4th of July

Catching Our Breath

We’re literally catching our breath in between visitors and our upcoming vacation. Where to start?

I went to my old college friend’s wedding in Napa two weekends ago. Manfred and Cher got married at BV vineyards and the ceremony was beautiful, even in 95+ degree weather! My b-school friend Kristina and I did the girls weekend thing, had some spa treatments, and visited 4 or 5 vineyards. Between tasting, spitting, buying/shipping wines it was an amazing time to recharge and catchup. So, where was Steve? He took the kids up to a beach house to stay with his parents and celebrate two birthdays and an anniversary. From the pictures, it looks like the girls had a nice time with their cousins and grandparents. In all, I was away from Friday thru Sunday – thankfully Steve had lots of help between his parents, then my mom and then Patty watching the kids throughout the weekend.

The following Thursday and Friday Kristina used a free ticket to come up and visit. The theme for the visit was “healthy living” – lots of exercise every day, salads, 20/20 type food. Katherine reveled in the attention, asking “Aunt Kistina” to read new Arthur books (which if you haven’t read are quite funny!). On Kristina’s last day, Katherine was resolute that she had to help take Kristina to the airport, even crying when we let her off at the curb. 🙂

Katherine recovered immediately the next morning when she woke up to find Sharon and Jamey at our house. Per the last three years, they visited over July 4th to see how the girls are doing. We picked berries, made pies, took lots of walks and visited the zoo. Allison surprised me by saying “Shar” (sounds like Cher) to get Sharon’s attention. She also went somewhat ape at the local berry patch; my mom held Allison throughout the trip, feeding her raspberries. We’d hear “ra Ra RAA” and then “ok ok, here’s another berry. I hope you don’t get diarrhea” from my mom. It goes without saying that the open face strawberry (with raspberry puree) and blueberry pies were pretty tasty.

Katherine was beside herself and managed to thoroughly exhaust herself over July 4th. On Sunday, Sharon, Jamey and I took the girls to the “choo choo train” park which is at most 1.5 miles away. Katherine insisted on wearing her Hello Kitty flip flops and walking the entire way, turning a 20 minute walk into a 45 minute exercise. Ironically when we arrived, she informed Sharon that she couldn’t play in the playground because she would get splinters from the bark since she was wearing the flip flops. On the last day of their visit, we took the girls to Woodland Park Zoo. We went to our usual haunts and were surprised to see not only two grey wolves but also brown bears awake! We managed to get there during feeding time and saw one even dive into the river/pool to retrieve and eat an apple. That was pretty cool, and elicited an “woooo wooo” from Allison – which is her standard response to seeing a dog.

For July 4th itself we took the girls to a friends BBQ, where they had rigged up a zip line between two trees. All the kids waited patiently in line with their bike helmets on to get hoisted up to the zip handle holder and to whiz down the line to another parent who would help them off. I was initially dubious that Katherine would attempt such a feat, but she insisted on trying this. Steve held her torso and ran with her the first couple times down the line. Then she told us, “I’m going to do this myself, without Daddy holding me!!” Steve then preceded to run behind her. She was so proud of herself. Allison held her own at the BBQ as well, walking all over the backyard and exploring her surroundings. One very funny moment occurred during dessert when Katherine sat down to eat an ice cream cone. She allowed her little sister to lick the cone once but told Allison to get her own ice cream after that. Allison must have mowed down two tablespoons of vanilla ice cream in just a few minutes.

The Wednesday after the visit both kids napped up a storm. They’re back to their indefatigable selves.

Summer Camp

One might wonder why we’ve had Katherine in summer camp these last two weeks. It’s less about choice and more about necessity. Eton School, Katherine’s new school, requires at least two weeks of camp to assess new students. Compared to last year’s summer camp at MCH, Katherine did really well – no tears, easy goodbyes, productive work, fun on the playground and a ready acceptance of camp five mornings a week. Steve and I were initially and somewhat smugly complacent the first two days. Katherine on her first day within the first 10 minutes: explored her locker, washed her hands, looked around the classroom, pulled out a stencil and colored pencil work, completed the work cycle, put the materials away and asked her teacher where to put the paper. I was highly encouraged at pickup to hear that all went well that day. On Tuesday morning the teacher asked us,. “how is Katherine this morning?” And after I told her that Katherine was excited for her excited day she replied, “Just wait for Thursday.” I guess 20+ years of teaching results in good insight, because Thursday was meltdown day for Katherine – she cried in the classroom and needed TLC for much of the morning. Thankfully, this week has been smoother and I think we’re in relatively good shape for September (knock on wood).

All she wants to do is keep up…

I cannot believe the change in Allison the last month. She’s gone from a still shaky toddler at times to a confident and fearless explorer. As a result, one cannot take one’s eyes off Allison for more than 10 seconds. She’s fast, really fast. As an example…this morning I sat down to wolf down my cereal before hauling the kids to school (Steve was at the gym). I saw Allison turn the corner and thought, “not a big deal, she’s just doing another lap around the island.” Ten seconds later, I realized “hey, I don’t hear her walking (flap flap of feet on hardwood).” I peered around the island and saw Allson not only standing on a low wooden stool next to the dining room gate but her also leaning over the gate and into the dining room. I just about had a coronary.

It’s also clear that she’ll follow her sister anywhere. Katherine and Allison were unsuccessfully sharing baby legos this afternoon. After about five minutes of unsuccessful negotiation, I asked Katherine to please stand in the hallway to think about how to share better. Did Allison play with her baby legos? No, she followed her sister into timeout, grabbing Katherine’s hands and trying to figure out what she was doing.

Allison has more new words of recent:

• “Babeee!!” – Allison gets really excited when she sees other babies anywhere, anytime.
• “Sheh sheh” – thank you in Chinese
• “Jeh Jeh” – older sister in Chinese
• “buu” – book
• “Baaa” – for sheep

She also understands and follows direction. Today, while folding laundry, I asked her to pickup a pair of PJ pants and she did! She also tries to help cleanup, putting objects in buckets and boxes with us. Allison will also make a beeline for her bookshelf when prompted to get a new book. She also digs and fully interacts with her toy phone (pretending to talk into it), her animal puzzle with big knobs, stacking cups, her Little People, etc etc.

It’s really a joy to spend quality time with Allison and see what I missed with Katherine two years ago.