Monday, March 29, 2010

Go Fly A Kite!

Kite Festival 


We took advantage of more beautiful Spring weather this weekend, taking Owen to his first soccer practice Saturday morning (he kicked the ball a few times and ran around a lot, but actually getting him to do any of the drills was a bit of a stretch), flying kites by the Washington Monument for the Kite Festival Saturday afternoon, and then taking a stroll through the cherry blossoms. Owen's take on Spring, "I don't like Spring, Spring took the snow away." To be fair, I think he really did have a good time flying his kite;) (click here to see all the pictures)

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.

Then one day, Owen started asking if he could have his other best friend, Sophia, over. We eventually extended an invitation and were able to coordinate a date with her mother. It did not go quite as well. At some point Owen knocked a tambourine off the ottoman and it hit Sophia. She demanded an apology; he refused. Things deteriorated from there. In the end, Sophia announced that she never wanted to return to Owen's house (though her mother has invited Owen over there) and Owen has started arresting Sophia at daycare because she doesn't want to come back to his house.

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...

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Elephant Parade

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.

IMG_8950.JPG

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).


  Nora Sitting

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.

Goodbye Yellow Balloon