Less than Twelve Parsecs

We spent two days in Denver for our snowy vacation, and the weather was definitely on our side. On the first day we got a warm sunny start, with enough snow to explore and have a good time. Snow angels, a collaborative fort, snowball throwing all around and tiny snowmen in Capitol Park. My favorite part of this day I call Mission Impossible. Gaius carefully put together a little snowball and got an extremely mischievous look on his face. He slowly and quietly stalked his way up to Mara, planning to throw it at her. He got really close, just behind her, as she was so focused on building her fort. After a long, tense, suspenseful moment of quietly holding the snowball high, ready to throw it.... Bam!!!    He missed. The projectile narrowly passed by Mara's back even though the two of them were barely two feet away. Mara never noticed, parents snickered quietly at the cuteness of the mission. Gaius moved on to the next target.

The second day of our train trip started off slow, as we made it to the diner car barely in time for breakfast. Alas, our plan for French toast was brutally thwarted when we learned that they had run out. No amount of fluffy pancakes, made-to-order omelettes, breakfast quesadillas or fruity Chobani yogurt could come even close to making it up to Gaius. It was French toast or else. Luckily we soon recovered, bellies full and getting all crafty in the observation car. We made little fairy mail boxes with messages for fairies and leprechauns to invite them in our home: and weaved miniature Ojos de Dio: [This is Mara's self-driven photography posing, I did not give her any direction other than mentioning I was going to take a photo of her with her craft. She got seriously intense with the lens...] Soon, the views outside became too overwhelming to ignore. Our photos barely do them justice, but our memories will ho

The title for this post seems totally misleading, but I promise it does make sense. This week many public/charter schools in our area are closed for "Ski Week", and everyone disappears in search of snow. Most of our friends go to wonderful Tahoe, braving the awfully aggravating trafic on the way there and back. The trouble is that Fae is now 3.5mo and much more self aware and opinionated. She is ok in the car seat on the way to get Mara from school and back, but anything past a 45 minutes nap definitely does not fit well in her schedule. We've tried convincing her with unappealing results - half hour of continuous screaming is not something we want to repeat often. She's such a sweet adorable baby most of the time! In comes the Grand Plan that I've been stewing over for more than a year now: cross country train trip on the Zephyr train ! There's no car seat, it's technically a loooong moving house with gorgeous views, restaur

Three months of a new human life in our midst, and not a single morning passed without us hearing these sweet, sweet words: Mara : I want to see Fae-Fae! Genuine, heart-felt, unquestionable desire to just stare at each other smilingly holding hands.  Or explore the world above together. I thought it would fade after the first few months, as novelty often does. But there's no sign of that! As soon as her eyelids crack open in the morning, Mara's very first thought is of Fae. She'd rather be late for school, miss her breakfast, or any other morning mishap, but she absolutely needs to see Fae Fae.  And that carries on through the day, at school pickup, at home, before dinner, at bedtime. And Fae loves it. She basks in Mara's smiles, with her pretty blue eyes wide open, as if to share as much of her soul as she can. <3 But really, I'm not exaggerating. Every. Single. D

If you ask Gaius about it, he'll tell you over and over, with a sparkle in his eye that's hard to mistake for anything but excitement: "I'm really good at soccer!" .  He tells many stories, and as a typical 4yo he's winning in every single one, so we were taking it all with a grain of salt. That is, until this morning, when Greg was dropping Gaius of at school and got the message separately from two of the schoolteachers (one in his classroom, one in a different classroom): Greg : A teacher at the [school] just told me that Gaius is really good at soccer. That he has a lot of control and is very patient with playing with the younger children. And if I did not say it already, Kylie [his teacher] said the same thing, that he is a natural dribbler. So there may be more to it that just a 4yo's desire for greatness. We better get him some more soccer opportunities...