Less than Twelve Parsecs

It's a bit unnerving to get out of the house for a walk during enforced social distancing when you have young kids (4-6) who are crazy energetic but forgetful and would not easily tolerate face masks. How do you keep them away from passersby without constant nagging? Today, we had a brilliant approach: short-leash kite flying! What you need: - small kite, 5-6ft long handle-to-tail (see bottom of post) - windy day - kids. It worked out wonderfully, every person instinctively gave us a wide berth, trying to avoid a fluttering kite tail in their face. The kids had a natural constant reminder to stay away from others - they don't want their kite all tangled up! Plus I've had the most fun with kites as I've had in years - thank you,  Aeolus ! Here I am with Fae, we were flying the story kite for the first part of the walk, until Gaius's original kite got its wing broken and we swapped with him: The kites are geniusly simple, from a Kiwi Crate we ha...

If you'd ask me, I'd say we pretty much know what we're doing. Greg and I pondered for over a year about this decision of having a third child. We took it very seriously, and got full consensus agreement within the family (us and the two kids) on whether this is the right thing to do. The cat didn't get a vote. A year later, I can thoroughly say it was indeed the right decision: our family feels complete and happy and wonderful! Thank you, Fae for making it so! The wiggles and giggles and smiles and adventures are all upon us, from morning till night. At 7am, whichever combination of two-out-of-three kids is awake first, they're together smiling and holding hands. Usually one is pulling another's hair, or trying to munch on their thumbs. Yesterday I returned from the restroom to find the children victoriously showing me Fae's sleep sack, that they had just taken off of her all by themselves! Gaius made a specia...

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...

We spent the last day of 2019 sledding down Snowmans Hill Summit   at Mt. Shasta. Fae was a sweet heart and came along and napped the entire time, trying to grow into her giant outfit: Happy New Year everyone!!! Here's some more glimpses of our day: Mara and her tiny but well proportioned snow man: Gorgeously tall trees all around, compared to Greg and the kids: Boys going down the hill: Mara on her own: And the beautiful human-size nutcracker at our resort - photo taken by Mara:

Mara is about to turn 6. Just a few more weeks until the happy date, but she's already there mentally and physically. This summer she went: Kayaking at camp - first in her age group to kayak on her own without an adult during this whole summer, according to her camp instructors Biking on mountain trails - yes, she started biking with no training wheels after several months of sparse strider bike rides, and is so smooth at it now! Stand-up paddleboarding ( SUPing at Shoreline Lake ) which I've personally never even attempted. Greg got his opportunity to try it for the first time just this week, same location, with his coworkers. Horseback riding on Wizard who is a 30yo mare at Garrod Ranch . She can read piano music and play several songs with two hands on it - whenever she's patient and rested enough :-). She figured out the notes of "Doe, a Deer" and wrote them on sheet music one afternoon. Can swim end-to-end in the pool at swim class in a bunch of dif...

Last night, Greg and Gaius went in Gaius's room for bedtime. After the lights were out and they were lying down, in the neighboring bedroom Mara had some sort of emotional breakdown when an item she wanted was two feet away (thus absolutely out of reach for ever and ever). Loud crying ensued, with crocodile-worthy tears. Here's the boys' assessment of the situation, from Gaius's bedroom: Gaius: Mara. Waah-waah. Baby. Gaius: Mara. Ice. Mee-Mee. Greg: Does Mara need ice and Amy*? Gaius: Yeah. * Amy is one of Gaius's teachers at school.

We've had a little fish tank for the past three years, and two of its long-living inhabitants are Zebra Danio fish. Last weekend, we noticed that the female had a veeery large belly. So Mara and I watched some YouTube videos on how they breed . It turns out they make fish eggs, not giving birth to live fish. This is called "spawning". According to the information we found, the parents are likely to eat the fish eggs if they see them. So, to avoid infanticide, we needed to place a net right below the parents that would allow the eggs to drop down quickly to safety. Here's our setup: We placed the lady and gentlefish in the tank with about two inches of water over the net. They started their little dance: Then we waited. About three days later, when we were about to declare that the fish parents were dancing just for fun, and that we would have to try again, our friends came over and spotted little dots in the water. At first, they were very sti...

Gaius and Mara went through the same class at their school, just two years apart. It so happened that one of the teachers was part of the classroom staff for both kids during their second year of life! We feel blessed for all the learning and bonding opportunities this created.  This week, the teacher went back down on memory lane when Gaius was posing on top of a big climbing structure, just like Mara used to do. Here's the comparison:

Yes, Gaius was a little dragon for Halloween this year. Mara wanted to be a Rainbow Kitty, which started as black: To an actual Rainbow Kitty, chased around by a soft & cuddly little dog: We did not have the presence of mind to do a proper photo shoot so you can see the colorful streamers flying as she ran around, but you can kinda see them here too: And to finish it up, here's Gaius pumpkin shopping: And the kids' first Jack-O-Lantern: