile of uphill to go, and the break only made it worse. Then I started to get chills -- actual goosebumps on my arms, and had a few waves of nausea. My thinking was still fairly clear, and while I don't offhand know all the symptoms of heatstroke, chills, nausea and dizziness probably aren't good signs. But all would be fine when I reached the peak.

Finally, I made it to the top of my favorite trail, marking the end of the uphilling, and headed down with great relief. This trail is shaded, downhill takes far less effort (cardiovascularly, anyway; musculoskeletally, not so good), I'd play my music, and I'd be set. Wrong. Somehow not having to push through the uphills let my endorphins ebb or something. It took so so much effort to keep going, as my whole body hurt and I felt weak and strange. I had to coach myself for every step now, and reached back even farther for jerky ex-boyfriends (lots of those to fall back on). I didn't dare walk again.

It was the longest trip down that trail I'd ever taken, but somehow I made it to the farm, where I took a long, long drink at a fountain. Not because I felt all that thirsty, but because I was getting scared about how strange I felt and figured dehydration must be part of that. I'm not a big water drinker, and I never carry, or need, water when I run. The stop again set me reeling and made the relatively short flat jog back to the parking lot one of the hardest stretches I've ever done. I had to stop twice more, and twice thought I might faint, though I have enough experience fainting to know if I have time to think about it, I'm not actually fainting.

I made it back to the parking lot with more fear than relief. Quick stretch, then a long walk to my car (in a different parking lot), where I sat for a few moments to see if sitting would bring on more waves of weird feelings and if I could drive. I could. At home, some fruit, drinks, sitting and seeing my children all made me feel much better, but it took all day to shake off the weak feeling. It's too bad that my long-awaited reunion with my favorite trail was one of the hardest run experiences I've ever had.

OK, so much about me.

I've really been feeling bad that I haven't been doing anything with the kids, and that I'm so constantly distracted by remodeling things, my Dad's affairs, the turmoil of the rental house, and by our upcoming trip. Still, I think with all the sleepovers they needed some home downtime, and after my very rough morning, I wasn't in the mood to go anywhere today.

Downtime got old and the boys complained about being bored this afternoon. So I un-bored them by getting them to help me unpack, which made it a lot more fun. Julian liked unwrapping things, and Gabriel labelled some boxes for me -- very neatly!! He was offended when I offered to spell something that he thought he already knew.

Katrina mostly bopped around and played and "chatted" with me and the boys during our work. When Julian unwrapped a decorative jar of nuts, she zoomed right in on them. I dumped the nuts into a big melamine bowl and let her go to town. She picked out the pecans and put them into a little olive dish, then dumped the nuts back into the bowl, and played with them for over half an hour (wearing Julian's sandals, of course). It's amazing the little things that can entertain kids!


Julian couldn't resist joining in the fun, and after some admonitions from me, was able to sit back and mostly watch her, chipping in from time to time without making her screeeEEEEEECCCH!!! in protest.

It occurred to me during my run today (during one of the few moments when I was able to let my mind loose instead of focusing intently on survival), that Julian is old enough to be a playmate to Gabriel, yet young enough to be a playmate to Katrina too. He's the glue that keeps the other two from polarizing the family dynamic. Gabriel and Katrina interact a great deal, but even though Gabriel is not even 2 years older than Julian, his interaction with his little sister is much more on a caretaker level than on a peer level. Julian and Katrina truly play together, to whatever extent Katrina permits it, whereas Gabriel's play with her is much more like mine. It's amazing what a difference 2 years makes when you're only 4. Yet the childhood age difference will be permanently established in their adult relationships.

I got on a good roll tonight and worked hard organizing the garage, unpacking the living room, and emptying more odious boxes that torment me every which way I look. It will take months to undo all the habits our house-under-construction created with its odd spaces, just in time to have to dis-establish all our new habits from the rental house. Ample shelves in an attached garage can create some pretty lax habits!

But tomorrow, some play is called for.

6/21/08

6/20/08 Residents of where?

Dave and I went out again tonight, again in downtown Sunnyvale. The theory was that a short dinner closeby would mean time to work at home, but in practice, I just don't feel like it. Our state of half-unpacked has reached steady-state, and now adding things to this household and living in it had taken on greater urgency. That's unfortunate, because I find the boxes oppressive. But I'm just not in the mood to do anything about it now.

I know I've harped on this a lot, but it really strikes me how different our current neighborhood is. I like driving around it, I like the variety of houses, the older narrower streets, the bigger trees, the close-together small houses, the relative hustle and bustle of people outside.

We visited our house-under-construction tonight, and it hit me that we've actually been living in Cupertino all along, not Sunnyvale. It's a Sunnyvale zip code, but everything about it is much more like Cupertino -- quiet, large lots, cookie-cutter houses, and yes, the school district with the whizzy-whee test scores. Now we're in Sunnyvale, which is scrappier, lower-brow, less ordered, not as neat and clean.

Clearly I'm brushing on a minor identity crisis between my urban upbringing and my suburban adulthood. But we're not moving!!

I misplaced my camera tonight, otherwise you'd be enjoying photos of Katrina in a rare dress, after soaking through two sets of T-shirts and shorts today playing in water at Melissa's. It's HOT here, a full-on heat wave! The kids are on yet another sleepover, in theory so we can dig out at home, but I'm so defeated that I think I'll just go to bed. After I find my camera. It probably dropped into a box somewhere.

[ Later addendum: it was in my car! ]

If Katrina isn't pushing the tricycle around in circles with one foot, then she's pushing around something else with wheels. Later, all three of them on their way to Tonya's for a sleepover, big brother as usual on baby duty.


At Tonya's, we weighed them with clothes but without shoes. Gabriel was 39.1 pounds, Julian 35.8. Gabriel might actually break 40 pounds before he's 7!

You can probably see that I trimmed Katrina's bangs, sneaking in a snip before she knew what was happening, resulting in a goofy angle again. I give up!

6/20/08

6/19/08 Permits in!!

We got our building permits today!! Now work can start in earnest. And here I haven't ordered our entry door yet...pressure's on!

Katrina....top of toddler form. Arrgh! And I'm flying with her in 9 days?!

6/19/08

6/18/08 Yarn crafts

This morning I found a long crocheted chain, made with the yarn Gabriel picked from Michael's the other day.

I taught my son to knit tonight. I never thought I'd say that, but I'm delighted, and so is he. It's been a long time for me too, but once my brain set free, my fingers knew exactly what to do. It's much harder for him than crocheting, but he's having a great time with it.

Julian is very envious, so I spent some time with him tonight finger-weaving, which is how Gabriel got started. I don't actually know how to finger-weave, but it didn't take long to realize that Julian mostly needed my one-on-one attention, not the yellow yarn.

My tiny tyrant tonight absolutely refused to feed herself -- I had to spoon-feed her. Yesterday she would have been horribly offended by that, today she insisted on it. Argh! Toddlers! Well, the upside was that her dinner went much faster and I didn't have to spend 5 minutes on my hands and knees scrubbing away the aftermath.

I went running today with someone else at work during lunchtime. He's just six weeks older than I am, and has a brand-new baby in his life....his granddaughter.

Overwhelmed with preparation for our upcoming trip East, a monster application form for a pension for my Dad, finish selection for the remodel. Yet all I seem to achieve is gridlock!

6/18/08

6/17/08 Tile

When I picked Gabriel up from the CDC today, he was working on his second row of crochet! I sure wish I had time to sit down and do this with him....if I remember myself that is.


While I was signing Gabriel out, Katrina took off on an adventure, I thought into the other room. I asked him to mind her, and after a moment realized I didn't see them in the building. I dashed outside to the parking lot to find Katrina determined to go into the parking lot, but Gabriel dutifully restraining her, turning it into a game.

It was far from an emergency, but it was one of those brief lapses of attention that lead to close calls and accidents, when some good piece of fate steps in and keeps a moment from turning to tragedy. This time, my guardian angel was Gabriel. I thanked Gabriel, but also told him it was my fault for not paying closer attention to her and that he shouldn't have to be responsible for her, though I was very glad he was and very proud of him. What a terrific brother!

I spent the afternoon at a fantastic tile store (which happens to be called Tile Fantastic) in complete sensory and aesthetic overload. Everything there is just so beautiful. How do I choose? Fortunately, I had help, from my architect-now-interior-designer, and she helped focus what I wanted and pull it together. Though we have 6 areas of tile to choose (three bathrooms, two fireplaces and kitchen backsplash), we picked it for two bathrooms and make good headway on the third. I'm beside myself!

Hard to tell from photos, but here's the design for the downstairs bathroom. It's intended to be light, with punch accents from the glass tile, and looks much better in real life than in the photo.


Guest suite bathroom


Then I went to the kitchen designer's place and settled on butcher block for my island after all. I'm really excited about this now -- I love wood, so organic and natural, absorbs sound, mixing bowls won't slide. The island will have no obstructions so it won't be hard to maintain (the one big downside), and I think it'll add an earthy touch to a country-ish kitchen.

Left from right: red oak flooring, cherry island door, cherry butcher block (I x'd out another one that's beech, which I like better but is too close in color and too uniform in grain, though I also like that better!).

This would be a lot more fun if I still didn't have so many unknowns ahead of me, but we made serious headway today. I'm treading into the world of friends like "Kinda Crafty," for whom design and colors and matching and coordinating and ideas just flows from numerous fertile rivers in her head. Me, I'm stuck at the bottom of a dam, staring up at a vast expanse of concrete, stunned. I have to thank scrapbooking for starting to open the door, and help me learn to find my aesthetic instincts. It's an uphill struggle. I'm a lot better at measuring and cutting and applying the right kind of glue than choosing patterns.

I got a happy chuckle from an unexpected source today: my Dad. Seems he's found a lady friend, in less than a week in his new digs! He's younger and healthier than most residents, and he's lacked daily companionship for so long, I'm so glad he has an outlet now. I smiled all day at the idea of him living that utterly normal part of his life again.

Building permits due tomorrow!

6/17/08

6/16/08 Gabriel's new hobby

I took all 3 to their respective locations this morning....except as I was just about to drop Julian off, I decided to take him to Katrina's last music class instead! The teacher remembers him, and said she loves his story: that he was motionless in class, but that he remembered the songs and sang them on the way home from class, and often talked in song.

Not much has changed, he mostly sat and stared just like he did when he was a toddler.


Katrina clopped around in Julian's sandals for most of the class.


I'm not sure why I clicked the camera at this exact moment, but I unwittingly caught a moment that was notable, sort of. When kids put objects away (scarves in this case) there is usually at least one kid who goes around collecting every object they see, even if another kid is holding it. Nothing mean or aggressive, just eager. One almost 2-year-old girl was one of these uber-helpers today, and attempted to help Katrina put away a scarf.

Katrina's reaction stopped all traffic for a moment: one of her ear-splitting hair-raising eye-popping screeches, in which her whole body tenses up, face turns red, veins push out, and it looks like she's about to explode. My goodness, the offense! I was as stunned by the excessive force of her reaction as everyone else for a moment, but once I regained my wits she was easily redirected.


Julian had fun at the class, and when I asked him later if he liked the teacher, he said, "Oh, YEAH!". Mary Lynne really is exceptional, and I will certainly find a way to take Katrina to another Music Together session.

When I picked Gabriel up from the CDC today, he was once again in the knitting corner, studiously crocheting a pretty nice little chain, amidst other kids (and one grownup directing it all) knitting. He really wanted to do more crocheting at home, so I took him to Michael's tonight to get him his own crochet hook and yarn and knitting needles (my knitting stuff is buried deep in a box somewhere). He's really excited about it!

I don't know how long this phase will last -- there's a good chance it'll end the first time some macho-boy informs him that crocheting is for girls. My mother, my sister and myself all knit, and my sister even started her own business with her own unique and charming crochet designs, so I'm happy to nurture this. This will be a great airplane activity for him, and he's looking forward to getting pointers from Aunt Stephanie.

Big steps backward in night-training, no dryness the past few nights.

Little progress unpacking too, it's really becoming odious.

Beautiful old fir floor in house beyond repair -- in fact, some of the newer plywood subfloor also beyond repair. Now the house not only has no floor, but no subfloor either. I should get a photo just to show people who still think we could have lived there during construction!!

6/16/08

6/15/08 Shaggy boys no more

I really wanted to go the Y today, but there was a Sunday playdate at one of our favorite parks, and I knew at least one other mom would be there. I haven't taken all three to the park in a long time, and we needed the "sanity." Somehow my camera got left behind, so I didn't get photos of Katrina acting very silly inside a tunnel.

They all had a great time, though we left way too late. When we got home, Katrina made a beeline for her room, cried "Mimi!" and almost lay down in the floor, begging for a nap!

Not long after that, Julian asked about his bin -- the boys both have special bins to put things that are their very own -- but it was on a shelf buried behind boxes. So I moved the boxes, and as I did, a sort of obstacle course emerged. I deliberately created a goofy path through the boxes, wondering if the boys would notice what I was doing. Julian kept asking about his bin and Gabriel ignored me until he impatiently asked, "What are you doing?! Then I said, "I'm making a maze!" They both immediately brightened and started ordering me where to put boxes. I made a tunnel and a dead end and they played happily in there for the rest of the afternoon. I can't win against the pile of boxes, so I might as well make use of them somehow.

My late-afternoon plans to re-attempt the Y got shortcut again by...well, short cuts! Though there are plenty of nearby haircut plaes, I took them to the Supercuts we usually go to since it's close to the Y, where I needed to go anyway (the Y had two purposes today: to exercise, which didn't get fulfilled, and to pay for daycamps, which did). Julian said he wanted a chicken haircut, meaning, his hair all spiky like I do with shampoo sometimes. The nice lady granted his wish with gel, as he was so sincere and cooperative. I told her the story of Julian's first haircut and how good he was, unlike his brother and sister who screamed and cried. He was very proud to hear me talking about how good and brave he's always been about haircuts (which is exactly why I did it), and the ladies at Supercuts were completely charmed by him.

Before.


During.


After.


I used to think gel was silly, but now I think it's fun!

Katrina needs her bangs trimmed, but I think I better drum up a Valium prescription first. For her or me, I don't know yet.

6/15/08