Mr. Big

Porter went for his 21 month check up this week and we got his stats. He grew two inches since October to 35.5", still tall at 95% height for age. He only gained a little over 1 pound (better than I did in December) putting him at 28lb 140z. He is slimming down now, at only 75% weight for age - not a surprise since he's always on the go and has about a 2 minute attention span at meals.

Out of curiosity we went back to look at Matilda's records and Porter now measures exactly what M did at age 2.5. I guess soon we'll have to say younger brother, not little brother.

Fancy Tea

Matilda & I took Grandma Marge to the Tea Room at the Huntington Gardens today for a super fun time. It was a rainy, cool day here which made the warm tea and scones that arrived immediately at our table even more welcomed.

Matilda ate three scones straight away trying them first with butter, then cream, and then butter with cream. As you would expect, the buffet had adorable, and delicious, little sandwiches. We sampled the cucumber, watercress, egg salad, carrot ginger (mine & mom's favorite of the day), chicken salad and smoked salmon (Matilda's preferred). Mom & I both missed noticing it on the buffet, but Matilda immediately spotted the caviar and asked what it was. She quickly declared that she loved the salty fishy delicacy (like there was any doubt that she would) and proceeded to eat an unreasonable amount. She also had quite a few chocolate tart cups filled with lemon custard and cream. Tim & Porter found their own fun around the gardens while we spent a long afternoon stuffing ourselves and enjoying the rainy view out over the herb gardens. A lovely, lovely time.

Something Fun Everyday: Cardboard Box

I noticed the building had some new appliances delivered this week. We've all been sick for what seems like ever now, so I thought an infusion of home-bound fun might be in order. I called our wacky building manager and he was so eager to give the kids a "clubhouse" that he had one of the henchman bring this stove box right over.

The kids spent the better part of the afternoon playing in here and peering through the little windows we made.

I think if we aren't all healthy soon and able to get out to the park I might just lock them in the box. But, if I bust out some paint and decorating stuff I think I can keep them entertained for at least another day remodeling their new "home."

Gemma Time

Thanks to the wonder of technology we are getting a little bit of "quality time" with new baby Gemma. We have webcam chatted with her (and Papa Brian and Mama Gia) twice so far. I fear for the sweet girl that her parents might eat her right up. Look at them here just sniffing her head; she must smell delicious and so tempting!Porter makes the webcamming process pretty funny because he spends the whole time jabbing the laptop screen yelling the names of the people he is seeing over and over, and talking about how Gemma is sleeping: "baby night night, baby night night." As much as we enjoy the that we can see her this way now, I look forward to sniffing that baby head for myself!

Aunt Kristen & Uncle Tim

A new baby girl arrived in Rochester this evening making me an aunt! Uncle Tim & I are so excited about her joining the family, in fact we all are. Matilda bounced on the bed hollering "I got my first cousin, I got my first cousin!" over and over. Congrats to Bri & Gia. We love you and little GGR and can't wait to squeeze her in person.

Secret Super Hero Identities

Tonight we all got on capes and played superheroes, rescuing a series of animals trapped in the "river" (a blue pillow island). As Tim arrived home and joined the fun, he asked Matilda what our super hero names are:

Matilda: Mrs. Sparkle (sparkly nail polish and bejeweled dress)

Porter: Mr. Star (he was wearing the purple star cape)

Tim: Soft Boy (sporting a soft baby-blanket tied around his shoulders - not soft on crime)

Kristen: Sheep Girl (I had my new sheep-head shirt on)

I like how she gave the kids proper titles and the grown ups are girl & boy.

Whine Whiney Whine

The kids are trying to slowly kill us of sleep deprivation. Please just sleep, children. What is wrong with sleep? Last night for example, one went to bed at midnight and the other decided at 5:30 it was time for snacks and to play ball. That is only the tip of the iceberg; so far 2011 seems to be the Year of No Sleep. Whine. Whine Whine.

Breakfast Malfunction

I just poured coffee over the top of my plate of waffles, rather than into the empty, waiting cup next to it. I guess I really need this cup of coffee.

Needing More Options

Matilda: "Porter, do you want chicken or wine or ham or birthday cake for dinner?"

Porter: "Beans!"

In reality neither of them were right, we are having breakfast for dinner: pancakes, eggs and chicken sausage.

Scoot!

Porter got a new (Craigslist find) scooter this weekend. As he has learned how to use Matilda's scooter there has been much strife recently over sharing of scooters. We decided to find a Porter sized alternative.

It is much clunkier and slower than Matilda's, which I think is a benefit as he can't get himself into too much trouble with it. The crew heading out to hit the streets:

Off he goes, half scooting and half dragging it.

He also really likes to stand on it and have you pull/push him along like he's riding a little red chariot. Porter loves his scooter so much that we can't really talk about it unless we can drop everything at that moment and go take a spin. Matilda mentioned it during breakfast and we nearly had a catastrophe on our hands at the thought of finishing our cereal before bolting out to the patio.

Beach Day in January

It was over 80 today! We took advantage of the weather, and the fact that we had no plans for the weekend, with a big beach trip today. To say the kids both had a blast is an enormous understatement. Here's Matilda modeling her funny posing and funny beachwear. (Pardon the lens crud on these pics; it makes me wish I had thrown our new-ish camera in the ocean as this is an ongoing problem.)At first, Matilda was totally freaking out about her phobia of going out to the tide pools. She developed some irrational fear. She won't really tell us what the source if it all is, but if I tried to set her down she would climb my body like a cat. Eventually we settled on a piggyback ride. This allowed her to see the sea life (anemones, hermit crabs, regular crab, snails, seaweed, etc.), and yet still remain "safe." By the end she got a bit bolder to walk around once we lured her out with some sea stars in a sandy tide pool area.

The beach was, inexplicably, teaming with ladybugs today. Her Matilda passes yet another to Porter for him to harass. Sharing so nicely.

Incoming!Inspecting her prized find of the day, a pinchy crab leg.

Happy, happy kids.

For living so close to the beach we don't go nearly enough.

Shaggy Boy Be Gone

I am really enjoying my mornings with Porter while Matilda is at school. Today we went to the toy store to look for some sand toys, which I realized recently Porter is very into but we are lacking. We didn't find quite what I wanted but Porter did have a fantastic time pushing every noisy buttoned toy in the place. After our busy morning of play, Porter caught a quick nap at the park while M picnicked with school pals. This boy is a champion napper.
We realized after they left, that Matilda's bud had left his hat behind. She was happy to have a turn with it and it reminded me it has been too long since she's had a cowboy hat that fits.
I finally got up the guts to give Porter a long-overdue big haircut tonight. He was exhausted and so cranky by the end that the bangs were going horrible and may need major fixes another day. We'll have to see how it all shakes out in the morning after some rest and perspective.
After pictures to come soon. As soon as I decide the whole thing doesn't look awful!

Goofy Goofs

These guys are fun.

Dark Humor

Matilda has been having a hard time sleeping through the night since we've gotten home from our holiday travels. Tim gets the brunt of it as we have split duties at night: Porter is mine, Matilda is his. Today I was trying to talk to Matilda about what was making her wake up so much, what she was thinking about, why she was having such a hard time getting settled back to sleep, etc. After a quiet moment considering it, she replied "Sometimes I just need to wake Daddy up and tell him that it is still nighttime."

Missing

Today Porter managed to lose one sock and, independently, one shoe. How do you lose a shoe? I have no idea. When I picked him up to get in the car I think he had both on. When we arrived at our destination he had shoes on (par for the course), and I could only find one after a thorough search of the car. Thankfully they were a ratty old pair of hand-me-downs that I can live without!

The Birthday Ball

Three of Matilda's school friend (well, actually their parents) collaborated to throw an uber-big super-enormous birthday party this past weekend. They rented out an area club (locale of a recent Hell's Angels murder!) and hired a local kids band, Gwendolyn and the Goodtime Gang. Only in Hollywood, right. Just a small handful of kids seemed to be done-in by the huge scale craziness of the event and the parents all had beers to help them cope.

It was a dress-up costume birthday ball. Why not, right?

There were 4 Batmen there, but only one Batgirl in a tutu and her brother's new vest.

I think I can safely say we won't be outdoing this come March 27th. Although Matilda did mention that she wants to hire the bell chorus that was at the fancy tree lighting ceremony downtown last month.

MOCA

We met some buddies for free night at the MOCA museum for the current exhibit featuring light, color and space. It was awesomely kid friendly featuring these big rooms to explore, a room filled with tons of hanging down ropes that you could just run through and even a big pool that you could swim in! The kids especially loved running through these blue, green and red rooms, which made for fun photos.They ran in endless circles through these rooms.



Porter peeks in at Stella.
Spinning in her beloved big petticoat.
This outing was our first time seeing Stella & co since the holidays. Porter spent a good part of our time in the museum pushing the boundaries of kid-friendly by screeching Stella, as exhibited here:

Lunch Date

Yesterday was Matilda's first day going to preschool in the morning. She is excited to have a few more days of school a week; I am using it as a chance to practice getting out the door in a timely manner before kindergarten slaps me in the face next fall with some early start time. As I picked her up at noon, Porter had just fallen asleep hard in the stroller. I had the idea to take her out for a little celebratory lunch. It was such a nice special moment with her while Porter slept beside our table. We colored and chatted about the morning and she happily ordered pancakes and bacon for lunch!I ordered a nice, healthy avocado-tomato sandwich, which I sullied with bacon when I saw how huge Matilda's side order was. Surely a 4 year old couldn't eat all that bacon alone.

For the first time that I can remember, I allowed her to apply her own maple syrup. She poured a completely reasonable amount on, with no sticky mess, but then insisted on licking the pitcher to get the drips off! Yum.

Old School

Matilda just told Porter that he wasted the last photo she took of him by not saying cheese (on her little digital kid camera). Then she goes, "Awww, now we need to get more film." I want to know where she learned about film?!

Response Please

Uncle Brian,

Matilda would like to know what you would say if you saw her in these movie star glasses. Personally, I would welcome commentary on the entire wacky ensemble.

Thx,

Soon-to-be-Aunt-K

Time Capsule

Matilda cracks me up with her funny logic and way of saying things. I don't remember them long enough or write them down often enough so here are a few.

1. Last night as we were giving Gideon some fresh food and water I mentioned that he didn't look to be doing so well. She responded that maybe Gideon needed to go to the cricket hospital. (I think we'll skip that step as we have not invested in pet insurance yet.) Matilda then went on to say Gideon was just feeling nervous that a lizard might eat him.

2. Tonight at dinner Matilda was pumping me for more details about my day at work. Finally when I ran out of G rated material from the hospital I asked her what she wanted to know. "I want to know if anyone had diarrhea?!" Clearly the most exciting part of my day.

3. I can't remember number 3 already. It was really funny and just happened this afternoon but already it is gone. Crap.

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