Train Man

Sleepy Space Man

The Sassmasters

Ain't nothin' like the real thing

Julian, since his last birthday, has accumulated an impressive collection of vehicles. Most notably, his favorite, the Fire Dut.
He points out the real ones with glee from the back window of the car as we travel through town. Today, there was one parked in front of the store as we were headed in. The boys inside saw us coming, or rather saw Julian's huge eyes and dashing finger.
"Dutt! DUUUUTTTT!"
We see a waving hand from inside the vehicle. Julian walks around to the passenger side to catch a peek at the chrome work, when the door latch unlocks with a hydrolic "shoooopp!" and out comes officer Gordon, grinning like Opie.
I ask, "You must get a lot of excited little boys running over to the truck".
"Oh yeah, you bet. I love it".
He sits down on the step and asks if I have a camera phone. Do I have a camera...
But as soon as he leans over and picks up Juju, he starts bawling.
"Uh, oh. I was afraid I saw that coming. Maybe in a few more years."
Julian refused to even look at the truck any more, never mind the sweet, freckled face Officer Gordon.
And with that, not wanting to upset him further, he went back up the stairs into the truck, and waved goodbye.
I bet he was just like Julian- waving at trucks, looking wide eyed whenever they parked in front of the grocery store, looking for his little reflection in the shining chrome. And he never forgot how that felt. You could see the little boy inside of him, grinning ear to ear to be able to wear those red suspenders, and sit up high in the shiny red truck.

Turn turn turn

Spring is unfolding all around us. When the kids wake up from their afternoon naps, there is lots of time before dark to go for a walk around the neighborhood, ride bikes down the street, or just play in the backyard before dinner time. We have two bird feeders- one for finches and one for hummingbirds. We planted some veggies, and the flowers are waking up in every corner. Zoe has noticed a couple of fuzzy caterpillars wandering around, and tries to keeps tabs on their whereabouts. Today, she found one in the same spot as usual,under a flowerpot. "look mommy, he's still here".
"Um, I don't think he's with us anymore, honey. I think he's dead"
"no, he's not dead".
"Yes honey, I think he's dead." Pokes with stick- "yeah, he's dead".
"Can I look at him?".
"Sure." I find a plastic tray on which to lay him out for condolences and scientific review.
Zoe looks at him very carefully, as does Julian, who surprisingly represses his usual urge to mangle various objects of interest.
Zoe lays him carefully, on his plastic plate, on a chair where he can 'watch' the late afternoon activities of riding trikes in circles across the patio, chasing cats away, and filling, pouring and refilling anything with water. Zoe takes the deceased larva for rides in the trunk of her tricycle. She gently carries him about, to 'watch' the birds and 'lay' in the last of the day's sunshine.
I go about my business of watering plants, back and forth with the sloshing buckets. I poured water on my favorite patch of ranunculus, which always remind me of Zoe, as I planted them just before she was born, and brought her outside to see them after. I told Zoe that it might be best if we dig a little hole in the flower bed to bury Mr. Caterpillar. (She had started asking me if she could 'keep' him- "No, Mommy, he'll be fine!")
She thought about this.
"Mommy, if you died, and you didn't have any friends around, I think that would be really sad. I think you'd be lonely. So I'm going to sit with him for a while, and make him feel better."
Wow.
"That's sweet of you, honey. That's really nice. You're right. Why don't you sit with him a while".

He's Two

Princess and the Frog

Birthday Treats

Nico had a work meeting tonight, so I decided to take the kids out to celebrate Julian's birthday, just the three of us. We went for Mexican food in Alameda, then walked down the street to get some ice cream at Tucker's. The kids were so thrilled. On our walk back to the car, I asked them to hold up their ice cream for the camera, which they were more than happy to do.

DJ Fisherprice

DJ Birthday Boy rockin' the breakfast crowd at Cafe Trieste on our new (old skool) FP Record Player that we picked up from Zoe's teacher. I dropped Zoe off at class and was thrilled to see my beloved Fisher Price record player on the play table. The kids were taking turns picking records (they refer to them as CDs, of course) and putting them on the turn table. Kristi lent us one to play with.

First ballet class