Less than Twelve Parsecs

Note: This is a conversation from about a week before Thanksgiving. It just happened to be very appropriately timed. I only realized how it matched the holiday as I was writing the post. Gratitude for things in you life is supposedly a primary factor of happiness . Every night, you are supposed to find one to three things to feel grateful about. My grandmother Mamaia has been practicing this regularly her whole life, in her own simple, earthy way: every night before going to sleep she would check the list in her head: the chores that were finished today, the progress we made on the others, however small. Then she would go to sleep with a feeling of accomplishment. I don't do this on a regular basis, although I'm aware of the benefits. I just never got into that habit. But every now and then, I realize how lucky we are to have each other and voice it out.  This was one of those times. Saturday night, walking back home from the grocery store. Winter is...

We finally get time to show you our halloween outfits this year! That's what happens with two small kids - little time to spare for the electronics. But we got to it now - still good for posterity. Outline: First - the easy one . Why he was easy? I guess because he's preverbal and can't tell us what he wants. Or he's too little to know better. Or maybe he's easy going!  Then, Mara's more intricate outfit story, a double-take because... well, she's two. Lastly, bonus images of a Sistine Chapel pose and Mara cutting down the spider webs from our yard. Gaius Outfit : Ninja onesie from his Godmother Irina. Black pants. Makeshift headband from a sleeve of an old t-shirt that will come up later in the story. Weapon : DIY nunchuk made out of Greg's glasses strap and some small socks sewn around the ends of the strap. Perfect for a 5mo because it's soft, stretchy and so, so, so chewable! Photos below - many thanks to our daycare educa...

This year, we chose our Halloween theme to match our surroundings:  Spiders and their Webs. We've seen so many around the house that: the usual practice is to scream first, then handle the situation with calm and a smile, AND we bought specialized guns [ see bottom of post ] which make it possible to do the after-scream smiling. We also discovered something absolutely hilarious , according to Gaius (click the link to get straight to it). Our yard is taken over by spider webs. Ignore the fully-dead grass, it's a severe drought around here so lawn took the first hit. Resident [Evil] Spider One particular spider has a hobby of setting up his web exactly where Elena will be walking the next day, usually at face level for extra scream points. He's had his web between the van and the bushes, between the fence and the house on the walkway, between the recycling bin and the doorway etc. Greg refuses to kill it:  "He's this big because he's succe...

Our two-year old daughter is making more and more fun statements ( see the last post on this same topic  if this seems fun). The correlations and causations implied are interesting, moreover when they are slightly off. Here's some of that. Episode 1 - Comparisons During dinner. Mara: Mara is eating kale like a bunny at the farm. Reference photo: Episode 2 - Can't even... Part of the night time routine when Mara is teething is giving her a cup of crushed ice to chew on, in the dark.  This night, Mara asked daddy to put the cup of ice on her back. Then, she said: "Oh my gosh there's a cup of ice on Mara's back!" Episode 3 - VerbING The -ing form of the verb is easy to use, right? "Daddy, are you needing a spoon? Are you needing a spoon, Daddy?" Episode 4 - Excited statements "It's morning time! That means it's time to go downstairs! " Episode 5 - Actually She says this word in the c...

Mara loves pasta, in all its shapes and forms. She will drop her highly important playing and come to the dining table if you mention the magic word. Thus, today we had pasta for lunch. Large, round Ravioli, filled with cheese and spinach, with Parmesan cheese sprinkles and tomato soup to dip in, as a side sauce. Mara ate and ate and ate, and smiled and smiled and smiled some more. I broke silence by telling her what she is eating: Me : "Did you know what this type of pasta is called, Mara?" [Big eyes.] Me : "Ravioli!" Me : "Can you say Ravioli? Rah-vee-oh-lee!" [She turns her eyes into little half-moon shapes curving downward, just like in those cute Japanese cartoons. It's such a fleeting facial expression that we only managed to capture it once on camera, a long time ago - see this side photo we retrieved from Greg's archive.] Mara : "There's a Rah-bee-oh-lee song!" [This is news to me, but there's a ...

These past two weeks we've been celebrating continuously. To put it in cheesy rhymes: Roses are "Wed" Violets are "Boo" Gaius is three months old And Mara is Two! A Vacation Before We started with a short trip with family and friends in Yosemite. We hiked 1900ft up on the Mist Trail with two kids in two backpacks, fought plagued squirrels valiantly on top of the Vernal waterfall, then went as high as Nevada falls and back down to the Valley (blog post to follow, but check out the preview photo). We returned home just in time for Mara's actual birthday - the 29th. The Birthday Weekend We did two things somewhat differently than your usual birthday party: 1. Open house The idea Our friends have extremely varied schedules between kids' naps, weekend activities and just plain lifestyle. Because there was no good time to schedule a party for everyone to attend, we declared open house all weekend: stop by and say Happ...

Today's story goes in reverse chronological order: two moments about a week apart. Episode Two Mara scans the cover of a large atlas book about reptiles: "This one's a lizard And this one's a lizard And this one's a lizard and This one's a lizard and This one's... pro[ba]bly a frog ." Episode One  [about a week earlier] This part needs some precursory info: for the entire time that Mara has been verbal, she's referred to herself as "Mara  does this"  and  "Mara is that ", rather than using the first person pronoun. You can imagine our excitement when for the first time she used the word "I". First she started experimenting with phrases like " Mara is swimming by Mara's self ".  Then, one evening: "Mommy drinks water, Daddy drinks water, I drink water Baby Gaius drinks... milk from Mommy's b**b." P.S.: Gaius would pr...