January 2013

A secret birthday mission

My birthday was on a Sunday this year, so we were all at home. With Lukas down for his morning nap, I read the newspaper (a rare treat!) while Annika and Daddy snuck out for a secret mission. That afternoon, we had presents (which she was so excited about, especially since there were cake pans and decoration tools in the mix) and the results of the secret mission, a fantastic chocolate cake with writing and roses on it. Altogether a very good birthday, thanks to my little family. :-) 

Pre-K social networking

On Annika’s school days, we got into the habit of staying for a little while to play on this piece of lawn out front with whoever’s parents would let them stay too; they usually play “Fire,” which consists of finding all the twigs and hunks of grass they can pull up and putting it in a circular pile and pretending to light it. One frequent playmate in this little playgroup was Neve (aka Niamh), along with her little brother, who’s a couple of months older than Lukas. Over a few days of this, their mom and I became casual friends, finding out that both girls would be going to the same school for Kindergarten this fall (yay!), and that led to us having a couple of playdates (first at our house, then at theirs, then a Saturday evening thing with a few other families their family knows). Annika still gets incensed and teary when other kids won’t do what she wants or exactly the way she wants them to do it, but she’s getting a lot better, and she LOVES to be around friends her age, so this has been a great development for her. She’s also getting better at striking up conversations and playing with kids at the park; one day, inspired by a series of picture books we’ve been reading about a little girl named Lulu who likes to call herself Ladybug Girl and recruits pals into a Bug Squad, we took along four headbands with pipe-cleaner bug antennae that we’d made (entirely at her direction, of course!) and she had her own Bug Squad formed up in minutes. It was hilarious -- a rotating cast of young bugs, chasing around this older boy (about 10 years old) who was the “big scary dragon” that could only be defeated with sand and fire. 

Expanded family = expanded vehicle 

So, we finally had to cave and buy a car that seats more people and hauls more crap than either the old Civvy or the Prius were capable of: a 2013 Toyota Highlander hybrid. Black-on-black and loaded with features we were kind of forced into if we wanted certain ones we’d gotten used to with the Prius (keyless operation, back-up camera, etc.), it seats seven, is beautiful, and has turned out to be a real pleasure to drive. It is my ride, primarily, because of the two carseats and the lower gas mileage (so R. still drives the Prius to work). We didn’t need three cars, so with a certain sadness, we had to sell the 2000 Civic (which we bought new in 1999, after a drunk driver crunched the rear end of R.’s old CRX while we were sitting at a stoplight in Sunnyvale). It went to a very nice family, who wanted a good, reliable, but un-flashy first car for their 17-year-old daughter, so we feel like we did the right thing. 

Siblings entertaining each other

Lukas is finally getting old enough to be some kind of companion to Annika, and they both love messing around together. We developed a game called FunBall, in which we all stand around in that sunken living room kicking various balls around (the pink soccer ball, a tiny basketball, some plastic balls that came with a game Lukas got for Christmas, etc.). Annika dodges my kicks, and Lukas mostly intercepts and redirects -- there aren’t a lot of rules except for NO AIR on the kicked balls. Sometimes, DJ Mixmaster Lukas will go over to the baby swing chair and turn on the lullaby music, then stand there dancing to it, and Annika will join in with dancing and singing. Or, messing around up in our room, Annika will invent something like a dragon that breathes fire (there’s a theme, yeh?), demonstrated by the handful of red and yellow drink stirrers she stuffed in her mouth, and run around chasing a laughing, shrieking Lukas. 

Words, words, and more words!

Lukas is expanding his vocabulary by the day. A lot of it still sounds like “ka” or “ba” or “ga,” but he’s clear on his context and with repetition he is speaking them more clearly as well. He gets a lot of reinforcement -- all three of us cheer like maniacs when he masters a new one! So here’s some of what he added in January: 

--Whazzat?

--bath

--shoe (which goes on: foot)

--brush (which you use on your: head)

--stars

--ball

--bread

He also understands a LOT of what we say, e.g. O’s (aka Cheerios), sleepytime, bathtime, naptown (I’ll say “You ready to go on down to Naptown?” and he’ll nod vigorously and say “Yeah!”), and gets so many more word-based concepts (like shoe/foot, which he demonstrates on the changing table with his own little shoes and in the entryway with Annika’s shoes, and brush/head -- he’ll pretend nearly anything is a brush and do a brushing motion on his head). 

THE QUOTABLE ANNIKA

--Matter-of-factly re: a set of directions given by the female voice of my turn-by-turn app: “That was a lot of words, girl.”

--Approvingly, re: R. saying he needs a haircut: “Daddy looks like Jonathan on Property Brothers!”

--In high dudgeon, re: my parenting: “You are the baddest, yuckiest one on all the seven continents!”