The Small Family     

Hello all! It’s been a reasonably quiet around here this week, but we do have a few fun things to report. We kicked off the week by spending time with Chris’s cousin, Chelsi. She had to sit around the Sacramento Airport for 12 hours on Monday, waiting for her ride home, so I suggested that Theo and I could come pick her up so she could spend the day with us. Chelsi and I have been Facebook friends for a while, and she was actually at our wedding, but I didn’t get a chance to meet her. (I’m convinced that when you’re the bride or groom, you don’t get a chance to talk to anyone at your wedding.) She lives in Fort Bragg with her husband and three sons, and we’ve long talked about driving up there to visit, but we haven’t ever gotten around to it. (It’s a good 3.5-hour drive for us, I believe.) So, we finally got to meet this week. Theo was a bit of a tyrant because he’s in this phase where he gets very jealous if Chris or I try to carry on an adult conversation with anyone, but aside from that, it was a lovely day. (And yes, I’m hoping this phase ends soon. It’s quite tiresome!) One of Chelsi’s sons is just a week younger than Theo, so we were swapping stories about the boys and decided that the two of them would cause some serious mayhem if/when we get them together at some point! She also tempted Chris and I with the idea of taking a trip to the Anderson Valley (not too far from Fort Bragg) wine country one of these days…mmmm!

Theo and I also had some fun playtime with Emma and Jamie (for him) and visiting time with Janeane (for me). With all sorts of wonderful playground equipment at the park, perhaps it’s no great surprise that all three kids pretty much ignored the playground and preferred to spend their time roaming in the adjacent field, picking up snails and rocks and dirt. ;-) Unfortunately, Theo accidentally squished a snail and then decided that was great fun, so I’m now trying to teach him that snails are nice little animals who are our friends, and we ought not squish them. Sigh…boys!!

Speaking of Emma, a funny Theo story from this week. That kid is already learning how to poke holes in my logic. He is dying to go back to preschool, but it doesn’t start until July. Almost every day, he will put on his backpack and announce that he wants to go to preschool. So, one day this week, he said, “Feo ready go preschool!” and I replied, “I know you are. But we can’t go for a couple more months--it’s not open yet!” He looked at me seriously and said, “Emma’s preschool is open.” Um…very true, and well stated, my boy! I had to revise my logic and tell him that Emma’s preschool is indeed open, but his isn’t. He wasn’t too thrilled to hear that, I’m afraid. But seriously--does that kid have a career in law in his future? At just barely three, he’s already pointing out holes in my logic! Little Miss Emma is apparently the queen of arguing her point to the death (so Janeane tells me with a tired look on her face!), so I’ve decided that perhaps the two munchkins should open a law firm together: Small and Wyatt or Wyatt and Small. Oh, I can see it now!

We’ve also been having fun out in the backyard. I’m pleased to report that our veggie garden is doing great! I sacrificed the peas in the interest of space, as they were looking quite bedraggled, but everything else looks to be thriving. In fact, the broccoli is growing crazy-fast! If they start to crowd each other, I’m not sure what else I can sacrifice, since everything seems to be growing well. Hmmm….

We also have a cucumber shoot coming up from the seeds we planted! Grandma Diane got Theo a little veggie-growing set for his birthday, so we planted cucumber, eggplant, pepper, and tomato seeds. And already, we have a cucumber sprouting! I’m ridiculously excited by this. Theo is just happy to go water things with the watering can, and I’m like a kid in a candy store, watching these plants grow. Let’s hope they continue to do well and we get some yummy produce out of them. If we do, I may have Chris build me a second veggie bed, so I can expand my enterprise!

The weather has been great for outdoor play, but it has one very big downside: allergies. Theo and I have been a bit of a mess for several days. We’re going through Kleenex like crazy, and my nose was completely blocked for several days. Even my trusty nasal irrigator wouldn’t work on it! (Aren’t you all glad to know that?? He he he he….)

And so, knowing that coastal climates tend to make my allergies back off, we decided to drive to Berkeley on Saturday. We had in mind to go to the Berkeley Arboretum, which I realize sounds nuts given that I hadn’t breathed through my nose in days--but it really did turn out okay. It being much closer to the coast made my allergies back off significantly, even though we were amid blooming plants. I was rather sad to come back to Sacramento--by the time we were halfway home, I again couldn’t breathe through my nose. Sigh…

So it turns out that Saturday was Cal Day--basically, a big open house at UC Berkeley (which is often referred to as “Cal”). If we had known that, we never would’ve gone, as we would've anticipated the giant crowds that go with UC Davis’s equivalent day. (Davis’s version of Cal Day, known as Picnic Day, was also held on Saturday, and they estimated that 75,000 people swarmed the tiny town. We went last year, and it was utter madness, so I refused to go this year.) But surprisingly, Cal Day was much less crowded than Picnic Day. In fact, I wouldn’t have even known it was going on, except that parking was free at the Arboretum in honor of the event, and admission to the Arboretum was free as well! Given that we saved $25 on parking and admission, we splurged and bought two beautiful blue flowering plants for the shady part of our backyard, where we don’t have a lot of luck growing things. Supposedly these are hardy plants that grow well in shade, so we’ll see….

As predicted, Theo loved the Arboretum. Give that kid dirt paths, rocks, sticks, and flowers, and he will be happy for hours! He was a little tired, as it was coming up on naptime, but he still managed to play for a good 90 minutes, just puttering around, looking at the plant signs, picking up sticks and rocks, and touching the flowers.

Turns out that, due to Cal Day, they were running a contest--if you could find and take a picture of a plant established at the Arboretum in the year you were born, and then post that picture to their Facebook page, you could win one of two family memberships good at the Arboretum and 200 other arboretums across the U.S. This became a treasure hunt for Chris and me, and we did find plants from both of our birth years. As of right now, I am the only person who has posted a picture on their Facebook page, so I think I may win us a membership by default. ;-) That would be seriously cool, given how much Theo loves to go roam around such places and look at the plants.

Chris and I also managed to watch two movies this week--we rented The Tourist, which was entertaining but not the greatest movie ever. Worth the $4 to rent it, but glad we didn’t pay for theater admission on that one! And Sunday, we went to the theater to see Arthur while my Mom babysat Theo for two hours. We were in the mood for a comedy, and it fit the bill--it was pretty amusing. Our next great theater adventure may be taking Theo to see his first full-length movie. His viewing has so far been limited to 20-minute shows such as Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Little Einsteins, Dora the Explorer, Handy Manny, etc. So we’re not sure whether he’ll actually sit still for a 90-minute movie. But I hear Rio is really cute, beautifully animated, and appropriate for any age, so we may give it a try in a couple of weeks. He’s been asking to go to the movie theater for months, and I keep telling him that when he’s a big enough boy to sit quietly in the theater for a long time, we’ll take him. So I guess we’ll see whether that is indeed the case yet. I have fond memories of my Dad taking me to see Disney movies in the theater when I was a little girl, so I’d like to do that with Theo sometime, too.

And that, my friends, wraps up the week for us. Next weekend we’re headed down to Santa Cruz to see Auntie Lisa and Uncle Chris and to meet their adorable little boy, Cason! We hope to also see Chris’s cousin Bill, his wife Sarah, and their little cutie Liam while we’re there--and also maybe an old grad-school friend of ours. So I can’t guarantee I’ll have next week’s blog up by Monday morning--depends what time we get back from Santa Cruz on Sunday night. If not Monday morning, then surely by Tuesday.

Have a great week, all