Last Days of Summer

With a couple weeks left before the official start of school, we tried to squeeze in a bit more family fun. It was a hard realization that, not only did Mom have to go back to work, but we would have a kindergartner who wouldn't be able to miss school when her parents wanted to play hooky and enjoy a family day.  Still surprised that kindergarten came so soon, we did our best to keep from missing our little toddler (who now seems so grown up) and worked on adjusting to having a new toddler with whom we three can share the world. Big sisters have a lot to share, you know.  With four years of experience has come the wisdom that only a child can share with another and have it mean so much.  Hallie was thrilled to explain and instruct Anna - ever so sweetly - in the ways of the world (or in this case, Dodger Stadium and the Discovery Center) and impart her wisdom and savvy moves to her little disciple.  It is on these outings that the parents find themselves obsolete and merely serving as chauffeur and financier.  If Hallie could drive and get Anna into her car seat, they'd be gone in a heartbeat. Clearly a disappointment, to have to have one's parents cramp your style.

Regardless, we had a great time those last few weeks.  The day after Anna's birthday party, we baked in the top deck of Dodger Stadium for a few innings while watching the Blue Crew take on the Rockies.  As the game began, we heard the 

announcement that it was the hottest opening on record (who TRACKS these things?) though with the heat wave still to come, it's a good bet that the record spun around a few more times. It was definitely the hottest on our record though - 104 at game time.  We stayed long enough to have some Dodger Dogs, polish off our water bottles and take a few pictures.  It was too bad it was so hot because Hallie and Mom were really enjoying the game.  We did leave with a real metal lunch box (sans thermos) as a reward for braving the sun.

The other thing on our 'must see' list was the special exhibit at the Discovery Center in Santa Ana called The Body (as shown by the gang from Sesame Street).  It was so perfect for little ones and we had a great time exploring.  Not only did we get to shop in Hooper's store, but there was enough play food for at least a classfull of kids and shopping baskets were plentiful. 'Always foods' and 'Sometimes foods' were showcased behind the counter and lunch could be dished up right there - just pull up a stool!  Each friendly face smiled atop a sign about their particular area of expertise; Ernie with the bath, Oscar delicately handling the issues of digestion, the Count counting bones and Big Bird measuring feet.  It was fun to be on a miniature Sesame Street and answer the game show questions hosted by none other than, who else? Guy Smiley!  Hey, we know who he is.... It was so worth the trip just for that.  Of course we made time for the dinosaurs and do it yourself science.
 Mom particularly liked the station that allowed guests to make there own cloud puffs while Hallie had fun with the river table and green screen.

So, other than the usual issues of trying to teach Hallie not to crowd and to wait her turn when the other children (and parents, by the way) are nightmares on feet, we had a great time. And, as Anna and Mom had never been there before, Hallie was proud to show off one of her new favorite places. She was definitely in her element and we are thrilled to have a little scientist who is as happy exploring as she is doing 'experiments' in the bathroom sink.

As the summer comes to a close, we look back on all of the 'stuff' that we do that keeps us so busy that we can't remember what we've done. Let's see...... several trips to Disneyland, a few days in San Diego at the beach, Sea World, in Coronado and environs, birthdays, baseball, the zoo, aquarium, park, museums and a movie for Hallie and Mom. It seems we did a good job at getting it all in before the days of summer had gone by. If we missed anything, it'll just have to be squeezed in during our holiday breaks (because, of course, we would never miss a day of school!)

Words to live by

As we approached the 1 year visit with the pediatrician, we prepared as though we were taking an exam.  We remembered the general questions, knew Anna had grown and gained and was walking around her 9 month visit so... no worries.  Well, except for that one question, "Does she say any real words yet?"  Now, for the third time we've been in a quandary.  Do they count if we know what she's saying?  or.... if she uses the same "words" for the same things consistently?  or... does the doctor, with all her expertise and trained ear, need to understand her?  Well, we could have a dozen more and never remember the answer or resolve the issue.  Ultimately the doctor wants to be sure she is building her language and developing social and communication skills.  In the event that Mom and Dad hem and haw too much or glance at each other for help without getting anywhere near a definite answer, the doctor reverts to "Does she babble and make sounds, show emotion/respond to faces, etc.  Our dear doctor knows us well enough now that she laughs as we transform to schoolchildren searching to give only the CORRECT answer and mercifully cuts us some slack.

Eventually we came up with some version of this report.  Anna says "Hi", "Dada" and "Bye bye" (which she also says at the door OR when one of us puts our shoes on and grabs the keys).  She says "Baby" clear as a bell and says "wawa" for anything to drink.  This includes our giant cups of Coke and Iced Tea but of course she only drinks milk and water (doesn't care about juice).  She says something that sounds remarkably like "Hallie" and it is always directed at her sister.  As previously mentioned, she doesn't use her baby signs - she just opens her book and says the names of the object on the page. Well, except for dog and cat that is, as she pants and mews respectively.  It should also be mentioned that she clearly says "No" in an incredibly charming, albeit forceful, way.  

Alas, though hat and head sound virtually identical to the ear and the difference between ball, box and block are subtle to the point of genius, with the help of gestures and faces, Anna gets her needs met and expresses herself to us and a few select others who are worthy of her attention (hang in there, she might like the rest of you someday)  If you were 1 and had to wait for someone to feed you and open the doors for you these few words would be those you lived by too.

Where has the year gone?

As always, we are amazed that where once lay a small peanut of human being, now stands (or runs) a sturdy little toddler with her own agenda.  And, as always, that agenda rarely coincides with that of her parents.  Confident and keenly aware of her charm (devilish as it may be) she has continued to move forward and hasn't paused to look back.  To some degree, things are easier for Mom and Dad as they have weathered this latest round of immunizations, food introductions and adjustment to daycare.  The car seat is turned, the bottles were quit cold turkey (by the way, why is everyone stunned by the fact that we just stop giving them one day?) and the exersaucer has been gathering dust for three months now. Likely, having a pre-schooler in the house made the year go by more quickly but we are still stunned. Time doesn't march on... it rolls right over you!  {This is particularly true for Mom who is headed back to the classroom but we'll save that for another time}
Anna is gloriously unaware that she is unable to do everything her sister does (which can be tricky since her sister doesn't know she can't do them either) and is incredibly aware of what she wants to do NOW. She only wants real food, thank you, or we'll hear about it. She tries to put on her shoes and likes to carry ours around. She reaches through her sleeves, raises her feet to step into her pants and is constantly walking around pulling on hats so low over her eyes that she narrowly misses every piece of furniture or wall in the place. She likes pickles, egg salad and is a tomato fiend (she gets that from Mom) and would eat yogurt and tortillas all day if allowed. She loves her bath and water in general as evidenced by her seeing something as brief as a commercial and telling us about the water. She uses some of her baby signs but mostly reads the little board books aloud instead of signing. She loves to play and climb over her big sister just as easily as she will climb in her lap. She comes when her sister calls her and, at top speed. She runs low to the ground, head down (that comes from Dad the football player) and strikes out in front of her to move anything in her path. Powderpuff, here we come. Hallie will be cheering in pink and Anna will be mowing down the other team. The sisters continue to build their incredible bond and, though that does not bode well for our future, we relish those moments with the joy that only parents can feel at seeing the two together and laughing as we've never laughed before.

So, just about a year ago, Anna joined our family and has done nothing less than make it a better one. Though we can't believe that 12 months have passed, we can't imagine our lives without her. It won't always be as easy as taking her to Denny's for her birthday dinner (we expect her palate to improve with each passing year) but we will happily weather the next bout of chicken nuggets as a food group, bigger and better teeth coming in and the inevitable creeping crud that prefers a toddler as a means of transportation as we make our way to 2!

Birthdays are coming

We just discovered that we could add a link to the girls' wish lists to our blog. They must want us to shop - it couldn't be any easier!

Hooray for the Red, White and Blue!

Summer is all about the fun (which for us usually happens AFTER summer school) and this summer has been great! It came to mind, while viewing and editing our most recent thousand pictures, that the colors of summer are not actually those of the tropical places very few of us visit or, if we're lucky enough to go, for any great length of time. Tropical colors are marketed on everything from Crayola markers to Starburst candy during the summer - I'm sorry, 'Special edition' candy?- Yet when out and about, the prominent colors are as plain as the flag in your face. Red, white and blue- they're not just for The Fourth of July anymore. True we have coordinated in order to have those simply stunning photos to send the grandparents, but we are just mirroring what is already present in the surrounding scape.

July began with a trip to the Los Angeles Zoo for the girls and Anna's first day at preschool. She, of course, was thrilled (still is, as those of you who know her can imagine) At the rate she's going - two days a week with only two weeks having been complete- she should get used to it by the time she's ready for the 2 year old room. Alright, it's not that bad. She actually is adjusting pretty well considering the infrequent schedule. I guess you could count her face when being left at the school as our first 'red' of the summer. Well, okay, her dress was red too.

The girls are always hearing how much their daddy likes his girls in red and, in the steel trap that is Hallie's mind, the logical thing to do was to 'take a red picture of us' since he couldn't be with us when we bought our fireworks. Little did she know she would be the inspiration for a theme. They had fun at the stand - Hallie selecting the quietest possible explosives and Anna peeking through the windows, and pointing at everything while saying 'ooh, ooh'... Anna even convinced Grandma to buy an extra one because she just kept going back to the same item. Now that Hallie was brave enough to stay on the lawn and watch, Anna was, as you might guess, in the house with her daddy. So, fireworks, not the favorite but the kids did enjoy the playtime and barbecue at Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Mike's and had fun with the goofy child friendly 4th goodies I bought them. And, they do look good in red.......

The clouds of the San Diego sky aside, white, for us was first gleaming in the brief photo trip to the beach. We had planned on taking a few photos and then letting the girls play and splash and get acquainted/reacquainted with the heat of the sand and the power of the waves. As is our luck however, the day we set out to do so, was cloudy and gray until about noon. The days on either side BLUE, BLUE and more BLUE. Alas, one can only Photoshop so much. So, by the time we arrived, though Coronado is not a crowded beach on a summer Tuesday, there were too many people to stay out of my artsy pictures.

We brought our buckets and sand toys in addition to the three different cameras, and after a few pictures in the dunes - and the realization that the sand was REALLY hot- we headed toward the water and the blanket was unfurled. It would be boastful to make note of the glances and expressions the sundress clad sisters drew as they ran to the water so it will be left to the imagination. Forget it. Everybody thought they were adorable, pointed, gasped and waved. We pretended not to notice all this attention aimed at these ordinary kids. Anna was fearless as she sped toward the waves. She didn't care about the sand squinching between her toes or the cold water crashing against her legs. Every time Dad headed back to the blanket, she turned around and tried to toddle back. Hallie has been to the beach only a handful of times and never to do more than wade. She knows that the first time we brought her to that spot when she was 17 months old, she was knocked down by a HUGE 2 inch wave and ended up with a mouth full of water. This time, and sadly undocumented as I was back turned and reaching for the video camera, she was fresh and sweet in her white dress one minute and soggy, sandy and stunned the next. If you ask her, she will tell you that a wave got her once again. We keep telling her not to turn her back on the waves. You be the judge. Quickly we reassured her that we planned on the dresses getting wet and a little muddy (of course, not that early on) and she went about her business once again. They both had fun with the sand and when Anna had had her fill, and Hallie's dress was too heavy, we headed off. The beauty of living in Southern California is that we can probably take them back until early December and they still can comfortably play in the sand and surf. It's a whole new experience for us too as we've NEVER had to take so much stuff with us for a day at the beach

We were also lucky enough to view that same beach from across the water while exploring the Point Loma Lighthouse. We were so glad we did! Mom and Dad couldn't remember if they'd ever actually been, other than out to the peninsula. It is always amazing to see the dry desert conditions complete with cactus and succulents while standing at the edge of the Pacific ocean. Hallie had recently seen the movie Pete's Dragon
so she was very interested in examining the paraphernalia she had seen in the film. She decided it would be lonely living there and too crowded in the house though she enjoyed ascending the spiral staircase and seeing the 'old fashioned' things. She liked looking through the display pane of glass and was interested in seeing the museum. We weren't able to but, on the way out, she wanted to choose postcards for her teachers to show them where she was when she was not at school.


Blue in the sky, blue in the ocean, and blue in the eyes of two beautiful girls. Adding to the blue of our summer were the tanks and pools of Sea World. Hallie was excited to show me around since I was home with her new sister when she last visited. At about the same age and stage as Hallie when she first visited, Anna was equally as engaged. She would have preferred running around just about anywhere rather than sit in a stroller but she seemed to be enjoying herself. She enjoyed sharing my club sandwich and fruit anyway. Hallie surprised us both by wanting to go on the Journey to Atlantis ride(not our video). Yes ride (we still can't get over Anheuser-Busch owning the park) It is definitely worth asking her about it if she's in the mood. From arrival to just before we left she kept reminding us to see if she was big enough to go on the ride and she was. So after asking her about a hundred times if she REALLY wanted to do it, we got in line. I texted Dad to let him know when we boarded and he had the video camera ready. By the time we are again in focus, you can't see me talking her out of her tears. Who knew the big flume was at the beginning?
We still had the coaster part to go. I heard a scream I've never heard before and when asked if she will go on it again she wavers from when she's nine and when she's a grown-up. Overall, we think she's a little proud of herself and she recovered very quickly. Maybe she was just so happy to be off the ride. We saw penguin, manatees, and dolphins, had a Shamu ice cream bar and left for the call of dinner, the hotel swimming pool and a movie before bed.

Summer is not over, of course, and we have a month packed with activities to complete before school starts. More zoo, Disneyland, Anna's first birthday, a Dodger game (Go BLUE..er, I mean more blue) to name a few. These, followed by one more trip to San Diego and days of helping Mom set up her classroom (at a red, white and blue school) should round out a very full (and colorful) few months in the life of our family. Every summer, the street banners in Coronado proudly proclaim "A Star Spangled Summer" and we did our best to hold up our end. Hooray for our red, white and blue!