4.7 or, Homebody

Dear Corbin,

This month you started pre-school, swimming lessons and gymnastics lessons.  You would rather stay home.

You keep telling us how much you don't like school.  It makes me worried for your future. Especially when you also say that you're going to live with me forever.  In fact, one night when I said something like, "When you grow up and live by yourself..." you actually got so sad you cried.  I hope that you manage to find something fun about school.  I wonder if you'll enjoy it more when you've learned to read, although me and your Dad mainly read to escape the fact that we didn't like school, so maybe I'm being optimistic on that one.

I thought that you would like swimming lessons, after you had so much fun in the pool a couple of weeks ago.  You were talking about how you wanted to learn how to dive and things like that.  But after the first time your instructor got you to go underwater, you didn't like it anymore.  So before the second lesson, we went out and bought you a pair of goggles.  You forgot to put them on for your lesson, though, so hopefully the third time will be the charm.  You have practiced wearing them in the bathtub, although you didn't put your face underwater, you just poured water over your head and laughed and laughed.

You have enjoyed the gymnastics lessons, which we kind of expected.  I hope that you continue to like them.  I wouldn't mind seeing you stick with gymnastics for a long time.  I think it would be a good sport for you, and I would certainly rather go to gymnastics meets than baseball games.

So we haven't really done much this month.  Except go to the park a lot.  We drove home from school past Greenwood park one day, and you wanted to stop and play.  Since then, we've gone a couple of times each week.  Sometimes it's just you and I.  Sometimes Grandma or Grandpa (or both) walk there with Miriam and we meet up with them.  Sometimes there are other children there, which is fun.  One day you caught a big grasshopper, so we had to head home right away to put him in the bug house.  He managed to survive his afternoon in the bug house, and you were very good about letting him go before bed time.

A while ago, we had this conversation:
Me: You're driving me crazy!
You: You're driving me coconuts!
And then we both laughed.  So now you say, "Oh, coconuts!" fairly often, when something has gone wrong.

And this one:
You:  "What if the whole world was California?" 
Dad:  "What if it was?"
You:  "Then I'd be so happy!"
Dad:  "Why would that make you happy?"
You:  "Because California is ...  ... a fun place!"

I hope wherever life takes you, it's a fun place.

Love,
Mom

 

Notes from LA: The Weather Section

The weather section of the LA Times takes up over half a page.  Half a page of newspaper is a lot of space for a city where the day-to-day change in the weather is under five degrees.  So, why half a page?

There are five micro-climates here: the LA Basin (which I usually think of as Downtown), the Valleys, the Beaches, the Mountains and the Deserts.  So each of those areas has it's own forecast.  Then, they tell you about the air quality, the tides, the surf, the UV index, the almanac information, and the rise and set times for both the sun and the moon.  There's also a list of highs and lows for about 30 California cities.

Next to all of that is the weather in North America, with a long list of highs and lows for US cities, and a shorter list of information for world cities.  I think this section exists solely to prove to Angelinos that actual weather does exist elsewhere in the nation and the world.

What's the upshot?  The weather at my house (in the beaches section of town) will be mid-70s all week, with varying small amounts of clouds.

Just like last week.

1.5 or, Drawing the Line

Dear Miriam,

Your body might not be growing very quickly, but your personality certainly is.  You have evidenced a stubborn streak and a temper, which nobody who knows your family is surprised by.  Your father will tell you that it all comes from me, but don't let him fool you.

Your favorite activity right now is drawing.  You draw with crayons.  You draw with pencils.  You draw with markers.  You draw with sidewalk chalk.  You draw on the magnetic doodle pads.  You love to draw.  You started out making lots of straight lines, but you've moved on now to actual scribbles.   You love the sidewalk chalk so much that I started keeping it on a shelf where you could get to it yourself.  Then I discovered that in a place where it never rains, sidewalk chalk never washes away.  After scrubbing the driveway off by hand, I made you start drawing on the part of the sidewalk that gets watered by the sprinklers instead.

You've started wanting to do lots of things for yourself.  You like to dress yourself, or bring us clothes that you want to wear.  You like to put on necklaces--you'll put on a whole handful of bungee cords at one time.  You want to feed yourself, with predictably messy results.  Or, not: one night that we had spaghetti, you grabbed a noodle and tried to put it over your head like a necklace.  That was unpredictably messy.

You have started doing some funny walks.  You walk on your tip toes.  You walk backwards.  You take big, slow, stomping steps, which makes Grandma laugh and laugh.  You are good at going up the stairs now, but you can't seem to decide how you want to go down the stairs.  Sometimes you go backwards, but sometimes you sit down and scoot your butt down one step at a time.

Your hair is straight in the front, but curly in the back.  It makes me wonder what it will be like when you're older and it gets thicker.  I remember my mother and I struggling with my hair when I was a child.  I hope that you and I (and Dad, too) are able to deal with your hair with less pain and aggravation.

Speaking of pain and aggravation, you've had a bunch of teeth come in.  You have four teeth on top, now, but only three on the bottom.  It looks like one of your bottom teeth is stuck behind a tooth that was already there.  I've made you an appointment at a pediatric dentist, so we'll see what they have to say about it.  It doesn't seem to stop you from eating; you still eat all the time.  If you see someone sitting at the table, you want to eat with them.  You'll open up the cupboard where we keep dry and canned goods and bring us the raisins or a granola bar to open for you.  One day, you got a box of crackers open by yourself, and you would take out a cracker and then go sit in the back yard and eat it.  Arrow kept following you, back and forth, from the cupboard to the yard, waiting to see if you'd let him eat one, too.  One day I was watching you eat fried rice and I said to Grandpa, "She doesn't look Chinese, but she eats like she's Chinese!"

We did some fun things this month.  We played at the beach at the Santa Monica Pier.  You were too young for the rides or games, but you had fun chasing the pigeons.  You chased the pigeons at Griffith Park, too, while Corbin had a pony ride.  You did get to go on the train ride there, and the carousel, too.  You weren't too keen on the carousel.  We weren't sure if it was because you didn't like the motion or if the ride was just a little too long.  When we went to San Diego,you seemed to enjoy the zoo, but you really loved the pool at the hotel.  You wore Grandma out wanting to jump in.  You liked it when I swished you around in big circles.  You have always liked to play in water, so it wasn't a big surprise that you liked the pool.  We're definitely going to have to put you in swimming lessons when you get older.

You are trying to say a lot of words these days.  Mostly, you're imitating what we say, which is fine and we can mostly understand it.  But sometimes you'll just come out with a stream of word-like sounding babble, and then we all wonder if we're supposed to have any idea what you meant.  One of the funnier phrases that you've picked up is, "Big eyes," which is what we say when we're making faces at you: "Big eyes," and we open our eyes as wide as we can; "Little eyes," and we squint up our eyes and lower our eyebrows.  Every time you do Little Eyes, it makes us all laugh.  I said once that if we ever have you in a day care or with a baby-sitter, we're going to have to warn them about Little Eyes, otherwise, they'll think you're frowning at them the whole time.

This month has not been an easy month for me.  You will learn as you grow up that I worry about things.  I like to have a predictable life, which I can plan for and which runs smoothly.  I am not good at waiting for other people to do things that affect my life, so the combination of interviewing for jobs plus having our Minneapolis house on the market has not been fun.  But my cousin Sharon gave me a good piece of advice: she told me to enjoy the time home with you and Corbin, which was a good change in perspective.  I do love spending time with you, even when you sit in a puddle and then sit on my lap.

Love,
Mom


You love to draw:

   Fun with a box:

 Curly!

 We look nothing alike:

 A girl and her crackers:

 

 Wearing all the bungee cords, and an extra pair of shorts over your pants (because you wanted to):

 Bubbles with Grandpa:

Remember last month, when I said that you put all of your farm animals in the car carrier semi?

4.6 or, Having Fun Even If It Kills Us

Dear Corbin,

This month, we had this conversation at a restaurant over lunch:
Dad: Corbin, do you want to try my root beer?
You: I'm too young to drink beer!
Me: No, no, it's like a soda.
You: I can't drink soda!

We had this exchange with Grandpa:
You, holding up a Twizzler: Mom, look what Grandpa gave me.
Me, intending to be teasing: Did somebody give you a treat?
You, starting to cry: Grandpa, you're not supposed to give me treats!

One day, you gave Grandpa back a couple of little gummy fruit snacks and said, "I've had enough sugar!"  You might think that this speaks well of your eating habits, but there was also the day that you ate chocolate pudding for afternoon snack, chocolate pudding for dinner, chocolate ice cream for dessert (delayed from lunch time) and then fried rice and yogurt for bed time snack.

We met our science quota for the month: You and Dad went to the Madrona Nature Center for a presentation about raptors, and got to see two hawks and several owls. Aunt Tabetha's birthday was this month, so you and I took her to see the Space Shuttle Endeavor at the CA Science Center.  We got to do a simulated shuttle ride and we watched the IMAX 3D about the Hubble Telescope.  After that, we tried to do some other parts of the Science Center, but you discovered the room about water and rivers and after that all you wanted to do was play with the water exhibits.  We'll have to do the rest some other time.

We met our sight-seeing quota for the month: We went to the Flower District one Saturday morning, to see the original Los Angeles Flower Market, which was opened in 1921.  They had some pretty standard selections, but they also had a huge display of beautiful orchids.  I bought a Hawaiian volcano plant, which is an anthurium growing on a piece of volcanic rock.  It's pretty cool.  Anthuriums were the flower that your Grandma Lam carried in her wedding, so it's kind of sentimental to have one in the house.

We went to the Santa Monica Pier one day.  I thought it would be sight-seeing, but it's actually an amusement park.  So you rode the child-sized bumper cars and we went on the Ferris wheel together.  Then we went down off the pier and played on the beach a little while.

We also went to Griffith Park.  We thought we'd go to the zoo, but it was much too hot and too expensive.  We decided that we would wait until October or November, and go for either Dad's or Grandpa's birthday.  We did ride the little park train twice, and the carousel twice.  You even got to have your first pony ride.  You were old enough to choose between a slow ride, at a walk, or a medium ride, at a trot.  We watched some other kids on the ponies, and you decided on the medium ride.  Grandma was watching from the side and she didn't know that you had chosen the faster ride.  When your pony started trotting away with you, she thought you were in trouble!  Even though it was a bouncy ride, you thought it was a lot of fun.

We even met our quota for traveling this month: We went down to San Diego for a few days to go to that zoo and visit Uncle Alex and Aunt Lena.  The San Diego zoo is pretty great--we got to see the pandas and some awesome big cats.  It's too big to do in one morning, and it's built in the hills, so that one morning was totally exhausting.  Plus, we all stayed in one hotel room, so nobody got any sleep.  We came home the next day, instead of staying and going to the aquarium at Scripps.

And after that month, we were all tired out.  Good thing it's the start of the school year and we can only do things on the weekends.

Love,
Mom


Listening to the newest Beats headphones:

 Santa Monica Pier:

 Madrona Nature Center:

 CA Science Center:

 Griffith Park:

 San Diego Zoo:

1.4 or, Funny Girl

Dear Miriam,

The thing we say about you most often is, "She's so funny!"  Sometimes it's because you're being silly on purpose, like when you run off expecting us to chase you.  You look back at us and laugh and laugh.  You like to run off with a couple of crayons and then act like you're going to write on the walls, just to make me run after you.  Or you'll see us getting the diaper changing stuff and then you'll run off giggling.

Sometimes it's because you're doing something that we find funny.  The other day, you were determined to fit all of the farm animals into the car carrier semi truck.  The animals would fall out the sides and you would just pick them up and try to cram them back in.  Grandma watched you for the longest time, being entertained by your concentration.  You're funny when we take walks--today you laid down on the sidewalk for a while so that you could get a closer look at some leaves.  That made me laugh.

And sometimes it's because you just have funny habits.  You love to read books.  You will bring one book after another for us to read to you.  Some of your books have become interactive for you.  One book is about a boy and his mother rocking in their rocking chair, and you'll rock back and forth on my lap saying, "Rock rock.  Rock rock."  Another book is based on the nursery rhyme, "10 in the bed," and each time a stuffed animal falls out of the bed, you smack the book with your hands and yell.  The first time you did that with me, I almost couldn't read the book for laughing.

You've been wanting to listen to music lately.  You especially like Cow Tunes for Kids, partly because there are songs with cows mooing and other animal noises.  You are really into elephant noises right now.  Possibly because I do a pretty good elephant sound effect.  One day, you kept pointing to the elephant in the bath book so that I would make an elephant noise.  Another day, you kept holding up your stuffed Horton the Elephant to me.

We went to a couple of places this month.  We went over to Redondo Beach and you had fun in the water for a little while.  You like playing in water at the house, but you seemed to get tired of the waves.  So we got you to play in the sand for a while instead.

We went down to Long Beach one afternoon.  We drove over the Gerald Desmond Bridge, which goes over the Port of Long Beach.  It was impressive to look down and watch the giant cranes unloading the cargo ships.  We saw locomotives waiting for their trains to be hooked up and we speculated that most of the trains we saw on our drive to CA probably came from Long Beach.  We had lunch at a funny little food court.  You liked looking at all of the live lobsters and crabs.  Then we went to the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, which you enjoyed until you fell asleep in your stroller.

You and I made two good discoveries this month.  On one of our walks, we discovered the Madrona Marsh Nature Center, which is very cool.  They have snakes and turtles and tortoises.  We got to feel snake skin and honey comb.  They have a nice museum section where we liked looking at all of the birds on display.  Then we went and walked around the actual marsh for a little while before heading home.  I took Corbin over the next week and he enjoyed it, too.

We also discovered that we can both drink lactose-free milk.  We've been using soy-based toddler formula for you, but you're getting too old for it.  I quizzed a couple of friends about alternative milks, and we decided to try the lactose-free milk and see what happened.  What happened was that I ate all of the cereal in the house.  I think that your stomach is like mine: I can eat all kinds of dairy food, but I can't drink milk.  So I thought I'd test it on myself first by having a bowl of cereal one morning and seeing if it gave me a stomach ache.  The only problem with my stomach was that I got hungry for more cereal.  I had forgotten just how tasty breakfast cereal can be.  So very, very tasty.  So someday when you need a little something to use, feel free to remind me that you are why I am totally addicted to Quaker Life.

Love,
Mom


Sundress!

 At the beach:

 Rock, rock:

 Farmer Miriam:

4.5 or, Mammoths and Turtles and Grunion, Oh My

Dear Corbin,

In some ways it's hard to believe we've only been here for two months.  In other ways, it's hard to believe that it hasn't been longer.  We've discovered more places around the house that are useful.  We even made it out to breakfast one weekend morning.

You had a somewhat eventful month.  You went to the La Brea Tar Pits twice, once with me and Aunt Tabetha, and once with Dad.  You seemed to enjoy it very much.  They had a couple of exhibits about saber tooth cats that you were particularly interested in.  Each time, you spent the next couple of days talking about rescuing mammoths stuck in the tar.

You visited the school where you'll start preschool in September.  You were a little shy at first, which is normal for you.  You sometimes like a little time to asses the situation and get comfortable.  But you got to see and touch the pet turtle, so that was cool.  I hope that you enjoy being there.  It will be different from Mayflower--there is only one class and everyone stays for lunch.  They do have a nice outside space.  I look forward to you getting more exercise.

Speaking of exercise, we started you in some martial arts lessons at the YMCA.  It's not really martial arts--they're focusing on teaching you how to get away from someone trying to kidnap you.  So I think we will either find a different martial arts class, or do gymnastics instead.  We did see a class practicing kendo at a park one day, so now you're all about taking classes with swords, too.

We went to the beach one afternoon.  We didn't have a very good idea of where to go, but we managed to find a nice spot that was close to a parking lot.  You loved playing in the waves, much more than we had imagined you would.  We hadn't even brought you swimsuit; it was only good luck that we had a change of clothes in the car for you.

We went to the library and got library cards.  The central library isn't far from us, but we decided to go to a different location which was next to a park.  You and I played on the playground while Grandma went to the library.  That worked out well.

We went down to Long Beach one afternoon.  We drove over the Gerald Desmond Bridge, which goes over the Port of Long Beach.  It was impressive to look down and watch the giant cranes unloading the cargo ships.  We saw locomotives waiting for their trains to be hooked up and we speculated that most of the trains we saw on our drive to CA probably came from Long Beach.  We had lunch at a funny little food court.  You and Miriam liked looking at all of the live lobsters and crabs.  Then we went to the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, which you enjoyed very much.  We learned what a radula is, and we got to hatch grunion in a little jar.  Then we walked over and played on the beach for a little while, this time with your swimming suit on.

Your behavior has improved over the last month, too.   The first couple of weeks were pretty tough--you threw a lot of tantrums and you seemed to enjoy finding every last one of my buttons to push.  One night after a pretty big fight, Dad and I sat down and had a long talk about what we thought was going on.  Since then, we've tried some different strategies to keep us all on the same page, and I think they've been working.  One of the strategies is letting you give up your afternoon nap.  It's meant no fights in the afternoons, and it's made bedtime much smoother, too.

Another part of the problem was that I was treating you as if you were older, because you've gotten so much more capable.  My favorite example of your new abilities is the morning that you came into our room, already dressed.  You were so proud of yourself, and we were proud of you, too.  Then we noticed that you had put on everything either backwards, inside-out, or both.  But we didn't want to criticize, so over the course of the morning we would pretend to suddenly notice your shirt or your pants.  When we told Grandma over breakfast that you had gotten yourself dressed, you said, "I put on these pants with the stripe so that I would look spiffy!"  Grandma nearly laughed herself off her chair.  And it's moments like that which make it hard to remember that you're still so very, very young.

I hope that you will be honest with yourself, throughout your life but especially as a young adult, about your own level of maturity.  I know how it was to feel like I was a grown up and prepared for life, and I know how that simply wasn't true.  It is not only a matter of being graceful about your own ignorance--ignorance is not a character flaw, it's a fact of everyone's life.  It's a matter of recognizing where you are in your life, and balancing your knowledge with your experience.  You will never know everything.  That's okay.  Know yourself.

Love,
Mom

You spent an afternoon as a bunny:

 At the Tar Pits with Mom and Aunt Tabetha:

 At the beach:

 Martial arts class:

At the Tar Pits with Dad:

Hatching grunion:

Dressed up as a sea turtle: