November 2013

Lukas turns TWO
The marquee event of a very busy month was, of course, Lukas’s 2nd birthday. He doesn’t really get birthdays yet, of course, but he quickly picked up the idea of opening presents (“Oopoin pesents!”) — most of them at this stage were cars, trains or balls, and/or Spider-Man related (“Pi-maaaan!”). I made a chocolate cake (which rose via the miracle of chemistry, instead of with eggs and milk) and topped it with marshmallows and powdered sugar. He loved it and loved the candles so much he wanted us to re-light them. He is hilarious these days, such a merry fellow, very sweet with the kisses and hugs and “Yob-oo!” (I love you) — although we could do without his pitch-perfect, snarling “Fine!” and “You’re mean!” and “Awww, come ON!” when things don’t go his way, oi! Little mynah bird we’ve got here … anyway, he’s a two-year-old handful, but he really is a jolly and precious little guy — happy second birthday, tinyman! 

Speaking of a very busy month: 

—The joint birthday party: On November 9, we had a get-together for old and new friends as a sort of midway-between birthday bash for both kids. We had lovely weather, so we all stayed mostly outside; kids on the play structure, grown-ups drinking wine on the deck, mixing it up with everyone from Grace’s family to the cousins to friends we haven’t seen in years. And there was a piñata! Good times.
—Lukas’s 2-year checkup: The kid is, in his pediatrician’s word, “thriving” — even though his diet is mostly soy milk and graham crackers. We finally asked about the ever-present tearing in his left eye, so she made us a pediatric ophthalmologist appointment, at which we learned his eyes are “about as close to perfect as you can get” and that the tears are likely from a narrow, though not blocked, tear duct that will probably widen as his face grows along with the rest of him. So that’s all good!
—First whole-family movie night: We finally got going early enough in the evening to include Lukas in a family movie night. He really enjoyed it (especially eating popcorn, made by R. without butter for him) and laughed a lot and now wants to have “moo-fee night” every night.
—Thanksgiving at our house: We weren’t traveling at Thanksgiving, and we ended up not having any guests, so we did the whole thing just for ourselves: The bird, all the sides, the Macy Day Parade, etc. It was actually really nice; Lukas napped through the most hands-on part of the prep, Annika helped, and we all got to sit down to the table together. My attempt at vegan mashed potatoes for the little guy didn’t go so well, but everything else was great — and we got the kids down for bed by about 6:00. Awesome!
—Coppelia: Annika’s dance school put on a production of Coppelia, so we got tickets to go see it. We went with her friend Grace (and mom Anne); the girls enjoyed the show, and kept spotting kids they knew. We all went out afterward to the “tea party restaurant” at the Pruneyard, a very girly thing indeed (and one we were all sure the little brothers would not have handled well, ha!). 

School Days with Annika
—Our first parent/teacher conference: … was very short! Seriously, I think we were in there all of ten minutes. Mr. Ford showed us the charts of where she is academically (thumbnail version: way ahead), said she’s a great kid, and that he wishes he had 29 more like her. Well, OK then!
—Volunteering at school: Finding himself temporarily short-handed, volunteer-wise, Mr. Ford put out the call for more help through the holidays. R. was able to cover for me at home, so I signed up for Wednesday mornings, which was typically seat work and then computer lab for her class. And boy, was Mr. Ford not kidding about needing help! That many kids in one room, it was a real challenge making sure everyone was understanding the work, and getting along, and making progress, and not crawling under their desks and such; at the computer lab, it quickly became apparent that I was the techiest person in the room (yikes!). It was pretty great, actually; I felt needed and useful (as opposed to the way I feel doing Cornerstone … oi), and Annika LOVED having me there. Loved it a little too much, actually; when I had to leave, she cried and screamed and threw a gigantic fit every single time. Poor kid! Transitions always have been a little rough for her. Anyway, when Lukas is in preschool, I’ll definitely be signing up again, and hopefully she’ll have matured enough that my leaving will be easier on her.
—The Thanksgiving program: The Kindergarten had prepared a musical program, with each class wearing a different Thanksgiving-related theme costume; ours were Native Americans, which meant oversize T-shirts with the kids’ chosen five Native American symbols painted on them (plus headbands that they made themselves). It was a really cute, 15-minute program; unfortunately most of our pictures show Annika with a woebegone, tearful face, since (as we learned later) some kid was standing in the wrong place and taking up some of her space. Mkay. 

Accomplishments & Milestones
—Annika learns to whistle
—Lukas graduates to an articulate "thank you” (instead of “dek doo!”)
—Lukas knows his shapes

The Quotable Lukas

—“I hiding!” (Sung out happily whenever he would disappear, in answer to our calling for him; usually we’d open doors till we found him via call-and-response.)

—“Chockit treat!” (With near-manic enthusiasm, since this is the month we started to let him have after-dinner treats, and to withhold same for bad behavior or not eating real dinner.) 

—A-kyu-ah, Aqua, Ankina (Variations as he works on pronouncing his sister’s name; mostly he stuck with “Ah-ka.”)

October 2013

Annika turns SIX
On October 9, our amazing, wonderful, sweet, smart, creative, willful, mercurial, hilarious girl turned six. I decorated her place at the breakfast table with streamers and gave her one little present to open (a flowery hair clip), and even Lukas was excited about the special day (“Ha-booday, Ah-ka!”). I spent the day putting up streamers, setting the table (pink tablecloth, scattered “jewels,” etc.), wrapping presents and making a cake, which she decorated mostly herself with pink icing, sugar and M&Ms when she got home from school. The family birthday dinner was a tea party (3 kinds of little sandwiches, baby quiches, ginger cookies with lemon curd, tea, etc.), with cake and presents afterward. Then — because this is the vogue now — we had her other birthday party, the one for her classmates at Airborne Gymnastics, the following weekend. Much, much less stressful this time around because of no trips to the Emergency Room that morning like last year, but still a fairly big production, heh. We were at capacity for the number of kids, so it was a fun, chaotic couple of hours, and since I’d hired our young friend Mason to watch Lukas, I did actually get to speak to some of the parents. The birthday girl got so many presents it was almost embarrassing, but she made thank-you notes for them all (I am the thank-you note Nazi) within a couple of weeks. So that’s it till the next one!

What’s up with: Annika
—Origami: She got way into origami this month, learning with YouTube videos and the saintly patience of her dad (mom was M.I.A. on this one; I get brainmelt and sudden rages, it’s practically a medical condition). Her focus is amazing, though sometimes she’d get crazy-frustrated and wail about the injustice of it all. But she stuck with it, and can now do a heart in about 90 seconds.
—Fall break: Her school had a week off in October, about six weeks into the school year. We could have gone somewhere, but R.’s work had said no vacations during this crucial time, so we mostly puttered around on this and that and had a good time not doing the morning rush.
—Her third lost tooth: Another one on the bottom, this time, with the permanent one more or less forcing it out!
—Pumpkin patch field trip: I chaperoned while R. stayed home with Lukas. We went on the school bus (that was the biggest thrill for all the kids, you could tell!), and I was responsible for her table (six kids) through the whole day. We did the corn maze, the little train, lunch break, the film about how pumpkins grow, the selection of our own little eensy pumpkins to take home — and amazingly, Annika didn’t melt down even once! By the end, I was so tired that I wanted to crawl under a rock in a cave and sleep for forty hours, but it really was a fun time. 

What’s up with: Lukas
—Unique outfits: He likes to put on hats, mittens, backpacks, headbands, capes, other people’s shoes, whatever he finds lying around, while he plays. He wore Annika’s glittery pink-and-black butterfly wings for almost an entire day once. The kid, he makes his own fun.
—Knowing colors: Although I was starting to think he is colorblind, since he’d just say any old random color word for the longest time, he does know his colors now, ha! He’ll still sometimes just call everything red, but that’s mostly when he’s just goofing or not paying attention. 

Notable happenings
—Daniel’s kid’s party: R.’s work friend Daniel (direct report, actually) lives in our neighborhood, and they threw a big big party for their second daughter’s first birthday. We went, and it was awesome — balloon animals, Filipino food, a photo booth, crazy treats — even though both of our kids acted like jackasses to us the whole time.
—Grace’s family at our house: We returned the invitation to Grace’s family, so they spent an evening at our house. It was a great time, with plenty of wine and the kids all behaving and everything. :-) 

An old friend, long missing, resurfaces
R. and I last heard from our friend Q in 1999 (that’s not his real name or even initial, but it’s what we called him back in the day). Recently, though, he made contact with some of our other friends, and through them, found us; after a decade or so of bouncing around the world, he has been living back in NYC and making a very good living in finance. He proposed coming to see us, so we said yay, and late one evening he arrived at SFO just like he said he would. We drank a bunch of wine and stayed up way too late talking, and the next day hung around the house with him (he helped Annika with some origami) and all went out for a walk in the neighborhood and park. Annika took to him pretty quickly, chattering away and impressing him with how quick and smart and funny she is, while Lukas mostly bombed around being his ungovernable but cute toddler self. That night, we got a babysitter, and the adults went out for a fabulous meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant, during which Q, in a reflective mood, talked a lot about how he wanted a family and thought he would be a good (though admittedly intense) father. Early the next morning, he was off to the airport, and the kids talked about him for quite some time — he obviously made an impression. Here’s hoping it’s not another fifteen years till we see him again! 

Lukas’s first complete sentence
The little guy is very verbal (see The Quotable Lukas, below), and has started to really pull things together. He repeats lines from his favorite board books, e.g. "Walkin some-un's feet!” from Gossie & Gertie (“GossieGoo-dee!") and makes near-complete sentences all the time. But on the walk home from school one warm, dry October afternoon, Annika stopped us to get her water bottle from her backpack and take a swig, and Lukas said, clear as day, “I want water, too.” Simple, but perfect! 

Halloween
After a year of a million costume ideas, Annika fixed her mind in late September on going as a jaguar. I found a cute one-piece outfit online, with a headband (ears) and tail, and bought some makeup to do the face. She was super, super cute and adorable (whether she was being “a nice jaguar” or “a fierce jaguar” at any given moment). Coincidentally, her friend Grace (from dance) had the same costume — the week of Halloween, when all the kids wore their costumes to class, it was hilarious to see the two of them together, slinking around with their hands held up like paws, hiding in corners, stalking prey, whatever they thought jaguars would do.  Lukas of course still had no idea what Halloween was, so we went with his love of Yo Gabba Gabba! and had him wear the DJ Lance Rock costume Annika wore when she was three. It was too big (I had to shorten the pants with staples, ha!), but it worked out fine, and he loved it. He even wore the glasses and hat all night! There was a costume parade at school — so much fun to see all the kids dressed up! — and though we’d been told by the school that they’d have to change into their uniforms after, Mr. Ford let them wear their costumes all day. Halloween night, we went trick-or-treating with Alyna and her friends in their apartment complex the way we’ve done the past few years, which was fun — but it was almost certainly the last time we’ll do that, since Alyna is 10 now, plus the trick-or-treating around our neighborhood seems like it might be pretty awesome and it would be good to stay local. Annika is an old pro at it by this point; Lukas got the hang of things pretty quickly, although at least the first half-dozen times he did just walk on into the houses instead of taking his candy and leaving, hahahahaaaa! 

The Quotable Lukas

—“Whass that soun? Holes!” (his version of the Yo Gabba Gabba! song that goes “What was that sound? Who made these holes?”)

—“GaceSean!” (Grace and Sean; he gets very excited when we’re going to see them, whether socially or at the dance studio)

—“Ah-san house!” (Lawson’s house; Lawson is Annika’s friend Niamh’s little brother)

—“So sick! Yeahhh!” (“Cool trick! Yeah!” — another Gabba thing)