Sunday, March 07, 2004

So time passes… A random quote from Aidan a couple days ago while riding in the car “Sleeping Beauty is a story. And girls like it VERY much”. And at Valentines cards when I was attempting to get him to hand do 30some cards for kids at school “I’ll use pink. I hate pink but girls like it very much”. Then a couple days ago I asked him the standard “who did you play with” question – knowing “Theo” would be answer one “I wanted to play with Jenna but it was show and tell time so we couldn’t – we were going to play Baby but no one wanted to be the baby”.

Quincy is quite the little song bird these days. You should hear the Baa Baa Black Sheep and Twinkle Twinkle at the top of his lungs as we cart through the grocery store – audible from aisles away… I taught him Old MacDonald a few weeks back. He picked it up immediately and sings it often as does Aidan – I think we hadn’t sung it in a couple of years! He also just sings and hums gently when he is playing by himself – I remember Aidan went through a real singing period too. Quincy is much much louder than Aidan at the same age – but he and Aidan egg each other on until you can’t hear yourself think. Quincy is (I think) quite sophisticated in his make believe play (again compared to same age Aidan) – and uses little people and animals and has them talking and doing various things – pretty much playing along at a similar level to Aidan.

I think we are finally out of the Separation / Stranger Anxiety phase with Quincy – Aidan never really had it and Quincy had it for a very long time (big tears when Mommy left him with sitter etc). Amanda Salamanda just got an afternoon job with a preschool – which means I lost her as my sitter for Quincy on my Friday afternoon teaching day. Fortunately Theo’s mom Karen was willing to take him on – she has a 2 year old as well – Lillian – who is a couple months older than Quincy and who will also be starting at Miraloma in the fall. We have often gone over to their house after school for an hour or so as they live ½ block from school so Quincy was comfortable with them. They have a very yappy dog Zapf who used to really scare Quincy. Now Quincy seems happy to see him and waves hi to him and says “hi Zap” and was even petting him the other day. Last week was the 1st time we tried it out. All was going pretty well until the Director pointed out that Aidan’s eye was really pink – I had seem some goo in the corner of his eye in the a.m. but man was it ever pink at 2 o’clock! So we ended up being banished from school mid-afternoon so we took Quincy away with us as he hadn’t fallen asleep yet and dumped him at home with Pete (who was working at home) while we headed off to see the Dr. But yesterday all was well and he did fine with them and both he and Lillian took 2 ½ hr naps. I will try taking Lillian one afternoon next week and see how it goes. She’s a pretty together little girl with no fears so I don’t imagine any troubles. Theo on the other hand is a very timid kid – he is a full year older than Aidan although you would never know it as he is only an inch or so taller and slight like Aidan – and they have always seemed very similar in their play and general developmental level.

Quincy is pretty easy to put down for a nap – although he always tries to deny he needs one. When we get home from school he always tells me “do puzzle! No take nap!” But I say puzzle AFTER nap and off we go. Unfortunately he often sleeps so long that he wakes up just in time to go get Aidan so no puzzles… He likes to try to do Aidan’s jigsaw puzzles. He is surprisingly good at them but they really are beyond his level.
By the way Quincy did come down with pink eye 2 days later – fortunately neither Theo nor Lillian did. Pete and I both sometimes feel like we may be but so far so good. We all have a cold – Aidan coughs a couple of times early morning and shortly after going to sleep and has blown his nose a few times. Quincy has been Mr Goo Running Down His Face for a week or so now – when it hits his lips he comes running for a tissue / wipe. He sometimes even grabs and wipes himself. Good boy! Pete and I are both miserable on the other hand. Pete is having sinus pressure and headaches – 1st time I think I’ve heard him complain. I am going on about 2 weeks now on verge of sinus infection with tons of crud. We have discovered the joy of Nyquil however and are both pounding it. A couple of nights ago I had my first uninterrupted sleep in – maybe 5 years? Quincy has started occasionally sleeping through the night (assuming he has eaten well all day and various other factors) – maybe once a week. Anyway – he did that night and I didn’t wake up once. Last night Quincy appeared in our room at about 3 a.m. – he had dog, pig, bear, zebra and a baby doll all with him. He had to line them all up on the pillow next to him. He is much more “nurturing” than Aidan ever has been and is quite cute with his animals. When we head off in the morning or to school he has usually put some of his animals very carefully on a pillow and covered them with his great-grandma blanket or grandma quilt. Aidan now sort of cares about animals too as he sees Quincy cares.

Christmas was fun with the kids this year. We were here for the holidays and Pop was able to join us. Aidan had been getting all primed up for Santa coming – he’s in the age sweet spot for that. Santa had the room all decorated (all by myself I might add!) and included a new kid-sized fold-up table and chairs and train set – and the stockings were a big hit. Quincy at some point realized that there was candy in some stockings – including the adult stockings – and he quietly started to raid our stockings. I quickly caught him. Aidan isn’t sneaky in quite the way Quincy is – Aidan fully and loudly announces exactly what he is getting into. The kids got some good new train stuff from various grandparents to add to the Santa haul – so Mom has had a great time building track lately and the kids have been loving all their new trains. Win win all round! I tried to be modest with my gift giving to them – but still between that and gifts from grandparents we were unwrapping for hours – they enjoy playing with their toys as they go so the pace is leisurely. Quincy kept Aidan moving forward in the unwrapping department. In the evening we headed over to the Eggerths to join the cousins for a nice dinner and a few more presents.

Christmas eve the boys got to go to church probably the first time in their memory. It was a lovely church, St James, for the evening family service – remarkable not at all crowded. The interiors were beautiful wood with candles everywhere. Predictably there was lots of singing and also we all got to light and hold candles. There was a period in the middle where the minister called up the children to have a musical “parade” around the church to look for baby Jesus to go in the crèche. Aidan didn’t want to go at first but ended up running up and joining in without any of us at his side – I can’t remember his instrument – a tambourine perhaps. Anyway – they looked all over and found a bunch of other characters for the nativity – but Jesus was no where to be found – until they got back to the front and found Jesus in the crèche… It was quite well done and the kids had a really good time. We ended up at Yummy Yummy’s for dinner (quite a few places were closed) – but we love Yx2 so that worked out well.

I continue to be a bit absurdly involved with school. I am still on the Board and I decided to organize a “Playground Committee” to try and figure out how to move our outdoors area forward – we need some better development especially for some of the older children. I had a couple of meetings at school during the Christmas holidays – and both boys came. Boy did Quincy fuss and kick and scream when school started up again and we had to leave Aidan at school and Quincy couldn’t stay too – he had gotten used to having the run of the place for a few hours. Luckily after I got the Committee up and going – and seemed to have no real help with the actual DOING (other than the brainstorming) – I was assigned a somewhat new coop family to have it as their family job – and they are great and are really taking it and running with it. There are several brand new playgrounds here in the city that we have been checking out – with nifty new equipment – some by the same manufacturers I first saw when we were “down under” – nice to see them here in the US as I really like it better than the “standard” playground equipment.

Before I sign off – one thing both kids gleefully like to sing “Trick or Treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat, if you don’t, I don’t care, I’ll pull down your underwear!” they then say “That’s not nice Froggy!” as they learned it from the Halloween one of the Froggy series books (a favorite with both kids). The book doesn’t say “that’s not nice” – but we do!

Today, Sunday, is a glorious San Francisco spring day. Flowers on the trees, about 70 or a bit more, no wind, no clouds. Pete took the kids to Golden Gate Park this a.m. and they biked from the car to the large kids playground. I walked down later from here and picked up some Mexican food from Zona Rosa on the Haight on my way – a big hit with the boys – all 3. Then the kids spent a good hour in the metal hexigonish structure – I’ll upload photos tonite to ofoto. A good day.