Go Terps!

It says, "Maryland. M-A-R-Y-L-A-N-D." Yay, Terps! Thanks, Auntie Betsy!

Still Tired

After a week of illness, Sam finally made it back to school for a short day on Friday. He seemed to do well, so we were hopeful for a family trip to the zoo on Saturday. Though Sam's symptoms have mostly disappeared, he's apparently still a bit on the lethargic side.

We managed to see the jaguar and the sun bears enjoying their pumpkin treats, but it may have been our quickest trip to the zoo ever. Sam was certainly interested in the new research tent on display in the jaguar area. He liked learning about the conservation work they're doing, but he seemed even more interested in trying out the camping chair and the sleeping cot with mosquito netting.

Even a ride from Daddy couldn't perk up our boy, so the rest of the weekend was spent with everyone laid out in front of the fireplace at home. No complaints here.

Recovery time

For the past few days, Sam has been pretty sick. Between Sunday night and Tuesday night, we did not have our happy, non-stop action boy. Instead we had a sickly, but snuggly miserable boy. It was heartbreaking to behold. Of course, even at his sickest, he was happy to ham it up in his new monster shirt from Auntie Betsy. "It has eight eyeballs. Isn't that silly?"
Today, he's finally seemed to turn the corner. Fever's down and pain seems to come less often. So, we have a recovery day at home. But as opposed to Monday and Tuesday, we do need a little entertainment. Sam has preferred to draw in his workbooks all day. As he puts it, "I love to color so much." His favorite type of workbooks are the math ones, but he's not kidding about the coloring. Here are some of the pages he colored on the flight back from Philadelphia last Tuesday.

Today, it's mostly numbers, and in spite of a minor injury* we've made it through half of the workbook in one continuous sitting. It's a bit much (for me), but I'm happy to have my sweet, (mostly cheery) beautiful boy back.*And that minor injury I mentioned? "Mommy, a crayon poked me in the eye. For real, Mommy."

Golden Afternoon

Today we took a drive over to Golden Garden Park in Ballard. It may have been the last of the main urban hiking parks we had left to visit in Seattle. It's a beautiful beach on the Sound and had some hiking trails through the woods that run parallel to the beach. We packed a picnic lunch and spread out a blanket to enjoy some much-appreciated afternoon autumn sun. There were a couple of beach volleyball games ongoing which captivated Sam's attention. On our walk, we found a few huge leaves. Sam collected a lovely bouquet of yellow ones as he walked quietly in order to "not disturb the dinosaurs."
Sam preferred the spectacle of a few home-made rocket launches, but we all enjoyed a lovely view from the dunes.

Happy New Year

The past couple of days we have been celebrating Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. This was the first in a string of Jewish holidays that Sam gets off of school: 7 days in four weeks. This is a bit of a stress to manage with 2 full-time-job parents, but a good time of year to remember family traditions, start new ones, and reflect on the past and coming year. Ari began work about a year ago at the new paper and I have since started my work for the hospital. Sam stayed at the same school this year, but they moved to a new location last year and he's now moved up into the pre-K classroom. In June, we bought and moved into a new house in a new neighborhood. To celebrate the new year that has been one of transitions, we spent some time preparing some family favorite traditional recipes: tzimmes, coleslaw, and kasha varnishkes. Ari followed Harriet's instructions to make "Grandma's Meat" and Sam and I made a newer family favorite from 1,000 Jewish Recipes: Rugelach. Rugelach is a delicious stuffed cookie dough cookie and we prepared 2 versions, one with chocolate and pecans and the other with cinnamon, sugar, and walnuts--which Sam referred to as "the plain kind."

Everything was delicious. The first night we were on our own, and the second night we were joined by our cousins and switched things up just a bit for a vegan version. Thankfully Sam and Ari managed to scarf down all the meat within a day! That first night, Sam professed, "my meat is the yummiest thing on my dinner plate" even though he was a bit confused by our departure from vegetarianism and kept calling it tofu. He did seem to equally enjoy the veggie nut loaf on Tuesday night. And challah and apples tied in the "yummiest thing to dip in honey taste test contest vote." (By the by, that is only grape juice in Sam's wine glass above.)

All-in-all we had a nice holiday and Sam really enjoyed helping make all the special dishes and cookies. Here he is in his "helper costume" complete with footed Spider Man pajamas and fire chief boots.
...and his "helper apron."

Happy New Year!

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Yesterday we watched the Mariner's win their last game of the season. They've lost 101 games, but rallied to beat the A's 4-3. The first inning did not look so good, but after that, you wouldn't know that the Mariner's were the worst team in baseball. And being their last game, and Kids' Appreciation Day, the crowd was pretty decent. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Our seats were high, but right behind home plate, and we loved every minute of it.

For the first time, Sam was able to make it through the whole game, if you include the break to run his own home runs on the eating area deck. He was Ichiro and he scored every time!

This trip to the ballpark was our family gift to Ari for his birthday a couple of weeks ago. With very little coaching, it was Sam's idea. Sam's job was to think of something that Ari likes a lot but that would be particularly special coming from his family. Sam came up with the baseball game and planned the special delivery of the surprise. Sam devised a card to give Ari a clue to guess the present. Here it is.

The front shows a hand holding a bat hitting a ball. Sam has written the word "bat" just in case it's not clear.

The inside shows a catcher's mitt (was much clearer before colored) and a baseball with the note to Ari that Sam dictated to me. The backside shows the 3 of us enjoying a baseball game together......and we truly did!

And Now Back to...KNITTING

I haven't been posting a lot about my knitting. Unfortunately, I haven't even been knitting much. I've had a flare up carpal tunnel syndrome or some such annoying hand/wrist/arm pain. But after religiously wearing the immobilizing brace at night for a week or so, I'm back in it. Last night I finished this scarf I have been working on for a while. I think I will block it, but it looks pretty good even without it and I wore it to work today.

I designed this simple pattern myself. I used some amazing sock yarn that I bought at Stitch-n-Pitch a few months ago. But, I'm not much of a sock knitter and I couldn't bear to hide this soft and lovely fiber on my feet. It's Pagewood Farm's Alyeska, a sock blend of merino superwash, cashmere and nylon (80/10/10).

I also have finished the other scarf I designed, so I'll be posting those 2 patterns soon. The pink zig-zag scarf turned out cute, but really too scratchy for wearing against bare skin. I will have to try my first-ever design with another yarn sometime soon.

I'm also working on a prayer shawl that I am trying desperately to get off the needles. I'm so close, but every row is longer and longer and it is getting harder and harder to work on it in the tiny bits of time that I manage to find for knitting. The pattern is nice, but the yarn is boucle and not fun to work with. I will be happy when it's done.And tonight, I wound up this lovely ball of Noro Iro. I wonder what's next?

I've Fallen

Oh Autumn, you sly seductress, you.
With your clear crisp mornings,
And subdued sunlight.
You're new; you're clean; you're cool.
You've got my attention.
One walk, and
I've fallen.

So Long, Summer

Oh summer, how I miss you already. Here is what we were enjoying the weekend before last.

And now this past weekend...

This is Sam on Saturday after an hour at a party in the pouring rain. After getting soaked through (and having a glorious time in the process), we were trying to warm him on the ride home.

And in more typical Seattle weather on Sunday (cool, overcast and anywhere from drizzling to misty) and in more appropriate dress, here we are checking out the dahlias at Volunteer park after a visit to the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

Good-bye Seattle summer sun. Hello wet Seattle winter weather.

The Peanut Song

This week Sam sang us a new song that he learned at school.

Now, once more with feeling!

When Sam first sang this, I laughed. He asked why I thought it was a funny song. I explained that I thought it was pretty funny that the peanut got smushed and turned into peanut butter. He was shocked--shocked, I tell you. He explained the song to me: "The peanut is sitting in the middle of the track. The people on the train smell him when they're coming and think it is peanut butter. They drive over the peanut who does not get smushed because he's so little and then the people are sad because they have no peanut butter." "Oh," I say, "I guess I misunderstood the song."

Straight-Away Pull-Down Shorts

This posting is about straight-away pull-down shorts and other fashion tips from a four year old.

When Sam turned four years old, I felt as if a switch was flipped: Sam was newly confident and independent. He was one of the last kids in his pre-school class to turn 4, so he had been anticipating the mile-stone for some time before it happened. On the morning of his birthday he announced that he was bigger, and "I can do that now because I'm four" was heard frequently throughout the day and next month. One of the ways he has been asserting his independence is in his clothing preferences.

A week or so ago, we went on one of our obligatory semiannual suburban shopping trips. This is where we trek to the mall to pick up some staple items that are not available or are just too expensive to buy in the city. About every 6 months or so, we forget how much we hate shopping at a big box retail stores and fighting the crowds at a disorienting mega mall. We accomplish a necessary wardrobe supplement, but end up feeling a bit like we were suckered into wasting our time and money, and violating our ideals.

Anywho, as I took a bathroom break at the mall, Ari and Sam waited for me in the boys' section of the aforementioned big box retail store. Ari later reported to me that while looking longingly at the t-shirts, Sam asked, "when I get bigger, can I wear shirts like that to school?" This desire was not really a surprise to us, as we've been fighting with him for weeks if not months to wear shirts with buttons. But for some reason, this comment caused us to pause, examine the war, and consider surrendering. As Ari declared, "I don't think he's the preppy kid we've been dressing him as."

Once I accepted (and then even had a surge of pride) that my boy would have his own preferences and opinions on fashion, I began to let him choose his own clothes. I've been querying him to try to understand what he likes and why. Here is what I've gathered.

Straight-away pull down shorts. This is truly a comfort and convenience issue. These are shorts with no buttons or snaps or zippers or other closures--just elastic waistband. A few months ago, we went through a short phase of bathroom accidents with Sam. We attributed them to some regression due to the stress of moving, but maybe more relevantly, we discovered that Sam was having so much fun in his daily activities that he just didn't want to take time out for a bathroom break. Once he realized that the time it took to change was even longer than the break and that he "didn't want to hear you talk about it all the time, talking and talking about it every day" we were on the way to some progress. Straight-away pull-down shorts or pants are key to a quick trip to the bathroom. Shorts are preferred even more because "they are easier to jump so high in," referring to his jumpy thing.

No-button shirts. This started out as a comfort and convenience issue as well, but has morphed into an aesthetic. At first buttons proved a pain because they'd sometimes need to be undone while undressing. Or they "didn't feel good." Now, Sam has noticed that his friends all wear t-shirts and they even take pride in the particularly cool ones like those that sport skulls, or characters, or such. I do recall one incident when Sam and I were waiting in a bathroom line at the Children's Museum and some older kids were there (from a camp) and showing off their t-shirts to us and each other. In the way that he does, Sam silently processed this exchange, and I suspect it may have further influenced his opinion on t-shirts. After a mishap this weekend that involved a quick trip into the Army Navy Surplus store for a replacement t-shirt, I quizzed Sam on his preferences. His first choices, in order of preference, are t-shirts with words, with some picture, or with some stripes or color. He begged for permission to wear his cool new shirt to school and today he did so. Sigh.

Well, the wardrobe does make it easier to have impromptu romps in the Seattle Center fountain.

Blackberry Bonanza

You may have noticed that I twice mentioned picking blackberries in the past week. I'm not talking the cell phone-PDA kind of blackberry, either. We're talking good old-fashioned, pick-by-the-side-of-the-road beauties like the ones my grandmother made into countless pies and jams every summer of my childhood. The Pacific Northwest has a love-hate relationship with these delicious but invasive berries, as I read about on the New York Times dining pages.

We found some on Bainbridge Island at Fay Bainbridge State Park; in fact we went looking for them there because Emily read about them online. We picked over the bunch that were accessible on the beach, but we saw that the road we drove back on was lined with them. It was hard not to pull over and join the fellow-pickers we saw, but we had enough for a cobbler and had a ferry to catch.

We saw more berries on our walk down to the Arboretum and Japanese Garden along Lake Washington Boulevard, but we didn't have an appropriate bag to transport them home in. Sigh. But the next day, we chanced upon the mother load at Seward Park, and did have an extra grocery bag with us.

Though we were exhausted, hungry and scratched, we picked and picked until the bag was starting to rip under it's weight.

And even then, we were not truly deterred until we saw this warning sign posted: Poison Oak.

For those of you willing to brave the poisonous plants and potentially poisonous pesticides, I found a Pacific Northwest wild berry primer. Go forth and forage; you don't even need to leave the city.

Do Nothing Day

Yesterday, we had what we call a "Do Nothing Day." It's not to be confused with a "Stay Home Day" and it's really more accurately called a "Plan Nothing Day." In fact, on Sunday we did quite a bit. When we woke up, we had no plans and decided to go downtown for breakfast and perhaps some antique shopping. We've been in the market for a dining table since our move in June. After breakfast we spent some time watching Sam's favorite fire boat.
We walked down to Pioneer Square, but most of the antique stores we saw were either closed or not our kind of store (read: way too expensive). We stopped in to Elliot Bay Book Company, an awesome independent book store in Seattle. I got Native Seattle, Ari got some sci-fi or fantasy book, and Sam got 2 classics, Peter Pan and Treasure Island. We've started reading Peter Pan to Sam at night and he seems to be enjoying it, though there are a lot of interruptions for questions.

After more walking and mostly window shopping, Sam requested we "go in a building." We were very near the Smith Tower and decided to play townie tourists and check it out. Sam liked the view but was most intrigued by the old elevators.
As we were continuing through Pioneer Square, we happened to pass by the Klondike Gold Rush International Historical Park and stopped in to learn about how the Gold Rush profoundly shaped Seattle.
We paused for a rest in the Waterfall Garden Park, but we were all having so much fun that we didn't want to go home.
Sam suggested that we go to the SAM and who are we to deny the boy a bit of art? When we finally got home, Sam said, "but I wanted to go to Cal Anderson Park today too." Me, I'm hoping for a little more nothing on our next "Do Nothing Day."

What I Did on My Summer Staycation

Well we didn't get a summer vacation per se this year, but Sam and I took a long weekend trip to Maryland and then we had the last week in August mostly off from work and school. I had to go in one day for a presentation and Sam (and his parents) went to school one evening for Back to School Meet the Teacher night. My presentation went well, but Sam was sad to find out that 3 of his 4 best friends were assigned to the other pre-K classroom. He gets to see them during outside playtime and in the late afternoons, but he's still confused and stressed by the situation. On the other hand, we had a great time during our free time together. Emma came to visit for part of the week and we all played the part of Seattle tourists. Here's a recap of the week.

I've already written about our trip to Mount Rainier.

On Monday, Sam and I took the bus down to the Seattle Center to visit the Children's Museum. Unfortunately the museum was unbearably crowded, so Sam negotiated a stop at the carnival rides instead. He frequented the airplane ride and the 2 bouncy slides.

We also went to the Seattle Aquarium, where Sam and Emily were fascinated by the sea otters, and we all got to see an octopus have his lunch. Sam was tickled by the machines that simulated waves in the tanks. And running around on the pier with a friend from school that we ran into.

On Thursday we took the ferry to Bainbridge Island. We started off the morning in downtown Winslow for breakfast then headed up to Fay Bainbridge State Park to walk on the beach and pick blackberries.

After a few clams "attacked us" Emily was determined to dig one up, which she accomplished after much effort.

We returned to Winslow for a bit of shopping and lunch. Best of all was dessert at Mora's. And my lovely yarn purchase from Churchmouse yarns. My first yummy Malabrigo.

On Friday we made it to the Ballard Locks. Sam and I are regulars, but it was Emily's first visit and she was rewarded with jumping salmon and the most enormous barge we've ever seen.

On Saturday, Ari was finally able to join our sightseeing and we made it the Arboretum and the Japanese Garden as I mentioned before. Sunday we took our last summer outing to Seward Park. We picked more blackberries and exhausted ourselves.

It was the best summer staycation ever.

First Day of School

Sharpen your pencils and pick out your lunchbox; today is the first back to school. Okay, I don't know if they actually use pencils in Pre-K since I've only seen crayons and markers. And of course, this mom does not subscribe to the disposable lunch box philosophy, so Sam is using the same "No animals in here" peta bag from last year. But, the lazy days of summer camp are over and the barely-more-than-a-week summer vacation has passed. Time for a new classroom, new teachers, and new friends.

Serious face
Goofy Smile Besides his lunchbox and snack, Ari and Sam were packed up with classroom supplies (tissues and baggies and such), our "homework" describing our family, family photos, the rest-time (not nap-time) blanket and stuffed animal (guess who?), and emergency kit. Did you know that kids now need to take an emergency kit with them to school? At least they do in the potential big-one area of Seattle. The kit consists of water and blanket provided by the school, and an oversized sweatsuit, underwear, mittens, knit hat, a day's worth of food, a comforting note and family picture provided by the parents. Knit hat? I'm all over that! So, I packed up this hand-knit hat, a warm brown number I knit last winter. It won't have any more cold seasons left (at least fitting Sam) by the time the kit is retired at the end of next summer. Here's hoping Sam never wears this hand-knit hat again. Sigh.