The Small Family     

Happy National Chocolate-Chip Cookie Day, everyone! I can’t say I actually would’ve known about this holiday (though obviously I should, given my love of chocolate-chip cookies) were it not for the fact that one of my authors promised to have his entire manuscript finished by Nat’l Chocolate-Chip Cookie Day, so I had to look it up to figure out when he was talking about. Alas, he has not finished the manuscript. Maybe I should eat some chocolate-chip cookies to console myself about this…. Or maybe I should eat some pie! Which brings me to my first Theo story of the week…and the inspiration for this week’s blog title.

One day this week, I stopped at the Starbucks drive-through with Theo in the car, and he was chattering away in the backseat: “That’s pie! That’s pie!” I assumed he saw some sort of pastry displayed at the drive-through window, so I said, “Where do you see pie?” I turned around to see where he was pointing, and he held up a calculator he was playing with--on the screen was the number 3.14159…mathematical pi!

I have to admit, I was stunned. I mean, I know that kid has a phenomenal memory, but that blew me away! Several days earlier, he had been playing with the calculator when I got him out of the car at the gym, and he said, “Oh my, look at all these numbers!” and showed me the screen. He had somehow brought up 3.14159, and I laughed and said, “Hey, you made pi! That number is called pi!” I then got him out of his seat, took him into the gym, and thought no more of it…until several days later, when he made pi in the Starbucks drive-through and recognized it as such. I was really amazed that he remembered that somewhat complex series of numbers as pi, since it’s a bit more complicated than recognizing, say, the number 20 or something. Chris has an extremely good memory (and mine is none too shabby either), but I’m quite certain that Theo has both of us beat. Funny thing is, Chris’s birthday is Wednesday, and Theo keeps telling me that we should get Daddy a calculator for his birthday. Maybe he wants Chris to be able to make pi, too!

Another example of where that kiddo’s memory amazed me happened a couple of weeks ago. He has a few Baby Einstein CDs that he likes to listen to in his room--they have some children’s songs and some classical songs on them. One day we were playing Lincoln logs in his room, and “Flight of the Bumblebee” came on. I said, “Oh, this song is called ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’--hear how it sounds like a bee?” Theo didn’t answer, so I assumed he wasn’t really listening, but clearly I assumed wrong. A few days later, I put the CD on for him to listen to while I was in the shower, and about 10 minutes later, he ran into the bathroom saying, “The bumblebee song! The bumblebee song!” I went to his room, and indeed he was right--“Flight of the Bumblebee” was on. I was again shocked by his memory. Granted, “Flight of the Bumblebee” is a pretty recognizable classical song because it really does sound like a bumblebee…but still, he’s three. And I didn’t even think he was listening. I guess I should never think that, huh?

He also came up to me this week, out of the blue, and said, “Feo watch 'Little Einsteins' with a little boy in bedroom at Uncle Chris’s house.” And he’s right--he did watch an episode of “Little Einsteins” on our iPad in the guest bedroom at Chris and Lisa’s house--and one of the other little boys at the baby shower went in and watched it with him for a while. But that was seven months ago, and he hasn’t said a word about it since, nor has he seen Uncle Chris or even watched “Little Einsteins” terribly recently. I guess it just popped back into his head for whatever reason.

All this crazy memory stuff amuses me to no end--and makes me realize that probably part of the reason why Theo often doesn’t seem to pay a whole lot of attention to Chris and me is that he’s so wrapped up in whatever he’s working on in that crazy brain of his. I’m sure part of it is also that he’s three years old, and no three-year-old has much of an attention span. But I suspect that span is even less when he’s busy working out all of the memories and new bits of information he has in that brain of his. I mean, if you’re busy remembering pi, how can you be expected to listen to Mama tell you to go down the hall to the bathroom?! ;-)

Boy, is he ever his father’s son that way! Half the time Chris is off in his head somewhere, and I can tell that even though he’s trying to listen to what I’m saying, he’s really quite busy thinking about something else instead. (Perhaps his Vietnamese noodle house?! Ha ha--that project ended this week, and he’s very happy about that!)

Though I guess I can’t lay all the blame on (or give all the credit to?) Chris. When I was in first grade, I believe, the teacher questioned whether I was retarded (thank goodness that word is no longer used--nowadays, I guess they’d question whether I was developmentally delayed) because I used to sit and stare off into space with my mouth hanging open. Turns out I was not developmentally delayed, as I’m sure you’ve probably guessed--I was actually extremely bored in school, so I used to just sit and daydream all day. And I would get so into my own head that I didn’t even realize when people were talking to me.

So, yeah--the next time I feel frustrated that my son isn’t listening to me when I ask him to go pick up his blue shoes and bring them to me, I’ll remind myself that he’s probably busy working quadratic formulas in his head. Or composing a symphony. Or something. ;-)

Speaking of fun quirky bits, let me shift a moment to talk about our four-legged, furry kiddo. One of them, anyway. I’ve come to realize over the past months that Zoe and Luna have decidedly different personalities. Luna is nearly always calm (except when people first come over) and sweet and mellow. Zoe can be a bit of a bully and is the furthest thing from mellow! She’s is wild and crazy and hilarious! And intense. I’m very amused by her lately because the late-spring sun comes into our house quite a bit in the afternoons, and I’m not kidding when I tell you that dog will spend hours chasing bits of light on the carpet. Yes, hours. Luna just looks at her like she’s insane. And yesterday, she discovered her shadow. I had Theo and the dogs out in the backyard in the late afternoon, and Zoe stood on the patio for a good half hour, every muscle tensed and ready to spring if her shadow moved. It cracks me up! And if you say, “Zoe! Are you chasing light?” or “Are you getting your shadow?” she’ll look up at you with this expression like, “Don’t worry, Mom--I’m on this! The shadow/light won’t get past me!”

And this is why I love the little poop, even though she can really be a bit of a bully when she wants to be. She makes me laugh. :-)

We had crazy weather this weekend--on Sunday, that is. So much hail that Theo thought it had snowed outside! Actually, it did look like snow piled up on the edges of the streets and covering the grassy medians. We were out and about Sunday morning, and it was kind of funny to see Roseville covered in what looked like snow in some parts!

Chris spent almost all of Sunday studying for his upcoming accounting final, which he gets to take from 6:30-9:30 p.m. on Wednesday--his 35th birthday! Now, what kind of a way is that to celebrate a birthday--working all day and then taking an accounting final at night?! Ah, well--I spent my 35th birthday walking around the mall with a fussy infant and getting told by some woman that I could clearly easily give birth to an 8-pound baby, given my size. Um, THANKS?! So really, an accounting final is probably preferable to that….

We will instead celebrate Chris’s big 3-5 with an overnight to San Francisco next weekend, while Grandpa Tom and Grandma Kathy stay at our house with Theo. We don’t have any real plans for our time in SF, other than dinner at Fleur de Lys--the famous restaurant by Hubert Keller. I’ve wanted to go there ever since I saw Hubert on Top Chef Masters a couple of years ago--I love him, even though he made macaroni and cheese in a college-dorm shower in one episode, which almost made me puke! :-) So finally, we shall go. And it will be lovely to have a day/night to just relax and spend time together that doesn't revolve around building Lincoln-log houses for the plastic elephant….

This week’s pictures are from Saturday, when we went to Walnut Creek to meet up with a friend from our master’s program, who has a son just about Theo’s age. I didn’t get too many pictures, as I was busy chatting with Roxann and, along with Chris, keeping an eye on Theo, but I got a few. We also had a fantastic Mediterranean lunch afterward…mmmm! The restaurant looked like a small hole-in-the-wall place, but oh boy was the food ever good! I had kefta kabob (ground beef/lamb dish), and Chris had a lamb kabob. Theo had hummus (some of the best hummus I’ve had) and pita, as well as some cucumber/tomato salad and basmati rice. And we shared some dolma (stuffed grape leaves) and tabbouleh (also excellent). We will definitely be making a return trip there!

Hope you all had a fantastic week--and eat a chocolate-chip cookie in honor of the day! Or some pi….