Groundskeeper Oliver

Today Oliver went to the park with us and he noticed that the baseball diamond was being groomed. He began to run toward the tractor leaving us in the dust. By the time we had caught up to him he had convinced the groundskeeper to let him ride on the tractor. The man was literally pushing our son like a slave. So funny. I love too that the guy didn't bother to ask us whether we wanted our son on a major piece of machinery. Ha!

Nickie's 90th

On St. Patrick’s Day this year, Nickie Meek turned 90. The next day, we threw her a party that will be remembered in Yreka for years to come. I found an offshoot of the Southern Oregon Symphony who call themselves the Rogue Valley Sauerkrauts, a 17-piece German polka band, who insist on playing dressed to the nines in full lederhosen, and basically played the party for gas money and a free meal. They played for hours, delighting people from age 3-94, and when they were at their peak, there were at least 22 musicians, with a few extra sitting on the sidelines. I guess since the average age of the band was about 85, they needed a few backup in case a trombone player went down mid-song. Horn down! The polka must go on!

Nickie’s German roots run deep (unfortunately all the way to limburger cheese) and we managed to keep the band a secret until a few hours before the party started. She was surprised, elated, and had such a fun time. Half the fun was watching Nickie during the party, having a grand old time. Amanda put out cards for guests to write letters to Nickie and Connie put together a slideshow that left few dry eyes in the house. The musicians (who also opened a few beers along with the party guests) let Oliver and his cousins Lucas and Ella play the drums, the party was an absolute riot, and the birthday girl did the polka – at age 90.

A big highlight of the weekend for me was watching Oliver really connect with his cousins for the first time. They all at the age where they’re play-compatible and they played for hours on end, blissed out on each other’s presence. On Nickie’s birthday, at Brian and Connie’s house, Ella was holding Claire in a chair, looking all the portrait of beauty. Oli and Lucas came rambling up, babbling silliness and laughing with each other. They left almost immediately, and left a smile on my face. “Ella,” I said, “Someday you and Claire are going to play like Oliver and Lucas.” Ella looked at me with disapproval, and replied, deadpan, “I am never going to play like Oliver and Lucas.”

Being three

Being a three and a half year old boy means that you:

1. Feel comfortable dragging your baby potty into the dining room in the early morning while your parents are sleeping so that you can poop while playing with cars and looking out the french window.

2. Say things like, "Hey mom, let's get that the next time we are at 'our local Target store'." He hears catch phrases from TV and radio like "at your local..." and they stick.

3. Bring internet and technology into your everyday language, confusing the virtual world with the tangible world. Today Oliver said to me, "Mama, click here if you would like to play cars 2 with me." Um. What?

4. Get mad when you have to go to swimming lessons arguing that you don't want to take swimming lessons, you want to take super hero lessons to fly and have powers.

5. Eat a ton at every meal and are hungry all the time. Typical lunch is noodles, chicken, broccoli all in portions that are the same as what I would eat. Breakfast is 4 pancakes. Not uncommon to say at 11am, "Before we go mama I want you to make me a bagel and also a peanut butter jelly sandwich."

Hard to believe...

A week ago Matthew and I read the "Baby 411" book section for 3 month olds. The book told us that Claire should now be getting a night routine going. Our main complaint with her is that she goes to bed at 11:30 to 2am and we'd be in heaven if we could adjust that to a 9 or 10pm go down. She sleeps 8-9 hours straight with no wake ups which is just so hard for us to believe.

Anyway the book said that we should start putting Claire down when she yawns or fusses but before she falls asleep. I have to say that it's working like a charm. She's just so easy! We had one day of grumbling when we transitioned her from the bassinet to the crib, but she's fine if you just stick her in her crib awake. Ten minutes later you walk in and she's asleep. Miracle!

We haven't had as much luck with moving the long sleep at night, but we are hopeful. I go back to work on Monday and am very nervous about staying up until 2am with her. Crossing fingers.

There are a few other ways that Claire is really different from Oliver. She is super smiley and will flat out laugh at times. She is a real talker, and will join a conversation in progress by contributing her own coos. She's not as physical as Oliver was and shows no real desire to figure out how to move herself around at this point. She isn't colicy so far and is a great communicator. If she is hungry she will suck her hand. I can imagine that she will be a thumb sucker as well.

Super swimmer

Check out this video:

Floor fun

Projects

Oliver spends most of his free time playing with cars. Not really racing the cars as much as setting up scenes for his cars, organizing them in proper ways, lining them up, setting up scenes. He's not much for drawing unless it's on these cars pages he has. One thing I keep waiting for is a clear sense of left or right handedness. He still tends to hold a crayon in each hand and is just as likely to write with one hand as another. If I ask him to sign his name he will write O L I.

Funny faces