April 2014

Frozenmania continues, intensifies
So now they’re going around calling themselves Prince Lukas and Queen Annika; she identifies more with Elsa than Anna, apparently, and has added Prince Lukas to the story, which he’s only too happy to agree with. She swans around the house in an outfit she made herself: the black “heels,” a light blue printed dress, a beautiful white hand-knitted afghan that one of Grandma’s friends sent us as a baby gift (she wears it around her waist, tied with a loop of nylon material from her potholder loom under her bustline, Empire-waist style, so that a long corner of it drags the ground), her lavender satin gloves (that she goaded me into buying at Target), her hair in a French braid and topped with a light blue satin headband. The braid, BTW, is ever-present; she won’t even go braid less at night, and now all her little school friends are doing it too. We heard “Let It Go” on the radio one day, and she listened, enthralled; when it was over, she asked me how it got on the radio, and when my explanation was unsatisfactory, she theorized that somebody “stole it and snuck it onto there.” They both sing the songs from the movie more or less constantly; she offered, kindly but seriously, to teach me the words after she heard me get them wrong once, as if this were a matter of Great Import. And in addition to her previously established "rain powers,” she now maintains that both she and Vilma have "wind powers.” 

The Wildflower Run
On Sunday, April 13 — the Wildflower Run! The kids’ 2K race was first; as soon as Annika and I both got checked in and got our bib numbers, we all headed over to the track. We’d practiced several times at the local high school, so she knew she could do the distance, she was used to running on a track, and she knew how they calculated laps (with a lap marker — they picked up another with each lap). She was excited but not nervous, and she KILLED IT! I had made a GO ANNIKA GO sign, which she saw as she finished her first lap (and her whole face just lit up!). She ran most of it (while Lukas, strapped in the stroller, was dying to run along with her and the other kids), and ended up placing 52nd out of 98 total; her time was 15:02, and she only missed 3rd place in her division by about 30 seconds! She got the medal that she'd been wanting since last April, and training for since Christmastime -- I can't imagine a face happier, prouder or more thrilled! (In the 5K shortly after, I was 11th in my new division — women 40-49 — which is down one from last year, but my time of 28:11 was two minutes better than last year. Woooo!!)

Easter
Lukas joined in the egg dyeing for the first time, and predictably, he mostly got the colors mixed together in unfortunate ways in the cups. But we all had fun doing it; Annika created two different “Frozen eggs,” with a paintbrush and the blue dye. Easter morning was, of course, the egg hunt, which both of the kids loved. Some four or five dozen eggs were hidden around the house — it was all we could do to keep everybody upstairs until they were dressed, they were so excited. We let them eat a couple of treats before breakfast, even! For the whole next week, they went to the baskets for treats and snacks. Lukas got extra sneaky — one morning, he sort of disappeared, and when I went downstairs looking for him, there he was, elbow-deep in Annika’s basket (his was put away out of reach, anticipating just this type of scenario), with a melting chocolate egg in one hand and multi-colored Skittle juice dribbling down his chin. 

A day at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk
We didn’t really have much planned for Annika’s spring break, until she came up with a great idea: going to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk! (She knew about it from commercials on Nick Jr., of course.) So R. took a day off, we loaded up and headed down there — and we ended up having an awesome time! We stayed in the little-kid rides area, ate corn dogs and fries for lunch, and even got a few minutes on the beach. The weather couldn’t have been better (not too hot, not cold), and it wasn’t crowded until we were ready to leave anyway. Both kids LOVED riding the rides; Annika even went on the Ferris Wheel with me while R. took Lukas to get on the baby belugas ride all by himself. Altogether a great day, and since we bought the kids season passes, we look forward to doing it again. 

Annika’s activities
—Alana's Frozen-themed birthday party: Annika’s friend Alana’s party was at her house, with mostly just the girls (and Jason Lee) from her class invited. They have a trampoline, which was great, and the grownups got mimosas (even greater).
—Bike riding with no training wheels: She is working so hard to learn to ride without training wheels! R. took her out a few times and said that she’s getting better (I think it’s because of how good she’s gotten at riding the scooter).
—The Multicultural Faire: Her school had a Multicultural Faire with booths for 27 of the countries represented among the student body. A number of groups did little performances (e.g. singing, karate, traditional dances); a group of kindergarteners had rehearsed at school for the previous couple of weeks to do a song and dance to represent Mexico, which of course Annika was thrilled to participate in. About 25 of them ended up in the show — SO cute!
—Another trick on the playground: She learned how to go down the spiral thingy on the play structure at school, which she’d been kind of afraid of. Yay courage!

Feats of Lukas!
—Scooterboy: The kid is physically adept — and he wanted to keep up with Annika on her scooter. So R. found the best three-wheeled one and ordered it, and we got him a helmet and he just took off. He can really make that thing go, although he’s not clear on how to steer it (by leaning; the T-bar is fixed, not the kind that turns) so he runs it off the sidewalk into the grass a lot — which doesn’t seem to bother him. He just steps off, rights his course, and keeps going.
—Pedaling the trike: He finally learned, sort of, how to power the tricycles we keep out on the back deck. He can’t steer it (this one does use handlebars to steer!), but again, he’s happy just to be on it, and doesn’t care if he’s heading toward the edge of the deck or the wall or whatever.
—Starting dance class: He loves music and loves to dance, so I signed him up for a Friday-morning class at Annika’s dance school (also, it’s the only activity of any kind that I can find in the South Bay that doesn’t require parent participation!). The first day was … not so good. He was super-shy, clinging to me and refusing to join the eight or so little girls in tutus for all the animal-walking, spinning and whatnot. But the next week was Annika’s spring break, so she came with us, and that seemed to be the push he needed — he got out there on the floor and really shook a tail feather. Seemed to really love it this time. Then we didn’t go for two weeks (studio spring break, then it conflicted with Annika’s Kindergarten musical at school), so … we’ll see how it goes the next time.
—Singing: He loves to sing, and lately, when it’s not the Frozen soundtrack, it’s Yo Gabba Gabba! or, even funnier, the Olivia end song, which he does with all the right rhythms and pauses and whatnot; there’s not much funnier than hearing that on the monitor in the morning when he’s just waking up. And speaking of his waking-up business:
—He calls for Annika first — not us — in the mornings. He knows who to hit up for books, and she can open his curtains and all that, plus her response time is so much quicker than ours. Heh. 

The Quotable Lukas
—"Mommy? Daddy? Where are my paaaaaannnnts?” (him quoting The Lego Movie, which he has not seen, but Annika has)
—packpack
—grampagrampa and gramma
—Oh toast! (Excitement for the toast popping up, every time)
—We’re here! [and] Are we there yet? (picked up from watching Olivia)
—Sure! (affable, reasonable agreement to whatever)
—Ducks onna pond! (Every time we go past Almaden Lake Park, in re: the ducks, geese, and/or seagulls often sitting on the water) (And the variant: Duck onna grass!, which he exclaimed upon seeing a large blackbird on the grass in front of Subway)
—I’m not mean, I'm just Lukas! (response to Annika saying “You’re mean!”)

March 2014

Frozenmania
The Disney/Pixar movie Frozen has now become a genuine obsession for a lot of little girls — including ours. We watched it again at a family movie night, and now all Annika wants to do is watch it again (and sing the songs, and talk about it, etc.). Lukas is right in there with her (e.g. standing next to her for nearly two hours while she lounged on the couch watching it on the iPad …), although he stops short of making his own gloves out of paper towels traced from his hands and taped together with Scotch tape along all the edges (an innovative solution she came up with to solve her “no gloves” predicament). The better to re-enact scenes, I ended up taking her to Payless to get a pair of “high heels” (black patent leather with rounded toes and a 1.5-inch heel), which Lukas (hilariously) clomps around in whenever they’re not occupied with her feet. And this obsession colors all aspects of life: We got some rain, which she’s pretty sure she and Vilma caused to happen because they have “rain powers” (which she demonstrated with an Olivia-style rain dance). 

Party time
— Annika was invited to her classmate Siena’s birthday party, which was at a nearby bowling alley (awesome!). It was fun, especially since they had the bumpers up and a whole bunch of lanes going at once, so nobody had to wait. Also there was beer for the grownups — yay!
— Niamh’s family had their annual St. Patrick’s Day party (with the kegerator of Guinness), and this year was much easier for us than last year — Annika can hold her own in a crowd (plus they were showing Frozen upstairs in the kids’ playroom), we didn’t have to follow Lukas around all over the place, and R. and I actually got to talk to some people (including a guy who was randomly in town and happened to know our college friend Weird Arthur, back in Louisiana — small world!). 

School days
— Crazy Hat Day: I can’t remember what was the reason for it, but they did a Crazy Hat Day. Annika, true to her own inner light, chose to wear a garland of metallic green St. Patrick’s Day stuff (clovers, mostly) that she found at Michael’s. So cute!
— Scooter time: Her friends Alana and Vilma both have Razr scooters, and their moms would bring them to school pickup, which led to Annika instructing me to bring hers every day that we’re not going somewhere after school (e.g. dance, swimming). From a somewhat cautious, wobbly beginning, she quickly got quite proficient, scootering all the way home from school, and even doing some one-footed tricks and super-long glides by the end of the month.
— A new career: Annika now says she wants to be a science teacher, based entirely on her love of the science lessons taught by Mrs. Daly (who apparently makes the rounds at school, giving age-adjusted variations on subjects like electricity, density, nature topics, etc.)
— Field trip to a farm: The Kindergarteners got to go (on school buses! yay!) to a farm in the hills; I went along as a chaperone for her class. It was really a great trip — lots of animals (chickens, goats, pigs [ugh], cows), a garden of edible plants, all kinds of things. Now she has renewed her pitch to get a cow (“We can build it a shelter on the grass by the pool! We’ll have fresh milk all the time!”).
— St Patrick’s Day: Still inexplicably one of her favorite holidays; this year was notable for her insistence that leprechauns are real, and that whatever was going on (e.g. can’t find a sock, rainbow happening, toy out of place) is due to their activities.
— Another excellent report card: As expected, her second trimester report card was a sea of 3’s (that’s the highest grade) and nothing else. She is killin’ it! 

Tooth time
— Since our previous pediatric dentist has retired, we worked our connections and found a new dentist; he was great, the staff was great, the place is MUCH closer and easier to get to, and Annika and Lukas both loved it there. Yay!
— Busy Tooth Fairy: Annika lost her two upper front teeth about a week apart, so she has the classic little-kid gap right now. She is so, SO cute like that. :-) 

Lukas the ungovernable
— Crazy walking stamina: I can’t get this kid into an umbrella stroller anymore, and he insists on walking absolutely everywhere on his own — including all the way home from picking Annika up at school. Even when she’s zipping ahead on her scooter, he is running to catch up.
— A new, unwelcome trick: Lukas continues to be a butthead about food, and his latest trick is to hold something in his mouth the entire time we’re at the table. Recently it was a bite of chicken nugget; he chewed it and held it in his cheek, like a chaw of tobacco, while he drank milk and refused anything else, for nearly an hour until I finally got fed up and dug it out with my finger. WTF. He LIKES those friggin chicken nuggets. WHY DOES HE DO STUFF LIKE THIS.
— Pinkeye: Who knows where he got it, but Lukas had pinkeye, which required him to have eyedrops 4x/day for a week. He didn’t like it, and struggled a little, but by and large it was not too difficult — he took it like a champ.

Annika the Accomplished
— Swimming: After months of no new ribbons, and a little bit of discouragement for that reason, she earned her O-fish-al Porpoise ribbon at last. We were so proud of her for not giving up (reminding her that she was only doing lessons once a week instead of 2x/wk like in summer, and no practice at home), and she was SO EXCITED to finally get this one.
— Reading: We’re going through the Little House books at bedtime again, in no particular order, but with a new twist: At the end of each night’s chapter, I have her read the first page of the next chapter to me. And she can do it. For real. She figures out new words, she gets the rhythm, she knows where to pause and how to read dialogue — it’s amazing.
— Climbing: There’s a sort of rock face piece of equipment at the playground where we always stop on the way home from school, with no grips or toeholds, just irregularly-sized and -spaced steps, and she’s always been kind of afraid of trying it. But one day, she just … did it! And now she’s a regular power girl, going up it in two seconds, NBD.
— The magic clock: We got her a clock that turns green at a time you set, and it’s been a miracle for us — she no longer bursts through our door at 6:15 on the weekends! If she wakes up early, which she almost always does, she waits till it turns green at 7:00 to come wake us up! Victory!

The Quotable Lukas
—poh-pee-doh (computer)
—PAHSS-ba-bye (pacifier)
—“Whatchoo got dere?” (inquiring)
—“My ankees baseball book” (originally Annika’s, now his fave)

The Quotable Annika
—“Mr. Ford says that in the next Year of the Horse, we'll all be 17 years old, and he'll be in a nursery home.”
— “They mean news, Mommy, not apps.” (Her explaining about “Goldbug updates” in the Richard Scarry Busytown Mysteries books.)