This is finally our year. We just saw brand new baby sea turtles scramble down the sand! Matilda named one Poochie.

Asleep at the Wheel

Porter fell asleep "driving" home after we picked Matilda up from school yesterday. He had a nice long rest and was then able to wreak all kinds of havoc on the household all afternoon. The crowning moment was when he bit through the package of quinoa and unleashed an avalanche of teeny tiny quinoa grains all over the kitchen floor.

TMI

Matilda was riffling through the dirty laundry yesterday (for no good reason, but why not) and came up with some new underwear I bought and had thrown in there to wash before wearing them. This girl notices everything and was immediately suspicious of the unfamiliar panties. "Are these yours?" I explained that they were. She then says, "Are they VERY BIG?" That is not really what you want to hear describing something that is intended to cover your butt! To be fair I think I may have bought a size too big as I ran through Target with both kids hollering in the cart. After Matilda's astute observation I have to admit the are most definitely not the most attractive. Let's hope they shrink up a bit after some washing.

Unrelated to my underwear situation, last night as I was laying with Matilda while she settled in to sleep she was rubbing my head and told me, "It's nice to have such a fun mommy around." What a sweetie girl. I think I forgive her for my big panties comment.

Long, Lean and Fast Moving

Yesterday Porter had his 15 month check up. In the last 3 months he grew 2 " and gained only 2 ounces! The pediatrician reassured me that she is not concerned about his low weight gain since generally babies at this age are increasing their physical activity a lot. Boy is that the understatement of the century. She laughed when assured I her that he was FULL TIME these days. For you fellow data nerds keeping score, he is now 75th percentile weight for age and 95th percentile height for age. A long, tall boy.

Sounds Messy

Tonight Matilda told us that tomorrow she wants Porter to pee in the potty. She went on to say that she "really wants to potty train Porter as a little toddler now." I am really glad she's decided to take on that task, although I am not sure there are enough baby wipes in the world to deal with a 4 year old potty training a 15 month old.

Reliable Source

One of my favorite things about our gal these days is her imagination. Matilda is so good at fantasy play and making up stories and spends a good chunk of each day creating elaborate games, scenarios and tales.

Another part of her personality that's becoming more apparent is that she always knows the answer to your question. Even when she doesn't. If you asked a closed ended question she will say "yes" if she is uncertain what the actual answer is. If you ask an open ended question she'll give you some answer but not necessarily an accurate one. (Sometimes she will say "I don't know" or "I don't remember." Especially if she is not 100%. We usually have to prod her to guess something.)

Combine these two elements and you are bound to get some dodgy information. Last week she told the babysitter ( a new one that doesn't know us well) that I am an airplane mechanic. The babysitter had a vague recollection of me mentioning the hospital. On Thursday when I asked about school snacks she reported they had chocolate sprinkle popsicles, mashed potatoes and potato chips. I really hope this is not true. Recently she told us an elaborate story about how our regular sitter made tortillas with flour and water and cooked them on the griddle for their lunch quesadillas. It turns out the sitter told M a story of how her father used to make them fresh tortillas growing up, but no actual tortillas were fabricated in our household.

One consistent tale she tells that is totally fine with me is when Tim asks her at night if we watered the plants. She always says yes. The answer is almost always no. I can never manage to remember our patio plants so I really appreciated her covering for me.

Miracle of Miracles

Both of my kids are napping at the same time. This happens never. Hallelujah.

The downside is it is currently 6:10 pm, which means I probably won't be watching the Mad Men season premiere live at 10 pm.

Comic-Con

We did our annual pilgrimage to the huge comic show in San Diego today and everyone survived and enjoyed at least parts of it, if not all. Matilda checks out the enormous Green Lantern lantern.

We spent a fair amount of time again at the Lego booth. She may or may not be licking boogers off her lip here. Somehow 1 week later Matilda came down with Porter's cold today and had a faucet nose all day and a low grade fever by the time we returned home.

Porter's happiest moment: when he talked a cleaning crew member out of their broom and made a break for it in the lobby. He was very done with being carried by the time we were 2/3 of the way through our day there.

I didn't actually carry the kids like this all day, but it sure feels like I did. Just corralling them both among so many people is a tiring endeavor.

Busted

In response to Uncle Brian's comment:

Yes, that is her foot on his back. You can imagine what followed.

One Year Ago Today

Three Months Old:

Fifteen Months Old:

He looks especially ginormous to me when he is sleeping.

What a big, sweet boy we have.

Taking it to New Levels

Porter decided he wanted a closer look at the tv and discovered he could get on top of the coffee table now. (Of course the coffee table is jammed up against the tv to stop him from endlessly opening and closing the dvd player and cramming disks in it.) Not one minute after I took this shot he realized he could simply stand up to reach the coveted remotes we place on top of the tv. Oh happy day.

Dancing Fool

Matilda rocked out at the Justin Roberts concert this weekend. Looks like she would fit right in at Grassroots.

If only we were going to be in Trumansburg this weekend.

Goofing

Matilda kept us all entertained at dinner tonight with her funny faces.
She was probably the most tickled of anyone and requested multiple pictures of herself laughing hysterically.

Sick Boy

Our incredibly long run of good health has ended and Porter has spent the past 24 hours sleeping, nursing, or moaning - all in my arms. The poor boy is so unhappy. This popsicle did seem to hit the spot and soothe his sore throat a bit. I know he'll be fine, it is just hard to watch him riding this illness out.

Kitchen Assistant

Need help with those dishes? It used to be he was happy to put away the clean utensils, pitching each item up into the silverware drawer. These days Porter prefers to climb in and spin the sprayer thing, which seems slightly less useful but is entertaining nonetheless.

A Drawing for Grandma

I told Matilda that Grandma Marge was having a rough day today after her last day (insert cheer here, yay!!) of chemo yesterday and asked Matilda what she thought we should do to make Grandma feel better. Matilda said we should draw her a picture of volcanoes.

Matilda says, "I wrote this all by myself. I hope you feel better Grandma Marge. I made these volcanoes for you." (click through to see it on flickr here for more description)

Cruising Along

I had a work day this week and two sick days which really made for an unproductive, quick week.

Nothing much doing, just a regular week of fun play and delicious noodles.

Tremor

We went to a minor league baseball game tonight, which is almost more fun than a Dodger game with the cheap beer, awesome mascots and smaller scale for up-close-viewing of it all. Porter was very enchanted with the dinosaur mascots (named Tremor and Aftershock for the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes team) from a distance but wasn't too sure about them up close. Matilda was enjoying it all until she heard there would be fireworks at the end, which sent her into fits of worry. She has a love-hate thing going with them. We promised to leave after the game to miss them and were consequently walking past the launching zone on our way to the car as they went off to ensure they were as noisy and terrifying as possible. (After the fact, she always claims the fireworks are her favorite part of the night.)

Behind the Sign

After so many years in LA, we finally hiked up to the Hollywood sign today. It was a good, hot hike but everybody held up really well. Matilda walked most of the 3ish miles, and Porter rode in the pack. We spotted 8 lizards. (Tim had predicted 7, Matilda was hoping for 20. She also wanted to see 20 monkeys, which would have been quite a spectacle.) Up there, Matilda was (like most people) a little disappointed that we couldn't touch the sign. She also wanted to see it from the front up close. This helicopter was the highlight of the trip for Mr. P I think.

Still looking good, even hot and dusty on the trip down.

What Heatwave?

It is not outrageously hot here (or even hot at all really), like the rest of the country. But we have been pretending it is since I have found the answer: Bourbon Slushies.

Mealtime Entertainment

Matilda's appetite has been much smaller lately, which leaves lots of time for goofing off at meals. Porter is always happy to join in a sing-a-long.

Bizzar-o

At my mom's dialysis center, Matilda noticed this Oz themed bulletin board right away. I never really figured out what it was promoting, but it was awesomely strange.

Army of tin woodsmen? Menacing winged monkey? No, thanks.

Breakfast Portraits

Happy, sunny kids in the morning at Grandma's house.

Produce is No Fun

At the fancy outdoor mall near Mom we found this playground sponsored by the local hospital. It was a playground after my own heart with a healthy eating message and awesome cartoon fruits and veggies to clamber on.

As it happens, playing on big produce isn't all that. I mean the kids were moderately entertained, but after you've slid down the watermelon 5 times and conquered each produce item there isn't much else to do.

Still, I give them at least an A for effort on the message alone. Plus, it was contained fairly well by the shrubs and kept Porter from throwing himself into the water fountain zone long enough for me to finish my latte!

Taste of the Burbs

I think Porter wants a Mini-van and a built in sprinkler system to go with his golf shirt.

Watermelon and Wading Pools

We met a huge bunch of Matilda's school buddies at a local park where they fill this huge wading pool up. The schedule for the pool to be open is terribly cryptic and nearly impossible to figure out so we ended up there hours before the real opening time.

However, we had enough picnic food and park fun to keep everyone entertained and fueled until splash time. The other moms know Matilda's palette well and brought seaweed snacks and salami just for her so she neglected the lunch I packed for her completely. However, it all evens out in the end as her lunch got eaten by other kids. I learned long ago that someone else's food at the park is always better so I just pack enough to feed two kids, but not necessarily my two. Matilda's good buddy A is a huge fan of Porter and so sweet with him. After such a long wait the kids were totally bonkers when the pool finally opened and had a blast. They all stood at the edge chanting "not yet, not yet" while the lifeguard set up and filled it. No pressure, dude. About half the kids in this picture we know. So crazy to have such a big circle of play buddies after this year at her school.