One week in…
Jun
10
And it already feels so normal to have three. Amelia, Theo, and Luka right to left 🙂
There was a play about a squirrel with a special plum…
May
15
Amelia and her Leaping Lizard’s class did their end of year event today. They’ve been studying squirrels all semester. Micky even went on a field trip with them to Golden Gate Park to find squirrels and draw them.
The end of year event was an adaptation of the classic children’s book, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle into “The Very Hungry Squirrel” by the Leaping Lizards.
Here’s my little plum making her on-stage debut:
Talking about hummingbirds…
Apr
30
After setting up the treehouse for the kids, I decided to add a hummingbird feeder off of the end to see if we could become friendlier with our hummingbird neighbors.
It’s worked!
They love our yard for its flowers, and they love our yard for its hummingbird feeder. While we’re in the yard playing, they’re buzzing around us almost as if they don’t fear us at all. Today, the main fellow (or maybe the sneaky fellow – I can’t tell the difference yet) buzzed just out of arm’s length away from me, suspended in air as we watched each other.
He then went and chased, got chased, and I lost track of where he went.
The kids started playing pirates in the treehouse, and as they were bringing the treasure into the pirate ship, I said to Amelia, “Look, the hummingbird is back”.
- Mr Hummingbird in the backyard
I think her expression takes care of the rest of the story 🙂
You know it’s a good morning when
Apr
28
The kiddos and I went to work/school without Micky today. She was at home to make sure some deliveries were properly setup (come check out our mack-daddy backyard & deck!!)
And so in our way that we do, we talked most of the car ride about what we saw, words that start with certain letters, and what we were going to do that day. And then when the inevitable lull came in the conversation, we popped on the Bluetooth player, loaded up YouTube, and jammed to:
Uptown Funk – Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars. Amelia says to me, “Daddy, point to me when it’s my turn, and I’ll sing my part” which amounts to singing “Hot Damn” as loud as she can during the chorus (with a few “OOOHHHs” thrown in as well). Luka starts wiggling his butt, and gets his funk on. That boy has hips. That comes from my side of the family. Uptown Funk was my choice.
Then it was Luka’s turn. He decided to go with an instant classic…
Idina Menzel has nothing on us. We can belt this song like there’s no tomorrow. And I’m pretty sure that we don’t get a single lyric correct. That is true Onvural singing in the car magic.
And finally, Amelia went way past her years, and chose one of my all time favorites…
And as she sang, “Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah” we got to school, hopped out, and started our own individual days.
It feels like you’re doing something right when you can have mornings like these
Don’t teach fear; teach respect instead
Apr
24
The bees are drinking as much sugar water as the kids are drinking milk. It’s amazing how quickly two sets of little ones can consume these liquids.
And so yesterday, I went to refill the sugar water for the bees so I wouldn’t have to do it this morning. Mornings are just too crazy to add another chore, but that’s a blog post for a different day. And one little worker bee decided she didn’t want to hop out of the feeder. So we brought her along, refilled the jar, and I was going to turn it over, but I didn’t want to drown her. Instead, we shook her out of the feeder onto the mulch, and put the feeder back in place.
At this point, the kids decided they wanted an up close view of a honey bee.
I can’t tell you how many people seem to be freaked out at the concept of being close to bees. Everyone’s first shared thought has been that I’m crazy because bees sting. We think this way because we’ve had bad experiences, and so we’ve either been taught, or taught ourselves, to fear stinging insects (as if they’re all created equally).
And so here we are, mere inches from the bee. Luka pointed out that she has stripes on her abdomen. Amelia counted her legs. We looked at how big her eyes were on her face. We talked about how it’s a girl bee, and that boy bees don’t fly. We talked about why you don’t touch the bee, and even though I mentioned that they sting when they’re scared, the conversation was more about not wanting to be touched, and respecting the life of another creature.
I don’t have to teach them to be afraid of bees. I just need to teach them to understand and respect the bees. And isn’t that a better state of mind for how to approach new things? I sure think so.
First fake sick day
Apr
08
Amelia got us good today. She coughed herself sick, and then had a slight fever. She acted very whiny and tired. And then as soon as we said she didn’t have to go to school she was back to 95% (she is a tiny bit under the weather), and we knew we’d been played.
Damn those 3.5 year olds are good.
Check out the play dough sculpture we made: 
Lesson learned. You may have gamed us this time my darling, but just you wait 🙂
It’s ok to be afraid… Why not?
Mar
13
Amelia had the preschool bungalow assembly today. It consisted of each class singing a song, and then the whole preschool singing one song together.
Check out the video here: Amelia’s PS3 assembly song
At Pizza Friday that evening (where we went to Delfina – #mickyfail), I asked Amelia about the performance, and she said,
Well. I was scared, but I kept singing, and everything was ok
and I thought to myself how grown up that analysis sounded.
It was spot on to what happened where in the first song she looked at her older friend Naomi to help her, and then did really wonderfully by herself on the second song.
That was just a lovely moment.
- Amelia’s PS3 assembly group song
That look in her eyes…
Feb
27
I really need to dig into this whole no yelling thing. But they don’t sleep. And then work is just a bear right now. And we have no nanny. And it just feels as if there have been, and will be coming up, a ton of solo parent days/nights.
But holy smokes that look in her eyes.
And all she asked that I do was not yell at her. To just speak kindly to her. About a cup of milk for God’s sake.
I’ve lost all patience for the world. All restraint to jump from zero to a thousand. But I won’t forget that look in her eyes. And hopefully it will slow me down. Hopefully it will stop me.
Because I don’t want to see it again.
23 days til 30
Oct
28
This morning I did family share at Amelia’s school. We learned that we’re in San Francisco, Amelia’s mommy is from England, and her daddy is from Turkey.
We did flags, their colors, and shapes. One historical site.
And then I passed out evil eyes. The kids loved the idea that the eyes keep ghosts away on Halloween.
After I did our reading time. It was a ton of fun, but sitting cross legged for an hour almost killed me 🙂
It made me realize how much I love sharing those moments, and how quickly they seem to be flying by.
I took this photo the other day at drop off knowing it would eventually show up in a blog post. Today is that day. And sometimes the signs on the mirror are just wrong.
Objects aren’t closer. They just keep scooting further and further away.
Community pool
Jul
20
Amelia was desperate to go swimming today. Micky wanted to see the curtains. So we looked up some public pool times and headed down to Bayshore.
The lady at the front desk of the MLK Jr Rec Center was incredibly nice. Great smile.
We got in, and the babies were definitely intimated. Lots of loud kids. The water was too cold for them. But we hopped in, and toughed it out for 35 minutes.
We took a steaming hot shower afterwards because the water was really cold.
And then hit up the playground.
I think it’s so great that the city of SF has public pools we can go to for $8. It’s definitely going to be part of our weekend play book.
But the best part was how Amelia wanted it, and how much she enjoys the pool, swimming, and just being physically active in general.
Long may it last 🙂