Monday, March 29, 2010
Go Fly A Kite!
Posted by Allen A. Fawcett on Monday, March 29, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Players
Shortly after Nora was born, Owen's best friend Leo's parents invited Owen over for a playdate. Owen had an amazing time (there was a farmer's market and ice cream involved) and immediately informed us when we picked him up that he wanted Leo to come see his room. So the next month Leo came over and had such a great time playing fort that he had Owen over again the following month. Back and forth they've gone for months, playdate steadies with mostly happy results.
But what's worse is that while Sophia was "playing" at our house, Sophia's mom ran into Tadashi's mom and mentioned that Owen and Sophia were having a playdate. Tadashi has apparently never had a playdate and so now they would like to coordinate one. Meanwhile Owen now wants to have Chloe (whom I haven't even met) over and Fiona informed Allen when he dropped Owen off one morning, that she wants me to call her Mommy so we can arrange a sleepover.
Which is why we never should have "cheated" on Leo in the first place...
Posted by Elaine M. Zimmerman on Saturday, March 20, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Elephant Parade
On Tuesday the circus came to town and while Elaine was off at a White House meeting on demographic data sets, Owen and I skipped out on our naptime/branch meeting to see the elephant parade pass by the Capitol. The weather was spectacular, a beautiful Spring day in DC, perfect for a playing on the Mall, riding on Daddy's shoulders, and watching the Elephants marching down 3rd Street.
Posted by Allen A. Fawcett on Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
Nora Sitting
The status of Nora's ability to sit-up has been source of contention for weeks now. Allen claims she's been able to sit upright since late February; I've been less generous. Allen is an eternal optimist and so the fact that when placing our daughter in a sitting position she didn't immediately topple over clearly meant that she was now a sitter. To me, the fact that she did topple over shortly thereafter meant she was not. (We had a similar debate when Owen was at this stage.) But now Allen has proof that our little girl has indeed mastered the art of sitting (or at least was kind enough to wait until after he stopped recording to fall).
Posted by Elaine M. Zimmerman on Friday, March 12, 2010
Labels: Development 1 comments
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Yellow Balloon
A retirement party at the Department of Labor typically includes a nice lunch, a framed DOL seal, a lovely parting gift and a balloon bouquet. Oddly enough, a number of retirees don't want to take 20 or so balloons home with them to commemorate their years of service, and so periodically a large bunch of balloon will appear outside the door of DOL's daycare, making some lucky tykes' day.
So it was on December 10th when I went to pick up Owen from a long day of school. I grabbed a balloon on my way in, only to have it liberated by 10 three year olds once I arrived at Owen's classroom. We grabbed another one on the way out.
A week and a half later, we were impressed that the balloon was still fully aloft as we left for Christmas in Iowa. We were amazed that it was still so when we returned. Weeks past and then months but this balloon continued to defy expectations regarding the shelf-life of helium and the laws of gravity. We wondered if the balloon had made some sort of pact with a higher being -- a kind of Portrait of Dorian Gray for the latex population.
But then 2 1/2 weeks ago, it began sinking. At first it hovered a few inches from the ceiling, but last week it reached Owen height. Allen responded by trimming its string, because as he stated so passionately, "That's what you're supposed to do" (there are apparently rules about maintaining neutral buoyancy of dying balloons).
It rebounded, coming to life in its extended period of neutral buoyancy, riding the air currents throughout the house, and turning up in the least expected places. But today Allen had to remove the last bit of its tether in order for it to stay afloat. This might have been a mistake, for now that the snows have mostly melted and the weather is feeling more like Spring here in our nations capital, we left the door open when we arrived home from our grocery store/ice skating outing. Owen was helping bring in the groceries, and our magical balloon, excited by the new air currents provided by the open door, glided out into the great wide open.
Allen made a valiant attempt to save it, sprinting out the door and leaping after the balloon, but it just alluded his outstretched hands, clearly it was not meant for this world. We suspect it's now over the rainbow (having heard so much about it from Owen) and while we're sad to see it go, we couldn't imagine a better ending for it.
Posted by Elaine M. Zimmerman on Sunday, March 07, 2010