Our Hero, Down, But Only Just

We arrived at KinderCare to collect the bambini, and saw that Joe had done his best today on the rainbow-clothes pin discipline chart.  Hooray!  But when we found Our Hero and began crowing over him, we were met with a sort of listless smile.  That's when Joe said his throat hurt and that he was thirsty.  Roh roh Raggy.  We found Clara and hustled home thinking it might be that he was overheated from the late afternoon outdoor play.  He's often flushed and sweaty at pick-up time in the summer.

But when we got home, Joe threw up on the porch, between the two doors. Poor Pal-o.  There is nothing quite so miserable looking as a kid who's just lost his cookies.  Clara went upstairs with Ted, and Julie took Joe in for a bath.  (Berenice was sent to the backyard at a forced march because as you all know, Fans, if there's something gross like vomit or pee or diarrhea to be licked up, Boo will be on it, like white on rice.)  After the bath, Joe climbed into bed where he ate a quarter of a piece of toast over the course of about three years.  Mostly, he manhandled it while trying to understand that he should eat only what he felt like eating, but that doing so, and being sick, did not give him leave to play with his food.

By now, we have decided (in our infinite medically sound wisdom) that Joe has--had--what Clara had on Friday evening.  This would be the Barfed-It-Up-and-I'm-Good-To-Go! bug.  Because although Joe wanted to lie down after taking a bath, soon enough he also wanted to play, and to know when his partner in crime was going to arrive.  He was jumpier than a Mexican jumping bean while snuggling with Julie as Ted gave Birdie a bath, and then with Ted when Julie was reading Birdie stories.  One got the sense that Joe felt being sick was a drag if it meant that he had to rest, and to be fair, he certainly seemed pretty revived.  Resting shmesting!

As this report is filed, the two of them are yucking it up in there.  The kitchen timer has just gone off and Clara is helpfully calling "It's ready!" from her crib.  (These back-up kitchen timers are fabulous.  It's a wonder we lived without them for so long.)

Snuggle In Huckleberry Friends

Tonight, at bedtime

Most mornings, the entire family piles on to Joe's bed and snuggles for a bit before plunging into the day.  A few weeks ago, Julie snuggled with Joe on the other end of the day, and now, Joe will often ask if she will stay and snuggle after he's been tucked in to bed.  Clara is often still dozing herself.  A few nights ago, Julie asked if she should sing a song.  Birdie popped her head right up and said, "Yes!" before plopping it back down.  Julie is partial to Moon River at such moments (even if it one of those songs in during which one can quickly get into trouble if one does not start not too high, but not too low) because she is singing it to a pair of would-be huckleberry friends, off to see the world and no doubt before we know it.

Last night, we heard Joe crying well after he'd gone to bed and all was quiet.  When Julie went in to see what was the matter, Joe informed her he heard people (our friends Anne and Brent were over for dinner).  Julie lay down next to him and wrapped her arms around him for a bit.  After a while, she noticed that he was running his little hand up and down her arm, and then stopping to rest it for a few beats before continuing to run it up and down her arm and down to her hand.  This is just how Julie touches Joe and Clara--running her hand all up and down their limbs before cradling some bit of them for a moment.  It's something to do with wanting to be sure of them, and not quite believing they were once so small they could be held all tucked up just on her chest, and wanting to hold them always.

Birdie Phone Home

Birdie with Cupcake Kitchen drawer as phone

Now and again, one can hear Birdie chirping "Hello?  Hello?" from another room, and find her with all manner of things pressed to her ear as a pretend phone (seldom is it an actual phone).  Coming upon her and catching her eye, one who makes an imaginary phone with his or her hand, holds it up to his or her ear, and chats for a bit with Clara, will be rewarded with a smile bursting with light.  The whole scene is made all the more charming by the knowledge that if one was talking on the phone with another, one would not see that other person, which is not the case when one is chatting on the imaginary phone with Clara, which is marked by consistent delighted eye contact.

These conversations have rather little to them.  Clara has a few words phrases she repeats again and again: "Hello?", "See you later!", and "I love you!"  But you know, one day, she'll be twenty-two instead of two, and if she calls only to say hello, see you later, and I love you, we won't complain.

A Midwestern Drop-In From the Knudermuths

Fans, this is a picture of, from left to right, Anja, Elsa, and Birdie.  !!!!!

Longtime Fans will remember Joe's friend, Elsa, and her parents, Julie and Ted's friends, Sanne and Todd.  Sanne, Todd, and Elsa moved to Salt Lake City in June 2009, when Joe and Elsa were about a year old.  Since then, they have added Anja to Team Knudermuth, and moved to Seattle.  But yesterday, they were back here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.  (Todd's family vacations at a spread one of his aunt's has in Wisconsin and they, together with Todd's sister and her partner and their new baby, and Todd's mom, broke the multi-part trek out there at Raleigh House.)  We laid eyes on Anja for the first time and saw Elsa as a big girl.  Wow and wow.  Sanne saw Clara for the first time, and we saw Sanne after what had been about two years.  Sanne and Julie cried.  It was better than Cats.

Clara was really interested in the people who were, to her, all new, save Todd who was in town briefly a little over a month ago.  Elsa and Anja had to eat lunch and Clara sat herself right down at the table where the girls had a conversation about the IKEA cups they all have at their respective homes.  We learned that at the Knudermuth residence, family members use a particular color--e.g. Todd uses yellow; therefore, better for Elsa to use a different color at this lunch.

Joe had just woken up from a nap and was a little more wary of the invaders, especially after Todd and Ted left to go get more groceries for the Wildermuths' week away and he was the only boy among rather a lot of girls: Sanne, Elsa, and Anja; Julie and Clara; Elsa and Anja's Aunts Amy and Gwen, and their little Lila; and Elsa, Anja, and Lila's Grandma Jean.  But by the time the cars were being reloaded, he was flitting around--and had been tempted into the female fold with apple slices.

Story time with Amy and Gwen

Sanne and Elsa (Todd's outfit did not coordinate with his ladies' ensembles)

Anja (Sanne, all over again)

It was a sad day for us when the Knudermuths moved away.  Sanne and Julie's pregnancies with Joe and Elsa overlapped by seven months, which meant that their maternity leaves overlapped by about a month.  So after spending some of our college post-college years together, we spent a lot of our first year as new parents together.  To the extent we thought that might change, we just hoped it wouldn't.  Of course,  you never know where life will take you.  But at least with that uncertainty comes the possibility that life will bring you back around again now and then to the people you love who scatter about.

Yesterday, as the Knudermuth caravan pulled away, Sanne leaned toward the open window and said, "Don't cry, Julie!"  Too late.

But we'll see Team Knudermuth again in about a week on their way out of town, and we'll get to spend more time with them then.

A Visit to Eloise

But this morning, Birdie appeared no worse for the wear, and since the weather was about as close to perfect as you can get, this morning, we headed off to the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden.  As our longtime Fans know, this is a favorite destination, so it was not to be our first time at the EBWG, but it was our first visit this season.  The thistle, rudabeckia, cone flower, and phlox were all in bloom.  We walked all about listening to the birds, and a Joe (who likes to stay 12 steps ahead in the day's plan: "When are we walking to the car?", "And then I'm going in the blue car with Daddy, right?", "To Teddy's party*, right?", "Calara, you're going to go in the bronze car with Mommy.").  The bambini were plenty tired after we'd summited "Spook Hill," so-called after the same in The Berenstain Bears Bears In The Night, but by then, it was time to get rolling on down and into the afternoon.

Follow the leader.

Big Tough.

A single halfway decent shot of the bambini together.  (Take 56)

"Can you give your sister a kiss?"

Imagine both little heads turning toward the camera with gazes of smiling wonder.  (You have to imagine it, because in your imagination is the only place it will happen.)

*It is the summer of birthday parties for Joe as it would seem everyone in his class is turning four.  Teddy's birthday party was today, and we have been discussing it for days.  For.  Days.  Specifically, we have been tacking down the difference between Teddy's birthday, and Teddy's birthday party.  It is impossible to say how many times Julie or Ted has said that they did not know when Teddy's birthday was, but that his party was not today, but Sunday.  After a beat, Joe would inevitably say, "But today is Teddy's birthday, right?"  Dearest Readers, you might be thinking that we should have just said "Yes, today is Teddy's birthday."  But you know where that road leads?  To "Why aren't we going to Teddy's party today?" Land.

Slightly Sick and Sort of Winging It

Birdie has been a little under the weather all week.  We think she's had one or more of her second-year molars coming in for a while.  (She can often be spotted with her hand crammed as far into her mouth as it will go, or with a finger hooked in there, pulling the side of her mouth back in the process and making her look like some sort of hapless puppy hound dog.)  Besides that, her nose started running a bit on Monday.  She was not so sick that she needed to stay home, but sick enough that she was not at full YEAH! strength and was helped a bit by regular doses of yummies, as the bambini's medicine is known at Raleigh House.  One night, the yummies dosing cup was hiding from us in the dish drying rack, so we winged it with the next best thing: a shot glass.  Certain of our readers might be further amused to note that it is a Dave & Buster's shot glass, which dates from Julie and Ted's years at Northwestern, the last time Julie at least, could have been drug to what is effectively an adult Chuck E Cheese.  (Sadly, Clara's hand is obscuring the D&B logo in this picture.)

So we were mucking along (clearly--really mucking) until Friday afternoon when the folks at KinderCare called Julie to say that Clara had woken up from her nap and promptly vomited all over the place.  She was, apparently, in fine spirits!  But she had vomited hither and yon.  Not long after the first time, it happened a second time.  Ted had taken the afternoon off and was already on his way.  He arrived to find her in a stunning it's-clear-I've-been-sick-or-am-potty-training ensemble: a pair of too small lavender fleece pants, and a too big, royal blue, KinderCare summer camp tee.  The pants were 18 month, and the tee a small--like a youth, post #T sizes, small.  But, as you will note, she medaled.  Podiumed?  Or is that lingo so four-years-ago-in-Berlin?

Bringin' Home the Clothes Pin

Fans.  No doubt you have been waiting with bated breath.  Exhale, because it's happened: Our Hero has brought home the clothes pin.  That's right, Joe Nation!  We arrived at KinderCare today and found a new number 6 clothes pin on the rainbow discipline chart.  It is colored red to denote, we assume, that  Joe already has filled one with five stickers.  There was only one small hiccup in our departure: we could not find Joe's clothes pin to take home with us.  We tossed the cubby: nothing.  Joe suggested looking in the kitchen to which a distracted Julie acquiesced before the less distracted Ted wondered aloud in a rhetorical way if the clothes pin would really be in the kitchen, and stopped that train in its tracks.  We decided to ask Ms. Jolene who said that they'd just been looking at it moments ago and wondered where it could have gone.  She asked Joe if he'd taken it with him to Pre-K, which is when Julie (her head now in the game) asked if Joe had put it in his pocket, to which Our Hero replied, "Oh! Yeah."  Then he drew it forth and there it was, in all its glory.

To celebrate, we made like a commercial from the eighties, and took him to dinner at McDonald's.  As a bonus, the McDonald's we went to was under construction.  Construction equipment in the parking lot!  We sat at folding tables on a slightly nicer version of folding chairs, in the middle of the torn up McDonald's, and Our Hero couldn't have been more pleased.  Neither could we.

In the Pink

We have been meaning to report about the new discipline plan instituted in Joe's room at school a few weeks ago.  For probably a number of reasons, the denizens of Preschool B were getting the better of Mr. Jonathan and Ms. Vanessa on a pretty regular basis.  So Mr. Jonathan and Ms. Vanessa took a stand!  They assigned every child a number, which they then wrote on a clothespin.  That clothespin moves up or down a rainbow ladder on which each color is associated with a behavior or consequence.  Everyone starts on green ("Ready to Learn"), and the goal is to get to pink ("I Did My Best Today!") and avoid the red ("Contact Home"), and really, also, the orange ("Consequences"--the vagueness of which just sounds ominous).  Upon reaching pink, one gets a sticker on one's clothespin.  After garnering five stickers, one gets to take his clothespin home and begin again.

Though we've not yet had a clothespin brought home, we are pleased to report to you, Joe Nation, that Our Hero has been on the south side of green but once maybe?  And that he has four stickers!  That's right: he is one sticker away from bringing home the clothespin.

It's awesome, Fans, but you know, sometimes, you do have these moments, as a parent, where you step back and think, "Am I really thinking 'Yes!  The clothespin!  Comin' home!'?!" And you realize that, yes, you are.  You are.

But here's to being in the pink, doing your best every day, and going for the clothespin.  Whether you are four, or forty-four, or ninety-four, what's it's all about remains about the same.

A Birthday Party

This afternoon found us at Joe's buddy Jonathan's birthday party which lived up to its "backyard water fun" billing with its inflatable water slide pool contraption centerpiece.  When we arrived, the water fun was in full swing and both bambini were a little daunted.  Birdie perched on Julie's lap, and Joe watched from Ted's side, before the bambini banded together for a bit in the sandbox.  But eventually, Joe made his move.  He plunged into the line for the slide, made it up the top (the first two times with the assistance of someone else's older brother), and slide down, landing in a bewildered but quickly triumphantly gleeful heap at the bottom.  Clara saw no reason she couldn't do this, too, and she did--a few times!--despite the speed with which she would shoot down the slide, and being more stunned than anything upon reaching the bottom.

Fans, it's such a kick to see them wade into life at their own pace, with their own style and brand of confidence.

Puddle Hunt

There was a gentle summer thunderstorm this morning which was wonderful in that sleep-in-and-listen-to-the-rain-on-the-roof kind of way, but not so wonderful in that meet-up-at-the-park kind of way.  Of course, the latter is what Joe and Clara had plans to do with Graham and Connor this morning.  Instead, they came over to Raleigh House.  By the time they arrived, it had stopped raining, and the world was puddle-wonderful.*  And you know what that means, Fans: we're goin' on a puddle hunt.  We're gonna  find some big ones.  And we did.  Especially on Graham and Connor's old block on which they have been reinstalling drain grates, and where they had not yet resurfaced the street, and where we thus found great big "orange puddles," otherwise known as standing water.  The gang charmed many a passerby in his or her car.

The hunt begins.

Great big orange puddle. (It's true.  Joe and Graham have the same shorts and shoes on.  Their mothers have great minds that think alike.)

Motley crew.

It must be noted that it was Birdie who showed the boys how to tame the puddles hunted.  Our Bold Girl was (naturally) the first to step into the big orange puddle and splash all around.  (She also mucked around in plenty of muck.)

She's in!

Eventually, one of the four found some stray piece of concrete from the newly poured curbs and curb cutouts, but there were plenty more from where it had come.  Big splashes and lofty lessons about gravity, as well as more prosaic lessons about not throwing rocks while our friends are in front of us, followed.

Whoa.

So, too, did a hose down in underwear back at the ranch.

Hose down.

Just think, Fans: it was only a year ago that Joe and Graham were hunting down fire hydrants while Clara and Connor were napping, or were pushed along in their sporty (or macho) red roadsters.  Oh Fans.  It went by fast.  As  fast the 15 years that have passed since their mothers' friendship began.

*e.e. cummings.  Good stuff.

Dance Party

After the bambini ate tonight, we had a dance party.  We were spinning a song list comprised entirely of hits by the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.  Now in this first picture here, you see Joe dancing to You  Are Not Alone.  Now Fans, as you may know, this is a slow dance song.  It takes you right to your eighth grade dance in the gymnasium where though you may think that the truly brave are dancing to the slow stuff, really, it's the truly brave that are dancing to the fast stuff.  After all, no one is dancing to the slow stuff.  Instead, really, they are standing, and swaying.

We tried turning in a circle, holding hands, but Our Hero was really having none of it, and Clara was tooting on a kazoo.  (It's really too bad that MJ couldn't have consulted with these two on production and video.  It's clear their contributions would have been taken the song to a whole other level.)  Luckily, You Are Not Alone was followed by Beat It and I'm Bad, and it must be said, the dancing: bad.  Fans, we leave it up to you to decide if we are using that word in its slang sense, or its true sense.  But, we were in it together--which is to say not alone--and that is what dancing, and family, are all about.

Joe Is Reunited With Dr. H

Joe had his four-year well-child check-up this afternoon with our beloved Dr. Harrington.  He's been talking about it for days.  When would we be going?  When exactly on Wednesday would we be going?  Was Clara coming too?  There were a lot of details to tack down.  The visit did not disappoint.  In addition to the usual weigh in (height: 41 1/2 inches (76%) and weight: 43 pounds (92%)), and the usual look see in the ears and eyes, and the usual listen to the heart and lungs, and the usual once over of the nether regions, there are some new things that are done now that Our Hero is four.  His reflexes were checked!  He also had his hearing checked as well as his vision.

Watching a four-year-old take vision and hearing tests are amusing.  They were billed as games he got to play with one of the nurses.  The games were to commence following Dr. Harrington's exam.  It took a bit of time for the nurse to come so Joe did what any self-respecting four-year-old would do: he hunkered down on the floor and kept an eye out for feet under the door.

A portion of the vision game required Joe to keep an object that screened one eye up over the bridge of his nose, and to identify the object he saw.

Joe kept lifting the eye screening thing up all, "Why are we doing this. . .?"  The hearing test was even better though.  He was asked to lift the hand on the side he heard the beep.  It wasn't long before both hands were up: "Both."  He hears the tone in both ears.

Not long after that, Joe looked solemnly at the nurse and said, "I'm all done."

We think the kid can see and hear well enough to make it to five.  Then, we'll see--we hope.

Hool, Agains (Again. . and Again, and Again, and Again. . .))

Speaking of hools, though Joe and Clara really do get on, our days are filled with charming vignettes like the one which unfolded tonight after dinner and before bath (prime time for hool behavior).  Julie was upstairs and heard Joe repeating incessantly in a singsong voice, "I'm on the potty!  I'm on the potty!  I'm on the potty!  I'm on the potty!" Repeat that about 15 more times in your head, Fans.

Good job.  Pretty irritating, right?  It's all the rage right now with our four-year-old.

So Joe was on the potty (with the lid down), as Julie saw when, suspecting something was up, she went downstairs and arrived at the threshold of the bathroom, everyone's favorite room in the house.  Clara was trying valiantly to place the stool in front of the potty in order to sit on the potty, in the colloquial, real sense.  She was trying to get her before-bath-business done.  Julie asked Joe to move on out and of course, naturally--NATURALLY--he sputtered through the rising wail that he had to go potty!

We were unmoved.

But he REALLY HAD TO GO!!!!!  Mr. Really Had To Go took himself to the sofa and flung himself upon it where he did not really let loose until such time as Birdie was done using the potty at which point he moseyed back on in--because he REALLY had to go, Fans.

Now, lest you think that Clara is a model citizen, we can assure you that she is more than capable of acting like a hool, again, and her absolute favorite target is her adored big brother Joe.  You can almost hear her thinking, "I know!  If I break up the puzzle he's just put together all by himself, he'll HAVE to pay attention to me!  And I've seen him flinging puzzle pieces around!  Let the good times roll!"

They roll on here, Fans.  They roll on here, Fans.  They roll on here, Fans. . .

Birdie Breaks Out

Clara, for her part, is talking more and more.  The other day, she made her first, independent conversational sally when she announced to us all: "I play with Daphne!"  (Daphne is one of the other girls in her class at school.)  Clara pronounces Daphne with an extra a in the middle and puts the emphasis on the last syllable: Daph-ah-KNEE!  Sort of a rising crescendo cadence to it.  Birdie can also hold her own in simple conversations.  She and Daph-ah-KNEE and their other compatriots are learning this month about all things water.  Today, they learned about oceans, seas, and lakes, and how they relate to each other in terms of size.  On the way home, Julie asked Clara if a lake was bigger or smaller than an ocean and Clara promptly replied, "Smaller."  (She made a helpful hand gesture for her mother, because after all, her mother really should have gotten the relative sizes of the bodies of water out there in the world tacked down much earlier.)  So it's all rather fun, these comments and answers that reveal a bit more of what goes on in Birdie's heart and mind, and in her days.

Stop Acting Like A Hool!

From the language development front, Ted reports that this weekend, he overhead Joe telling Clara to stop acting like a hool, again!  He reiterated that she was acting like a hool!

That would be a hooligan, Fans.

A relatively common refrain around Raleigh House here is "Stop acting like a hooligan!"  You know how families tend to develop their own private and charming lexicons?  For example, for reasons we couldn't possibly tell because we have no idea what they are, we elder Raleigh Housers tend to refer to a remote control as a motor troller.*  To this familial lexicon will, no doubt, be added "hool."

*Another example from Julie's childhood: When Grandma Connie was out of town, Julie and Grandpa Charles would sometimes forage about for dinner, or graze.  But in the Trump family this was known as "piecing around," or simply "piecing."  Joe and Clara's Great Grandmother Bille, whom they never met, thought that was a hoot when she heard it!

The hools, plotting their next hooliganary.

Building towers with lunchtime condiments and sippy cups.
(Exhibit A regarding why sippy cups are used at picnic lunches.)

I Got Clampers!

Birdie's hair is getting pretty long in front, and while ponies are possible, they are a little awkward given how far forward they have to be to pick up some of her bangs-that-aren't-really.  So this morning, Julie tried some of the super mini clampers.  Julie isn't sure if "clampers" is what these things are called, but it's what she's always called them.  The last time she tried them in Birdie's hair, they slid right out, but it would seem there are enough feathers there now.

"I got clampers!"

The Yellow Dot Skirmishes

Here is Birdie, in the penalty box so to speak.  You can tell that she was really broken up about being there, right, Brigade?  These days, as dinner winds down, Clara winds up.  Her first trick is to dash from the table to Joe's bed and fling herself on it, cackling and screaming.  Sometimes this will set Joe to wailing and crying and other times, it will make him also act like a goof, keeping both bambini distracted from getting themselves out of their clothes and into the bathroom for their bath.  Naturally then, they are good and wound up for bath time in the smallest room of the house with hard surfaces everywhere where nothing could go wrong with three people packed in it, two of them wet, one of the wet ones them incapable of reason and the other only just barely so, and a dog wandering in and out.

The shenanigans continue after bath.  Joe attempts to put on his pajamas while Birdie attempts to distract him from that by running around hither and yon and doing anything except "stand on the yellow dot."  Longtime readers and visitors to Raleigh House may have observed that the rug in the bambini's room has yellow, green, and cream-colored dots on it.  One of the yellow dots in positioned such that Clara can stand on it and use her crib for support as she does it ("I do it!  I do it!  I do it!").  What Birdie likes to do is stand on the green dot, look at you with a grin and say, "Green dot?!"  This is when she isn't busy running around, running off with Joe's pajamas, or throwing herself on his bed.

With just one bambini, one can quash this sort of behavior with some degree of success by ignoring it.  This strategy also works if both bambini are acting like hooligans.  But it is less successful when one bambini is doing his four-year-old utmost to toe the line so he can do his quiet activity with Daddy and read books with Mommy, and the other bambini is doing her two-year-old utmost to distract him and everyone else from anything and everything save her antics.  One starts to feel more than a little ridiculous, too, standing there snapping and snarling about a yellow dot.  There is also this: the two nights before last, Julie hadn't read books to Clara which made Julie very sad, and Clara, too, once she caught up--too late--to the consequences of acting like a wild thing.

So we'd decided to separate the bambini during pajama donning time.  For now, Joe will get his on in the living room or porch while Clara is made to stand on the yellow dot to get into hers.  If she is not on the yellow dot and on her way to being in her pajamas by the time Joe is into his pajamas, then she'll go straight into her pajamas and to bed.  We hope that removing Clara's favorite audience member will help, and that she'll understand the consequences of acting so silly between dinner time and bed time sooner rather than later.

That was our plan.  But last night, Ted had to go and pick up Berenice (someone forgot when she was coming across the river form St. Paul), and when Clara started in and up before bath, Julie decided that she wasn't up for the whole bathroom scene.  So Clara went straight into her pajamas, and then was asked to sit in front of the doorway to the bathroom, which she did, very nicely, and while chirping, "I not crying.  I not crying," no worse for the wear.  And then Julie read her books, which made Julie very happy because she will be out of town for the next three bedtimes. Birdie seemed happy, too.

Our Hero Turns Four

It's official.  Our Hero is four.  It really does seem like no time at all has passed since he arrived.  The other night, Julie and Ted were remembering how they would bring him into the big bed and with him in between them, sing Joe Joe Joe Your Boat to the tune of Row Row Row Your Boat.  This would be in those months when Julie at least really thought that we would just never sleep a full night through again, and that this was just something parents didn't talk about, but was assumed all the same.  What did we know?  Certainly not that those days would be a blip, gone in blink, just like all the days that have followed since Joe flung open the door to our hearts and came on in to stay forever.

Joe got to wear the super cool NYC subway shirt with the four on it that Ted got for him on a business trip to NYC.

He grew like two inches in five months!

Mr. 40 Inches-40 Pounds-and 4 Years Old is now rockin' the booster seat.  This means that his sister is trippin' over his old car seat which has a cup holder.  OMG.

The crown came home from school.  The hand is blocking any assistance offered by Clara.

He blew the candle out all by himself. It's the first year he's been able to do that.

Gone Fishin'

We dragged Whaley out again this afternoon while Clara was napping.  We also dragged out the toy fishing rod and fish, and Joe had a whale of a time (yes, yes we did just write that) snagging the fish from the whale pool and putting them in, alternately, the water table, a bucket, and Julie's lap.  By the time Birdie was up from her nap, he'd moved on to bowling with the pins and balls Grandma Connie and Grandpa Charles had given him.  But we all moved on not long after Birdie arrived on the scene because she's been in a bit of a state all weekend.  She's also her her hand crammed in her mouth most of the weekend, and at one point, gnawed on Julie's shoulder.  So we feel fairly confident that she's wearing her crazy pants because she has one or more two-year molars coming in, it hurts, and she's not quite sure what to do with herself.  Joe and Ted went to collect Berenice from "camp," and Clara and Julie did a loop of random errands.  The highlight of which was a toss up for Birdie: either seeing our friends Anne and Brent's dog through the window when we dropped off some things on their front stoop, or getting to stand on the ledge at the post office and drop all the letters into the outgoing mail slot.  So we did our best to take her mind off the fact that she was wearing her crazy pants.

That chair you see in the foreground of the first shot of Our Hero fishing is Joe's very own adirondack chair, which was given to him for his birthday by his demi-goddess celebrity sitters Sara and Emily.  He opened all of the presents that were brought to his party before going to bed last night, and was crestfallen when he learned that he could not then play with them.  Serious tears were avoided by the suggestion that he select the one he was going to play with the moment--the moment!--he awoke.  Our Hero selected the chair and it was indeed constructed by Our Hero and Ted with only a breakfast's worth of delay this morning.  (You can't see it in any of these pictures, but the chair has sharks on it.  It's pretty awesome.)

Joe's Fourth Birthday Bash

Special thanks to Sara for this terrific shot.

Joe won't turn four until Monday--at 1:02pm CST!--but his fourth birthday bash was this afternoon.  The weather was fabulous and, it must be said, so were the Ekkers children.  Joe, in particular, wowed: saying thank you to everyone who wished him a happy birthday, keeping his cool in the face of birthday party induced craziness, and doing his best to play with all of the disparately connected friends who came to celebrate with him.  It was an afternoon where even as you were thinking to yourself, "How can he be four?", you could see he really was more big than small.  (Remember, Fans, when birthday cake was still "happy birthday cake"?)

Clara is awfully big, too, though most noticeably in a different way.  Birdie was sporting the bird dress Julie had gotten hoping Clara would be able to wear it at her second birthday party.  When Birdie turned two though, the dress--a 2-3 T (what?)--was far too long.  Two months later, today, it was just right.  But at least three juice boxes, one straw cup full of water, and too many delights and distractions to number later, Birdie had to don a new dress (minus the birdie) since she'd peed probably her weight--probably while she was sitting down eating her cake, which Julie discovered promptly when Clara sat on Julie's lap.

A few weeks ago, we asked Joe what he wanted on his cake this year, and he said, "Snoopy. [beat] And Spiderman and Batman."  Uh huh.  We checked in again a day or two before we needed to place the order: "A crab.  Four crabs.  A Mama Crab, a Daddy Crab, a Brother Crab, and a Sister Crab."  (He was wearing his crab pajamas at the time.)  And that's how it came to be that Joe had crabs on the cake at his fourth birthday party, and nautical-themed chalk art on the walkway leading up to the house, mostly courtesy of Grandma Connie who, as we've noted here before, has hidden, but very real, artistic talents.

And so, another birthday bash is history, but Our Hero is three for two more days.  We wouldn't miss 'em.

A Beautiful Morning

Late yesterday evening, one of those terrific, brief but hard summer rains came through, and not long after it did, the heat broke.  Knowing it would be a beautiful morning, Ted hatched a plan to pile into the car first thing--in our pajamas--and drive around some of the nearby lakes before having breakfast out.  Fans, what a lovely lake viewing adventure we had!

We passed by the fishing pier at Lake Calhoun which remind us of how excited we are for Aunt Kate, Uncle Scott, and Cousin Nick's State Visit later this summer.  We told Joe that undoubtedly he'd be able to fish with Uncle Scott, right off that pier.  Joe allowed that Uncle Scott could sit "where the bags are"--by which he meant between the car seats in the backseat.  (Aunt Kate will have to go "in her car.")

We wound up our adventure at Rustica*, which we learned is practically empty in the first hour it's open for business.  Joe promptly accidentally pulled down the cafe curtains strung up on a tension rod, but otherwise, both bambini had their best restaurant behavior on display.

*Featured in a piece in this month's Food & Wine--!!!!!  (For all the other Food & Wine readers out there.)  Minneapolis is so often overlooked in the pages of this magazine but this month, it got a whole feature!