dodgeball

Went to play dodgeball last night. It's an annual fundraiser for the Port Chester Youth Baseball League, which Jack may one day play in, in which fathers throw dodge balls at each other and try to avoid getting hurt. Jack came along.

- On the way there in the car, he said, "Should I yell 'Andy'? Because there will be a lot of kids yelling out 'Daddy'."

- Once there, he saw his friend Nick. "Nicky!!!!!!" They sat together, or rather stood together, yelling and whooping and pumping their fists, often related to what was happening on the court, but not always. It was pretty cool.

- We actually did pretty well, but of course we lost a game eventually. As I walked to the sideline, I saw Jack working his way down the stands, and he delivered a line that I suspect Aunt Cathy, who was watching him, or Reanna told him to say. "At least you tried your best!" he yelled.

- One of the other Dad's daughters was there, and she kind of likes Jack. He told me how she tells school stories, and since there are two Jacks in the class, she always specifies, "And then Jack -- you know, the one I like -- said...."

Art show and more

- Jack cleaned the playroom this evening. I asked him to pick up all the markers and construction paper around the table. Checked on him after 10 minutes to find him drawing a picture. Reminded him. Few minutes later he came upstairs: "I have a surprise for you." He'd cleaned the whole thing, well, about as well as a 6-year-old could anyway.

- Kate had an allergic reaction to, apparently, penicillin (which she got for an ear infection). She also had strep a few weeks back. Rough start to the year for Kate. Anyway, she broke out with rashes all over her body. And I mean, all over. Emily thought she looked like former Viking pass rusher John Randle, who used to smear face paint all over his cheeks. Anyway, sometimes it bothered her and she itched, and sometimes she seemed kind of oblivious to it. Like tonight, when I was getting her in her pajamas, and she started dancing in front of me. "Look at my butt! Look at my butt!" More dancing. Sometimes, she's a trooper.

- Jack and Kate played dress up today. Jack wore his Superman cape. Kate wore her Olivia explorer hat. Jack said, "I'm Superman." Kate said, "I'm a princess!" Jack said, "Why don't you be Supergirl?" Kate said, "No, I want to be a princess." So she was. At some point, her huge stuffed duck was wearing the Superman cape. Not sure why.

- Jack and I went sledding today with a kid in his class who lives down the street and his Mom. I'm not sure the two are actually friends; they seemed to just be doing their own thing at the same time as each other. Kind of funny to see them both accepting each other's presence for the benefit of their parents. Or maybe that's just how it seemed to me. Anyway, it was a great sledding trail. Drew bounced his way down the slope on a saucer. Jack zipped down on his lightning-quick snow tube. Crashes were occasional. Wails of pain were relatively rare.

- We worked on Jack's project for the art show at school. It's a dinosaur mural which features a huge volcano, construction paper dinosaurs in different colors, marker-drawn trees, and approximately 5 rolls of Scotch tape. I don't think I'm exaggerating. And an entire gluestick. And more dinosaurs. It is the most awesome art project ever.

- He was interviewed by one of the art show organizers on the phone yesterday. His answers to her questions were great. "I like dinosaurs." "Yes." "Yes." "Ummmm. Yes." "I like to use all kinds of art stuff." "Favorite? Um. A T.Rex." I can't wait to read the interview.

Katie Blog

I write more blogs about Jack, I think. He and I do more activities -- he doesn't have that middle of the day nap, and gets home from school earlier -- and of course he's more talkative in general. So Kate kind of gets short shrift in the blog. But not tonight.

- Kate likes to dance. She does kind of a herky jerky think where her hands kind of float in the air. Big smile; it almost doesn't matter what the music is. "Come dance, Daddy. Come dance."

- She likes to sing. She regularly makes up songs, about pretty much anything. "I...love my...brother....and Daddy and Mommy....too.....Jack is eating....potato chips......I will have some too....."

- She likes to draw. Faces and faces and faces and faces. Sometimes eyes nose mouth, sometimes with hair, recently with little stick arms and legs sometimes, too. She's especially proud when she makes a letter. "I made an H, Daddy! An H!"

- She likes painting, as we did yesterday. I took a picture and whereas Jack kind of looks down at his work, Kate turns on the charm with a big grin.

- She has a love-hate relationship with the camera. We try to get family shots at museums or ballgames and she typically buries her face in Emily's shoulder. But I take pictures of her with a project we made or in her Red Sox sweatshirt, and she simply beams, throwing a smile that lights up her whole face.

- At the doctor the other day her first reaction was to wail and cling to me. Five minutes in she was giggling and offering up winning smiles at every request.

- She's become the exhibitionist Jack was at her age, standing naked before the bath and saying, "I naked! Look at my BUTT. See?" With a little wiggle. Good grief, Kate.

- She''s generous, bringing Jack toys she thinks he's forgotten or lost. "Here's Sammy, Jack. Here's your dragon, Jack. Jack. Jack! Here's your car." Most of the time she hands it to him rather than throwing it in his general direction. Most of the time.

- She reads book by memory. She sings songs by memory. I hear her alone reading books like Where's My Mom. "Hush lil monkey...I will help you find your Mom...she's over here. Oh, no, that's an elephant....." I hear her singing, often long after she was supposed to go to sleep. "Bloom....and grow.....for.....EV....er...."

Skating

Having taken Jack sledding last week, the key winter thing I still wanted to do was go ice skating. (I haven't ruled out skiing; it's possible at some point in the next few weeks.) So today we piled into the car and headed off to Playland.

There's a "kiddie rink," which is for beginners 7 years old and younger. Fortunately they let me on anyway, even though I'm obviously highly experienced, having been on skates I think 2 or 3 times in my life. We got our skates and worked our way over onto the ice. We went a couple of laps around clinging to the rail along the side....then a lap around with just Jack clinging to the rail along the side, and me holding his hand...THEN a lap around with me holding the rail in one hand while Jack skated holding my other hand. And then we went back and forth, and up and down, falling some, without holding the railing. And each time we reached the other side, and grasped the railing, I saw a big grin on his face.

Afterward, with minimal falling and injury, we went to the game room. I played Galaga, and let Jack beat me at air hockey. Or he let me think I let him beat me, one of the two. Then we went to "The Claw" game, where you could grasp a stuffed toy with a metal claw. I explained it was a ripoff, but said I'd try anyway. And indeed, on the second try, I actually picked one of the things up, and the claw just decided it was too heavy halfway up and let go. Five bucks later, we left. I tried to explain to Jack it was a cheat, but it's kind of a difficult thing to do. So I just said, you know, they don't really want you to win these things. And he said, but why? And after some random hemming and hawing I finally said, Well, maybe next time.

We drove home talking about ice skating, and ate Ritz crackers at home.

Sledding

Broke out the "snow tube" today, an inner tube-like sled that Jack got from a friend for his birthday. Interestingly, when I was a kid we actually slid on inner tubes! Which was much better than the red metal saucer sled that Amos once slid into me on and broke my collarbone. I told Jack he could use his new sled and he was pretty excited about it.

We bundled up in our layers -- I went upstairs to get socks and when I came down Jack was completely dressed in snowpants, boots, jacket, hat and gloves, the fastest by far that he's ever suited up -- and headed off. We walked the two blocks through snow-lined streets, thanks to three storms in the last two weeks, and arrived.

I never know for sure with Jack, if he'll be really into something with an element of thrill and danger to it, or scared. Much to my relief, he was completely into it. He climbed in, held the handles, and slid spinning down the hill, me watching with trepidation, hopeful it didn't capsize and send him careening down the hill on his face. It didn't. As he went down, I could hear him yelling, and at the bottom, laughing, great peals of giggling, happy laughter. I slid clunkily down after him on this blue sled I'd bought last winter in February, after what I think was one of the few snowstorms we had.

We went down one hill a few times, and I pointed out a higher one across the ballfield. Again, not sure if he'd be into the idea. He was. I guess, he's 6 now. One brief negative moment when he slid pretty fast and hit a chain link fence, and cried, but I talked him down, and then he was ready for more. He stood up, set his lip, and hiked up the hill again. "Let's race, Daddy."

Birthday Week

Jack's birthday was on a Friday, his party with friends was the previous Sunday, his party with family was the Saturday after, and he also went to two other birthday parties that same weekend. So it was a full week of birthdays.

His party was at "Kids U," which was basically a big gym with inflatable stuff to jump on and run around on. We got there first -- 10 minutes early after being 10 minutes late for his party the previous year -- and Jack and Kate ran around on their own. It was similar to another place they'd been before, so both were pretty comfortable. Then Jack's friends started showing up, and there were highs and lows. It was great when he came out to hug different kids; not so great when on one occasion he was suddenly in tears, either because he hit his head or felt he was being left out of the fun (an odd moment; one minute he was racing around with everyone, the next he was sad because they were in one area while he was in another; the next he was running and laughing with everyone again. Kids.). Best moment: in the midst of it all, with all of his friends running and jumping around (and this one little girl following him incessantly), I saw him stop, to help smaller Kate up onto another level, hugging her to him in his arms to lift her up high enough so she could climb up. And then he climbed up on that level, and did the same thing all over again to help her up yet again.

On his actual birthday, Jack had a snow day from school. We got donuts for breakfast, and in the afternoon, while Kate was napping, Jack and I made a snow dragon -- an honest to goodness dragon, lying in the snow, with an open mouth and wings and curly black leaves for toenails and teeth. It was a truly collaborative effort, something I'd always kind of wanted to make. Jack brought me snow for his legs, and branches to build his tail around, and dug in the snow to find more banana leaves for his toenails. He was beautiful and scary. Then we had Jack's meal request for dinner: chicken nuggets, mini-hot dogs, french fries and green beans. And cupcakes.

The family party had pizza. The party for his friend Olivia: also pizza. Even Jack didn't eat cake at that one, explaining, "I'm saving myself for Fudgie the Whale." (The ice cream cake we had for his party.) We will not be having pizza for a little while. Got Jack a pirate skull balloon and a big number 6. He approved. At night I put my 6-year-old son to bed; he went right to sleep. It had been an exhausting week of birthdays.

Digging dinosaurs

Went to the American Museum of Natural History in New York last week. "To see the dinosaurs," we explained, and that mantra was repeated by the kids in the days leading up to it. Each morning Kate would wake up. "Are we going to see dinosaurs today?" No, Kate, this is Monday. On Thursday we see dinosaurs. Next morning: "We see dinosaurs today?"

It was remarkably easy to drive into the city, park in the garage, take the elevator up to the fourth floor, and see some immense dinosaur skeletons. I honestly have no idea why in four years here this was the first time we'd done it, although I guess the kids wouldn't have appreciated it as much.

And the great thing was that they had fun and were awesome. No whining, no crying, no wanting to be picked up and carried....well, not much until the end. But it was a family outing into a crowded museum in the city with very little stress or angst. (Until we got back to the garage and our car was triple-parked in on both sides and it took half an hour for them to get us out. But anyway.)

We went around and around the skeletons. Jack wanted me to take a picture of him running away from the T. Rex, which was great in part because I wanted Emily to take a picture of ME running away from the T. Rex when we were at the Dinosaur Dig museum over a decade ago. So yes that is where he gets it. So I took the picture, although I'm not sure how much he sold the running. He did at least make a sort of scared face, although it mostly came out as angry/laughing.

Both of them wanted to touch everything. Both of them ducked underneath railings to get even closer to the exhibits; I explained, no no, the railings are to keep YOU out.

Jack was disappointed there weren't sea creature dinosaurs. I admit I was too. Maybe we missed them somewhere.

We went down a floor to see African creatures: elephants, giraffes, zebras. "Zebra!" yelled Kate. Shhh, I said.

Walked through the monkey room. The kids made faces and pretended to be monkeys. Kate made a big loud mouth like she was screaming or saying OOH OOH, one of the above. Jack scratched his head and stood on one foot. He's a good monkey.

We went through the Indian exhibit and Jack was impressed by their weapons and musical instrument. I think Kate liked their dolls.

At the gift shop, Kate picked out a stuffed monkey. (I thought this was fine because they liked the monkey room, and it was no doubt a museum original. Two days later I found the same beanie baby monkey in a toy store near us, not to mention for half the price. At least I won't have to go back into the city when she loses this one.)

I figured Jack would pick out a stuffed toy, and he did look at dinosaurs. But instead he settled on this thing where you could dig, build, and paint your own dinosaur skeleton. It was heavy as a brick -- indeed, it was a brick -- with a skeleton encased inside; you had to dig it out, then assemble it.

The next night, he and Kate and Emily and I -- but mostly him -- spent 2 hours intently digging away with his little hammer and chisel. And then another 2 hours the next morning finishing digging, assembling it, and then painting it. Jack is 5; finding anything that occupies his rapt attention for 4 hours, is amazing.

Each time he found a bone, or extracted it, he was so excited. "Look, daddy! It's a leg bone. A LEG bone!" Kate: "Can I help you, Jack? Can I have a turn?" (She got a turn.)

The dinosaur skeleton, painted white and black with red around its mouth and forearm ("from where it was fighting," Jack explained), stands on our fireplace mantle now.