We are in Tahoe and this girl is seriously teething!! Expect to see this smile change soon. She has four molars coming in, plus the pointy canines and a couple of teeth on the bottom!
She is clearly not enjoying the teething event and she’s been a little on the feverish side as a result, but she is still finding plenty of things to make her smile!
Another unseasonably pleasant (though not too warm) day and a day off from work led to impromptu plans with Heather and Taliana to head to the beach! Still no luck finding whole sand dollars as our range is pretty limited with the little ones, but they had fun digging around in the sand for a while….
So,on our way home from the beach, Cameron proclaimed, “I see water! Over there!” just as clear as could be–her sentences are getting better!
Later that same day, we met Tom at Toddler Sports Academy where Dylan refused to get out of the car because “exercise makes [him] tired”!!! When Tom told him he was missing the “button song,” he replied that he had his own button…on the door of the car. He wouldn’t even get out when Finley came over to get him!
The evening wasn’t a complete loss. He finally came out of his grumpy shell during dinner with Finley and Cleo!! And, thus, another holiday concluded!
I had difficulty whipping out the camera while I was with the kids this past week owing to sooo many demands to be picked up and carried. It was definitely a “double-mommy”-heavy week!
Luckily, the Time Machine cranked out 2 posts I’d written on this day in the past, and there are pictures to be found from 2007 and 2008!
I clicked on the photo in the 2007 post to see what Dylan looked like at nearly a year old. I found this picture of Dylan around that same point in the flickr photostream.
When I see “old” pictures like this, I see how much Dylan has grown up already! And, I wonder what Cameron will look like when she sheds more of her baby fat and fills in all of those choppers!
Here’s Dylan in February 2008. At that point, Dylan, at 21 months old, just wasn’t that much older than Cameron is today!
Reisz smiles. They look similar, yeah??
It was a rough week in our household what with Dylan getting sick and Cameron continuing to recuperate from pink eye while trying to pop a couple of molars and a couple of teeth through (the teething is still in-progress!). It started on Monday! Tom and I carpooled to work and were abruptly called back to Santa Cruz early because of Dylan’s fever.
It was Valentine’s Day and Dylan wanted pho for dinner, so we ordered Thai House for pick-up and dined in, surrounded by beautiful Valentines Day flowers (mine) and roses (Tom’s)–luckily, earlier in the day, Tom and I had a chance to meet up for a mid-work-day lunch together (kind of a nice VDay celebration in the midst of madness).
For the rest of the week, I got to take care of the kids (excepting Wednesday when I worked from home and Tom brought the kids over to Harbor Beach for lunch where we had a lovely view of waves crashing mightily amidst heavy rain showers! We’re so lucky to live in such a beautiful place. Even in bad weather, the beach is amazing).
Since both kids were feeling a bit under the weather and we could not go anywhere (partly weather-related and partly because we didn’t want to spread germs), it was a challenging week! There’s nothing like spending an entire week with kids at their fussiest to remind one of how rewarding (and exhausting) full-time parenting can be!
I loved making batches of home-made playdoh with them and playing restaurant, letting them spend time in our jacuzzi bath making tons of foam (a new favorite word for Cameron) and giving the kids some “steam therapy” for their congestion, eating lunch together and, most especially, seeing them grow and develop.
Cameron is talking and singing up a storm. Her new favorite songs to sing include “Tumbalalaika” and “Wheels on the Bus.” Cameron now loves reading the Humpty Dumpty rhyme (requested by “humdumpty humdumpty”) and her Babybug magazines, and she can even recite parts of Green Eggs and Ham (“not like them Sam I am”). She also requests to see Ba-bow (“Blues Clues”) and “Cat Hat.”
It was especially gratifying to spend so much time with her because her speech is, obviously, not always clear. So much of what she says is contextual, one really has to be with her, reading books with her, singing songs together, playing and drawing, etc. to really get what she’s talking about.
Then, there’s Dylan….he is starting to read. It seems the “Bonnie and Chester” stories from his Big Backyard magazine are very interesting to him as are the Dr. Seuss books. He’s more reluctant to “read” when he’s tired (and we don’t force the issue), but when he’s awake, he has moments where he actively wants to search a page for the words he knows and he is eager to read together–it was great to be able to spend “unfatigued” day time hours doing this with him. And he has a tireless imagination. We spent hours building grand structures out of blocks and “the coolest” Tinkertoy trains accompanied by (seriously) non-stop chatter and commentary and direction (yes, he bossed me around!).
Common topics these days are ghosts (they have a sleep schedule, you know; bad ones are asleep during the day); vampires (?!??); and writing Chinese characters in Mexico (an amalgam of his best buddies–Taliana is learning to write Chinese characters and Finley spends a lot of vacation time in Mexico!).
The tougher moments were when both kids wanted to be cuddled and held and were in competition for the lap spot (pretty constant throughout the week, actually) and heading out to the store (tonight) to relieve some serious cabin fever (Cameron’s more than Dylan’s) and having Cameron tear down the aisle at top speed while poor Dylan was anxious he’d lose sight of us and I was anxious I’d lose sight of one or the other! Thank goodness Tom came to the rescue! Cameron also likes throwing things around — pens, food, what have you. The minute you take your eyes off her to attend to Dylan, a big mess ensues! When she’s full, she dumps her bowl upside down. In the meantime, meal negotiations are unavoidable with Dylan!
Then, of course, Dylan always needs to take a poop when Cameron is nursing!!
Both kids (and Tom) are now all asleep after ending this drippy week (rainy and snotty!) with a nice dinner with Lola and Grandpa who are in town(!) for the night for a Todd Snider show! I am hoping both kids will be back to 100% by Sunday but, if not, I’ll be glad Monday is a holiday and we’ll have an extra day to give them some TLC.
One of the greatest things about living in Santa Cruz is the weekly Saturday morning ukelele jam session that takes place at the beach. And, yep, it’s the beach by the coffee shop, so kids get to play in sand, mommy and daddy get their coffee…everyone gets music, sunshine and fresh air…it’s a total win-win for all involved!
This weather we had this past weekend is totally out of whack for February (it was a balmy 68F or something!), but we set aside our concerns on climate change and enjoyed the day.
Dylan ended up getting sick as the weekend ended, so it was especially nice that we got to spend some relatively active outdoor time while he was still well….
We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out with Heather, Assaf and Taliana. We could use a longer weekend, for sure — both kids are now hacking and coughing and having trouble sleeping through the night (as are we!!); we all need more sleep, please!
Other weekend excitement included hanging out with Auntie Christina in her brand new house! Yep, she’s a homeowner and what better way to break in your home than to have a couple of grub-generators come for a visit??
Auntie Christina is looking pretty happy!! She and Dre have a pool table, an awesome and gigantic LED television and four bedrooms (whoa!)!!
The first time Cameron visited the house, she was with Lola and she apparently went around the house saying, “pret-ty house” (completely unprompted!). This time, she helped Dylan distribute toys all.over.the.floor.
Here’s Troublemaker #2 with Lola and Auntie Christina.
We all had a good time visiting…Christina’s buddy Shelby was there with Michael Jackson Experience…even Dylan tried the dance moves (with me!)!
This past weekend, we celebrated Chinese New Year’s (Year of the Rabbit!) with Heather, Assaf, Taliana and Heather’s parents with dinner out at our favorite local Chinese restaurant, Shun Feng. Before heading out, we changed the kids into festive holiday clothes — luckily, Lola had gotten an outfit for Cameron and Taliana had a red jacket for Dylan to borrow and she wore her own lucky red dress. Totally spontaneously, Cameron and Dylan put their arms around each other and posed for a picture!
The kids got red envelopes from us, Heather and Assaf, Anyam and Grampa (Heather’s parents), and the restaurant (they are always so nice to us!)!! The kids were cool with the cash, but the sand dollars from Anyam and Grampa trumped the regular dollars.
I have a few sand dollars that I’ve explained to Dylan are very special treasures to me (kept in my treasure box of shells and rocks) and I had told him that when he’s bigger, he could have one of them and Cameron could have the other (this was long ago!). So, he was so thrilled when he got his very own that he could immediately put into his own treasure box!!
Here’s Taliana showing us her perfect sand dollar….
Cameron’s favorite part of the dinner was running several laps around the restaurant! She must have run at least a half mile!!!
Dylan was so thrilled to have a sand dollar, he wanted to go look for more, so on Sunday, we headed to the beach, in search of….
We came prepared with buckets and shovels…and binoculars for looking out at the ocean…
…and the sand dunes behind us!
And, we packed sandwiches and snacks, of course.
Cameron is still quite naturally drawn to flowers!
But, she did like collecting all kinds of stuff, especially rocks!
Dylan and I walked a long way down the beach, but I didn’t want to go to far into the water with Dylan to search for the whole sand dollars, so we collected a lot (and I mean, a LOT!) of broken sand dollars. Dylan didn’t want to pass any of them up!! Once we reunited with Tom and Cameron, he spread them out on the sand in a beautiful pattern. He spent much time in the evening cleaning his sand dollar bits off and arranging them on his make-believe beach on the back of the couch.
It is so great to see his enthusiasm, we’re already planning another trip to go collect some more!
This seems pretty crazy, but Cameron started singing the ABC song just this past Monday! She doesn’t hit all of the letters and her pronunciation isn’t perfect, but she seems to know the sequence. Believe it or not, she’s actually singing it better today than she did two days ago (when we first taped her). She’s also on to the first line of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and “Great Big Stars” (a Music Together “hit”) and, for the first time today, we heard her say, “Noooo, don’t do that!” when Dylan accidentally folded her placemat on to her dinner bowl. And, she said it pretty much the way he says it to her all of the time! She also picked up the phone and said, “hello, how are you doing?” right into it and, while reading I Love You Stinky Face, she said “I love you mama” (melt my heart!). At 17 months, she’s just rapidly progressing on this whole verbal development track. Nutso!
She’s singing in both of these videos, but in the second one, we also had a brief conversation. I asked her what her babies were doing and she made them cry “wah wah wah.” What a funny li’l gal!
You wouldn’t think that there would be fun to be had in Bakersfield, right? But, I had two full days of what would have otherwise been work days to spend with the kids, who are just a whole lot of fun (while Tom was off to do EAP work at CSUB). And even though we got bounced from our hotel the first night (they transferred us elsewhere), we got a free room upgrade for Night Two–a sweet 2-room suite that the kids (and Tom and I) just loved.
If we’d been there both nights, we would have gotten to cook in our room (furnished with refrigerator and stove!), but that we couldn’t was just fine because they served a pretty decent breakfast downstairs (enough vegan options to fill us all up).
Cameron just loved running down the hallway screaming, “bunny. Shot!” (as in “but the bunny took off like a shot!” (from her Curious George and the Bunny book). I’m sure the other guests weren’t pleased that we couldn’t get her to stop…but, she was actually pretty cute.
One of The Best things about Bakersfield is that it is not a premiere tourist destination. I took the kids to the California Living Museum (zoo) and it was practically empty!
This was definitely a plus, not only because we didnt have to fight crowds or stand in lines, etc., but because Cameron dashes off “like a shot” wherever there’s space to run! Sweet Dylan chases after her and tries good-naturedly to herd her in like a good sheepdog (!), but she’s pretty tough to stop! Not having to worry about her getting lost amongst other people was a true blessing!
Since we were the only guests there for quite some time, we got some great one-on-one time with the docent. She introduced us to Betty the Pelican who was out of her pen and was wandering around freely in the amphiteatre (she is injured and cannot fly) and, when we encountered her again (the docent, not Betty!) in the Reptile House, she took a Kingsnake out for Dylan to pet (he politely declined) and talked snakes with us for a while (and another docent gave Dylan and Cameron some snake cards).
We saw some owls (which Dylan declared were supposed to be nocturnal) and a bald eagle and we saw the bobcats (ok, yes, we don’t love zoos–poor animals need more space than what is provided for them by even the best zoos, but the kids learn something and do enjoy seeing the animals in person).
The next day, while we waited for Tom to finish up at CSUB, we went to Beach Park. Great play structure! Too bad it was wet (from morning fog)! I had to use my butt to dry off a slide that Cameron absolutely insisted on going down!
Happily, Tom had only a half-day on Friday, so we picked him up and we all got to go the Kern County Museum together. Once again, the fact that Bakersfield doesn’t really register with tourists was a great thing! The place was all our’s! And, there are awesome buildings from the pioneer days — houses, jails, courthouse, hospital, residence, hotel, etc. Dylan loved looking inside the buildings…and, of course, he liked seeing the train and caboose (Cameron loved the open space for running!)!
We ended our visit there with some time in the Children’s Discovery Center, a small kid’s museum. Again, we had the entire place to ourselves!
Cameron liked the library, the kitchen/restaurant, and the fire truck; Dylan loved the ambulance!
As it turns out, my roommate from grad school is practicing medicine in Bakersfield, so we concluded our trip with a visit to her office….
So, wow, Bakersfield exceeded expectations!
Cameron’s gotten pretty good at singing the “Hello Song” from Music Together class…! (here’s the song as performed in some other MT class). Cameron’s not bad!
Since this video was taken, she’s added some new songs to her repertoire: “Pop Goes the Weasel” (“pop. weasel”), “The Rain Song,” “Dora the Explorer,” and a favorite, “Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo” (just that one line). Was it all that Music Together she heard while she was in the womb? She’s crazy good at singing…and dancing!!
