Spring Has Sprung

Hi All-

So spring came just a little bit early this year but it was full of the same events- cherry blossoms covering the ground so fully that Bek tried to catch them on his tongue like snow, Easter egg dyeing, egg hunting mania, lots of time outside, and lots of happy play with my boys.  Good stuff.  Here is Spring in photos.  It’s more of a show than tell.  Enjoy!

I have Kaz stuff to post as soon as I can get to it.  I am so behind!  Guess that happens when you have two fireplugs running around destroying the house all day and I'm just following along behind trying to do damage control.  Soooo tiiiired.... 

Love to all, -m

ZOO!

 

Hi All, 

So we finally got around to having the boys’ birthday party last month.  I have been wanting to have Rin’s BDay at the zoo for literally years now.  It used to be 7 minutes from our front door to my favorite parking lot and since the zoo is free here, it was our favorite 'what should we do today' thing.  We went there all the time.  I mean All.The.Time.  I love that place.  So it was sort of a no brainer as to where I thought we should do it.  But, this being DC and all, there was a multi-month waiting list.  So, 3 months after they turned 2 and 5, we finally had a real celebration.  

Rin really wanted to have a cake with the map of the zoo on it and he wanted to place plastic animals in the appropriate places on the map/cake.  But, as creative as that was, it didn’t pan out because I couldn’t find anyone willing to make it.  And you all know I’m not gonna bake one and try to decorate it.  That would be a total fiasco.  Can you imagine?  I can barely bake muffins from a mix.  So off we went to Giant.  Rin picked out a Pirates of the Caribbean cake (no, I promise he hasn’t seen the movie.  He just likes pirates).  And Bek wanted the Lalala cake (aka Sesame Street).  And they got excited about the party.  No to mention the gifts that came along with it.  And the people coming to visit to celebrate our sweet babies. 

We had both Nana and Gigi come into town for it.  And most of Rin’s class ended up coming, along with DC friends, ice skating friends, old friends from when I was working.  The whole shebang. 

The weather was a little up in the air and it was sprinkling when we got there but luckily the weather cleared up in time for our tour of The Asia Trail (how appropriate for our family, right?) and the kids had fun. 

All in all, it was a good time.  My boys felt special and that’s all I really wanted for them.  The presents, the cake, the event itself is sort of extra as far as I’m concerned.  Being surrounded by people who love them is the best gift of all. 

Rin’s already talking about next year.  Oy vey.  The boy has plans.  Big big plans… 

Love to all, -m

And then we were off to Utah…

Hi All-

Oh my gosh, you guys.  I wish we lived near big mountains because our Rinat absolutely loves to ski.  And when I say loves, I mean like after 5 hours at ski school, he BEGGED to ski some more.  The only way we could pry him away from the slopes was by bribing him with a rice crispie treat from the café at Deer Valley. 

Before we came, I wasn’t actually sure how well it would go, so the first day we just signed him up for a one-hour lesson.  Let me tell you- he went absolutely bonkers over it.  So the following day he did a whole day of ski school, 10am-4pm, longer than he goes to preschool at home.  And he loved it and asked for more. 

And after THREE days of ski school and loving every single second of it, we had to try hard to convince him to ski with Daddy instead of ski school another day because he really really wanted to do ski school again.  He loved his instructor, he loved the other kids, and he especially loved the hot cocoa.  But his favorite part by far was the obstacle course that they call Candyland.  Not only did my little first-time skier have to maneuver around the cones and under an arch, he then had to hop up in the air when he skied between two of the cones.  I was extremely impressed.  Not sure I could do that myself. 

Sometimes I get frustrated with the extreme emotions that Rinat has. There is no even keel with him.  He is either ecstatically happy or miserably sad or sooo frustrated that he can barely stand it.  Has anyone read the book “Raising your Spirited Child”?  Yeah, I thought she was writing specifically about him in the intro.  He is the very definition of spirited.  Well, though the tough times are extremely trying for us and for him (poor guy), the up times completely blow them out of the water.  When Rin is doing something that he loves, like skiing, he is just the most amazing child to be around and I am in awe of him and his enthusiasm.  It is infectious.  He is not just happy, it’s like he is so happy that his head is going to explode from happiness; he is going to burst into flames; he is going to turn into The Flash and run so fast that I won’t be able to see him.  He is Superman.  And it is marvelous to be a part of it.  Sometimes I just have to sit back, appreciate it, and soak up some of that excitement for myself.  Why not?  He has enough Happy to spare and I just love that I get to be there to see it.         

But this trip was not only about skiing.  We spent lots of quality fun time with family.  Grandma Shay stayed with us the whole time in the condo.  And UncleT/AuntL/Osk came for most of the time too.  And we had more aunts/uncles/cousins come for dinner one night too.  It was a family bonanza.  This part of my family lives clear on the other side of the country and unfortunately this means that I don’t get to see them near as much as I want to (can you believe flight prices?  Not to mention flying with a toddler is sooo not fun) so we have to cram in a whole lot of QT into just a few days.  And we did.  With the little kids, there was just a whole lot of hanging out and that was just fine with me.  The kids ran around and explored the house and tried to find trouble to get into.  Rin enjoyed having Ted around to be rough and tumble with.  And we just had fun being together.  It was good. 

Some of the hang out time was spent in the hot tub.  Bek kept saying “BuhBoo, BuhBoo” (bubble, bubble for anyone who doesn’t speak toddler) and trying to escape out the back door to climb in it.  He is definitely my water baby.  Why is it exactly about cold weather that makes hot tubs fun anyway?  I really could care less about them unless there’s snow on the ground. 

There wasn’t a ton of snow while we were there but they had fun with what there was.  All Bek was really interested in was eating it anyway which is exactly the same thing that Rin did when we came to Utah when he was Bek’s age.  I thought Bekers might be freaked out from the snow, seeing how he’s sensitive about those things and all, but he really got into it.  After eating it for a bit and making the sign for more over and over again with this look of concentration on his little face, he looked at me with the question in his eyes and asked, “WahWah?”  Yup, he got that snow and water were sorta the same thing.  And- a biggie- he pointed outside and said “No!” (snow).  My little boy is finally talking and telling us what’s going on in that noggin of his!      

Not to be a downer or anything to keep bringing it up but sometimes it still feels like Big Pete’s passing is so new.  It’s on everyone’s mind a lot I think.  It's on mine anyway.  And then other times it takes me by surprise when I remember that we won’t get to see him again.  When Rin went skiing for the first time, I had such a rush of pride at his bravery to go try new things and I was so happy to see the absolute joy on his face.  But my second thought, that caught me completely off guard, was that Big Pete should have been here to see this.  He was just talking to us this summer about a ski trip and it would have been so fun for him to be there to see it too.  He too would have been so proud of our little Rin.  Rin is fearless and so full of joy and I know it would have brought such a smile to Pete's face.  But then, maybe he was up there watching.  Who knows?  But if so, am certain that I know the words he was saying.  He was looking down at my darling, fearless, maniac of a boy and cheering him on.

“Atta boy, Rin!”   

And, by the way, so was his daddy. 

Love to all, -m

Oh, and Bek decided to pee in the potty for the first time while we were in UT.  I’m not counting on it happening again anytime soon but it’s good to know he’s thinking about it.  My big boy.  How did it happen so fast?

Winter- or lack thereof

Hi all-

This winter was sort of strange all around the US.  Where’s the snow? This time last year, my friend Carson and I were stuck in the Frankfurt airport trying to bring Bek home from Kaz and were afraid we were going to be stuck there because there was so much snow here in DC. And when I say stuck there, I mean stuck IN the airport since our little Kazakh citizen didn’t have a visa to enter Germany.  Thank goodness we got the heck outta there.  Anyway, it’s been strange with no winter and no snow to speak of.  But we did get a tiny bit at least and the boys made the most of it.

But the fact that there was no winter here in DC meant that we got to do some fun things that we don’t normally do in winter- like go visit the new MLK memorial and our fave, the FDR.  We have been wanting to go see the MLK for a long time and actually had one attempt that was aborted due to a walk for the homeless and all of the closed roads that we encountered because of it.  So we went to our trusty old dino museum that day instead.  I can’t wait until the Reston Metro opens.  We’ll hop on about 2 miles from our house and walk off right at the national mall.  Awesome.  The world at our fingertips. 

During January, we also celebrated Rin’s BDay at school.  “The earth goes round the sun, the earth goes round the sun, and another year goes by, the earth goes round the sun.”  Rin has circled the sun five times now.  Sigh.  He told me the other day that he wants to get to be 6&1/2 and then stop getting older.  Fine by me. 

Next up in my very belated posts- off to Utah…
Much love, -m