paying attention

Josie discovered "no parking" signs yesterday. Out of the backseat, she asked me what the P with a line through it meant... which led to a long conversation about how the P stands for parking (because parking starts with P) but the circle around it and line through it means "no parking." She also noticed that most of the "no parking" signs are red and the "yes parking" signs are green.

She's been obsessed with the concept ever since and rushed home after another outing today to work on this masterpiece:

It's a city with a rainbow and a sun and stop signs and a "no parking" sign and a "yes parking" sign and some yellow parking signs that could be "no parking" or "yes parking" (very confusing indeed), and a brownie. Every good city needs a brownie.

She even picked out the paper with the city border around it especially for this project. A girl after my own heart.

apparently free is a very good price

For Cayden's birthday, we've promised to re-do our backyard to create an actual hard surface for basketball* (some might call that a "basketball court" but I'm not ready to go that far yet). The first step in the grand plan was to get rid of our play structure. Since the thing is such a monster, I wasn't sure anyone would want to put forth the effort of dismantling it in order to move it.

So, I posted it on craigslist at 7:40 last night, for the whopping price of free.

Within 30 seconds my phone beeped, meaning an email had been received. One more minute, two new emails. By the time I took the post down after 20 minutes, I'd received 30 emails from people who all wanted the play structure. Some people said they would come right that very minute to pick it up if I'd send them my address. But, lucky email #1 was the winner... a nice family with a 12-year-old, 2-year-old and a newborn. When they showed up in their minivan I got a little nervous, but they're coming back with a big truck tomorrow for the 16-foot-long cross beam.


Step 2 of Project: New Backyard is to have two sickly trees removed from the yard. Then pavers, some garden planters, and who-knows-what-else. Details to follow, I'm sure.


*Cayden has been thrilled with the prospect of a new backyard since we came up with the idea, all of about 6 days ago. Then, yesterday it suddenly dawned on him that everybody else in the family will get to use the backyard as well and will still get birthday presents. Smart kid; there's no fooling him.

And yes, we're still planning to get him other birthday presents. But I'm not about to tell him that.

portraiture

Sara, Christie and I had the pleasure of meeting with one of Portland's finest photographers for a pair of classes (I use the word "class" loosely because we were sitting around her dining room table, eating popcorn) tailored to our specific photography questions. Our goal this past week was to go out and experiment with different techniques and return today with something to share. Of course, I went through the week feeling less than inspired, but gathered the children this morning for an impromptu portrait session. Although these aren't masterpieces by any means, they definitely reflect each of the kids' true personalities, and how I hope to remember them at the ages they are now.

Josie: wild child, hair, hair and more hair

Cayden: barefoot, hoodie, ripped jeans, somewhat-hesitant smile

Avery: wearing her pajamas all day on Sunday, refusing to look at the camera

spring break

This year's spring break was less-than-stellar. Not particularly bad, just nothing to write home about, as my Aunt Sue would've said. Andrew had to go out of town for a work retreat and Avery was signed up for a basketball camp, so we stuck close to home and didn't do a whole heck of a lot.

We did spend a fair amount of time with Henry & Christie since it seemed like everybody else and their mother was out of town.* First, they came to help us with Phase 1 of Josie's big preschool move. They're saints for that. Then, they invited us over for a yummy dinner while Andrew was gone (they're saints for that, too) and a rousing game of Monkey in the Middle. My kids slept super-soundly that night. So well, in fact, that I've instituted a strict rule of at least one hour of catch before bed, every night, no complaints.

At some point later in the week (Thursday? Friday?), we headed out to Out of This World for some serious playtime. Avery was gone to the coast for the day so we invited one of Cayden's new 3rd grade friends. The two of them did an exceptional job of entertaining a very crabby Josie** and a not-so-crabby Henry.

And that's pretty much it. Back to school on Monday!


*Not that we don't love to hang out with Henry & Christie all the time, even if everyone and their mother is in town. Wasn't trying to say that.

**Very crabby Josie is onto her 4th cold in as many weeks, and now appears to have an ear infection. Seriously, when is this cold season going to end already?!

hey mister

Blogger hasn't been happy about me trying to upload video from my new camera, so there have been several clips that I've been meaning to upload elsewhere and share here. One of them is this clip of Avery's solo from the 5th grade play, back in January:

"hip hop," or so they say

mystery of the cheek rash explained!

Several times in the past, when Josie has had a cold she's gotten these small red dots all over her cheeks (definitely more noticeable in person). It's never been serious enough to go to the doctor, and they always seems to go away on their own. When they appeared today, coupled with her fever from a couple days ago and lingering cough, I decided to keep her home from dance class, just in case it was some horribly contagious rash.

However, when we went to pick up Avery & Cayden from school, one of the other moms saw her face and commented right away. Apparently her daughter gets the splotchy marks whenever she's been coughing a lot; they're broken blood vessels under the eyes. Blech.

cousin time

We got to spend some time with our favorite Zinnia this evening (while celebrating my favorite mother-in-law's birthday). Sadly, I barely got to hold her because my children were hogging her so much. Now that Avery can hold her all on her own, I might never get my hands on her again!

Cayden & Zinnia have always had a thing. He likes to get right up in her face (seriously, like on the verge of smothering the poor thing) and she likes to put her forehead right up to him and grab his hair, nose, ears, etc.

Josie still is slightly more hesitant than the older two. She talks about Zinnia all the time and often pretends to be her while at home, but I think when she sees her in person, she's not entirely sure how to interact with her. Give them a couple years though, and I think those two are going to be bosom buddies. That being said, if Zinnia tries to eat Bear's ear again, I think Josie might claw her eyes out!

We've been waiting years (and years) for our kids to have a cousin who lives close by. Seeing them fall so in love with that little girl every time we see her has been so worth the wait.

Hmm, how early is too early to start pushing for another cousin who lives close by?

loreto at night

We went for a couple of strolls last night to see Loreto in the dark--once around the golf course right at dusk, and once at about 11pm when it was darker than dark.

Just after the sun has set behind the mountains directly to the east of Loreto, it turns those mountains into all different shades of orange and lavender. It's really quite spectacular.

As an added bonus, there was the tiniest sliver of a moon last night.

These darker than dark photos were all taken with my fisheye lens, with a prolonged shutter speed (between 1.5 and 30 seconds) in attempts to capture the amazing--and by that I mean amazing--stars. Christie and I walked down to the water (Sea of Cortez) in an attempt to get some shots of the light bouncing off the waves, but when there's absolutely no light, that plan doesn't work so well. Oh well, next time.

being a single parent: hard

I'm three days into having all of my children, full time, and I am flat out exhausted. I'm not opposed to working; I think I'm the type of dad who will prepare food, clean up, and attend and participate in events without complaint.

What I find exhausting is the part about having to know when all of the stuff is happening, and making sure the appropriate things required to make the stuff happens ends up in the car on the way to the stuff. And before that, making sure that the things have been purchased and that the people with whom we need to interact have been contacted. This is the part that I'm not good at. Most days, I am fortunate in that I am married to someone who is very good at it, but when she's gone I just have to find ways to cope.

Today I took four pieces of paper out of the car on which I had scribbled schedules and shopping lists and lists of things to be brought places for different events. Four lists to cover three days feels a little pathetic, but at least I haven't lost any children yet. And yes, I have started a fifth list to try to deal with tomorrow.

Stats

• 3 days
• 2 sleepovers hosted*
• 3 trips to the grocery store (I told you I'm not good at the planning)
  
• 4 crying incidents **
• 3 dinners made at home (booyeah!)
• 2 lunches eaten out (meh)
• 5 loads of laundry run
• 2 loads of laundry folded
• 1 birthday party
  
• 5 basketball games
• 2 wins!
• 0 lost children
• 1 nearly lost but then found iPod
• 1 life lesson learned about not leaving your freaking iPod on the floor of a full gym while you go to shoot baskets between games
  
• Far more help accepted from friends and family than I'm comfortable with
  

Pet Peeves

Time between events. WTF? Have a playdate. Have 20 minutes to kill before hip-hop, followed by 20 minutes to kill before school pick-up, followed by an hour to kill before piano, followed by an hour to kill during piano. This is no way to live, people. Can we not get the whole world on the same schedule?

Tidying up. This never ends. As I'm typing this, there are six things I could be doing that would make the house cleaner and my life easier tomorrow. Granted, this is probably true when I'm not the only adult in the house as well.

Highlights

Hip-hop. Watching 3-year olds learning dance moves while trying not to knock each other over is just good fun.

Avery's neurotic moments. She actually wanted to skip tomorrow's ballet because she wasn't sure I would be able to put her hair in a bun. However, I have demonstrated my ability to do so and ballet is back on!

Realizing that Cayden has seventeen Words With Friends (Scrabble) games going simultaneously on his iPod. No wonder that's all he ever talks about. He's probably winning fifteen of them, all against adults. He's the Bobby Fisher of Scrabble.

Avery shooting 3-pointers. The referee stopped by our team at half-time and said, jokingly, that he wanted to see more three pointers out of us in the second half. As we were hopelessly out of the game and had no energy after 5 games in 2 days, I said, "Yeah. Go for it." She shot two and almost made one of them.

Coaching close games. After two years of being on the losing end of blow-outs, I actually got to call a time out and run a play with 22 seconds left and the team down by 1. The play-by-play from Cayden's school journal:

With 22 seconds left in the fourth quarter my dad called a time-out. Then they came back in and tried to get the ball down the court. But the plan backfired and the other team made a lay-up.

Thanks, son. For what it's worth, the plan did not backfire--we just missed the shot. And maybe the coach forgot to stress that they needed to get the rebound if we missed the shot, but hey--the coach doesn't do this very often.

Cayden spending his own money to buy his best friend an extra gift.

Josie asking to read an American Girl catalog instead of a book before bed, and forcefully insisting that, "It's not a magazine. It's a newspaper."

Conclusion

This is all actually pretty fun, though I will be happy to have my wife back in two days (for a variety of reasons including that everybody misses her). It seems like a good thing to make sure you can deal with your children on your own every once in a while, especially if it provides an opportunity for a very hard-working spouse to get a much-deserved break. Now I must go grab the laundry so I can check off the "swim towel" item on tomorrow's list.





* "2 sleepovers hosted? No wonder you're tired," you're saying, "You're doing it wrong." However, you have to understand that the children we hosted are such great children that they actually make parenting your own children easier. Cayden's friend kept him company all day at Avery's tournament and Avery's friend helped her keep her mind off of missing her mother.

** Avery has become upset three times, one of which culminated in a parent-of-the-year moment in which she was incredibly nervous about her team being ahead by one point with 40 seconds to go but refusing to come out of the game, leading to her lining up for free throws with her hands up in the air to rebound and tears running down her face, and a very concerned looking referee asking her if she was ok. However, it all paid off when we won the game and I received a joyful, leaping hug from my 10-year old.

loreto, mexico

There aren't enough positive adjectives in the English (or Spanish, for that matter) language to describe how beautiful this town and this house are. We're staying in Megan & Damian's casa and it's just... breathtaking.

Stacey, Christie and I took a leisurely stroll to the pool this morning, in between bouts of reading and occasionally realizing that we should probably eat something. This is exactly what I've been craving... lots of time to do nothing but soak up some vitamin D and relax.

When we arrived, and until about an hour ago, there was no internet at the casa. When it was turned on, you should have seen all of us mamas away from their kiddos, rushing to get to our electronic devices to check on things. Of course, everyone is just fine. Henry had a busy (busy!) day yesterday with his Papa, (Different) Avery is enjoying her daily scavenger hunt for presents (Megan is an overachiever), and Rachele's dad sent her a video of her kids tossing the salad for dinner. I'm sure Maddie and Riley are doing just great with Stacey's mom... unfortunately I don't have linkable proof of that at the moment. Meanwhile, my Avery's team won their first basketball tournament today, which is huge for them! I am so disappointed that I couldn't be there (trust me, I sat through some heartbreaking games this season) but I couldn't be more thrilled for the team. What a great end to the season.

And that's about all. Seems like it's about time for a snack and some more reading. I could really get used to this.

so what, i'm still a rock star