Wednesday, January 22, 2014

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)

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