Ice Skating

Took the kids ice skating today. Almost didn't because Emily was tired and Kate was whining about something or other, but Emily rallied and Kate suddenly decided she wanted to go too, and there we were. We grabbed the bike helmets and extra padding for Daddy's butt and we were off to Playland's ice rink.

Waiting in line, a guy gave us two free passes on his way out, saying he couldn't use them since they expired tomorrow. I mean, sweet! Talk about a great sign. I figured the result of the two free passes would be that our kids would huddle in the corner of the rink while Emily and I took turns skating around, but no! They were great.

It was Kate's first time on the ice, and she was a little wary at first, clinging to our legs and stuff, but she toughed it out and then she was actually skating. And Jack, at first wary of the big rink, rallied too, and then he and Emily were going around the big rink, and then he and I went around, with him of course leaving me in his dust...ice shavings...whatever.

And the first time we went around I told Kate how proud I was of her and how proud Mommy would be, and then she looked across the rink and saw Mommy and yelled, "Mommy, look! I'm skating!"

And after an hour or so (my ankles think it was more), we got the kids juice boxes and cookies at the vending machine and I let Jack beat me at Air Hockey, and I got to play World Cup Soccer pinball for the first time in 15 years, and it was awesome.

Christmas blog

- My parents came down, and for Jack and Kate it was like they'd never been away. Jack showed Baba his Jets players mural he'd drawn. He had Nana read him the book adaptation of Charlie Brown Christmas, and impressed her by reading a couple of pages himself. Kate wanted to hold Nana's hand as we walked outside.

- We went to church, which had great singing and kind sentiments and beautiful flowers. It was a little long and late for the kids; Jack drew in the activity book he was given, but after finishing all the puzzles he elected to draw a series of Tic Tac Toe boards and convince us to play with him. Kate restlessly traveled from one end of the bench to the other, finally sitting next to Nana. Then Jack sat next to Nana, and there was a brief scuffle over who got to sit next to her until I asked Baba to slide closer to me, and they each affixed themselves to a side. She threw me a look of helplessness at first, then contentment; I think she and Kate were chatting at one point, perhaps about the flowers. I took both kids to the bathroom during the service. At the end, when we all held candles, Jack got a turn to hold one this year. He was a little nervous but when he saw he could do it he had a little smile on his face. It glowed a little, probably from the candlelight.

- We got home late, and since we still had to do letters to Santa (Jack made a nice picture of Santa on his note) and wash up for bed and I had to read Twas the Night before Christmas, it was a late one. Nobody got to bed early, but at least I didn't have to wrap presents or build an art table in the playroom this year. I think the kids were still awake close to 10, and Jack came in at 4 a.m. and maybe one other time. I had an image from A Christmas Story where the younger brother was sleeping under the tree hugging his toy blimp or whatever and thought that would probably be Jack later in the day. (It wasn't, but he was pretty beat.)

- Emily woke up early and went down and made coffee cake. And coffee. The kids were bouncing off the walls but I got them to hang out on the stairs...they kept wanting to peek around, very excited, but they were mostly good. Finally we turned them loose and Jack grabbed the Pokemon Ball toy first, which he is now completely unenthused by. He discovered the T-Rex pillow pet second and loves the thing. And I've hid his microscope under the couch until we can look at it carefully without losing all its little pieces in the chaos of the day or two after Christmas. Kate loves her Doodle Bear and Snow White princess doll; credit to Kate, who consistently for a month named those two things as the things she most wanted.

- I had this idea we'd go slow and careful with the presents, but naturally that's not how things worked out. They were always more interested in the wrapped present across the room than the one they had just unwrapped, which I think is an interesting statement about kids perhaps or maybe people in general. But everyone was really happy with everything and when the presents were finally unwrapped it seemed like they could probably play with them for days without stopping. As I write this two days later I have to bring out things and remind them about them, of course, but that works too.

- Mostly the kids spent the afternoon playing downstairs with the new Wii gaming system. Jack is really into it, making me wonder why I worried briefly he wouldn't be. Emily and I decided we could basically have given him nothing else. Emily kicked some tail on Just Dance 3 the other morning, and I'm planning on setting some track records on Mario Kart. You know, when I get a turn anyway.

The problem with writing these blogs two days later is I forget the little things, but I know that they were the best. One that I do remember is getting a book from Emily -- a book of this blog, all the way from Day 1 through last week or so. It's awesome.

Another came this morning, when we thanked Jack for giving up his bedroom so Nana and Baba could sleep there. He looked at us in confusion. "Well of COURSE I did. You TOLD me too. I didn't want to get GROUNDED."

Emmett Otter

Gave Emily "Emmett Otter's Jugband Christmas" as an early Christmas present. Was surprised to find it and bought it as a gift, then realized we wouldn't want to watch it as much after Christmas, so she opened it early and we watched it tonight.

For us, it was just as good as ever. Smart, sweet, great voices and songs, pretty amazing puppetry too.

Kate was into it because I'm not sure I can show her anything on TV she isn't fascinated by. She always likes the girl characters best. I think she identifies with them, all of them. "I like the lady singing."

With Jack, we saw the difference in a kid growing up in a faster-paced, South Park/Phineas and Ferb world, for lack of a better term. (There's probably a better term.) He watched it, but it was clear he thought it was ... slow. Simple. Which it is! But that's the beauty of the thing.

But he kept watching, and at the Talent Show, where Emmett's Mom sings, followed by Emmett's Jugband, followed by the rock'n'roll Riverbottom Nightmare Band, Jack weighed in on that final loud, rude act.

"I have to say that this is the best," he said.

Emily and I laughed for a while, which was confusing to Jack and Kate. Kate's opinion on the band: "They sure have a long song."

So anyway, it's official, we're old, and our son thinks our music is too slow and lame.

Jets game

Took Jack to a football game today. He'd been to another one but wasn't yet 4 at the time and admits he didn't remember it. So I said, What? You don't remember us meeting Favre in the locker room after the game? And him giving you a game ball... A good laugh was had by all.

We bundled up, it being December, and headed off to the game. We left early, which was good since I got lost for a bit. But we made it there, and parked, and walked easily right up to the Stadium, like it was waiting for us. Me and my son, it was pretty cool.

Once inside, we immediately bought our winter Jets hats, as planned. Jack tried on one, liked it, and at the last minute decided on the other one. Classic Jack. I bought the simplest one there was. Classic me.

We bought hotdogs, found our way to our seats, inhaled the food, watched the game. Football live isn't a great game for little kids, because everyone stands whenever anything happens. We worked it out that I could pick him up at times, or he could stand on his seat with my arm supporting him, so he got to see a lot. We slapped high fives at Jets scores, and there were a bunch, and he insisted on a chest bump after a clinching touchdown, so I stooped down for that. The adult fans around us looked for Jack to slap high fives after scores, too. He obliged.

Best thing about having a kid at a ballgame: Family restroom! No lines! Excellent.

I think one of the highlights for Jack was a little beachball getting batted around. At one point in ended up near us, and he grabbed it. I think he was planning to keep it until I told him that's not how it worked. So he batted it up in the air and it went off again. Big smile. And a hopeful look in his eyes that it would come back to our section again.

At halftime we got popcorn, hot chocolate (it was pretty cold out), stuffed toy for Kate (Jets bear), stuffed Mark Sanchez (I guess it kind of looks like him...) for Jack. Took in a couple of cheerleader routines (Jack: "I guess they're there because girls like to watch the dancing."), watched the Jets score some more, but he was seeming pretty cold and tired, so we cleared out midway through the fourth quarter. He slept some on the way home, as well.

But when we got in the house, Emily noticed his big smile. And we both laughed as he described the Jets' first touchdown: "Sanchez threw it to Shonn Greene...but he actually kept it! And --" here he demonstrated by running across the living room -- "ran it in himself!"

So it was a big win for all.

Christmas stuff

- Today the kids and I built and decorated a gingerbread train. I assembled the pieces (and managed to keep the kids from breaking it), slathered the whole thing with icing, and told them to go crazy decorating it with candy. They fought a little over who got to put on what candy, and of course ate too much, but did a pretty nice job anyway. Took 10 pictures, 5 of which had Kate looking in the general direction of the camera, 5 of which had Jack looking at it. Oh well.

- The other day Jack decided he would keep a Christmas journal. Each day he's been drawing a picture and writing a line about it. First day was a picture of a present ("I love Christmas because I get presents..."), another day was a picture of reindeer, another day was a picture of the Elf on the Shelf, sitting on the mantle, and he carefully drew things on the mantle like a stocking holder, a stocking, and half of a picture of himself on the mantle. He was very proud of how he made half that picture of him. I guess at some point Kate ripped it out of the journal and he threw it away, which is kind of sad, but he then drew a new one of the elf in today's hiding place, which is on the Christmas tree.

- We've been watching Christmas specials at night. Jack remembers where the commercials were the previous year and points it out. I imagine I was the same way. Or no, Robin was. Yeah, that's it.

- Kate drew a Christmas tree today. Or rather, she wasn't sure how to draw one, and asked Jack to help her. He did. Pretty sweet. He drew the tree, she drew ornaments on it. And went to show Mommy.

- Jack's been reading a Peanuts Christmas collection book we have. When he reads a funny one, he laughs out loud. Then continues on reading it.

- We went to the Christmas breakfast at Jack's school this morning. Jack sat happily with Santa for a picture. Kate hid behind my legs. Both ate fruit and half a bagel, then really cheered up when they saw friends (Kate saw Sofia, one of Jack's friend's little sister). But that didn't compare to discovering that each child got a Beanie baby stuffed toy; Kate got a cardinal, Jack a komodo dragon ("..the world's largest living lizard...")

- I can't think of anything else right now but aside from Emily being really sick it's been a nice Christmas season so far.

Christmas Prep

- Yesterday I finished setting up our lawn decorations; arranging the lights on the bushes, the porch, positioning the reindeer, snowman, and dog. Jack came out at the end to help out. He helped moved lights around. I plugged everything in and turned it on from the porch as Jack stood on the sidewalk. "It looks TERRIBLE," he said. What? I said, stunned. "It looks AWFUL, terrible." I walked out to stand next to him, he broke into a big smile. "I'm just kidding," he said.

- Today we pulled out all the other stuff. Kate locked onto the musical dog who plays Jingle Bells and his ears wiggle. She played it over and over, then put him on the floor so she could dance while he played music. I think we need to get her her own CD player for Christmas.

- Set up all the stockings. Four red ones for us. Jack replaced his with the green Jets stocking that I think we got as a gift at some point. "THIS is my stocking," he said.

- Pulled out the Christmas plates, cups, placemats, hand towels, and the Santa Claus soap dispenser. The kids oohed and aahed properly, it was nice.

- Around 4 p.m., kids said they wanted to watch a Christmas show on TV. I said, well, we have do something first. They looked at me suspiciously. I explained, well, our kitchen isn't very Christmas-y, we need to make some things. Jack, go get red and green and brown and white paper, so we can draw some things: Santa, reindeer, trees, snowmen. Jack ran off, fully into the idea. Kate (sad): "I can't draw those things!" I said, I'll help you.

She drew the pieces of a snowman, then made its face. Her classic line eyes, then a triangle nose. "But I don't have room for the mouth!" she wailed. I showed her how to move the nose up a little, and then she drew happy smile mouth. We cut it out and hung it up. She was happy. Then we did Santa. Same deal. She drew her happy face. I added the beard and hat. I told her to draw his body. She said, "I can't." I showed her how it was just an extra, lager circle. She made it. Then I said, now arms and legs. She said, "This is how I make them," and did her stick figure arms and legs for Santa. Perfect, I said.

Jack drew a Santa on his sleigh with a pack on the back and a reindeer pulling it. Cut out white paper for the beard, mustache, and trim on his hat and gloves. Cut out brown paper for the sleigh, decorated his reindeer, gave him a Rudolph red nose. Kind of impressive. Granted, he also covered it in about half a roll of Scotch tape, because that's his style. We hung everything up in the windows and admired them.

And now our kitchen is Christmas-y.

Day before Thanksgiving

- Dropped both kids off at school. Kate and Jack fairly ran up the stairs to Kate's class, and by the time I got her bag and lunch into her cubbie, she was already down in Mr. Brendan's room, sitting at a table, drawing a picture. Probably one of her happy faces. Whisked Jack out the door and off to his school. We caught every light and Jack said he was using his light power to get us green lights. Sometimes I'm not sure if he's being serious or not.

- Picked Jack up first, then Kate. At Jack's school, he immediately wanted to take off his jacket, as always. I said no, as always, with it being cold and rainy and stuff. We zipped off to get Kate; when we arrived her teacher was reading the kids a story. She came over: "Daddy, can I sit and hear the end of the story?" I said sure, and she went over for about 10 seconds, then got up and started babbling away: "Do you want to see my brother's shirt? Jack, show them your shirt...."

- Went to the wine store. There's a parrot, so they ran off to see the parrot and wish it a Happy Thanksgiving. When it was time to leave, "Goodbye, parrot! Happy Thanksgiving!"

- Jack wrote a Christmas letter to Santa Claus for Kate. He drew a picture of Santa (it's a great Santa) and opened with a couple of lines saying he hoped Santa's family was doing well and the weather was nice or somesuch. He wrote down the two big things she said she wanted; earlier he'd explained to me how "Santa doesn't always bring EVERYthing you want, just some things."

- Took Jack out to Mr. Ruvo's to get his haircut. Mr. Ruvo reminisced how Jack had been getting his hair cut there since he was 2 years old. Yup.

- Afternoon project with the kids, making paper plate turkeys. From a website mentioned in an article Nana sent, so good job, Nana. Kate wanted to make a purple turkey, so she did. Jack opted for the more traditional brown with colored feathers. The turkeys were awesome.

- And then Jack also wanted to make a hawk, so we made basically the exact same thing, except Jack colored it black instead of brown (Black hawk? A town in his birth state of Colorado, incidentally), and also gave it angry looking eyebrows. And we didn't give it one of those weird turkey things hanging off its beak, of course.

- Ate pizza, read stories, washed up, went to bed. You know, just a day.

friday

- while Emily gave Kate her bath, jack and I sat and watched the fire. Jack said it looked like the blue flame was dancing to music, and he got up and demonstrated it dancing.

- I finished up Kate's bath. She didn't want me to take the band-aid off her knee, as usual, but it was time, so I ignored her thrashing and yanked it off. When she had settled down, she not only laughed about it, but mimicked her own protests. "And I said, 'no, don't take my band-aid off' and then I cried like this...'" Hilarious.

- I read them some goofy book called Chaucer's winter or somesuch, about a bear that doesn't want to hibernate. And doesn't! But his parents keep an eye on him. All winter! And I couldn't help thinking, they must really want to sleep. That's parenting.

I read Kate a frog and toad book. At the end of Toad's Dream, which is kind of a disturbing story, Toad wakes to find Frog visiting. You came to see me? Says Toad. I always do, says Frog. That part is nice.

Friday

As I turned out the light and tucked Jack into bed tonight, I looked up and saw the stars Emily had painted on the ceiling. Oh, the stars are beautiful tonight, I said. Jack, playing along, said "Yes. And look: the Big Dipper is out! .... And I think I see Orion's Belt over there...." I pointed out the stars that kind of looked like his initials. And he said, "And, look, there's a shooting star!"

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While I was making her lunch, Kate drew pictures. She showed them to me, and then explained, "It's me and you because we're home together."

We had a nice day today

Mommy took Jack to school; it was Friday, so Kate stays home with Daddy. And since Daddy's work is largely a Sunday through Thursday schedule, I don't always have to work so much.

We went to the grocery store to get fruit salad for Kate's Halloween parade at preschool (she doesn't go Friday, but she can come in for the parade) and dinner things. We got the pricing scanner, which she and Jack both love, and she scanned the items one by one. After each one, she said "I DID it!" And then, "I did it AGAIN! I did THREE!"

Back at home, we got her into the Supergirl costume. She posed and stuck a fist in the air and put her hands on her hips. She was into it. We drove to her school, she was happy all the way up to her classroom, walked in, saw the other kids in costumes, froze, and buried her face in my leg. First just saw shy, but then tears when I tried to talk her off the ledge. I won't go on too much about it, but it was bad. At one point all of her friends came over and circled around us. What's wrong, Kate? Kate? I said, well, I guess she's a little shy now. Them: Kate's NEVER shy!

Finally I got her to walk with me in the parade of kids. We lined up with her class. She held my hand and buried her face in her other wrist. Then, Mackenzie showed up in a dragon costume. This might be a boy she likes. She started to come out of her shell (almost literally). She talked to him. Then suddenly, the meltdown was over, and she was walking along, chattering away about her costume. "Maya, what are you? Oh, that's great! Mr. Brendan, what are you being? Oh, that's great! This is my Daddy...."

After the parade, and lunch in the classroom, we went to the party store to get a Halloween wig. Kate turned a few heads, still dressed as Supergirl. Lots of Aws and so cute! and so forth. Kate was kind of oblivious, fascinated as always by all the decorations and toys.

At home, Kate said, "can we do a project?" I don't do many projects with her, so I said sure. We dumped out her big art jar making a horrific mess, and she wanted to make a bird. So using glue and pompoms and pipe cleaners and googly eyes, we made a bird. It's the best things we've ever made together.

We got Jack at school, brought him to clay class, came home after that, made dinner, sent Jack and Mommy off to his Halloween dance. Then she drew pictures in the kitchen while I cleaned up, and we played music. The House of Pain song "Jump Around" came on, and we danced and jumped around. Kate hadn't heard the song before, and probably shouldn't again any time soon, but she laughed and jumped.

I read her stories before bed. As I was putting her to sleep she said, "We had a nice day today." It was half question, half statement, I think. I said yeah, we had a nice day. I kissed her goodnight and she went right to sleep.

pre-Halloween

- We drove by these wild decorations near Kate's preschool the other day. Kate always gets very excited as we drive by; there are all kinds of ghosts and skeletons and monsters. She lights up: "Ooh! I like the vampire the best. No, actually... I like ALL of them the best!"

- We went to Eden Farms in Stamford last week, and went through the Spooky House. It wasn't very spooky, but Kate enjoyed it, and I think Jack did too, until he saw an older boy saying it wasn't scary, so he took up that mantra too. So I of course pretended it was the scariest thing I'd ever seen. I dunno, Jack, I might have nightmares tonight. He looked at me with what appeared to be disgust. "How can you be SCARED? It's not real. It's not scary!" I said, well, what about these eyeballs in this jar? He looked at it doubtfully. Then: "No...THAT's not scary..."

- They went through the hay maze, around and around and around again. At one point Kate looked a little nervous (it was only shoulder high on her), so I went over to check. She looked up at me. "Oh! Hi Daddy." She was fine. Jack paused to fix a scarecrow whose head had fallen off, just like I did a few minutes earlier. Good boy.

- We carved a pumpkin last night. Both of them drew the faces they wanted carved, and I did my best to merge the two. Jack also drew a witch on a broom to carve into the back of it. Geez, Jack, I'm working with a serrated knife in PUMPKIN here. But it turned out OK anyway.

Acting up

Went to pick Jack up at his clay class. It's a weekly thing on Fridays, and I guess at pickup last week the teacher didn't have a chance to talk to me. This week she said she had to; Jack was looking downcast.

Apparently Jack and another boy (older, natch) were using the clay working tools to, uh, swordfight. There are a dozen kids in the class, the teacher said, and she couldn't keep an eye on all of them. And she said, "I never specifically said, 'Don't swordfight with the clay tools,' but I thought it was self-explanatory..."

I nodded and listened and looked sternly at Jack, and weighed in, "Yes, we frown on swordplay in our house, and Jack knows that," and so forth. And when she does I spoke sternly to Jack, saying, "Jack, you understand, right? You use clay tools for what they're for, not for fighting. And you won't do that again, correct?"

And Jack nodded seriously, and I apologized to the teacher, and she said, "They were both very good today, but I thought it was important that I speak to the parents." And I agreed.

And we got in the car and headed for home, but before we drove away I said to Jack, You know, I thought you were going to be kicked out of the class, there. Don't do anything like that again, and you listen to your teacher. And he nodded, and we headed for home.

But as we drove home I was thinking, Well, he's six.

poi

So I read Kate "Harold and the Purple Crayon" tonight, and we get to the part where Harold makes all the pies. And I say, as I always do, "poi," because that's the way Grandpa R used to say it.

And Kate says, "Daddy! It's not 'poi.' It's PIE."

So I keep on reading. And there were all nine kinds of poi that --

"DADDY! It's PIE, not 'poi'!" And she was laughing now and so was I.

belt

Emily got Jack his first belt last week. Thursday was a home day, and Jack was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, but he wanted to wear it anyway.

So I found it, and he proudly put it on himself, and tucked his shirt in. I said, well Jack, you don't really need to tuck in a T-shirt. And I untucked it for him.

He looked down, then looked up, a little sad. "But then nobody can see my belt," he said.

So we tucked it back in, and he was happy.

Back in the habit

Haven't blogged in too long so need to write some stuff down. Like:

- In Week 1 of the NFL season, I had to give Kate her bath before bedtime, so I asked Jack to take notes for me. Here's what he wrote:

"Eagles win! .... Jay Cutler looking good. ... Falcons get big loose against Bears." (I think he meant "lose.") "Persi Harven get run back for t-down on first play of game." Thanks, Jack.

- Jack's first organized soccer practice! Considering Pee-Wee Soccer in Greenwich was mostly just running around (plus his Dad coached him his final season), this to me seemed like a bigger deal. And he did great, running and kicking and having the ball taken away from him and playing goal (because all the kids wanted a chance at playing goal, it was a little odd). And afterward he wanted to stay and take shots on goal, but we had to go because Kate had gymnastics. Which brings me to...

- Kate's birthday! It was basically a weeklong birthday, with the family over on Sunday, her actual birthday on Tuesday, and a party for her preschool friends on Saturday. Some highlights: I saw one present, the "My Little Pony" stuffed toy, and said, Oh, My Little Pony. Kate, indignant: "No. MY little pony."... The night before her birthday, she asked if she could wear her blue dress, the one she thinks is like Cinderella and she would wear every day if she could. It was dirty, , but I said of course you can, and washed it and dried it that night so she could wear it the next day. ... At her birthday, they did a "Hide and Seek" thing where they hid her for her friends to find her. Uh, they found her, when she started wailing for Mommy because it was dark where they hid her. OK, maybe that was a lowlight. ... She liked bouncing on the trampoline and walking on the balance beam. Of course, she'd been doing that that very morning, at her gymastics class. Which you can tell she loves because she smiles, pays attention, and does what she's told. It's stuff she doesn't love where she is more, shall we say, resistant. ... I put her to bed the night before her birthday and sang Swing on a Star with goofy voices. I could see her little cheeks crinkle as she smiled at me.

Kate at morning

Got up with Kate this morning to give her breakfast. She was kind of chatty as we sat in the kitchen, me drinking coffee and her eating cereal.

"When I grow up, I'm going to put that chair like that." (Indicating my chair, which I was sitting on at a slight angle.)

"And when I grow up, I'm going to drive to work and Mommy's going to sit next to me."

"What is Jack going to be when he grows up? Oh! He's going to be a scientist. I wish I could be a scientist." You can, I said. "But I don't want to me, I'm going to be a Mommy when I grow up." You can be both, I said. "Oh! I know what I'm going to be. A mermaid!"

(Looking at me writing all this down as she spoke.) "That's a lot of words, Daddy."

Jackolympics

Camp ended for Jack last week, and Kate is home the entire month of August. So yeah I'm kind of going insane. But seriously! It's been great a lot of the time. I think tomorrow or the next day we'll go to Dunkin' Donuts, I'm looking forward to that.

Anyway, yesterday we had something I dubbed the "Jackolympics," and Jack liked it so much the name stuck. He set up little sporting events throughout the house. We had golf in the playroom, something similar to rugby in Kate's room, bowling in our room, and basketball in Jack's room, where the Jackolympics finished up.

In his room, he'd set up his wastebasket (onto which he'd stuck a piece of paper that read "don't put trash here") as one basket, used some shelving things as another basket, and made a hoop out of pipe cleaners (is that what they're called? I don't know) onto a third. One basket was worth 10 points, one 20, one 100. The basketballs were these little Nerf-like things. Jack went first and got 160, Kate went next and got 20 (she's little and throws like a girl, sorry), and I went last and got 150; I had to ratchet up the drama by barely missing my last one, probably on purpose. (But maybe not.)

I put Jack to bed, and we read his new Beast Quest book from Aunt Robin. He always reads a page or two. He came to a long word, "straightened," and slowed down. As he was working at it, I started to help him, but he said, "I'm looking because there are a lot of little words inside it." And I said yeah, you're right.

As I turned out the light, he said, "Daddy, what's today?" And I said, August 16th. And he said, "Every August 16th will be the Jackolympics." And I said OK then.

Talent Show

Normally Kate wakes up from her naps cranky and unwilling to get up. But today when I told her it was time get up she jumped up, went right to the bathroom, shook her hair out of her eyes, and was ready to go. Because today was Jack's Talent Show Day.

We've had an inkling of something coming up from Jack's camp for a little while now. Every so often he'll break into a little mini-dance, including hip shakes and chest beating. Turned out they were learning a routine, and practicing it, for a show at camp. It was today, so I roused Kate from her nap and we hoofed it over the park to see it all unfold.

When it came time for Jack's number, they did this little hip-shaking, jumping up and down, spinning dance number to a medley that included a Back Street Boys song. Jack was in the front and in the middle, perhaps because he was one of the more physically expressive dancers. Near the end he did this little foot shimmy that cracked me up, then a finger point, and finally an emphatic microphone wave and thrust that was right out of a music video I'm pretty sure he's never seen. It was a riot.

What was funny was how seriously he was taking it -- he later said he was nervous and shy -- he really looked like it was important to him to hit all his cues and do a good job. I recorded it, and we watched it at home on TV, Emily and I cracking up, Jack hiding his face in his hands. At first. And then we played it again, and he stood up, with his back to the TV, and did the whole routine again, with the music, just like his little video image on the screen. This time, though, he had a big grin on his face.

And his little sister got up next to him and did the same spinning, pointing, twirling dance. Big smile on her face, too.

For me, I think it was top 2 with seeing him score his first goal in soccer. I was grinning like an idiot while he danced like Justin Timberlake in his Mark Sanchez jersey. 2012 King Street Talent Show, look out.

Week with Kate

Emily says my most common visible emotion with Kate is frustration. I guess it's true, though I'd like to believe it's just when she sees me most with her (around dinnertime). She tests me, I get impatient with her, all that stuff.

So this week, with Jack at camp three days, I tried to avoid getting angry at Kate. I think I did OK; I feel like I didn't yell at her all week, which is something. I am not perfect.

Here were the memorable moments.

- Went to Leaping Lizards with her and Jack (on his one day off from camp). It's a big indoor play area, with slides and huge tunnels to run through and nets to climb. What was funny is that Kate has been once before, and I wouldn't think she'd necessarily remember it, but she's been asking for it lately and then all the way there she was singing, "We're going to Lea-Ping Liz-Ards,..." Jack must have been talking it up lately. Anyway, I think the first time we went there were isolated moments of tears, when Kate got trapped in some area. Not this time, especially with big brother Jack nobly leading her to safety on more than one occasion. There were a couple of other times when I believe he tried to hide from her; I'd see him run by, then her a few seconds later, trying to find him. I worked a little on my column for the magazine, then played some Skee-Ball with Jack and let Kate ride the merry-g0-round, and we headed home.

- Went to a toy store to get a birthday present for Jack's friend Dylan. Kate was pretty good; she grabbed the random toy here and there, I explained, no, we were just getting a gift for Jack's friend, and she was playful about it. "OHHHHhhhhh," she'd fake moan, then smile and go look at something else. She ended up being fascinated by this Thomas Train set arranged near the back of the store, making me sad we'd sold Jack's a while back when he hadn't cared about it any more.

- Pushed her on the swing in the back yard. I think she could do that forever. She laughs and laughs. And then I realize she can't do it forever when she suddenly says "I want to get off," almost in mid-laugh.

- Let her and Jack run through the sprinkler after camp. A big hit. My favorite bit is when she gets water in her eyes, cries for about 5 seconds, then continues running happily around like it never happened. She's an odd one sometimes.

- Went to the supermarket, again with both of them. Chaos. Neither wanted to ride IN the cart, both wanted to ride ON it. They clung to the side, or the front, argued over who got to hold the scanner, asked to see the lobsters, said they wanted to go get turkey at the deli. But Kate, I said, you never want to eat turkey for lunch, you always want peanut butter and jelly. And she said, "But can I just eat turkey here?"

And for most of the week, she was happy, and so was I.

- Irish cousins arrived today; one quick story. Kate wanted to play Hide and Seek with Abbey. "Abbey. You be the hider and I'll be the seeker. OK?" Abbey asked where she should hide. Kate said, "You hide...right here." She picked an exact place for Abbey to hide. Abbey hid there. Abbey said, OK, you should count to five. Kate, asserting her homefield advantage, said, "I am going to count to SIX." She walked 20 feet away and started counting. Finished counting, looked up, saw Abbey, and said, "I FOUND you!" Very proud of herself.

- Mikey read bedtime stories to Kate (Some Dogs Do) and Jack (not sure, I'll have to ask tomorrow). And finally the kids went to bed, so I could make sure I got it all down.

Random stuff

- Kate's first movie in a theater was last Friday. She was a little bit confused by all the previews. "Is this the movie?" No, it's just a preview. "Is THIS the movie?" No, it's another preview. It's like a TV commercial. Unlike Jack, who sat down in the aisle, thinking it was a seat, and shaken up by how loud it was (I sat in the back row with Kate), Kate basically treated the movie like another TV show, just on a much bigger screen. Plus, "Winnie the Pooh" was more TV-like than Jack's first movie, "Horton Hears a Who."

- The Irish cousins were here briefly on Monday morning. They were all sleeping in the living room when Jack and Kate woke up. For the next couple of hours, Jack and Mikey basically moved around the house, and the yard, as one. They wore plastic fireman's hats and carried light sabers. They played on the swingset. They ran about and posed for pictures. They ate cereal together, talked about Star Wars toys and MightyBeanz and TV shows. It was 2 hours when Jack didn't care about anything else in the world but playing with his cousin.

- Kate, of course, was drawn to Abbey. When they finally had to go to school and camp, both said goodbye to everyone, and Jack went around giving out hugs. But he made a point of saying goodbye to Mikey, and as I took Kate out the door, she said, "Bye, Abbey!"

- They got presents, huge "Pillow buddies," a carrot for Jack and a strawberry for Kate. Jack sleeps with his; Kate puts hers in the chair next to her at breakfast, and let it watch her take a bath the other night. "Hi, strawberry!" she waves.

- I took Jack to "Dinosaur Summer" at the Maritime Aquarium yesterday. We saw a weak IMAX film, but also enjoyed a "Thrill Ride" dino film where the seats in the theater moved and everything was in 3D -- and vivid enough to scare Jack, when a huge prehistoric mosquito flew at us. I think the highlight for him was this big robotic model of a T-Rex where he could use controls to work its jaws and arms. Either that or the wooden cutout where he could pretend to put his head in the T-Rex's mouth. Sometimes, kids are easy to please.

- When I put Kate to bed at night, she asks for a "squeezer" -- to be hugged really tightly. She puts her arms around my neck and squeezes, and I hug her back. She gives a big smile and I suspect I do, too.

Arcade

Jack was home on Tuesday and it was really hot, although I guess it was actually the coolest day of the week, hurrah. So I thought we'd get out of the house and go to an air-conditioned arcade at Playland. Alas, the air-conditioned arcade was closed, so we had to make do with the one on the Boardwalk. Where it was remarkably hot and nobody else was around, oddly enough.

So anyway, we had the arcade Boardwalk to ourselves! Of course, we tried to win these cool stuffed toys in the claw machine, and I absolutely would have if the things weren't rigged to drop the Angry Bird stuffed toys even if you picked them up perfectly; I really don't understand it.

We moved on to Skee-Ball. I taught Jack to play, which was fun; if memory serves the last time I played was at an arcade we went to on the night of my bachelor party; I know, pretty crazy! So I taught Jack to play and we spent $3 to almost win a rubber ball that I paid $2 for at Target last month. Jack cleverly (craftily?) had this idea that we could roll both sets of game balls down the same lane to get one prize, but sadly the machine counted how many balls were thrown, so no go. It worries me a little that he's already thinking of ways to beat the system, but in fairness the claw machine was rigged so he's only responding in kind.

We played a racing game where we sat in car seats next to each other and zoomed on a video track. Jack couldn't figure out why he wasn't going anywhere until I helped him stretch his foot to reach the pedal. Then he did pretty well, if by pretty well you mean colliding with me and other cars on a regular basis, but I think we started doing it on purpose because it was pretty cool. We laughed a lot.

We played air hockey, which was OK, but he's not quite tall enough to reach very far. We played pinball, which was nostalgic for me and essentially impossible for him; again, not quite tall enough to see the whole playing arena. And we played some other scam game where you had to hit a button when the red lightbulb was lit up, which we were successful at, uh, not at all.

And last but not least, we went into the picture booth, the first time I'd done that in oh about 25 years, and got some great pictures of us making goofy faces.



On the way home, Jack said, "You know, it wasn't fair that we didn't win that Angry Bird stuffed toy. But, it was still fun."

Vacation, Part II

- The bulk of the week was spent beating a path back and forth from the pool, to the beach, to the pool. On our second day we found Breakwater Beach, which is where we spent most of the rest of vacation. At first, Jack was either tired or sulking, hard to say; he'd liked the previous day's beach (more than we did, since it wasn't much of a beach) and wanted to return. So we let him sulk for a few minutes and read our books. After a bit he got up and walked down to the water. Next thing we knew he was digging in the sand with another little boy, then running back to the towels to get another shovel, then coming back for another pail. So he warmed up to the new beach.

- Found a lot of cool stuff at the beach. Hermit crabs. Fragment of shell that looked like a big shark tooth, so of course I told Jack it was a big shark tooth. He thought that was pretty cool. On the downside, he kept bringing me up other shell fragments to ask if they, too, were shark teeth.

- At one point when I was wading around in the water with Kate and Jack was digging in the sand on the beach, an ice cream truck showed up. Jack saw it and it was like a TV commercial, with him standing on the beach, running a few steps toward me, then a few steps back toward the ice cream truck, then stopping and yelling at the top of his lungs, "ICE CREAM MAN!!! Daddy, it's the ice cream man! ICE CREAM MAN!!!!"

- If I have to be honest, the truth is that both of them ended up loving the pool even more than the beach. Kate got braver and braver each day with the water wings. After swimming with Mommy a bit, then with me, she said excitedly, "Mommy says I'm a brave girl."

- We went to a reading at a book store where a little old lady was reading books to kids. Jack was riveted for most of it. Early on, Kate showed no interest, instead walking around pulling books off shelves and such. By the end, though, she was bringing the lady over books ("Can you read this one? This one?") and asking "Can I sit next to you?" Sure! said the lady, who yes kind of reminded me of my Mom.

- One night, Emily got fresh scallops and made pasta with cream sauce. This really has nothing to do with the kids, who had plain pasta, but the scallops were simply fantastic.

- It was cold one day. We had breakfast at a diner and got seated outside, and it was really cold. Despite that, we went to the pool, because, uh, the kids loved the pool. I was in the water swimming with Jack when one of the staffers came out and announced a "cannonball" contest for the kids, where they'd be leaping into the deep end. I asked Jack if he wanted to do it. He clambered out of the pool, stood in the line, little goggles on and shivering in the cold, and went right up to the front and, when it was his turn, jumped on in. Best cannonball ever.

- We went to a baseball game; the kids were mostly into the playground. Jack watched about half an inning with me, I guess, and was disappointed we didn't get a foul ball.

- Jack I drew a picture of Tashi one morning, from these books he's been reading. One of our pictures was about Tashi and the Demons. Jack pronounced it "Dee-Mohns," even though I told him it should be dee-muhns. And, it was cute.

At the end of the week of the beach and the pool and food and drink and what seemed like too much sun and one or two pool trips too many (and now seems like one or two pool trips too few), we drove home. Kate fell immediately asleep, Jack lamented not being able to find a rubber lobster toy (and it's true, it was oddly elusive), I drove.

Like most vacations I guess, there were times it seemed too long, but most of the time, and especially on the way back, it seemed too short. But it was long enough that we discovered that Kate loves to swim in the pool and Jack loves to jump in the pool, and both of them, so quick to complain at times, are also brave about some things, and that makes me happy. And oh yeah the scallops were fantastic.

Vacation, Part I

We went on vacation last week. No laptop! So no blogging. But there were some highlights.

- In the car on the way there, Kate kept asking, "When do we get to vacation?" And we keep saying, THIS IS IT! Vacation started when we all got home last night and started packing up the car! And then half an hour later, "Are we at vacation yet?"

- About 3 hours into the drive we stopped at a rest area. Surprisingly, it had a big picnic area with tables, some with a roof over them. We hauled out the cooler and ate sandwiches, drank juice boxes and sodas, ate chips and grapes. Saw a wild looking caterpillar. Laughed. I wanted to say to Kate, Now we're at vacation.

- Arrived at the Cape tired, hot. Picked up our pool passes and went straight to the pool. Kate was scared at first until she got used to the water wings, flotation devices she wore on her arms, something I only decided to throw into the car as an afterthought at the last minute. Once she got used to them, and the fact that she could float easily with them on, she warmed right up to the idea. "I"m swimming!" she said happily. "I'm swimming!"

- At our first meal out that night, Kate didn't eat anything, even though we ordered her shrimp, which she said she wanted. The next meal out, we ordered her macaroni and cheese, I think, and she didn't eat that either. Jack picked at a grilled cheese sandwich that had yellow cheese instead of white. We ended up eating four dinners in our condo, half cooked and half takeout. It would have been five but I gave them another chance (Kate kept asking, "Can we eat at a restaurant?" And I said, Yes! If you eat!) and they came through.

- Our first full day there, we went to the pool, and played mini-golf, and got hotdogs for lunch, and then went to the beach for the rest of the day. That night, putting Jack to bed, he said, "This was the best day. The beach, the pool, and minigolf." Pause a beat. "And hot dogs for lunch!"

- We played with water shooters I bought before the trip. They could spray water 3o feet in the air. Jack had a lot of fun with them. I kind of did too.

- High tide and low tide at Brewster is the difference between about 20 feet of beach and waist deep water a few feet from shore, and being able to walk a mile out into the ocean without the water being up to your knees. It's pretty amazing. We did both, and when the water was shallow, we crab-walked along on our elbows, or dug up shells and rocks and hermit crabs.

- At minigolf we fed goldfish in a pond near the end of the course. I believe this was the highlight for the kids. That or the plastic shark in the water near the 11th hole, I'm not sure which. It wasn't the minigolf, although Jack did get a thrill out of sinking one long putt. And dragged me back there two days later during one of Kate's only naps all week.

- The condo had a tiny yard, but we played a game of Mr. Fox anyway. It's kind of like Red Light, Green Light, I'd say. The kids had a blast, I made burgers. Nice. There was also a selection of board games; I think Pick Up Sticks was their favorite. It reminded me of a game we played as a kid, Jack Straws. I'll have to look for that next time I'm up there, or have Robin do it before she comes down.

- Fascinated by a new house with new toys and loads of knick-knacks, the kids were inspired to make up games. They played something involving these little rubbery coasters shaped like flipflops, a hide and seek sort of game. They played another with little glass objects shaped like fish and shells, which remarkably they didn't break. A third involved this big calculator, or maybe they just liked playing with it. Granted, they were just as apt to get in fights with each other over nothing of consequence, but when they did play nicely together, it was awesome.

More later.

Lego Camp

Jack had Lego Camp all week. It was a half-day camp through the Rye Y where he built with Legos.

Every afternoon I picked him up, and he'd talk about it all the way home. And then to Mommy at dinner, sometimes going on for 5 or 10 minutes straight.

"And then I builded a car. And then Aidan and I builded a bowling alley. And it had these different chutes so that you could go this way, or that way, and there was a propeller. And then it could knock over this, and then that. And then we built a CAR. And then our car versed another car, and our car won. And then we builded a castle!"

Today I pulled in to get him after his last day. He was dancing around on the sidewalk, talking about something with his new friends. He said "Daddy!" and jumped into the car. I talked a little with the camp counselor through the window, and he handed me a card like one they presumably give all the parents. It read as follows.

"Mr. and Mrs. Richardson: Jack is a pleasure to have at Lego Camp and he always puts a smile on our faces. He likes singing songs while we wait at pick up and dropping off campers. Also, Jack seems to be making a lot of friends at camp. We hope to see Jack again!"

So yeah, I'm proud and happy for him, and it was nice. Plus he traded one of his lego things with somebody else and got this cool shark guy!

Summer break, Day 5

A low-key kind of day, at least for some of us. Kate still woke up too early, and woke us up too early, we put her back into bed, lay awake until she came in again 10 or 15 minutes later. Jack slept in, keeping with the trend that if one of them wakes up early, the other one sleeps in. If they could just sync up those days every once in a while, we'd all be happier.

Anyway, we got up early with Kate, slugged down coffee (not Kate, I think she had milk in her Peppa Pig cup), she had breakfast, and watched Olivia on TV. Jack came downstairs a few minutes after Emily had left for work, and he and Kate played some kind of game involving his snake from the Beardsley Zoo (rubber) and her wolf (stuffed).

Aunt Cathy had forwarded an invite to attend the local pool at midday, but given Kate's lack of sleep over the course of the week, I decided it best she stay home. So they took Jack, and Kate napped, I worked, and Jack swam, played volleyball, and had his second straight day (and third in four, counting the beach on Tuesday) in the water and the sun.

When Kate woke up, I read her the Olivia book, and then we drew pictures in her room. First she had me draw an elephant (she applauded), then a robot ("Is that a boy robot or a girl robot?"), and then a baby. She's a very appreciative art fan. She asked me to read her another book, and I was going to grab one I liked from her nightstand, but she said, "I like to get a book from my bookshelves." Which is why she currently has about 10 books on her shelves and 100 towering in Dr. Seussian epicness on her nightstand.

Later, at Cathy's, I asked whether Jack had a good time. When I told him about the pool this morning, he'd asked, "Is it deep?" (He's still not totally comfortable in water over his head, although he's actually a serviceable swimmer and water-treader/dog-paddler these days.) "Who will be there?" (He wondered if it would only be bigger kids who wouldn't play with him.) Well, your cousins, and the Hinz boys, and maybe some other kids. "I know Lyndsay will play with me!"

Cathy said, well, he mostly played with the girls, and then at the end, Matthew (older boy) played volleyball with him. And he was so thrilled.

Found Jack downstairs playing "Operation" with his cousins. He had a little glow to him, rosy cheeks, happy smile, all that. He looked like an older boy.

Summer Break, Day 4

Today was a crazy day with the kids. We left the house at 8:30, drove an hour to the Beardsley Zoo, walked around looking at animals for 3 hours, got food, blew some money at the gift shop, drove home, changed into our bathing suits, and met a friend and her kids (one in Jack's kindergarten class) at the pool, where they swam and ran around for 3 hours before we wearily headed home, bathed, ate, and piled them into bed.

And they were incredibly happy, almost all day, and I realized that maybe that's one of the secrets to this whole parenting thing. Much as I might want to relax and kick back or whatever, they want to be busy, racing about from one thing to another. I don't want to overschedule them, and I realize that's a bad thing too. But they're happier -- less whiny, less complaining -- and cheerier when they're busy.

At dinner, Jack chattered away about the different animals at the zoo. Kate sort of sing-songed away about the pool, and "swimming" in 1-foot deep water in the kiddie pool. And when they fell into bed, and didn't make a peep, it was with smiles on their faces, I think.

Summer Break, Day 3

Kind of too tired to write about today's trip to the Big Apple Circus, or playing frisbee with Jack in the backyard, or dining at a tavern after the circus and Jack being fascinated by the pool table, and later the dartboard (the bartender let him throw a few plastic darts, which careened wildly around the room hitting everything but the board itself).

But I will take a minute to share Jack's journal entry, about the previous day.

Summer break, Day 2

Was planning to take the kids to a playground or something today. But it was really hot, so instead we went with the go-to for hot days, the beach. Told the kids, they celebrated wildly. Loaded the car with chairs, towels, and snacks, and we were off.

I feel like I've written a lot about our beach trips, because they're awesome, so I'm going to stick with highlights:

- We saw a couple of huge crabs with big legs like tarantulas or something. I picked Kate up to show her, Jack I pointed them out repeatedly until he finally said he saw them (I'm not 100 percent sure he did). Kate probably did, because she was a little wary of the water for much of the trip.

- Saw some horseshoe crabs, too, which Jack had just read date back to dinosaur times. So I told him that that dead one we'd seen a few trips back, which he touchingly tried to save by picking it up with a shovel and carrying it into the water (still the most awesome moment all year I think), was maybe just tired from being alive for 100 million years.

- Played football in the water with Jack. He talked about throws being "super gonzo incredible" throws or somesuch, the idea being it was a really, really big throw, and even more impressive to catch them. He also had interesting rules on what constituted a catch. If it didn't hit the ground, he caught it. Since we were playing in knee-deep water, they never hit the ground, so everything was a catch, worthy of vast celebration.

- Kate ate an entire bag of Pirate's Booty, this popcorn-like snackfood, I believe. That's what I get for turning my back for a bit.

- Putting on sunblock, I missed a couple of spots on Jack's cheeks, so he looks like a football player who used red eyeblack. Oops.

- They had donuts (left over from the previous day), apples, goldfish, pretzels, Pirate's Booty, and I think some other kind of snackfood. Not much "I don't LIKE that," from either party today.

- Jack taught Kate how to jump over waves in knee-deep water. He jumped, wobbled, stayed upright. She sort of jumped and got washed over. Spluttered water, but smiled.

- At the end of the trip, they met another apparent brother-sister couple, I'd put them a couple of years older. The four of them spent half an hour digging a big mudhole and making a big pile of sand. I wished I'd brought a book, because they could not have cared less that I was there.

- I washed them each off in the ocean two or three times before leaving. I'd wash Kate off, carry her back to the towel, tell her to put on her sandals. She immediately plopped down on her butt in the sand, then put on her sandals. I carried her back to the water, rinse, repeat.

- We drove home and the kids read magazines and drank from their water bottles in the back. Later, they'd sing songs at home, Jack probably something about burping or farting, Kate something about how being naked is funny. They're something else, those kids.

Summer break, Day 1

Jack is off for the summer, well until Lego Camp starts next week. Kate is off this week. So, I wanted to make sure to give them a good time. Day 1, kind of hit or miss....

- Went to Dunkin Donuts. Wanted to start the week off with something fun for them, plus I hadn't had enough coffee. "Can we get munchkins AND a big donut?" asked Jack. Today, sure. Kate got something with strawberry frosting, Jack got the same, until I ordered a butternut, and he got one of those instead. They munched happily, I drank iced coffee, only later remembering I hadn't actually had any breakfast beyond a couple of munchkins. Oh well.

- Went to Greenwich Town Hall to pay a vehicle tax bill from the previous year. "That's where my soccer is," Jack announced as we parked in the lot; indeed, the soccer fields were down below. As usual, the kids wanted to touch everything as we waited in line in the Tax Collector's office...pencils, pens, counters, etc. As usual, I tried to stop them.

- Came home and took Kate's baby for a stroll down the street. See blog entry below.

- Painting! They love to paint and I love to let them, but there's some set up work involved and clean up after, so it doesn't happen every day. Kate made some nice faces with little arms and legs sticking out and some dots of green and purple and brown on the paper. Jack made people and what looks like a robot of some kind, both with happy smiles.

- Lunchtime. Kate was too tired to eat anything -- didn't nap yesterday, so we took things easy today -- and went up for her nap. Jack ate roast beef, yogurt, chips and bread.

- Jack and I played on the porch some with his dinosaurs and Optimus Prime, the Transformer. Apparently in this story the dinosaurs were evil and Optimus had to smash them all. I kind of felt bad for them because he was a lot bigger and more mobile. And he was operated by Jack while I was making the dinosaurs run around, so clearly they weren't going to win.

- We built a robot of some sort with Legos, making it look like a picture Jack drew. I said, hey Jack, that's impressive; you had a vision, and we made it real. I explained what I meant by vision. He said, "I don't want to learn any more new words...I already know enough." We get this from him every once in a while. Over the rest of the day I gave him examples of how great it is to learn words, so you can say things like chandelier or corn rather than "black thing with lights on the end" or "yellow and white thing with little circles on it." Emily, at dinner, said, What if we just called you, brown-haired boy with brown eyes, instead of Jack? He got a kick out of that one.

- Kate woke up and she had lunch, while Jack had a snack. Grapes. Really can't go wrong with fruit.

- We played in the back yard some, swings for both and pitching to Jack. It's pretty dangerous really, because he can hit and I'm standing somewhat closer than regulations. A couple of line drives he's hit back up the middle have been worrying.

- Finished a book and put Jack to bed. Decided we're going to do something new tomorrow.

stroller

Aunt Cathy had a tag sales this weekend, and Kate came back with a stroller for her baby.

Kate is very appreciative of certain toys. A couple of weeks back, Emily got her a present, a doll of "Belle" from Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Kate has never seen the movie, but when she saw Belle, her eyes got wide and her mouth made the "Ooooooooo" sound. "Belllle," she breathed, in wonderment.

But quickly the stroller has assumed favorite status for Kate. She got it home, and immediately put her baby into it. She fiddled around with the canopy over it, and adjusted the angles and so forth as best she could. And then we went for a stroll around the block.

We did this again a little bit later. And then again. And then, "Daddy? Can we go for a walk? Can we take baby with us? In her stroller?"

Baby also strolled about the house. Into the playroom. Up the stairs into Kate's room. Out onto the back deck. Back inside. Back outside. Onto the porch. Into the driveway. Back inside.

7:30 this morning. "Daddy, can we go for a walk?"

swimming, again

Took Jack swimming at the Rye Y today. We hadn't been there before, and there was a class in the shallow end, so we had to be in the deep end -- 9 feet!

At first Jack was a little nervous. He hadn't actually been swimming in a pool in more than 2 months. And it was a new pool and a new depth for him.

But with the floaty noodle under his arms, he was fine, and he started to relax. Then the floaty barbells. And gradually, as he warmed up to it, he remembered that he could swim.

So by the end, he was jumping off the edge of the pool, a pretty good half dive, half belly flop. First into my arms, then with me across the pool, where he'd kind of dog paddle, steamboat his way over to me. And then he was pushing away the barbells and noodle and swimming for the edge on his own.

I was always just a few feet away, but at times, I was nervous. In the first place, I've been in better shape, to be honest. After half an hour treading water, helping Jack, catching Jack, swimming with the noodle, etc., I was beat.

But at the end, and it was time to get out, he had a big smile on his face and was proud of himself. And he was tired, too, but happy.

In our matching bathing suits and matching colorful towels, we found our way back to the locker room. Showered, dressed, and went off to get haircuts together.

Father's Day

Slept til 6:45. That was sort of new.

Kids brought in cards. Jack had been talking up his cards all week. They were of course awesome. The best was one with a picture of the Earth, and a couple of dinosaurs on it, and a huge asteroid almost as big as the earth heading right toward it. The other had a funny rhyme: "Don't be sad. You're my Dad!" I think that was it.

Kate had made one at her preschool with a little poem between her handprints, reminding Dad not to get frustrated with her because she wouldn't always be this little. That one made me tear up a little.

Jack wished me Father's Day and hugged me. Then it was Kate's turn, but Kate often has a problem being told what to do. So she kind of hugged herself and looked down for a minute. I shrugged, wasn't going to fight it. Two minutes later, though, she looked up and said in a low voice, "Happy Father's Day..." and hugged me shyly. It was nice.

Jack wanted to have his breakfast in bed with me while I drank my coffee. We decided against it.

All day, Jack made it his business to defend me. "Mommy, you can't disagree with Daddy....It's Father's Day!" This occurred on a few occasions. Funny.

We went to the beach. I spent most of the time playing frisbee with Jack in the ocean. I was always pretty good at it and Jack has become pretty good at it too. We threw it back and forth in knee to waist-deep water for a while.

Made a sand castle with Kate. Found a cool shell that seemed to still have a creature in it and showed it to them. Put it back in the water where I'd found it.

Went to Ian's parents' house for dinner. Sat in their backyard to eat and drink. Kids played. They have a little waterfall and koi pond which used to fascinate Jack and now intrigues Kate. Toward the end of the evening we sat on the edge and looked at the stones in the water, some of which had writing on them. "Hope," "Change," etc. Kate couldn't read the words but could read all the letter. "H....O.....P....." she said slowly.

Everyone was pretty wiped out in the evening. A little too much sun and not enough water no doubt. Jack and I read his big Dinosaur book, a pretty cool recent one, where the T-Rex has a scary plume of feathers (seriously!) on his head and there are nice pages of Velociraptors (I had to explain to Jack was "cunning" means) and other fierce dinosaurs. And really, reading a dinosaur book with Jack, I can't think of many better ways to end a Father's Day.

Jack day

Today was Jack's "Moving Up" day at school, which basically means he's "graduating" from Kindergarten and entering the 1st grade next year. So despite his protests that he wanted to wear shorts and a T-shirt, we dressed him up in nice pants, shoes, and a shirt with a collar, and sent him off to his last day as a Kindergartner. Sort of; he'll still be going there for another week and a half.

We gathered in the auditorium with all the other parents, grandparents who lived nearby, and their cameras. The kids filed in and up to their seats on stage, most looking serious, some with smiles frozen across their faces. We all said the Pledge of Allegiance, teachers said a few words, they got their diploma. Jack looked serious, businesslike. Every once in a while he'd catch our eye and give a little smile and wave. The 100 or so kids across three classes all got their little certificates -- Jack was near the end of the alphabet in the final class -- and then filed off to enjoy cookies and juice boxes while parents snapped pictures. Pretty cute.

We met up in the lunch room to find Jack loading up on brownies and Oreos. Excellent. Snapped pictures of him and Mrs. Glockenberg, his teacher, and The Coach, his gym coach. I sort of apologized for the fact that Jack sometimes wore Red Sox attire, as evidently The Coach is a big Yankees fan. He laughed.

On the way out to the car afterward, Jack crouched down to examine a bug on the sidewalk. He watched it for a minute while we waited. Then he stood up, wiped his hands off on his good pants, and walked to the car, leaving kindergarten behind.

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We went to McDonald's for lunch. Jack ate all his nuggets, as usual, but mostly he was pretty thrilled with his toy. "I can't believe I got Kung Fu Panda!" he said. "I mean, I could have just got the BIRD. All he does is SPIN."

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After lunch Jack and I went to our two banks. At one he got a lollipop, and at the other he got to see the cool old-fashioned Drive-Thru (or is it new? I don't know) where you put everything in a plastic tube and it gets sucked into the bank, and then shot back out to you. He thought it was almost as cool as I did.

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We went to the library. He got a dinosaur book for him ("I like nonfiction books," he said) and a book for Kate by the same person who did 'Click, Clack, Moo.' Then he saw Battleship, and we played that. Battleship can be a really slow game with a 6-year-old. First off, he kept calling out, "5-9" and "6-3," while I explained he had to say one letter and one number. Second, he thinks a lot about each choice, and takes a while to put in his pegs, and calls the same numbers more than once, and tends to group his choices whether he gets a hit or not. (I-9. Miss. I-10? Miss. I-8? Miss. H-10?) It was a long game until I started giving him 3 guesses per turn, and said he only had to hit a ship to sink it (because really, isn't that how things would have gone anyway?).

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Emily and I took him to the park to ride his bike. There was no one around so we owned the tennis courts. And after some prodding and running alongside and letting go of the seat and him putting his feet down, he did it -- he rode. And a huge, goofy smile broke out on his face as he rode clunkily along (he's probably a little too big for the bike now), and continued on, and waved us away as we tried to help him more.

Graduating from Kindergarten, riding his bike, playing Battleship, getting Kung Fu Panda at McDonald's. Big day for Jack.

Playground

When we lived in Greenwich, I took the kids to playgrounds in Port Chester all the time. We went to Lyon's Park, and we went to the "baby playground," which was basically a smaller playground that nobody else seemed to go to.

Now we live within walking distance of both, and we go to Lyon's Park more because that's where people go, and where all of Jack's games are. And we play on our own swingset. But today, for a change, we went to the baby playground again.

It was a pretty hot day, so I sat on a bench in the shade with the water while the kids played. They went up and down the slides, and at one point Jack asked me to help him slide down the pole -- then said he was afraid when I came over -- then I talked him into it, and he DID, and was giddy with accomplishment and immediately wanted to do it AGAIN. At another point, while I was sitting about 20 yards away, I heard Kate yelling, looked up, and saw her hanging from one of the monkey bars, stuck, feet flailing wildly. I ran to get her, fortunately before she fell.

I pushed them both on swings, then they switched swings and I pushed them again. It was kind of nice, nostalgic. They ran around a little more, then we were going to leave....when suddenly I heard "Jack R!" And it was his friend Brian from school, and his brother. So we were there another hour and a half.

Finally we left, tired, sweaty, red-cheeked. (I promise I used sunblock, but you know, we weren't planning on being there for two hours.) We went home, split a gallon of water, turned on the air conditioner. And the kids played a board game while I thought how small they used to be on those swings.

Kate at morning

Kate either wakes up too early, and is whiny and cranky in the mornings, or she sleeps in, and is a picture of sweetness and light. Here's one of the latter kind of mornings, as she comes down into the kitchen around 6:45, when I'm making coffee.

"He-llo, Daddy!"

She has her stuffed monkey with her. She makes a false sad voice. "Monkey is SAD, because she misses her Mommy."

She also has her stuffed kitties with her. She places them on a chair. "I will put my kitties HERE." One is too near the edge. "Oh, she's gonna FALL. I save you, kitty!" (Saves her. Then:) "I give her little kisses. kiss, kiss!"

Then she laughs at her kitties, and laughs at herself. "She's silly. Silly....silly....silly. I'm silly!"

Sensing there might be a blog in this, I start writing things down. Kate: "Oh, why are drawing so FAST? You don't have to do that. You can take your time with your drawing."

Pause. "You can use different colors. Do you want another crayon? Here's PURPLE. Here's RED."

Kate proceeds to draw pictures of her favorite things to draw pictures of, faces. "This is YOU, Daddy. Here's your stubble."

Then, "This is JACK. I made Jack, Daddy. .... Oops! I forgot to make Jack's HAIR. Silly. Doo, doo, de doo, de doo."

I give her another crayon. "Oh, THANK YOU." Kate cheerful and happy...a nice start to the day.

The Beach

We went to the beach yesterday, first time of the year. As always, it was just awesome. I talk to friends here who are all about going to the pool, and look askance at the beach. Maybe there are two kinds of people, beach people and pool people; maybe it's just about how you grew up; maybe it's where you go. Anyway, to some degree it's who you are.

(Lyndsay said in the morning she didn't like the beach; she liked the pool. But I think we have a convert, because she had a really good time.)

In the car on the way there, we heard the pop song "Dynamite," which is a big hit with the kids (who proceeded to sing along). We unloaded and lathered up on the beach, and it was like Jack and Kate had never left -- they immediately ran down to the water, Kate with pail and shovel, Jack to collect seashells and rocks, Lyndsay joining them.

That was pretty much the day, but a few moments stood out.

We always look in the water for horseshoe crabs, and did see a few, including a pair with a clam or oyster stuck onto them -- cool! We watched them for a while. Later, we saw another one, in the sand at the water's edge. Not moving; probably dead. It happens. I tried putting it back in the water, but it just washed gently ashore again.

I kind of wanted to distract the kids, so I got them interested briefly in building a sand castle. Then I looked up and Jack wasn't there. I spotted him a minute later near the water's edge.

He had taken his sand shovel and used it to scoop up the crab, and he was wading out up to his knees in the water to bring it out deeper. Struggling just a little bit, but managing. As Emily and i watched, he lowered it into the water, then ran back, with some effort, to the shore.

I went up to him, barely knowing what to say. But I said, Jack. That was great what you did.

And he said, "I like horseshoe crabs. I didn't want him to die."

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Kate is nervous around animals, nervous around a lot of things -- a sliver of soap in the bathtub puts her into near hysterics. So it was odd when, standing in waist-deep water, she stumbled and fell on her face, floating for a moment, getting drenched, before stumbling to her feet. I ran over to grab her out of the water, expecting tears or fright.

Instead she kind of blinked, smiled, and said, "I got my eyes wet!" And then shrugged and continued to play in the surf.

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As I put Jack to bed tonight, Lyndsay having gone home, I told Jack I had a great weekend with him, and he said, "And with Lyndsay."

And then he was quiet for a minute, and then said, "I miss Lyndsay. Because she was here for 3 days, so it was like she lived here. And it's weird that she's gone."

And I kissed him goodnight.

Lyndsay

We had a guest this weekend, cousin Lyndsay. Both kids are pretty fond of her. I haven't read a bedtime story to either one all weekend; they've requested her. So they all get together on inflatable mattress and she reads to them, their choices. There's a lot of laughing.

We usually help Jack with showers, turning on the water, making sure he gets himself clean, etc. Still help him with brushing his teeth, too, given that cavities like him.

But since the first night Lyndsay was here, after she showered, Jack has gone in to shower on his own. "I can do it myself," he insists. I let him, just watching carefully to make sure he didn't run it too hot or anything. He did all the washing and drying himself, then moved on to brushing his teeth. Wanted to do that himself, too. I said, no Jack, we still need to help you. "But I want to be like Lyndsay!" he said plaintively.

Jack has finally come around on the bees in our backyard. He doesn't like them and still flinches on occasion (so do I), but he now plays readily in their presence. I overheard him talking to Lyndsay yesterday, after she noticed them. "Oh, those are carpenter bees," he said knowingly. "They don't sting."

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Jack had T ball yesterday. A fierce desire to play first base has developed among the players; they all run to it at the start of each inning, and usually end up sharing it during the inning, with coach Moore dictating when it's time for somebody else's turn. I talked to him about it afterward, telling him I thought he'd handled it well, and that it was odd to me that everyone wanted to play first base. He said, "Well, it's a chance to touch the ball."

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Recap of the day

Jack was in a play at school. All the kindergartners were there, dressed in green shirts and tan pants; it was a play about the rainforest. Every kid had a line; Jack's was first. He stood up, wearing his light green dress shirt and khakis, walked to the mike, and said "The play you are about to see is the story of the Great Kapok tree...." Delivered his line and sat down. We all clapped and took pictures. Jack waved from his seat.

Afterward, as I walked to Jack to tell him he did a great job, he said, "Nick's Mom has my MightyBean! Will you get it from her?" So, he hadn't let the play go to his head or anything.

Walking back to the car, Kate walked between Emily and me and held our hands. She didn't walk much at all; she just swung. She's getting heavier.

At home, we played some in the backyard. She helped me a mow a little, then watched me mow, then went on the swings. She lay over it like a folded newspaper and swung back and forth. "I'm Supergirl!" she said.

The neighbor with two young kids walked over and they played in our yard for a bit. They brought out the T ball set for a bit which went well until Kate swung the bat with one of the kids standing too close to the tee and whapped him in the face. He cried. I managed to extract one of Kate's slow, monotone, "sorrrryyyyy"s out of her. Later he was on the slide and it seemed like he was waiting for Kate to walk by the end so he could take her out. Nah, I'm just kidding. He probably wasn't really doing that.

We picked up Jack at school. As usual, they ran around the playground together, and I looked for the mighty bean Jack had dropped in the tall grass yesterday. I was touched by the fact that a couple of his little friends helped out. I said, guys, there's no chance of us finding this thing, you can go play.

We went home and they played with these little bead things that Emily irons and they make little figures and designs that fascinate Jack for about 2 days until he forgets about them.

We ate pizza, and watched some of the Red Sox game. I read Kate "Ferdinand the Bull." And everyone went to bed.

baptism

Got the kids baptized over the weekend. Strangely affecting.

- Nana and Baba came down from Vermont. It's a long trip for them and they no doubt missed the comforts of home and their own beds but they didn't make so much as a whisper of complaint. Both looked wonderful at Church and I could hear Baba's voice during all the songs, except when Kate was on his lap and he wasn't able to follow along.

- Aunt Robin sent the nicest card from Ireland -- here several relatives lamented the inability to find baptism cards for non-infants -- and beautiful Celtic crosses for the ceremony. Jack wore his even though it got tangled in his tie; Kate might still be wearing hers for all I know.

- All the Rosenfelds and Papa Earl were on hand, with Reanna going up to read the first reading (from the Old Testament) and everyone looking so nice that I didn't feel overdressed in my suit.

- During the baptism, Kate said with some chagrin to Pastor, "You're getting water on my dress." But she didn't freak out, as she does when I drip water on her after washing her face. Jack was completely calm and well-behaved as Pastor put water on his forehead. They shared a towel with each other to dry off, happily not fighting.

-Kate was completely unwilling to smile and look at the camera for family photos, so we got several with all of us smiling beautifully while Kate showed the back of her head. Then we got some without her in them. Later, Reanna took a picture of me and my Dad, and Kate said, "Can I see?" I showed it to her, and I said, this is what a picture looks like when the people in it are smiling and looking at the camera. She said, "OHHHhhhh." I said, do you think you could do that sometime? She said, "Yes! Yes, I will!" So we took some pictures of her with Baba, and maybe later we'll use the magic of technology to doctor one of the other pictures with a smiling Kate face. Or not.

- Jack smiled broadly (a little too much so at times) for almost every photo, willingly bribed by the promise of jelly beans.

- The kids made an amazing amount of noise playing together that evening, while I sat with Baba on a bench and watched. Kate chatted away happily with Uncle Ian ("Ekan! Ekan!" she said if he looked away).

- Dinner was cereal with strawberries and toast with apricot jam. And it was really good.

Movies and art

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Jack and I went to a movie today, "Rio." He and his classmates had the day off because of testing for older kids; this apparently doesn't apply to very many schools or classes, because he and I were the only people in the theater. Jack said, excitedly, "We're the first ones here!" As the movie itself began, and we were still the only ones there, he said, "Where are you, people?" We had our own private screening.

Jack enjoyed it, initially naming it his second-favorite movie behind "Star Wars." I said, what about "How to Train Your Dragon"? And he said, "Oh. My 3rd favorite movie." And he called "Tangled," which he saw with Emily last weekend, his 4th favorite, until I mentioned "Cars" and "Madagascar." So he then proceeded to name his top 10, which I believe included every movie he's ever seen, except for the first movie he ever saw in a theater, "Horton Hears a Who," which I believe scared him. And I will never forget because we walked up the steps to the row of seats, and I said he could sit down, and he agreeably sat down on the step in the aisle.

At home, I had to check my email, and I heard him sit down at the table to draw a little. Ten minutes later, I saw his picture. He'd written "Rio" across the top, with different colors for each letter, and drawn striking renditions of all the main characters, which were brightly colored birds. The detailing was kind of amazing, I have to say.

Later on, he drew another picture, of himself, riding a shark. "Shark!" it say, and in the picture Jack has a big smile. I said, uh Jack, where did you get this idea? And he said, matter-of-factly, "It just came to me. And, I like to draw, so...."

My brudder

Jack and I typically pick up Kate after preschool. He enters the wrong code to the door before I can enter the correct one, and then we eventually get in. He asks to go up and say hi to his old teachers sometimes, and we do that.

Then we head into the tumble room, which is where Kate's class usually is, running around and playing with various toys and such. Jack climbs into one of the little cars and drives it around, or kicks a ball and I hold my breath hoping it doesn't catch some toddler in the side of the head.

But today Kate's class was up in her room, crowding around one of the teacher's who was reading a story. We walked in, Kate spotted us, and ran over and greeted us happily. Then she went back to the group, and pointed to Jack and said -- as if we didn't pick her up almost every day -- "That's my brudder! That's my brudder." Very happy.

Jack sits down with the group, shows them his new toys, "Mighty Beanz," and they all ooh and aah. And then we head off, me and Kate and her brudder.

Catching up

Wow, it's been a while. So what's been going on?

- Kate was stick with a stomach flu over Easter. She couldn't do an Easter Egg hunt (which was indoor because it rained so much), so she sat on the couch while Jack searched around the house for eggs. He gave her all the pink and purple ones.

- Finding eggs was so much fun for Jack we continued to hide them, even emptied of candy, for the next two days, and then he did the same for us.

- Kate continued to be sick and drowsy until midday Monday. Then either because I kept giving her water in case she was dehydrated, or because Jack came home from school Monday afternoon, she suddenly made a dramatic improvement. She went from sleeping on the futon most of Monday morning to running around and playing with Jack Monday afternoon as if she'd never been sick. Seeing Jack made her happy and healthy, I sincerely believe it.

- Jack had his first T ball game on Saturday. I hustled him out of the house; didn't want to be late! He was probably more relaxed than I was. We walked to the park with him in his little ballcap, T-shirt, and glove. I snapped pictures as we walked. Went to the field where the game was supposed to be played. Everyone looked so big! They were; another team was playing there, with older kids. We walked to the actual field. The team did stretching exercises, Jack with a goofy grin on his face, and the game started. When he came up to bat, he high-stepped to the plate. My son, Deion Sanders? Got his hit -- everyone gets a hit in T ball -- and ran the bases, 90 feet at a time. Three innings of everyone on both teams batting, scoring, and then taking the field. Jack occupied the pitcher's mound, since he's one of the better fielders and most balls don't get out of the infield. Usually he ran to the ball. Occasionally he was looking in another direction. Two of his friends were on the other team; it's sort of like Major League Baseball thanks to free agency. After the game, all the kids slapped hands, and we headed off for ice cream, or at least a cookie.

- Jack had a trip to the doctor. I'm wondering, do all kids touch everything they see, or is it just mine? Bad enough he touches everything; worse at a place I'd rather he keep his hands jammed in his pockets the entire time. Anyway, he's very relaxed at the doctor. He climbed up on the table and stretched out like he was relaxing on the beach. Funny. We had to pick up a prescription, and as we waited in line at the pharmacy I had to constantly remind him not to touch everything.

- Kate's new favorite book is the second Harold and the Purple Crayon book, or the second one we have, Harold's A B Cs. She's taking an interest in words these days. "What does THAT say? And what does THAT say? And...."

- I finish the books when I read to Kate and she clambers over my lap, smiles at me, turns out the light, clambers back over me, and lies down. "Swing on a star?" she asks. Yup.

Birdhouse

Jack had a day off today -- his "Spring Break," really, after a slew of snow days wiped out the other days off -- and I was thinking last night about what would be fun to do. It rains six days a week, so I didn't really factor outdoor activities, but I wanted to do something kind of different. So for some reason, maybe I got the idea from an article in the paper, or maybe I'd been thinking about it for a while, I decided that Jack and I would make a birdhouse.

Jack had a morning playdate, and then he came home, and he wanted to work on his "Rocket book." It was a bunch of colorful pictures, stapled together, of rockets. And he wanted me to draw with him, and so I did. I sat at the little chair at the art table downstairs -- the best Christmas present we got him, I think -- and drew rockets. Jack explained how they all had to be firing either flames or bullets (I chose flames), how they all had to be different colors (done; his were far more colorful than mine, but I did OK), and how they all had to have names. And when I wrote a little name in the footer ("Flame Thrower") he said, "No no, they all have to have big names across the top of the page." So I wrote it in big, and he smiled approvingly.

It's great drawing with Jack; everything has a structure, and he explains how things should be drawn, and then colored, and how the rocket flames need to be all across the bottom of the rocket and stuff. And if I finished early, he said I should do more; and he was only going slower because he was doing his very best work. And we finished and he was happy and he stapled the book together. "ROCKET BOOK."

Then I told him we were going to make a birdhouse. He said, "How?" And I said, well, I'm going to get some scrap wood from behind our shed (a big board) and saw it into pieces and nail them together, and we'll paint it. And he said, "Can I help?" And I said, You bet.

My Dad has actual carpentry skills; I just have the ones I picked up from him and occasionally have used over the years. But I can see something in my mind and saw straight lines and hammer nails, so that was enough. Jack held the boards while I sawed them -- just kidding! -- he watched while I sawed, and helped a little with hammering the nails. When I ran out of nails, I sent him down to my toolbox to get more, and he agreeably headed off and came back later with a handful of them. I sent him back for a screwdriver; he came back with 5 of them. It was awesome.

And we built the thing and it looked OK. I used a small saw and a hammer and chisel to make a bird-sized circle in the front, and tomorrow I'll find a dowel or something for the birds to stand on while they're admiring our craftsmanship.

I asked Jack what color it should be. He said, "Red." Which was fortunately one of the handful of colors we had, the leftover paint from the previous owners' red dining room. I found an old T-shirt and draped him in it, covered the kitchen floor with newspapers, and sat him down with the can of paint and an old brush. And he slathered it in a thick coat of red, and it was good.

Put Jack to bed tonight and asked him what the best part of his day was. He could have said the rocket book and he could have said the playdate, but instead he said, "Building the birdhouse." So it was a really good day.

Random

- Jack can sit down and turn a blank page into one with a dozen colorful characters and creative spelling with ease. Kate sits down and makes faces with broad smiles; recently she started using multiple colors.

- Jack got his first team baseball cap Saturday, with a "P" on it for his team, Pasquale's. (Italian restaurant.) My first baseball cap ALSO had a P on it...not sure whether it was for "Perkinsville" or "Pirates." He wore it proudly to a birthday party that afternoon, handing it to me 5 minutes in so he could run around without it falling off.

- I'm learning to tie my own shoes righthanded so I will be able to teach Jack how to tie his.

- Kate's teacher tells us that Kate is the social butterfly during "free play," asking everyone, "And what did you do this weekend? And what did YOU do? I played with my brother...."

- At the party yesterday, his little friend Kinsey handed me a sealed envelope to give to Jack. We opened it later; it had a piece of wrapped candy and a note from Kinsey. "Dear Jack. You are my best friend. Next time let's have a play date!" Sweet.

- Then later, talking to Kinsey's Mom (before I opened the note), she said, Kinsey says Jack helps him with his work at school....he says he's a great friend to him. Really? I said. I asked Jack about it later. Jack tried to remember. "Hmmm. Once he didn't know what 8 plus 8 was. And I told him it was 16." That's great, Jack.

Star Wars

It was a rainy day and Jack had a half day from school. So what better time for me to make a big bowl of popcorn, sit us down on the couch, and let him watch Star Wars for the first time? So that's what I did.

The movie holds up well. I had hesitated to show it to Jack, despite asking for it for Christmas, because I feared he wouldn't be into it or would be bored. Nope. He watched with rapt attention, fully engaged most of the way. If memory serves my parents didn't want me to see it because they heard perhaps the bar scene might be scary for little kids. Well, how could Jack be scared by "Hammerhead" or "Greedo" when he was clutching their tiny action figures in his hands? A few minutes into the movie, he ran upstairs to get his Darth Vader case with all the action figures (formerly Scott's). As each character he had the action figure of appeared on the screen, he found the figure and held it up: Luke, Leia, Sandpeople, Darth Vader.

(BTW, I think the charred remains of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru (Peru?) were a little more alarming for a youngster. I shielded Jack's eyes, but no one shielded mine.)

Not surprisingly, he had some questions.

"Why can't Darth Vader be Anakin?"

"Why are their weapons made out of light? Wouldn't a SWORD be better?"

"Why is my case shaped like 'Darth Vader'? LUKE is the hero."

Aren't Banthas cool, Jack? "Huh? No, it's just like a big buffalo."

(During the space assault on the Death Star at the end) "Is that Luke? Is THAT Luke? Is that Luke?"

"Did Obi-Wan Kenobi die? Did Darth Vader kill him? Is he dead?"

And of course, the last one.

"Can we go get 'Empire Strikes Back'?"

Legos etc.

Jack's been really into his Legos lately. He kind of forgot about them for a while, and now he actually gets up in the morning and plays with them, and has to be dragged away from them at night.

Today after school he was playing with them a bit in the living room; I was downstairs in my office. He came down with a trio of little wheeled vehicles, showing them to me one by one.

"This one is like a racecar...I remembered watching racecars with Baba in Vermont, and so I made it from my memory. This one is a different kind of racecar. And this one I made so he'd have a friend."

Then he came down with some aircraft. "This is a jet....I thought it was cool. This is an airplane, because I remembered going to Ireland on an airplane.

"This one is a rocket."

Then he came downstairs with more vehicles...these were boats. "This is a racing boat. Oh, THIS is a big machine that kills bugs. They go in here....and then they get sucked in here...and you can see them through this clear part, all their insides and guts and stuff....I took it outside and an ant went into it...." Every Lego had a story.

Later, he lined them all up, all 20 or so of them, on a box before going up to bed.


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At dinner, Kate did something, I forget what, maybe Emily was feeding her, or it was something she said. And Jack said, "Kate's a BABY!"

Kate looked at him seriously. "But I'm not a floppy baby, right, Jack?" We laughed at this, then asked, A floppy baby?

And she said, "Yes, like my dolly. She's a floppy baby, she just sits there and can't move." And then Kate made a goofy face and pretended to be all limp and floppy.

Jack assured her that no, she wasn't, and it seemed to make Kate happy.

T Ball

Jack had his first T ball practice tonight. I was nervous about it all day; he appeared to be oblivious. But when it came time to go, about 10 of 6, he was all, "Kate! Let's go! Get your shoes on! We have to go!" And then we all nearly ran down the street to Aunt Cathy's to drop Kate off (for some reason; she could easily have come with us, I'm not coaching), and head to the park. Jack: "I don't want to be late...I don't want to miss any kids' names!" I'm not sure if he was being serious, or repeating something I had said a while ago about something completely unrelated.

It was cold but sunny. We walked into the park for practice -- nice being able to walk -- and saw James, from his class. He and Jack greeted each other with wild happiness, as if they hadn't just gotten out of school together 3 hours earlier. They met the coaches, split up into twos. I waited for the first throw to catch Jack in the face (in practice I had stressed the importance of getting his glove up, even if he didn't catch everything), but the drill was, wisely I think, to just roll the ball back and forth to each other, and practice fielding it.

There was some time spent teaching the kids to "get ready" by crouching; couple of kids looked like they were trying to lay an egg or something. But eventually they got it.

They graduated to throwing the ball to the coach. Jack's first throw was 10 feet to the coach's left, from about 10 feet away. His next few were on target; whew! Yes, maybe I cared a little bit too much.

They split into two groups, one batting and running to first, one fielding the balls. It's only T ball, there was no pitching. But it was awesome. I can't believe how much fun it was to watch. Jack hit one on the ground, one in the air. Ran to first. Then ran back, picking up his bat on the way.

They took the field next, and Jack, I think just because of where he was standing, was pointed to first base. I may have groaned a little. We've really only just started working on catching, after all. Fortunately in the time he was there, none of the throws really were that near him. Once he got the ball on the bounce, and as the runner ran back to home, he ran after her and tagged her. "Ouch," she said. Sigh. Jack, you don't have to tag the runner now. Later, he was moved to third. I think the fielding and throwing will go better for him than the catching it at first.

And that was it. We walked home, and he seemed happy. I told him, Hey, you're a baseball player. "T ball," he said; a stickler for accuracy, he is.

We saw a friend on the way home, guy I play racquetball with, his daughter is in Jack's class. He asked how T ball was; Jack said, "Great!" Then, because the guy's a Yankees fan, Jack said, "Boo Yankees!" Naturally they'd won today, while the Sox are 0-6, so it didn't have much punch to it.

His daughter, Sophia, showed up in the doorway, seeing Jack with his little baseball cap and glove. Big, beaming smile. She likes Jack. She came out and said Hi. "Hi, So-phi-a," Jack said. A combination between nice and being polite.

I read a blog the other day, one of Emily's favorites (2nd, of course), where the Mom talked about the danger of thinking kids are a "second chance" at your own childhood. Good blog. I was never much of a baseball player; smaller than the other kids on the team, plus for some reason (probably afraid of the ball) I didn't swing at the thing. I think I was an OK athlete, but I was never going to be great at it.

I don't really care if Jack is a great baseball player or even a good one. I just want him to have fun and be able to walk home happy, tell a friend it was great and be polite to a little girl who's sweet on him. And afterward, at home, have a cookie.