Sunol Regional Wilderness

As part of our busy July, we took the kids for a short hike in the Sunol Regional Wilderness, where there is a creek to splash around in.

Logan looks at a hawk from inside the ergo.

Boys at the Creek

The creek was full of tadpoles swimming around!  RJ loved them!

Excitement was had when a coyote or mountain lion
(couldn't tell which) ran across the trail and feasted
on something, thankfully not us.

We let Logan walk the last little bit of the trail.  We're lucky that he will still tolerate being in the Ergo for quite a while so we can hike to RJ's max rather than his.  We're hopefully going to get out more with him than we did with RJ so that he will be able to go longer distances sooner.  

More pictures here.

RJ's First Dentist Appointment

RJ had his first dentist appointment.  He was not a happy camper about going and it took a little while to get him in the chair (mommy was rejected, daddy, of course, worked like a charm), but he did calm down and then was pretty proud of himself after his cleaning.

This was immediately followed by a walk in the Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve,

Lunch with Daddy at DreamWorks,

A trip to the Bay Area Discovery Museum,

AND dinner and ice cream with Daddy in Redwood City.

RJ is 4

I realize that you might get a general idea of the kids' development from anecdotes on Facebook/Google+ (and if you're not on Google+, you SHOULD be), but I feel that an update on RJ's general development is in order as well.

Physical Stats:
Height: 43" (95th percentile)
Weight: 37.5 lbs.  (65th percentile I believe. I can't remember but I knew it was between the 50th and 75th)
Teeth: 20, counted at the dentist, no cavities!
Sight: 20/20
Hearing: Normal
Sizes: Currently wearing 4T clothes, 5T pajamas, some shirts are 4-6 or 5T, and we're stocking up on bigger sizes with sales, or second hand opportunities!
Sleep:  ~9pm-7am, no naps at home but ~1hr nap at preschool

Favorites
Favorite Food: Sugary Sticky Crap (which I don't buy, but he seems to always manage to acquire!), Shrimp, Sushi, French Fries, Chocolate Milk, Ice Cream, Carrots, Broccoli, Chocolate, Spaghetti with Meatballs
Favorite Drink: Horchata, Hot Chocolate
Dislikes: Cheese, Orange Mac & Cheese, lettuce
Favorite Book: Whichever one is the newest usually.  Currently "Peaceful Piggies Meditation"  Also, Magic School Bus series, Berenstein Bears, Beatrix Potter books
Favorite Toy: Dinosaurs, Sea Creatures
Favorite Color: Red
Favorite Outdoor Activity: Riding his Skuut Bike
Favorite Indoor Activity: Playing with Dinosaurs
Favorite Sport: Football ("Go Steelers")
Possible Future Occupations: Paleontologist, Chef, Daddy
Favorite TV Shows/Movies: Dinosaur Train, Caillou, Cat in the Hat Knows a lot About That, The Magic School Bus, The Land Before Time movies

Fine Motor Development
RJ can write most of his letters in their capital form, and some in their lowercase form.  His drawings become increasingly complex by the day and since it clicked that he could draw faces and draw things that he could cut out and use as toys (stingrays, sharks), his drawing output has increased exponentially. He is getting better at buttoning and unbuttoning clothing and working snaps and zippers, but often still gets frustrated and asks for help.

Gross Motor Development

I am really impressed by RJ's balance on his Skuut Bike.  He picks up his feet and zooms along for longer and longer distances every day.  He's even more advanced than he was when I filmed him in late June and early July!  He can stay upright on his rollerblade trainer skates too.  He is also taking his gymnastics class, where he has mastered the forward roll and walking along the beam, working on his bar skills and backward roll.  He is constantly in motion and we are working on his body awareness in space because he is seemingly oblivious to where his body is at any given moment, which frequently results in Daddy being kneed in the groin or me getting elbowed in the boob.  He can pump his legs when swinging and can climb almost anything on the playground now.  We are working on ball skills, mostly because we just haven't pushed him playing with balls all that much. RJ will be taking a session of swim lessons next week and already likes to blow bubbles in the water.  We might try soccer in the fall after his session of gymnastics ends.

Cognitive Development
RJ fully engrosses himself in thematic study and while I have been selecting our themes for the past year (transportation, dinosaurs, ocean), he is now taking the reigns and asking to learn about things that interest him.  He is now learning about bees since he was interested in the bees that pollinate our "bee tree".  We go to the library and pick out books on his topic, and read them and he asks me to look up answers to questions that I don't know the answer to, such as "What do baby bees look like?", on the computer.  His curiosity is intense and he asks questions pretty much non-stop through the day.  He seems to have a preference for learning about animals, even though just a year ago, it seemed that all he would ever love was transportation!  I really enjoy teaching RJ because he retains the information so easily and because he loves demonstrations and experiments (such as when we cut up grass in the back yard, put it in water and then poured it over a sponge, so he could see how baleen whales eat!).

Language Arts:  It is clear that RJ's mind is always working.  As he plays, the animals or cars or whatever have intricate conversations and elaborate story lines, which often come out in made-up songs!  At bedtime, we read a book and then RJ makes up a story jointly with one of us (usually Daddy).  His stories are often off the wall imaginative, but do have a beginning, a middle, and an end, a structure which has impressed his teachers at school when he managed to get his whole class telling stories during circle time!

RJ is highly motivated in language arts skills, as he speaks mostly like an adult with a few occasional pronoun or grammatical quirks, and is constantly rhyming real and nonsense words, telling us when something rhymes, what letters start a word, or making up his own words (mostly as silly names for characters in his play).  He never stops talking and/or singing songs, which is not ideal when we want to try and encourage Logan to use words, but we are working on teaching him to talk to Logan rather than talk around him, which helps.  On the plus side, RJ has taken interest in independently "reading" picture books to Logan, where he does a good job of teaching Logan how to name things.  In terms of his pre-reading skills, he recognizes all his letters in capital form and many in lowercase form, and with help can sound out some words.  He has an uncanny ability to decode what Lance and I try to spell over his head too.  Our days of spelling to each other are numbered.  Perhaps we need to start speaking French or Spanish, until RJ picks that up too.  He does occasionally ask me how to say something in other languages, and when we visited Quebec, we taught him a few key phrases, which he has since forgotten most of them.

Classification: RJ has been naturally classifying objects for a while.  He knows the basic shapes - circle, square, triangle and generally understands bigger/smaller.  He typically separates his dinosaurs not only by type, but also by what they eat and lines them up from biggest to smallest on occasion, making nuclear families out of the various sized sets.

Math:  RJ can count to 100 with help remembering the tens.  He can count to 20 independently, and can count objects with a one-to-one correspondence.  He has spontaneously added small numbers of things together (e.g., "1 ball and 1 ball is 2 balls).  Additionally, he is starting to understand the concept of "half" thanks to sharing toys of a certain variety with Logan and cooking activities (which he LOVES).

Sequencing:  He knows the days of the week and knows which days are preschool days. He also knows that his birthday is in June, but his concept of how long a month or a year is is limited at best. He only understands time in terms of the sequence of the day, not at all by hours/minutes/seconds.

Spacial:  RJ is still not very interested in puzzles.  I can occasionally get him to work on one with me, but he just doesn't have the desire to do it.

Emotional/Behavioral
RJ is an intense kid and still working on how to interact with people when he's frustrated or angry, despite his ability to express himself verbally.  His emotions are intense and we still deal with him hitting other people when he's angry or frustrated or not getting his own way, although lately I've found that he says mean things instead in some cases, which is a change of pace.

He also tends to have an oppositional approach to new things, which is frustrating when we are trying to introduce him to something fun and he pitches a fit only to absolutely LOVE the activity afterward.  He is best behaved at preschool, most likely due to the consistent routine.  We follow a routine at home too, because we all thrive on routine, but of course, things always come up.  His behavior is worst when he is out of his normal habitat, but the more I can prepare him ahead of time, the easier things go.  We try not to bribe him to behave, but we do try to encourage him when he is acting appropriately.  In terms of discipline, we are against corporal punishment of any kind, and still using the most natural consequences possible for infractions (e.g., if he takes a toy from Logan, then he can't play with that kind of toy for a little bit; if he doesn't help during clean up time, any toys left go into a basket and he can't play with them the next few days).  We use a cool off time for him to calm down, but we don't typically use time out as a punishment.

Despite his intensity with negative emotions, RJ can also be quite a joy to have around when he's being nice!  His teachers love how kind he is and how well he plays with the other kids.  He also loves Logan very much and likes to kiss and squeeze him, which, while overzealous and not always appreciated, is well-intentioned.

He's growing up fast.  I can't believe he will start Kindergarten next year!

DeLanceys Go to Gilroy Gardens

I've wanted to take the kids to Gilroy Gardens, which is a horticulturally themed amusement park targeting younger children, for a while now.  Even before Logan was born, I wanted to take RJ.  Over Independence Day weekend, we finally sucked up the expensive admission fee and went.  I think it was worth the money, especially since RJ and I got passes so we can go anytime during the season.

Perhaps I should review it on yelp.com too, but I thought this place was awesome.  We started in the temporary dinosaur exhibit, which had animatronic dinosaurs as well as bones and an excavation area.  RJ was a little fearful of the animatronic dinosaurs, but really liked the bones.

RJ insisted on riding the duck/swan paddle boats first despite the loooooong line.  I think we waited for close to an hour (or at least it seemed like it), and while I'll admit that there was some whining, he made a choice to stick it out to get to ride in a "Mr. Mallard" boat, which really impressed me.  We got through the line with periodic counting of all the people in front of us (the line was a big curve around the edge of the pond, which lent itself REALLY well to counting all the people in front of us) and playing I Spy, which was fun because a topiary surrounded the pond where we were waiting.  Then we finally got on our boat and RJ enjoyed being chauffeured around the pond since he could not reach the peddles (It was a good leg work out for me!).


We chose to partake in the Independence Day BBQ picnic instead of eating at the normal park vendors, and it was a good choice - BBQ chicken, hot dogs, potato salad, watermelon, rolls, ice cream, all you can eat.  After lunch we cooled off in the spray area, but Logan lured us away from the refreshing spray (it was a hot day) because he wanted to ride the race cars and the firetrucks.  He is starting to have his own preferences for activities, which is a sign that he is really no longer a baby!  Then we rode the train around the park when we realized that Logan needed a nap!

RJ and I rode the roller coaster through the redwood grove twice (with no lines!) while Lance walked Logan around in the stroller in an attempt for a nap.  The nap worked until RJ woke him up after the roller coasters.  Clearly he didn't want Logan to miss out on walking through the waterfalls or the pinnacles maze or the water spray area, or any of the other rides!

Logan was a trooper though and despite his short nap, rallied for the rest of the day, enjoying the rest of the rides like the round boats, classic cars, and the apple & worm.  I wish we had gotten to visit more of the gardens while there, but I will definitely take the kids back one of our free Fridays.  I can't wait to go during the week when the lines might be a little shorter!  More pictures here.

Independence Day 2011

On the 4th of July, we decided to head to Lake Del Valle, in neighboring Livermore for some fun in the sun.  Apparently, we were not the only ones to have this fabulous idea, as we sat in traffic on the way into the regional park.  The parking lots were full, but we were able to park along the road.  We were lucky, because as we were leaving, people were still coming into the park, but they were carrying their stuff in from 2 miles away in 100 degree heat because the rangers were turning all cars away and the closest parking was two miles away on the twisty road in the hills.  Seriously.  And by "stuff", lets be clear that we saw someone carrying a grill, another with a full sized cooler, and at least 20+ people trudging in with chairs, umbrellas, etc.  We expected the place to be a little crowded, but were a bit shocked that people were THAT dedicated to BBQing at the lake.  It seemed that there were lots of extended families that set up tents and basically camped at the Lake all day long.

We only stayed for a couple of hours so that the kids could get in the water, play in the pebbles, and eat a little snack before heading out for lunch at the Sansar Indian buffet.  It was not a very 4th of July-esque lunch, but it was very yummy and exactly what we wanted.  You might say we were declaring our independence from grilled meat, replacing it with marinated tandoori baked meat.

We did make some burgers on the grill at home for a later dinner though.

And then we bathed the kids (they needed to get the lake water, sunscreen, & pebble dust combo washed away) and headed to a downtown Tracy parking lot to watch the fireworks.

More Independence Day pictures are here.

June Update

We have largely hit the highlights of June, namely Sully's Visit and RJ's Birthday, but I've left some threads hanging from our May update.  I mentioned that May sucked for our health.  June was better for the kids and I, but Lance STILL wasn't better.  The short version of the story is that he was sick again during Sully's visit, got better again, but then got the spiking fevers again just before RJ's Birthday.  He luckily was better enough for RJ's birthday, but still having episodes.  He saw the doctor again, and also shared what was going on with his chiropractor.  The chiropractor talked to some colleagues, adjusted him a different way and since then, no more fevers.


After Lance was all adjusted and feeling better, we laid low for a little while, making sure that we didn't over-exert him and land him back on his ass.  So far, so good.

RJ changed classes at gymnastics.  He is now with a new coach in an all-boys class.  He will be in that class through the end of September at least, at which point we'll see if he wants to stay with it or try something new.  He had a rough time adjusting to the new coach, but seems to like the class now.

He's also been working on other physical skills like his training roller-blades and his new Skuut bike, where he  started holding his feet up the second time we had it out!

Logan is clearly a handful.  Some of the issue is that he imitates everything, without totally understanding it, so that leads to things like toys being thrown in the recycling bin and throwing things down the stairs (which is what I do with the laundry on laundry day).  He has also been enjoying art as of late, but clearly his aesthetic does not quite match mine yet as his choice of medium is not always appropriate.

At the end of the month we took the boys to a get together at the Reichgut's (a family that we're friends with and do our co-op with).  Logan met a girl there and is absolutely in love.  Clearly he has a thing for older women.

We celebrated our own Father's Day a week late since RJ's Birthday was on Father's Day.  RJ decided that we should buy daddy a new car, but his second choice was buying daddy the Move for his Playstation3, which was a lot more reasonable.  Note that when asked, he wanted to buy me snakes and worms for mother's day, but daddy should get a car.  Clearly Daddy gets the love here!
We made Daddy "dippy eggs" and bacon for breakfast (scrambled for the rest of us), basically let him relax the rest of the day and then went out to dinner for Italian food that evening in town.  My restaurant choice kind of sucked - the food was bland and chicken over-cooked.  I guess I should have listened to the two negative reviews on Yelp, rather than the group of positive reviews, as the negative ones were most accurate.
Despite the poor restaurant choice, it was still a very nice Father's Day for Lance, who is a spectacular father for RJ and Logan!  Very low-key, but just like Daddy wanted it.

July looks like it's shaping up to be better in terms of health and fun activities!

Click here for all the June Pictures

RJ's 4th Birthday

In honor of RJ's Birthday, we threw him a Dinosaur Party (he requested the theme).  Last year, I thought I was screwed because I didn't think I could top the Lightning McQueen/Cars-themed birthday party. However, now I am truly and utterly 100% screwed.  It started simple enough.  He wanted a T-Rex cake. Sure, no problem.  I thought I had even seen a Dinosaur cake pan in Michael's.  Then this conversation happened.

RJ: "Mom, I want the T-Rex cake standing up"
Mom: "Can't it be flat?"
RJ: "Logan's Submarine cake wasn't flat"
Mom (silently): FUCK, he's absolutely right
RJ: "Actually, I want it sitting on a rock."
Mom: "Well, that's a little easier"

And then I started thinking about favors and I was getting bored of the little fabric bags from Michael's that we've purchased for the past few years of parties, and I didn't want to get the kids something that would just get thrown out, like a plastic bag, so I got dinosaur fabric and designed my own, vaguely in the shape of a Chinese food take-out container.  Perhaps I was craving Chinese food when I was drawing the pattern?  Anyway, they were cute filled with plastic dinosaurs, grow dinosaurs, dinosaur stickers, and any of the plastic bone-only dinosaurs that they unearthed from the sand table.

Then, two days before the party:

RJ: "Can we have dinosaur eggs with the T-rex-sitting-on-a-rock?"
Mom: "Can we just call the ice cream dinosaur eggs?"
RJ: "You have to make it look like dinosaur eggs"

The party was on June 18, one day before his birthday.  I'm not quite sure where we got the energy to pull it all off, but the house got clean, the favors were ready, the cake and ice cream was done, the food was prepared, and I managed to order a bounce house the week of the party. 

I think it was a fun party, RJ certainly seemed to think so. 

I think I did a better job planning party activities this year since a.) the activities worked (unlike the crappy plaster of paris cars from last year that fell apart and made a huge mess that I STILL have not cleaned up from the bucket - YES, I'm unfortunately serious.)  and b.) involved washable paint for a change.  You'd think that someone who used to run a child care center wouldn't have taken 3 years of parties to perfect the activities for the children, but it is what it is!

We got the dinosaur bounce house, which upon seeing it first set up, RJ exclaimed, "It's a diplodocus because it's eating our tree!"

The first activity was Make-Your-Own Volcanoes.  The children made play-doh volcanoes, using a huge batch of homemade "dirt colored" play-doh, and our random assortment of commercial play-doh for accents.  We then "set off" the volcanoes with red vinegar and baking soda.  [Note for anyone else out there trying this - I did think to put all the volcanoes inside a foil-lined cardboard box, but it still leaked after a few "eruptions"  Perhaps a shallow plastic box would be better!  Also, I had the children form the volcanoes around the small plastic play-doh containers (the party-favor sized ones), which made a great craters!]

Then we moved on to painting wooden dinosaurs.  Logan even wanted to get in on the fun, but committed a party foul in the first minute of painting by painting Maddie's eye.  Luckily we got the paint off and she was fine, but he was banned from painting after that.  The kids could also excavate plastic dinosaurs (those who looked like they only had bones) from the sand table.

I guess I wanted to make sure that everyone knew it was a dinosaur party with the food, so we had Salad Toppings arranged by Dinosaur Type and both Herbivore and Carnivore Dinosaur burgers and sandwiches. The burgers, cold cuts, and homemade bread (Pumpernickel, French, and Honey-Wheat) were all shaped like either a T-rex or a Stegosaurus, because those were the two dinosaur cookie cutters that I had.

Then there was the 8-layer T-rex cake with the dinosaur egg ice cream.  For those of you who want to know what was inside the cake, it was Strawberry, Chocolate, and Vanilla layers filled with dark chocolate truffle and fresh strawberry fillings, topped with vanilla and chocolate buttercream frosting.  It's eyes were chocolate chips and it's arms were solid chocolate that I molded in an aluminum foil homemade T-rex arm mold.  The "eggs" were scoops of homemade mint ice cream with dark chocolate shavings (RJ's flavor request), pre-scooped and rolled in rainbow sprinkles and refrozen.

RJ absolutely loved the party and we all had a great time!  Thanks to everyone who came and celebrated with us!

RJ's actual birthday, which was the day after the party, was a lot more low-key.  We took him to Toys R Us, presumably to buy him a two wheeler with training wheels since that was what we had been talking about.  However, he was so enthralled with his Skuut bike that he didn't want one (even the Red Lightning McQueen one), and wanted the (considerably cheaper) box of Cars 2 die cast cars and an ocean explorer set.  So, that's what he got.  And he picked out a Melissa and Doug learning clock for Logan since he decided that Logan needed a gift too.  We might still get him a bike to grow into, but maybe later in the summer or something.

Then he wanted to eat french fries and chicken strips for his birthday, so we took him to Red Tractor Cafe in Dublin (it was down the street from Toys R Us) for lunch.

RJ DEFINITELY had a Happy 4th Birthday!

For more party pictures, click here.

For the Love of Sully Bop

The "Lances" (as we are affectionately referred to by our dear friend Sully) were fortunate to get a visit from Sully in early June.

We picked Sully up from the airport on a Saturday morning and even though we had a plan for the day, had to abandon it because the weather was unseasonably wet and cold, which was unfortunate.  The plan was to go to our CSA farm in Watsonville (Live Earth Farms) for the U-pick strawberry event, and then head down to Santa Cruz for some fun on the Boardwalk and Beach.  Neither would be exceptionally fun in the constant rain and cold, so we decided to try the Aquarium of the Bay at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco instead.  RJ has been learning about the Ocean, so it was a nice field trip for him as well as being a fun indoor activity for the rest of us.

Then we had some lunch at the Sea Lion Cafe, which is on Super-Tourist-y Pier 39, but we all enjoyed watching the Sea Lions knock each other off the rafts as we ate.  After lunch, we decided to take RJ to the USS Pampanito, which is a World War II submarine docked at Pier 45.  RJ, despite his interest in submarines (we have had a homemade cardboard submarine in our living room for MONTHS) did his usual "I don't want to go in" fit after getting our tickets, but once we assured him that we wouldn't be diving in the submarine, he tentatively got on with us and by the end of the tour, he WANTED it to go under for real.  RJ even enjoyed talking to the volunteers on the sub, although I was a bit disappointed that he didn't have any insightful questions since normally he can't stop asking questions.

On Sunday, Lance was sick again and while our plan had been for Sully, Lance, and RJ to go to a SF Giants game, while I took Logan to the Bay Area Discovery Museum (Logan + 3 hours of bleachers = NOT FUN), Sully and I decided that Lance needed rest and we should go into the city and meet up with his friend Cory and his wife, Morgan instead.  So we headed to Japantown and Sully and I took the kids to Benihana to watch the chefs cook in front of us.  While RJ was initially a little scared (what else is new?), he ended up really liking our chef after he made him an steaming onion volcano that turned into a steam train!  There was also a playground just down the street (Hamilton Recreation Center playground) that was really nice.  The kids got to run around while Sully got to catch up with Cory and Morgan before we headed back to the Japantown mall for some crepes with ice cream!

On Monday, I had a dentist appointment in Redwood City.  You might start to see a pattern forming here because we had a plan that got changed, AGAIN.  We were planning on going to the dentist and then seeing Lance for lunch at DreamWorks, and then doing something else fun on the Peninsula before meeting Lance for dinner.  Unfortunately, Lance was still spiking fevers and was not up to going to work.  So, he stayed home and Sully bravely watched RJ and Logan in the waiting room while I got a cleaning.  He even supervised while RJ got his mini-appointment to prepare him for his first real appointment in July!  Sully deserves some sort of BEST.FRIEND.EVER award here, since he seemed to expertly entertain our two children whilst on vacation.  We ate some lunch at Max's in Redwood City, and then took the kids to the Shoreline Park in Mountain View before heading back to Lance.

Tuesday was a very low key day.  Lance went back to work, but I took RJ to preschool and Sully and I hung out mostly at home in Tracy.  We did take Logan to Lincoln Park and walked around the downtown area before having Lunch at El Castillo Cafe.  Then we spent Logan's nap time playing Beatles Rock Band.  Well, first we had to fix the TV because it stopped working for some weird reason - we weren't getting sound and picture together.  It eventually resolved itself though, so we could have some fun while both children were otherwise occupied! When Logan woke up, we went to pick up RJ and he was thrilled that Sully came to see his preschool!

I don't think I've made it clear thus far that both children idolize Sully.  He barely got a moment to breath because they both want to play with him and talk to him constantly - he was even a good sport and sat through the entire drawn out nighttime routine...even making up a story when Lance was sick in bed the one night! Anyway, RJ was elated that Sully came to pick him up and he couldn't wait to show Sully the sea creatures and dinosaurs that he drew and cut out.  My personal favorite is the one that looks kind of like the cock and balls that Grundle liked to draw everywhere in college.  Ah...memories.

On Wednesday, Lance stayed home again and Sully and I met up with our friend Niru for lunch in Oakland at Zachary's Pizza.  Niru, Sully, and I did KDR buggy together in college.  This was awesome because I haven't seen Niru since 2003, even though she's been living in San Francisco for over a year now!  I think we totally have to get together more often now that we're both out here. After lunch our plans were thwarted once again since the Tilden Park steam trains don't open during the week until mid-June, which I did not know.  This is also true of the Carousel.  We were able to take the kids to Little Farm to see the animals, but I once again forgot to bring vegetables to feed the animals.  RJ was able to pick up scraps left by other children and was perfectly happy to feed that animals with that.  We were meeting Cory at La Penca Azul (VERY Yummy!) in Alameda for dinner, so we ended up hanging out at the Berkeley Aquatic Park Playground and then watched the Kiteboarders out in the bay off the coast of Alameda before dinner.

We were sad to see Sully go on Thursday morning, especially RJ, who started trying to convince Sully to move to California on Wednesday and continued to push the issue by asking me to text Sully his words.  It sucked that Lance was sick for most of his visit and didn't get to spend much time with him, but we were glad that the kids and I had a spectacular time with Sully.  He truly took what would've been a crappy week with Lance being sick and me being on solo kid duty, and made it into an awesome week!  Thanks Sully for all your help with the kids and for coming out to see us!  We miss you!

For more pictures of Sully's visit, visit our Picasa Album

Good-bye to the Sternods

 At the end of May, we had to say goodbye to one of RJ's best friends, Hayden, who moved to Washington State this month.  We are going to miss the whole Sternod family lots!

We set up a last playdate the week before they left.  The boys had a great playdate (actually, the mommies did too!) and I'm glad that RJ had a chance to say good-bye when we met up a few days later to celebrate Tisha's MA graduation with a quadruple chocolate cake despite Dylan being sick (poor kid!).   

We're so happy for them that they will be closer to family, since we know how hard it is to raise children so far away from any family, but we are also sad because they are such a great family to spend time with.  RJ has known Hayden since they were only 15 months old in the infant room at the CDC, and up until a year ago when I quit my job, they had spent much of their weekday time at the CDC together.

I have always enjoyed watching them play together because they are always so in sync with one another.  Their interests are well matched, and while they certainly have their fair share of mischief together (e.g., RJ had a streak where he would inexplicably throw Hayden's shoes and/or hat into the toilet at school and once egged Hayden on to throw his hat into the duck pond) and had the usual occasional disputes over sharing, they inspire each others' play and I think Hayden brings out the best in RJ.  We have tried to get together as much as we could this year, and perhaps our more sporadic meetings served as a good taper off for them moving away, since the day to day shock will not be there. 

I told RJ the day before his playdate so that he would understand why Hayden was packing up all his stuff.  I also wanted him to have some closure since we weren't going to see them for quite a while unless we make a trip up to Washington.  Telling him was probably one of the hardest things that I've had to tell him in his life, though.   On one hand, that's a good thing since in perspective, there are a lot of worse things out there that we haven't had to deal with, but it was also really sad, because he took it pretty hard and cried that he didn't want Hayden to go and that he wanted to drive to Washington with him.   

Maybe, we will finally have the push we need to finally take the (ridiculously expensive) Starlight Express up to Seattle!

May Highlights

By May, we finally recovered from our trip, but spent most of the month taking turns being sick, with Lance taking the brunt of it. RJ started the ball rolling getting a bit of a cold and pink eye in late April, which led to Lance getting pink eye and the sniffles, which were initially diagnosed as allergies and treated with allergy drops and allergy meds, which mostly failed to do anything other that perhaps let bacteria take over, which led Lance to spike fevers up into the 104 range. Logan also came down with pink eye and the head cold, but he was diagnosed with pink eye a few days BEFORE Lance and got the drops that cleared up the infection. The DreamWorks doctor (not his PCP) gave him some antibiotics and an eye gel to clear up the infection, but 3 days later, he was still spiking fevers in the 103 range ON ADVIL and TYLENOL and was not doing well at all! So he barely got himself to his PCP, who switched him to a different antibiotic, which finally started working. During this time, I was clearly fighting whatever germs were circulating, because I had a pretty steady low grade fever (never really went over 100), and was run down because I was taking care of everyone else. Luckily, my body never let me get pink eye or more than the sniffles. Lance finally started to feel better again and after 14 days of antibiotics, by the end of May we thought we were clear of illness.

In addition to May being the month of illness, RJ also started preschool. He goes for two full days a week - currently Tuesday and Thursday, but we will be switching to Tuesday, Wednesday when a Wednesday slot opens up because I want him to attend on two consecutive days rather than separated days since he often misses out on activities that are finished the next day and consecutive days of attendance is generally better for children who thrive on consistent routines. If/when we can afford a third day, I'd like to add Thursdays too, so that he could have more consecutive days to prepare for kindergarten (maybe we will a month or so before Kindergarten next year just to get him ready).  I really love his preschool - it's an engaging program where he is challenged in a developmentally appropriate way, and his teachers are incredibly responsive and kind. 

He has started to make tons of things out of paper recently.  For example, when he didn't have his sharks to play with at school, he made giant sharks out of paper.  This has carried over at home as he has started making paper creations like the paper squid after reading about it in a book.  This is entirely his design and mostly his execution (tape requires a little help). 

Logan has really blossomed with RJ being at preschool since I can now focus on him alone and actually have an uninterrupted conversation with him or read some of the toddler books to him (again without interruption).  He started talking more after the first week of RJ being at preschool!  It might have been a coincidence, but it was quite a dramatic shift in his vocalizations!  He is very talkative when RJ isn't around, and my favorite phrase was after his nap when he walked over with his shoes and said, "Ah-Day.  Dooz", which translated from baby --> English means RJ, shoes, which I further took to mean, "Mom, it's time to get RJ, put on my shoes", which was appropriate for what time it was.  He is still a great eater, often eating more than RJ at each sitting!  Luckily he eats a good percentage of the veggies from our weekly CSA share.  And he is definitely in a climbing phase.  This is my personal favorite picture of him both climbing where he shouldn't and exposing himself to the whole neighborhood!

RJ started gymnastics up again, and still enjoys it - he was fortunate to have Coach Ashley again (she was also the coach in March, and he loves her!). I love watching him learn to do different things with his body and I like how they work with the young children at Classic Gymnastics, so that they are building skills and continually engaged. Enjoy this video to see what I mean (he's in the red t-shirt):

We also had to say Good-bye to some very good friends who moved away, which I'll write about in the next post.

More May pictures here.  Here's hoping June is a better month!