A couple of weeks ago the boys and I met our big friends George and Emilia with their Au Pair Manu ( I hang out with her all the time, no really, ALL the time). George and Emilia are twins, as well, and since almost 2 months there is another set of twins in Manu’s family. Though George and Emilia are almost 8 years old Nic and Dex enjoy playing with them. Why? Well, Emilia and George are good at building things and my boys good at destroying things as we all know.
So we went to the children’s museum and went into the new room which has hundrets ( or thousands, who really knows) of new blocks. When we came in we saw a huge tower and so Manu and I decided to build one of those, too. After 30 or 45 minutes we finally finished and of course the kids wanted to brake it. 2 minutes later: CHAOS! Dex told me: “Mamalina, the blocks are all over the place!!”

The boys were eating dinner when Joel and I were talking about the tornado in Dexter, Michigan. Curious boys, they started to ask questions. What’s a tornado? Hmmm, that’s a good question and of course, I started to talk about storms and thunderstorms when Joel shook his head violently. “Katie, you don’t want to make them afraid of weather.” Right, and I took another path. Nicholas then asked if anyone was hurt to which I responded, “No, God kept everyone was safe in Dexter.” This really upset Dexter. Apparently, he misunderstood my comment. You see, Dexter ate God. God is inside Dexter’s belly (this is what Dexter thinks when I say God is everywhere, even inside you) so when I said that God watched out for the people in Dexter, Dexter then thought there were a lot of people inside his belly and he wanted them out. After all, it was his belly. He was really upset. That just goes to show, the English language is a hard one to understand sometimes.

I have to share one more topic. Emotions. It’s a real roller coaster ride here sometimes for Joel and I. One minute the boys say they like us and then in a blink of an eye, they are screaming that they do in fact, not like us. Usually this happens when we say no. OK, it got so bad this morning, that I heard Nicky say “I don’t like Mommy. I don’t like Daddy. I don’t like Dexter. I only like Nicky. I only like myself.” Well, at least he has some self esteem. How fast these storms brew and blow out is amazing. Any advice from parents who have already weathered the “I don’t like you” storm? We attempt conversations that indicate that they are mad at the situation, and not at the person and that by saying you don’t like someone, you are hurting that person’s feelings, and so on but it really doesn’t help. Just curious what others have done.

When I woke up this morning I checked the news, idly curious what was up with the world, and the #1 headline on Google News was about 125 homes damaged or destroyed by a tornado in a village in Michigan.  I clicked the link, because honestly I could only think of two “villages” in Michigan, but of course it wouldn’t be Dexter.  But actually it was.  I called my Dad immediately, and got his voicemail.  He called me back a few minutes later, though, and told me that there were no injuries and everyone was safe, but that he was a little busy at the moment.  Apparently the area hardest hit was a subdivision just outside of town, the same one where we took the boys to meet Alison and play at the park when we were back there last summer.  In fact, when we were at the park we heard them test the tornado sirens.  I’m still completely shocked that so many homes could be damaged or destroyed and yet absolutely no one was hurt.

On the plus side, I think it made my Dad’s decade, since he was interviewed by the Weather Channel not once but twice.   Every time my Dad comes to visit he turns on the Weather Channel when he arrives, and it isn’t turned off until he leaves.  Now we just need to find a way to get a recording of it, and then he’ll have something to show off to every visitor he can trap.

Sorry this isn’t much of a post, I’m just still a little shocked by it.  One more thing to be said for Washington, no tornadoes.

Oh right, it snowed.  I’d almost forgotten.  I know we’ve been bad about posting lately, and I’ve been going through the photo albums to see what we haven’t shared yet.  I kept telling Katie we’d posted everything, and she kept telling me I was wrong, so finally I decided to prove to her that she was wrong and of course, did the opposite.  I should have learned by now.

So as I said a few days ago, Seattle’s idyllic climate typically gives us one or two decent snows every winter.  Which is to say, enough snow to provide an adequate excuse not to go to work, and enough snow to make finding your sleds suddenly seem very urgent.  We’ve had a few sleds floating around the garage for the last few years, the result of donations by family or neighbors mostly.  We made good use of them when we got some really good snows right before Laura arrived back in late 2008.

I picked that photo because the ones with Dexter revealed that he was not so much a fan and screamed rather loudly.  My how times change.  But as a central tenant of my philosophy of parenting is that it isn’t about the child, but about the photo-opportunity that the child’s life provides the parent, we suited them up and headed out anyway.  It builds character, right???

Last winter forgot to give us a good day for sledding, but this year made up for it.  We had a 3-4 day period of good sledding, packing, snowball-making snow, and we made the best of it.  This shot I took as we were heading out to try sledding for the very first time, on the first day of the snow (so not much had fallen yet).

The part where we actually went sledding shall have to go imagined, sadly, as it was not an experience that lent itself to one parent sitting idly on the side and using the camera.  There’re several good hills very close to our house, so it isn’t much of a hike to get there.  Of course the problem isn’t getting to the hill, it’s getting back up the hill after going down.  I’m sure my mother will disagree, but i just don’t recall being towed back up the hill on a sled repeatedly as a component of my childhood sledding experiences, and yet somehow found myself suckered into that role.  And our 3.5 year old boys weren’t exactly over-endowed with stamina for heading up the hills themselves, so we ended up hiking back up the hill with boys on our shoulders, sleds dangling behind, wondering how long until we can entice the boys to head home for hot chocolate.

The boys loved it, though, and were screaming with delight the whole way down, and then clamoring to be carried back up so they can ride down again.  Dexter especially loved it if we lost control and biffed it.  For a kid with such a natural proclivity for spontaneous encounters with the ground (i.e. tripping over his feet with every third step), at least he’s learned to relish the crashes and have a good time of it.

Later we headed back out into the back yard for some more low key winter fun.  We found the biggest, brightest-colored cars we could, and went back to play.  We spent a fair bit of time trying to convince Nic that playing in the sandbox was not a particularly good idea, but eventually we won out.

The snow kept coming for the next several days, and for most of the rest of the week we got to work from home (not due to the roads, of course – but Boeing isn’t exactly keen on clearing up their parking lots, so while we could get to work, getting into the building might result in a trip to the ER), and so we got watch Malina having a great time with the boys.  That’s always a little bit bittersweet – it’s great to see our boys so happy and having so much fun – it’s the reason we have au pairs in the first place, afterall – but we can’t help but feel a bit jealous.  Katie was working from our bedroom, so each time the boys headed out to the back yard she could watch them at play, and take a few photos.

Later Malina decided to build an igloo.  You can’t really see the shape from here, but it was large enough for the boys and Malina to crawl inside.  She was ably assisted by Nic and Dexter.  Well, not “ably”, I suppose, but sporadically anyway.

I don’t think I’ve ever tried swinging in the snow before.  But then, when I went out and put the boys in the swings, I kept throwing snowballs at them as they swung past me, so maybe it’s a good thing I skipped that experience in my early days.

Alas it only lasted the week, but it was a good time.  It’ll be a lot more fun in a few years when the boys can put on *some* of their gear by themselves, but even so we weren’t complaining.  On this last Wednesday I had to mow my yard for the first time, which just goes to show how fleeting Winter can be here-a-bouts.  At least we made it to March this time.  Last year I mowed in February…

Hope you’re enjoying your last few weeks of Winter,

-Joel

As I might have mentioned, birthdays are kind of a big deal for Katie, so this year she decided to have two.  The first one was pretty good, at least to start with, but struggled to keep up the momentum late in the off-season due to some injuries, penalties, fines, and incarcerations, primarily owing to disrupted naps and Irish heritage.  The second one was last night.  Katie had been thinking of planning her old-school bowling party, but realized that our boys were a little too young to come along, most of her friends would be as hard pressed as her to find baby sitters, and honestly a party is just more fun if someone gets naked, and we’re far too old and respectable for adults to fill that roll, so we’d might as well have some kids around.  Wait, now that I re-read that it sounds really creepy.  Let’s just move on.

So we planned the party about 3 weeks ago.  I say “we” because anyone who knows my wife knows that there was no way she was going to leave this to me.  And in case anyone decides (for the first time in the history of my relationship with Katie) to stick up for my dignity, let me assure you that I was completely happy without being responsible for making this evening go completely right.  There was little enough advanced warning that we figured not many people would be able to come, so we overbooked a bit.  After the first 3 families RSVP’d “yes” we figured, “that’s good enough – now at least we won’t be sad.”  Then all but one other family RSVP’d “yes”, and I started preparing to find a quiet corner to hide.  Fortunately we were inviting Tristine, and she’s as overwhelmed by crowds as I am, so she’s usually eager to find a quieter corner to sit down and chat.  Of course I then get accused of trying to carry on an affair, on Katie’s day no less, so there’s really no winning.

We planned a 3:30 long party, with subs from Katie’s favorite sandwich shop, pizza for the kids, some games, goodie bags, cake, and I don’t know what all else.  We’ve been running all over the place for the last few days trying to pull it all together.  Remember when I said last Christmas that we were going to try and simplify this year?  Less on the to-do list?  Yeah, about that…  Well, at least we’re trying.  On the plus side, when it came time to decorate, I barely had to mention to Malina that I wasn’t sure if I could get it done and would she maybe – and she was off and running.  She had streamers all over the place, balloons tied around the house, and pictures or sayings written over every window.  Thank God for au pairs…

People started filtering in around 5 or so, and soon the noise level grew.  The boys were in pretty good form, all other things being equal.

Katie had grand ambitions of games an activities, but with the scattered arrivals, the lack of available seats at the table (and subsequent taking of turns at having dinner), and the fact that she kind of wanted to talk to some of her friends that she hadn’t seen in months or years, we never really got to that part.  At least Karl pooped on the carpet for us, though.

We got to meet Kathy’s new addition, Zachary, a very chubby-cheeked 6 month old who spent most of the night in smiles.

We’d pulled a lot of toys out of the house and re-arranged furniture (you can see the train table gave way to a “kids table” – a picnic table that spent a week drying in our garage).  Soon the reason was apparent, as the Yates-family daycare was running full-speed ahead.

Ethan (Yeri and Mike’s son) took a little while to warm up to us, but once he did I don’t think he wanted to leave.  One plus side of abandoning your home to children is that children like it.

Later on we remembered it was Katie’s birthday, and we got ready for cake and singing.  Katie got hats for everyone, and we were all required to wear them.

Fortunately the hats didn’t detract from the true purpose of the evening – to afford the Women of Boeing (current and former) the opportunity to gossip unfettered by the restrictions of workplace etiquette.  I don’t think Amy moved from that chair the entire evening.

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, oh my god my wife’s getting old, happy birthday to you!!!

And can you guess who was first in line for his piece of cake?  The boys are clever.  I never thought I’d see the day Katie would forgo her chance to be first through the food line.

Sometimes people became a little confused on how the hats were supposed to work, but at least there were no Madonna impressions.

I’m sad to say we didn’t manage to capture a cute photo of Ashlyn this time, mostly because every time she came near me I had to quickly put the camera in a safe place and defend myself.  It got so bad that I ran out of places to hide, so realized that the only potential solution was to stack the girls (Katie and Ashlyn) on the couch and sit on them, and enlist Nicky’s help in keeping them in line (i.e., tickling them).

Of course it didn’t last, and as soon as I tried to find another corner, I was beset once again by the Cheng-family horde.  Fortunately Nic rode to my rescue yet again.

All told a rather successful evening.  A few guests ended up staying long after the official 8:30pm end time, and for the first time ever we let the boys stay up late, until nearly 10:00pm.  They were being so good playing with Becca, and it was so nice just sitting down and chatting, that we figured we’d just deal with the consequences the next day.  The boys held up great, though making it upstairs and into bed afterward required some creative negotiations.

I hope it’s what Katie was looking for.  Like I said, she’s kinda awesome, and as overwhelming packed as it was it was also really cool to see how many of Katie’s friends wanted to come and see her on her special week.  Happy Birthday, Katie!

I’m not sure what the exact definition of “middle aged” is, but I’m reasonably confident that at 40, Katie now qualifies.  If you don’t live nearby, you *might* have missed the fact that yesterday was Katie’s birthday.  If you were here, there’s no chance Katie would have let you forget it.  Katie loves her birthdays, and who are we to deprive her of this small pleasure?  And to be fair, Katie is kind of awesome, and most of the year it’s all about the boys, so I guess it’s fair for her to have her day.  We started a little bit early, with me giving her her first present the night before.  I figured her birthday would be a little too busy, so she might as well get some time to play.  And one very cool thing about having a kind of geeky wife is that she was actually happy when I bought her her very own, very first Lego set.

Malina helped the boys make their own wrapping paper.

We managed to rig our work schedules to have the day off, so we spent it exactly as you might expect – sleeping in, conning a barrista into a free chai tea, the Maltby Cafe for breakfast, followed by an allergy shot and shopping for carpet and linoleum.  Doesn’t is sound idylic?  Later we went over to Carter and Marilyn’s for spaetzle, presents, wine, and cake.  God, I love that cake…  It’s almost worth seeing my wife turn into a senior citizen to get a piece of that cake…  The boys volunteered to help blow out the candles, and lick the spoon.  And lick the plate.  And lick the cake.

And for some reason, this set Malina to dancing.  But what’s a birthday without a dancing Au Pair?

Come to think of it, that means we really need to get an Au Pair earlier in July, so that they’re here for my birthday on the 22nd…  We’d been thinking maybe we could manage to go another week or so later, but no dancing au pairs on my birthday?  FORGET IT.

It wasn’t exactly the birthday that dreams of made of.  Especially for Nicky, who skipped the whole nap thing, thus missing out on the dreams, and making Katie’s and my night a shade past miserable, but what can you do?  No, seriously, what can you do?  How can you get antibiotics into a kid who keeps yelling “There’s NO DEAL.  That’s NOT the deal.  I don’t like that idea.  Nobody’s listening to me!”

But we tried, and sometimes that’s all you can do.  We’ll try again tomorrow, when Katie’s invited about 14 times more people over than our house can possibly hold.  I’m assuming that we’ll start stacking guests like firewood before the evening is over.  We’ve spent the evening tonight re-arranging furniture to get ready, and since re-arranging furniture has become another of Katie’s guilty pleasures I think we’re on the right track.

Happy birthday, Katie.

Something that’s been coming up a lot as we talk to au pairs is the climate and geography of the Seattle area.  This topic is not typically initiated with the prospective au pair saying, “I’ve always heard how wonderful the weather is in Seattle…”  Kind of the opposite, actually.  In fact, with one girl who just asked to be released from our queue, she said that the weather of Seattle was actually a topic in her English textbooks.  Seriously?  The German primary school system is actually educating Au Pairs to reject our area of the country?  Not cool.

The stereotype is, of course, that it rains in Seattle.  One might even say it rains a lot.  And if it isn’t raining, it’s cloudy (hence all the vampires).  Presumably when it’s not overcast, the sun heats the volcanoes causing them to erupt, or triggers an earthquake.  It’s also always a risk that a prolonged outbreak of good weather would cause Canada to invade.  There must be some reason they’ve amassed 90% of their population within 100 miles of the border, after all.

Which is exactly what people are supposed to think.  If you’ve ever lived in the area (or worse, moved here), if you learn nothing else, you’ll learn how much Seattle people want Californians to stay in California.  California is, of course, the perfect place to live (having spent a year and a half, even writing that sentence made me want to throw up a little).  It is so perfect, in fact, that perhaps the Californians should stay there?  The smog, the oppressive heat, the overwhelming crowd of humanity, the traffic, the prices, the taxes, the wildfires, the earthquakes, the searing sun, the lack of seasons – these are all PERFECT, if not in reality than by definition, and exactly what any right-minded Californian should be looking for in life.

For non-Californians, though, Seattle’s weather is not only “not too bad”, but actually rather nice.  There’s a reason why Seattlites aren’t running off to California in droves, after all.  Yes, it rains here.  But it rains less here than on most of the East coast or in the Midwest, when measured by actual rainfall.  The summers are spectacular – usually with 4 months of near-cloudless skies, clean, clear air, and warm but-not-too-hot temperatures.  The Winters are mild, with an occasional snow (which shuts down the city because, hey, why not?  And if you’ve ever seen a Seattle driver in the snow, you can readily understand the “why”) but with temperatures that rarely dip below freezing.   You have pretty much every type of geography imaginable, and can go from ocean to rain forest to mountain to desert all in one day, if you’re of a mind.  You have Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver, all within a few hours of each other.

Though to keep Californian’s from buying out every affordable home in the entire Pacific Northwest, there must be some compromise, and there is.  While it doesn’t rain as much as people think, it does rain more often.  And even when it’s not raining, it’s often thinking about it, with the clouds to prove it.  The rain that does fall is usually a soft drizzle, the sort that makes an umbrella a waste of time.  The plus side is that even on rainy days you can still head out for a walk without too much concern.  Having grown up with Michigan winters, I can say that at least personally I’d rather go for a walk where I might get a bit damp, then go on a walk where the wind HURTS and I might come back with frostbite (and no, no, I’m not trying to whine about Michigan – Michigan’s climate has its upsides, too, but I’ll take Seattle winters any year).  The downside is that if you want to wait for a dry day, you might be waiting a while.  And also, it’s resulted in the need to define the term “sunbreak”, to denote those moments when the clouds suddenly part and the deep-blue sky shows through, and sunlight makes the wet pavement steam.  But as its name implies, sunbreaks are fleeting.

So I don’t know.  I mean, I can understand why certain people don’t like the climate.  The days can get short, and the lack of sunshine some days isn’t the most cheerful of things.  On the other hand, for a year or two, I would think the Puget Sound would be an awesome place to hang out and explore.  Oh well, to each their own.

I know I earn very little sympathy when I complain about the boys growing up to be smart-alecks, as I’m pretty sure my parents, tired as they were of my not-nearly-so-clever-as-I-though responses, were rooting for me to have premarital sex and end up with a smart-aleck of my own somewhere around the time I turned 16 because I seriously had it coming.  I suppose my delay in actually bringing such a smart-aleck into the world is offset by the fact that when the day arrived, my smart-aleck special delivery was a two-pack.

As Katie’s mentioned, we are fully into the era of negotiation, and the boys have been taught the meaning of “procrastination” and “distraction” so that they can understand as I explain why I’m about to start screaming.  Last night’s argument was over how many cars they should be allowed to park before listening to their mother’s call to come to the couch for story time.  I figured I’d try to be a good example by being a bad example, so when Katie said, “time to stop playing with legos, boys, and come to the couch for stories,” before the boys could object I yelled out: “PLEASE, mommy, I just need to finish one more piece.  I’m almost done.  I don’t wanna stop yet.  Just three minutes…”

Katie wouldn’t have it, and repeated that play time was over, so I continued to play my role, standing up, sullenly saying “FINE, I guess I can finish it tomorrow and come to story time now…” trying to seem as dejected-but-obedient as I could.  The tactic seemed to be working, as Nic was smiling at me and following me out to the family room.

Dex, on the other hand, trumped me.  He looked at me very seriously and said, “oh, okay Daddy, I guess you can have 5 more minutes to play if you really want to.  It’s okay.  I’ll stay with you.”

We’re seriously doomed, aren’t we?

There are times when I am simply floored by just how grown up our boys are.  Last night, for example, our bedtime routine kind of went out the window.  On bath night, we usually head upstairs around 7:30, get them into the bathtub, wash them and let them play for half an hour (those big triangular soaking tubs are awesome for twins, by the way).  Then we get them out, dressed, up on our bed for stories, to the toilet one more time, then into their beds.  If all went well, it’s about 8:25pm by then.  They con us into letting them look at a book in their beds, so I pick a number and start counting out load slowly – “when I get to, um, 17, it’s time to put your books away and get back into bed.”  Then we tuck them in, say our prayers, and beg the boys not to cry out for us more than 20 times over the next 15 minutes.  That’s the plan, anyway.  I know, ever so exciting, isn’t it?  Our bedtime routine used to involve a bunch of naked time, but as the boys get older it’s starting to feel a little less appropriate, and frankly I think Malina was a little uncomfortable when I stripped down to join in.

With Dexter still miserable with his cold, we started a bit early and got the boys upstairs around 7:20.  They were in the tub a couple of minutes later.  I got them washed, but then after only a few minutes Dex hopped out of the tub (I think he wanted to look through the skylight up at the moon).  I figured Dex would spend some extra time looking at stories while Nic played, but then I look over and Nic has climbed out too.  Okay, so we’re 25 minutes ahead of schedule and the boys had an extra long nap, so what to do?  We soldier on, and read our stories on our bed.  Then we take the boys into their room and let them look at stories in their beds.  I meant for this to last 10-15 minutes at least, but by the time I get back from the bathroom Nic has finished his book and climbed into bed.  I ask him, “Nic, are you sure you’re ready to go to sleep?”

“No, Daddy.  We haven’t said our prayers yet!”

Okay, not what I meant, but clearly Nic has his priorities.  So we say prayers, tuck the boys in, leave the room, and realize it’s only 8:05.  About 2 minutes later the “mommy…   mommy…   Mommy…  MOMMY!” calls start.  We try once to calm them, then decide to see if we can trust them not to get wound up if we turn on the reading light and let them read in their in their chairs all by themselves.  So I talk to them, and tell them that only big boys get to do this, and to read quietly, and if I hear them getting loud I’m going to have to come up and turn the light off and put them back in bed.  I figured I’d come back in 15 minutes and try to convince them to get back in bed.  I get back downstairs, and about 4 minutes later I hear “daddy…   daddy…” coming over the monitor.  I trump back upstairs, and find that they’ve put their books away and gotten back into bed, and want me to tuck them in and turn off the light.  What kind of kid gets permission to stay up late and decides, “no, that’s okay, tomorrow’s a big day of making waffles, playing with legos, reading stories, coloring, and crashing cars, so I need to get some rest.”  Seriously…

It didn’t quite last.  Dex was a little too wound up.  So back upstairs, and I offer him another deal.  If he can do me a favor and stay quiet in order to help Nic fall asleep, I’ll bring him a flashlight so he can read in bed after Nic is out.  The hope, of course, is that laying quietly in his bed waiting for his brother to fall asleep will trick Dex into doing the same.  I could guess by the size of his smile that my ploy wouldn’t work, but at least he was quiet.  We heard his footsteps once or twice, and I wonder if maybe he wasn’t checking to see if Nic was asleep.  About 15 minutes later Katie heads up.  Nic is out, so she gives Dex the little flashlight.  He grabs a book and hops into bed.  She tells him, “when you’re done, put your book away, turn off the flashlight, and get into bed.  After that we hear a couple of rustling pages, but no more noises from the room.  About 20 minutes later Katie heads back up to check on him.  The flashlight is still on, but he’s put his book away, put the flashlight up on the book shelf, gotten back into bed and fallen asleep.  It’s something like 9:30 by this point, so so much for an early bedtime, but still, kind of impressive.