A little note to record one of those stream of consciousness conversations (from about three weeks ago) Arjun, Lily and Dad were home, having dinner. Mom was out. Arjun: Dad, what if we were in a picture in a book? What would we see? Dad: Hmm. Then we couldn't move at all, could we? Arjun: What would we see? Dad: It'd probably be dark, most of the time; but we could see out if someone opened the book, and then we would see them looking down at us. Dad: Arjun, what if we were in a dream? Arjun: Yeah, let's pretend we're in a dream! Dad: Whose dream is it? Is it your dream? Lily's dream? Arjun: It's Leslie's dream! We are in Leslie's dream. Dad: (to himself) wow. wonder what Leslie had for dinner. Dad: And anything can happen in a dream! Arjun (suddenly, pointing out the window): Look, Dad, a giant nut! Dad: What? Arjun (pointing): There's a giant nut rolling down the street Lily (stops eating, concerned): Happened? Happened? Dad: Lily, it's OK, Arjun is pretending there's a giant nut in the street Lily (upset): Gian' NUT. GIAN NUT!! (starts sobbing) Arjun: And the giant nut is flying towards Mt. Hood! And it's going to CRASH into Mt. Hood!! Dad picks up Lily: Arjun, stop! Lily is getting upset. Lily gets down, and runs into the living room, pointing at the window: Gian NUT. Gian Nut. (she was doing that for days)

We spent a week a the beach recently, and now Lily is obsessed with going "down to the beach" and since she loves Teacher Marty so much, her new thing is "Teacher Marty down to the beach". I see a vacation with Marty coming up ;-)

If you ask Lily what her name is, she says "Shoes on"

Lily's words: Yes ("shh--ess"), No ("nnnnnnoo!"), Dad ("daaat!"), Mom, Arjun ("aaaa-ja!"), Water ("o-ta";"wa-ta"), Up, Down, Dog ("dak"), Duck ("dat"), Cat ("kah"), Bird ("buht"), Pajamas ("mamas"), Food ("mummum"), Nurse ("nana"), Peas, Thank You ("ta-tu"), Ice ("ssss"); Okay ("a-kay"); Sleep ("ni-ni"); and many more.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LILY!! Lily started cruising today, amazing. And on her birthday to boot!

As we are eating German Pancakes this morning: Sanjay: Hey, Arjun. Why do you think these are called German Pancakes? Arjun: I don't know. Sanjay: It's because they speak German, if you listen closely, you can hear them (starts speaking German) Arjun: Noooo, they don't speak. It's because Mommy's German. Daddy, are you a German? S: No. Arjun: Mommy, are you a GermWoman?

Lily started walking, Sanjay saw her take a few steps on Sunday and I saw her on Monday. Arjun sounded out "carrots" today at breakfast, it was on his spoon, I accidentally overheard this at the table.

Arjun first....I had a parent/teacher conference yesterday with Teacher Ginger. She agreed that he has matured quite a bit from last year. He is much more able to control his impulse to grab and is much more into cooperative play. He still doesn't always use his words when they are called for, but he is getting there. He is also teaching himself how to read. He asked me to read a sign at OMSI yesterday, I read it, but did not read the last line, which was "Thank You". He immediately corrected me and read the last line himself! He is now able to make his own breakfast. He gets the waffles out of the freezer, puts them in the toaster, gets a knife and spoon out of the drawer, spreads his peanut butter and jam and puts the waffle together. All I do is get a plate, the peanut butter and jelly out. He is also becoming quite the negotiator, from how much time to spend at OMSI, to how much dinner he has to eat before dessert, and many more ;-) Lily is growing so fast!! Just about one more month until her first birthday! She is almost walking, standing for long periods of time without holding on to anything. She also used her first word the other day at the fabric store. I had her in the cart and she wanted out badly, so she said "up". I couldn't believe it! She said it many many more times and now says it everytime I pick her up! She has three teeth as of now, first coming on August 14, second on September 17, and the third on October 24. She has a fourth that is about to peek through, but hasn't made it out yet. She loves to play games and can do all of the motions for "Patty Cake". She loves to make up her own games too. She can point out other peoples noses and her own, if you ask.

As we were getting ready this morning, I asked Sanjay to go take care of Arjun after he had pooped. Sanjay had just gotten out of the shower and headed over to the green bathroom. Arjun says loudly "No not naked!!, I want Mommy to do it!!" Then he declared that Daddy was "whole naked" while he was just "half naked" (he still had his pajama tops on). He is now into spitting out letters and having us tell him what words they are. The letters/words of today are: eno, fog, gof, eon, no, mom, ywo, fof, eof, eoe..... AND!! Lily has her third tooth!! It popped through on 10/24.... Lily is now asking for lights to be turned on and can ask for na-na, all with her signs. I put her in pig tails today, soooo incredibly cute!!!

Lily's new skills for the week. She can put things in a container (cup coasters back in their holder) and can put the lid on a container (play-doh container). She has also grown this week, she is so tall! She also has some consistent words. Uh-oh, Dadda or Daddm, and a few others I haven't quite figured out yet. She has learned the sign for light and uses it, along with the sign for nana. Arjun is doing absolutely wonderfully right now. School is going great, and his imagination is just so incredibly vibrant and amazing. He is rhyming everything and is interested in words that begin the same way too. He went to the farm today with his Grandma, without the Mom and Lily, he prefers it this way ;-) We are all getting excited about Aji and Ajoba coming to visit. I don't know how much Arjun is understanding about that, but he will the sooner the time comes.

OK, so it's been hectic. Arjun ended up with six stitches. He did great in the doctors office. He had to hold incredibly still for the lydocane shot and did, then he had to hold still for the stitches, and did. He has been telling people who ask about his chin that he cut himself shaving ;-) We go back tomorrow for a check up, and Lily gets her shots :-( It's going to a miserable few days after that. Yuck. More news on Lily though, she says uh-oh. Very cute. I tried taking a shower with her in the bathroom and the shower door open today, but she crawled in and insisted on taking a shower with me! An amazing change from the first one who still hates to get his hair washed. School is going well. The kids are wonderful and for the most part, so are the parents. I am excited for more school activities to start taking place, it's going to be a great year. The hard part is deciding where we are going to send Arjun for real school. It is such a battle for us, luckily, I have some friends with good insight and knowledge. We'll see where we end up, right now we are not going to Catlin.

Five little monkeys jumping on the bed, One fell off and bumped his chin, Mama called the doctor and the doctor said, "Bring that Arjun right on in" Well, almost. There was only one monkey and he wasn't jumping. We can't quite figure out how he fell of or what he hit his chin on, but it is a clean cut, fat oozing and it won't close, won't really scab over. We are to be at the doctors office at 10:50 am. Will update again later. By the way, the above poem is how I told him that we were going to have to go to the doctor ;-)

We're spelling things. S: Arjun, what does A-R-J-U-N spell A: Arjun! S: What does L-I-L-Y spell? A: (Pause) Er... Lily? S: Yeah. What does M-O-M spell? A: Er.. Mommy! C: Really close! M-O-M spells Mom. Do you know what MOM upside down spells? A: What? C: WOW! S: What does Dad upside down spell? A: (Bends over to look at Dad upside down). I don't know!

Arjun was having breakfast this morning, waffles. Sanjay gave him a banana in addition to his waffle. Arjun: Daddy, I need another plate for my banana. Sanjay: Just put it on your plate next to your waffle. Arjun: I can't. Sanjay: Why? Arjun: It will get banana'ee. Lily is now speed crawling. It is still a one knee one foot kind of thing, but much faster now.

Lily has become a food hound. We went to dim sum yesterday for brunch, she ate two rice balls, and a quarter of Sanjay's bowl of Almond Tofu. Then, at Takahashi, she ate an entire bowl of Potato Stew. She really likes to feed herself, doesn't much like mushy food anyway. Arjun helped me make apple pie yesterday. He cut some apples with a plastic knife (no easy feat) and stirred the stuff together. We then cut out leaves from the pie dough to decorate the top with. It turned out very yummy. At least *I* think so. School starts on Tuesday. He is very excited and I am holding on tight. If this is anything like last year, it is going to be hell for a while. We had a picnic at the school on Thursday, he was very happy to see Teacher Ginger and to meet the new kids in the school. There is only one other returning student to his class, all the rest are now in the 4's class. Right now, he is running around the house with his backpack on and a small fish net. He is going to the forest (his bedroom) and coming back to report which animals he saw. Then he catches them in his net before they get to the kitchen. Imagination is the name of this game. We harvested our first two tomatoes from the garden today. I know I could have gotten more had I been able to get the plants in the ground earlier. Next year. Gram was in the hospital for two days this last week. She went in on Wednesday, the 6th, and left on Friday, the 8th. She made a short return visit on Saturday because fluid was building up in her legs. She is fine, has pneumonia but is recovering.

We are getting ready to leave: Me: Arjun, we are leaving, please go get your shoes on. Arjun: Where are we going? Me: Costco Arjun: Is that in a different city? Me: Well, yes. It is not Portland, it is Tigard Arjun: Tigard? Tiger Woods?

Sanjay Blogging for Colleen: Lily has her first new tooth! She was drooling a lot, and tongue-ing her lower gum a lot, and finally, Mom caught a glimpse of it on the 14th.. she is so proud! She is becoming very interactive and playful. Mom taught Lily to put her arms up over her head when you say "Soo big!" and now she does it, and sometimes starts you up by raising her arms to get you to say "Soo big!" Lily is playing peekaboo all by herself too: Dad taught her this in the bathroom on the changing table: she pulls the hand towel down on her face and then pulls it down and you have to say "peek!" every time... and then she loves being lowered almost to the floor and being swung back up to face you, and when she wants more she'll arch herself back to say "more, Dad!" Arjun meanwhile, continues to produce pearls. Today: Dad to Lily, showing her a waffle that he is cooking for Arjun: "Lily look, a waffle! You need to have more teeth before you can eat it!" Arjun: "She only has one tooth. When we have lots of toothus, they are called teeth. And when we have lots of teeth we will grow up to be a boy or a man!" Dad: "You will grow up to be a man" Arjun to Lily: "When you grow up you will be a man" Dad: "Lily will be a wo-man" Arjun: "Maan! Wo-maan! Maan! Wo-maan..." (dancing around). It's been a week.. first Dad was off in Chandler Tuesday so Mom had to take care of things all by herself.. and Lily was sick and up for an hour and a half in the middle of the night while Dad snored peacefully in Arizona.. Mom was not pleased.. Then on Thursday, Colleen was sick with a 104+ fever, and I stayed home and Arjun coughed all night on Thursday. Today everyone is recovering. Our wedding anniversary is coming up and we have had the hardest time deciding what to do about it... Colleen does not want to leave Lily at home for too long, and we don't really want to go out of town without Arjun, so we are most likely to leave him with his grandma for a few hours on Saturday to get out with just Lily and spend an afternoon hanging out around town and eating somewhere nice and that will be about it for now..

I knew I had to get out of the house yesterday or I was going to go stir crazy. I took Arjun to Mom's house and then went shopping for Sanjay with Lily. Then went and got lunch for all of us. Basically just hung out at Mom's for a while. Arjun loves to water her garden, which I need to let him do here more often. We saw the blimp flying over the river, it was very close. Arjun was very excited about the whole thing. Lily, in the meantime, is now fairly stable on her hands and knees. No movement, just stable. Of course, movement is next, but I prefer not to think about that too much.

I called home the other night to see how things were. Arjun insisted on talking to me, so Sanjay put him on the phone. After our conversation, I asked if he would give the phone back to his Dad. He said no, that he wasn't done talking to me yet. Me: Arjun, what do you want to talk about? Arjun: Stock Me: Do you want to buy some stock? Arjun: Yes. Me: What kind of stock do you want to buy? Arjun: Computer stock, Apple computer stock. In other news, Lily is mobile. Not formal crawling yet, but scooting and inch-worming. She does these push ups where her hands and toes are on the floor and her butt is up in the air. She is starting to harrass her brother more and more by finding his toys and books. He knows that she will eat his books at this point so he kind of freaks when this happens. Arjun's summer school ended. It was somewhat of a relief as I was not highly impressed with Catlin's summer program. The teacher was not able to handle all of the kids and looked very stressed and overwhelmed most of the time. At times, when I picked him up, he was wet and sandy from head to toe or had wet his pants (which he never does at home) and had not been changed into the clothes that they asked us to bring for these very situations. It will be nice to go back to Multnomah Playschool, things are so much more orderly there, and the teacher is so much more on top of things that are going on with individual children. Speaking of which, it starts on September 12. So, now Arjun is in a music class. It is wonderful, the teacher is great, and he loves it. He is basically just learning songs and play things that go along with them, but I'm sure it will progress into something different down the road. I don't know if he will go again in the fall, they are kind of expensive. Our 5th Anniversary is coming up on August 19th. We are trying to plan something, but so far we have had no brillian ideas. We can't leave Lily at this time (read: Mom is not ready to leave her), so this rules out tons and tons of restaurants, movies, plays and concerts. Arjun is going to go to Grandma's and I think we are probably going to go to a restaurant that is fairly tolerant of small children, but maybe not two of them, or three year olds ;-)

Lily is pulling herself up to standing. Yikes. When she figures out how to stay on her knees and move them, we are all in trouble. She is also now able to put pieces of food in her mouth by herself. She loves Kix and Cheerios, she had baked potato the other night. And she will NOT eat baby food that is pureed smooth. We have used sign with both the kids while infants. Lily signed na-na for the first time the other day. They usually start somewhere around 9 months, 7.5 is not unusual, but cool none the less. Arjun's last day of school is today. I'm glad. It has been really hard for him to adjust and it has been hard for all of us to deal with his behavior around it. I am not sure what happened, but he has been so much easier to deal with the past few days. Maybe because he has a cold.

Arjun is eating lunch right now. He asks: Where does poop go? I respond: After you flush the toilet, it goes in the sewer. Arjun: No, poop goes in the pooper. Susu goes in the sewer.

A few stray comments first: Arjun picked up a penny out of his Dad's car and then asked "Did Dad make this money?" We went to the bookstore the other day and I bought Arjun a book about a boy who saved up his money to buy a bicycle. I read it to him and then asked him what it was about, he couldn't tell me, so I made my questions more specific. Me: Arjun, what does this boy have in his hand? Arjun: Money Me: What is he doing with his money? Arjun: Saving it. Me: What is he going to buy with it? Arjun: Stock. So, we went to California for a few days. We all had a good time, but had higher expectations of the restaurants than was delivered. Sunday we spent some time with Matt, Spring and Emerald first. Arjun immediately took to Emeralds room to check out all of her toys and Lily played with the ones in the living room. We picked up Sonal and Shantanu at their house and had dinner with them and Matt (Emerald was teething and without nap so they opted to stay home). We ended up at a Thai restaurant, which had decent food, but nothing spectacular. Sonal and Shantanu seem to be doing good. Sonal took us to an amazing Indian grocery store where I bought FRESH lychee. Ahh bliss. And to Target to get a tape for Arjun for the car. He really wanted "Banaphone" by Raffi, but they did not have it so we got a "Blues Clues" tape. We then headed back to S/S's for a nap. For dinner, Sonal made a paneer curry AND we went to a chaat place and had sev puri and a bunch of other yummy things. It was really like going back to India....the people stared, the place was rather dirty, etc. Sanjay was not impressed, but I thought it was great. Sonals curry was wonderful and she made some fried bread (I am now forgetting the name of them). Tuesday, we had lunch with Matt at the Hong Sing Tea House (I know I have spelled that wrong, and after all the fuss over finding it, you would think I would remember). The food was horrible, the service worse. No one was available for the rest of the day, so we headed home on an earlier flight. It was a good trip and I'm glad we went. I have a hunch that it is going to be very difficult to get S/S up here and we would love for the kids to grow up knowing them in a more profound way than just pictures. On other fronts, Lily pulled herself completely up to standing. She is amazingly strong. Arjun's school ends next week. I think that the school may be contributing more to his behavior than previously thought. Everytime I go to pick him up, it is utter chaos. There is no attempt to get the kids to pick up, or stay neat in any way. I think he can't get rid of that feeling on the days he goes to school. I'm going to test my theory this week and next. We'll see.

Lily is now in swimming classes. Started on Monday, goes for two weeks everyday. She is having a blast. She wasn't so sure at first, but now loves to splash and play peek-a-boo with the ball. She loves the songs that we sing and absolutely loves to bounce in the water. Such a difference from Arjun, but only because she doesn't know better. She also did something pretty amazing the other day. She actually pulled herself UP ONTO one of Arjun's bigger toys. She was on her knees! Mom was here, we just sat in awe. Then helped her down ;-) She is going to be a fire ball she is. Arjun has been....challenging lately. Anyone around can tell you how difficult he has become. It is getting better, slowly. I think it all has to do with his new school and just adjusting to new children, new teacher, new environment, etc. He is also getting more outward personality. I bought him a pretend cash register/check out set-up at Toys R Us the other night. It has a PA microphone, so he calls people to come help him check, or he asks "Colleen" to bring him an ice cream cone. He also loves scanning his sister with the pretend bar code scanner. Farm days have been very fun lately. Arjun has discovered Leslie's sand pile, so he takes Sweet's ball and buries it so that Sweet will dig until he finds it. Or he will stand on top of the mountain and growl like a Dinosaur. We have also been making mosaics. Mostly on stepping stones, but Leslie has also done a birdbath made out of an old satelite dish (looks very cool) and I did the outside of a very small 'sink' for a sedum garden. Arjun has made two stepping stones so far. I am in the midst of putting together a garden. Three raised beds in the backyard against the garage. We put the first one together last night and Arjun came out with his rake and asked me if I was going to help him garden in HIS new garden. Too funny. We will be in San Jose from Sunday til Tuesday. Hope to see S/S and Matt/Spring! Guess I should probably call them and find out what they are all doing, eh?

Arjun calls any piece of paper rolled into a tube a riddle. He's been playing with some of his artwork from school that is rolled into a tube Apparently he learned this in Blue's Clue's Treasure Hunt.. Anyway for the last ten minutes Arjun has been demanding that his mother make the 'riddle' perfect meaning the tube is smooth all the way along the seam. His level of frustration increased as she was unable to make this happen. Finally she suggests rubber bands. He runs to the office and returns with one rubber band. Well, it smooths the tube in the middle but not the ends. So, back to the office for more rubber bands. Well, some are heavier than others and they don't hold the paper with the same degree of . He finally brings more rubber bands but they aren't all the same color.

What a mess! CZ, knowing that Jerry was going to vacuum, blew the excess lavendar blossoms off the dehydrator and onto the floor. She was enjoying making a mess. Arjun walks in and makes the comment, "What a mess!"

Jerry bought Arjun one of those blow up punching bags that has sand in the bottom, so he is here, blowing it up. Sitting on the window seat with it in his lap, slightly leaned over, blowing hard. Arjun comes up and asks "Jerry? Where did some of the hairs on your head go?"

A couple of things to add today: Yesterday was Arjun's first day of summer school at Catlin Gable. He had a great time. The campus is so beautiful, I really hope he is able to go there for regular school. We decided that we would go ahead and have farm day after school, so we headed out. Of course, Arjun fell asleep and took a nice nap in the car. The project of the day for Lynne was making mosaic stepping stones, and Leslie was doing a birdbath. Colleen was just putzing. It was very hot. Lynne was holding Lily, who is a major hot body, so she took her clothes off. It sort of went like this: Lynne: Colleen? Do you think she would pee on me if I took her diaper off? Colleen: Yes. Of course she would. Lynne: Naaah, she wouldn't do that to her Grandma. Lily: Screeeeeeeech. Scream. Lynne: Colleen, I think she needs you. Colleen: Ok (she puts everything down and sits down to nurse Lily knowing full well that she is going to be peed on) Lily: (pees) Colleen: My shorts are soaked (at this point, Lily was tired, but not going to go to sleep. Meanwhile, I am plotting what I am going to do when she poops on me) Lily: (Stands up on Colleen's lap, gives Colleen a "look". Colleen places her cupped hand under her butt. She poops.) Leslie: (looks over just in time to see the first drops landing in Colleen's hand) Moving at the speed of light to get out of the barn. She is screaming in disgust. Colleen and Lynne pee their pants from laughing at Leslie freaking out. Arjuns antics today: He is telling me right now that you can't be funny in houses. Hmm Negotiating: I ask him to come to dinner, have to count. He says, from the office, "I'm sorry, I can't come right now! I'm busy." Finally, he comes, sits and eats a little. He gets up, looks at his parents and announces that he needs to go do 'something'. We inquire. He needs to go play on his computer. Ok, how much time do you need? 20 minutes, he says. We say no. 1 minute? Sure! He backpeddles. 16 minutes? We say no, how about 6 minutes. Agreed. While he is eating his dinner, he announces that Lily wants to play in her excersaucer. Sanjay had just taken her out of it because she was fussing. He listens to Arjun and puts her back in it. She is fine. Who knew?

People are complaining....better update. Lily is sitting up on her own, she still falls over occasionally, but not often. Her stranger stuff has really kicked in, if we are out and someone coos at her, she freaks, especially if she is tired. Sanjay went to Arizona overnight on Tuesday, so Arjun stayed with Grandma and Grandpa all night. He did wonderfully. Crawled in bed, went to sleep, didn't move a lot, everyone got good sleep. Otherwise, he is still very much a three year old. Exasperating and wonderful all at the same time. Cute things: For about two days, I was desperately trying to get Arjun to clean his room with the promise that when it was clean, we would make cookies. He just wouldn't do it. I would go into his room with him and tell him to pick up all of his books first and then his toys, he would just start to play with stuff, so I would leave. Mom was over and went to his room with him. She found a little kaleidascope (sp?) that you can look through and see many of something, so there were many little boys. She made up a thing about five little boys cleaning up the room, and they did!! Whatever works!

Arjun is singing "Rock A-Bye Baby" to Lily. He has changed the words just a tad. They are now: Rock a bye baby in the tree top When the wind blows, the craters will fall..... He quit at that point and made me help him ;-)

Good trip to Sunriver, courtesy of the MPS auction... we stayed at a nice little cottage on the edge of the town, with the freight line rumbling nearby every once in a while.. rented bikes, including little "chariots" for the kids. Weather could have been nicer, the temperature never really rose above 60 F and it was mostly cloudy with some rain. However, riding across the resort to the Nature Center was quite a lot of fun, especially working out those long dormant muscles and waking up sedentary cardiopulmonary systems. Sore muscles for me and Colleen, nice rides for Arjun and Lily (who slept thru most of it). In spite of the weather, driving to and from central Oregon was a scenic treat, outbound over the passes at Mt Hood and inbound via Sisters and the Santiam pass to Salem and I5. Arjun had a bunk bed and experimented with sleeping in the top of it, but didn't actually get up the courage to do it.. CZ cooked simple breakfasts and we ate two nearly-identical Chinese meals from Chen's kitchen. Their Kungpao is great, everything else is not bad.. Back at home with sore legs, somewhat depressed because I go back to work tomorrow. I will miss the family.. especially Arjun, who has spent a lot of time with Dad this sabbatical.

more scatological humor from Arjun. mom is nursing ("nana") lily, an arjun is lying next to them in bed under the comforter. suddenly, an unmistakable sound... c: arjun did you fart? a: (pops out of comforter) no, it was lily (big smirk) c: hmm.. a few seconds later a: (pops out again) whats that stinky smell? c: that was your fart! a: no its your nana! my farts smell like yummy bananas!

Sanjay: Arjun, what would you like to buy with your money? Arjun: A Planet S: How much do you think it will cost? A: 3 dollars.

Arjun had been begging to go to the beach, so on Wednesday, we got a wild hare and made reservations in Cannon Beach for Thursday night. We left the house Thursday morning, got into town about noon, had lunch at Lazy Susan's Cafe (yummy) and headed for the beach. Played in the sand (with sun and light wind) for about 2 hours. Had dinner at JP's, incredible crab cakes, the rest was good too. Headed back to the hotel for bed, went to find Lily's pajamas, realized that I had left ALL of her clothes at home! She ended up sleeping in Arjun's shirt and spent most of the next day in the same. Took a little detour to the Tillamook cheese factory where they happened to have a little jumper with 'Little Mooer' on the front. She finally had clothes on that were her size. She didn't care, I did. Talked to the Mumbai Gads tonight. Sounds like there is a trip brewing for December? It would be nice to have everyone here for Lily's birthday. Maybe we could get some portraits done while they are here. It's nice that Shantanu and Sonal live so close now so the PU's can travel freely back and forth as they wish. Sanjay's sabbatical ends this weekend. It is going to be hard to go back to life as a single parent most of the time. I will survive, I have done it before and can do it again. It will be hard though. I have really gotten used to him being home with us. I wish it were like India, where they automatically have two months vacation every year. Our last little vacation before the return of Intel to our lives, will be to Sunriver, Oregon, a nice resort east of the mountains. Plan on riding rented bikes with kid trailers and generally having a fun and relaxing weekend. We ALL got haircuts today, including Lily. I didn't expect it to happen so soon, but it needed to just be trimmed up a little bit. I saved the little scraps for her memory book. It was very cute. I had about 3 inches cut off the bottom, it was time and I was tired of it being too long and too hot. My curl bounced back increidbly. Everyone else got the same ol' cut.

Arjun is deep into imaginative games now. His favorite thing is to have me come to his room and "be Woody" or "be Buzz" or "be Baby Dill", all dolls representing characters in various shows... Dad usually runs out of things to say as "Woody" but Arjun supplies the rest; we usually fly airplanes, or go to the moon, or take care of Baby Dill who needs diapers changed and gets scared of things.

Arjun is now out of school. We had a picnic with all of the other families on Friday, which was fun. The playground at the park we went to had sand as a base, so all of the kids that knew the park brought sand toys. They had a lot of fun digging and hauling sand (in the wheelbarrows). Parents had an equally good time chatting with each other. While we were eating, a schoolbus full of kids pulled up and unloaded at our little playground! Ack! The worst part though, was this man, who was obviously in charge, with a water gun (it was one of those sub-machine looking things) and bullhorn. Everytime one of their children would misbehave, they would get sprayed with the water gun. As soon as I saw this, I wanted to run. We packed our things and were ready to leave, but Arjun wanted to say goodbye to Ginger (his teacher). So, we went over and I told her that we were leaving because of this man with the gun and how completely inappropriate I thought it was that he was doing this with KIDS! She turned around, marched over to him and told him that it was not a good image to project to any children. He apologized! and took the gun to his car!! Turns out he was the pastor of the church! Needless to say Sanjay was not surprised. Lily is sitting up really well now. She still does face plants, but is getting much better. Her growling is hilarious (see 5/26 post), she started doing that after Grandma LZ brought home a "Lily Doll" for her named Anna. She is a soft doll with removable clothes. She also has two other friends, so they can share clothes. Lily adores her to say the least. Yesterday, we changed the audio room around. We decided to put the library in there and to sell the couch and chairs that we had purchased from the previous owners. It looks very nice. We are replacing the old couch with the green lattice one from my Mom. The excercise bike still has it's place behind the couch in the 'sweet spot'. It was quite a sight to see me and Jerry carrying the old couch upstairs....

Last night we went to Todai, this huge Japanese seafood place that's opened at the new extension to Pioneer Place. It's got an incredible 160 foot sushi and seafood buffet, and an energetic, eclectic crowd that resembles something you might find in some trendy Asian capital rather than here in Honkytown. Anyway, the first thing is that Lily is wet, so Dad gets to go change her in the restroom. Then Mom feeds her tofu and tomago for a while, yes she is eating now, and Dad fights Arjun off his plate, because Arjun is very curious about the crab legs and lobster claws that are on it and wants to help with the crab-cracker. Arjun eats most of the crab and lobster meat Dad manages to get out and then he has to poop and by the time we get back after commentary in the bathroom (Dad - "We need to hurry up in the potty because there are other people out there who might want to use the bathroom" Arjun - "Yeah, they might have an accident") my plate with all the uneaten crab and lobster on it has been cleared away... and so it goes... Lily eating is a riot. Once you have her in your lap, and if you dare eat without including her, she will start a low volume fuss. So you have to squish banana, or potato, or tofu, or egg, or whatever is at hand and feed her fingerfuls. Once she sees the approaching hand with food on it, she lunges at it like a piranha, and grabs the hand and tries to stuff the whole thing in her mouth. In an instant the food is mashed and spread all over her chin and she's swallowed whatever made it in, and a small shriek indicates that she wants more NOW. If you actually succeed in getting enough food in her mouth for her to gum on for a minute, she emits a low growl of satisfaction for a while and then its back to the shrieking. Once in this mode, only nana will get her out...

Lily is sitting up for minutes at a time until gravity overcomes her fledgeling balancing skills. She appears very proud of herself while she is upright, and always a bit shocked when the inevitable face-plant into the bed occurs or is caught just in time by a swift parent.. the scenery changed really quickly, now what? She's also started in on some new vocal tricks. "Ta-Ta-Ta.." with tongue firmly between gums; and when she's intensely focused on something like ripping at paper, or pulling on Dad's hair, a hilarious low continuous growl. I have been making home recordings of the kids with the PC, not great, but worth having. Farm day yesterday, very nice day overall. We started with Arjun's tooth appointment with Lily, parents and grandma in attendance; then over to Lilian's place for brunch: the traditional family recipe for mac'n cheese and fruit. Lynne and Lilian had to go to Vera's (Ed's aunt's) funeral, she died at 87 on Sunday. The rest of us, Arjun, Lily and P.Us went over to Leslie's where Arjun played outside with Les and CZ and the chickens, sheep and in the barn and green house. Leslie and Jeff were boiling an odd stew outside in her pavilion: a porcupine carcass they found on the road on a trip to E. Oregon, in order to get at the quills. Glorious weather, so the buzzards could see and smell the "stew" and some chicken bones some "critter" had dug up in the field, and were circling over head for a while. I stayed indoors or on the porch with Lily and watched the Nasdaq do a 200 point bounce. Back home, more porcupine- CZ has cooked up a batch of pork and beef meatballs called "porcupine meatballs" - synchronicity abounds, as always - which we ate with spaghetti, fresh broccoli, artichokes, and a leaf salad. Arjun was wiped out and slept for an hour or more before dinner... and then ate two plates. The house finally slept after Arjun and Dad watched "Howl Hoot and Holler" twice, and CZ and Lily watched endless FoodTV shows to wind down.

I told Arjun this morning that Lily might be able to sleep with him when she is three. I then asked him how old he would be when Lily is three, he very quickly replied "six". This is getting to be scary. Lily had her first taste of chocolate today. We stopped at Baskin Robbins and all got ice cream, so I let her have a very small taste of my chocolate. She absolutely threw a fit when I would not give her any more. We also went to pick up the pictures from the photographer. We are going to have a hard time deciding which ones to get. They are rather expensive at $105 for an 8x10. Yikes.

Lily was just sitting on my lap after her nap/nursing. She farted, looked very confused, turned to me and gave me the biggest grin ever and giggled. Way too cute. Arjun also just got back from swimming. His hair is wet, he says he put his head under the water. If this is the case, this is the first time and also means that he will be able to go on to the next class without having to repeat (putting their head under the water is the pre-requisite for the next level). Turns out that I am the one going to the school for clean-up. S will be staying home with the kids.

We met with Arjun's preschool teacher Ginger last night, because this is the end of the school year. He is an inveterate story teller. Of course, he has some issues, but these are 3 year old things.. he apparently attempts to get the other kids to play with him by making strange noises at them.. which doesn't usually work.. Then CZ and I sat down and picked out freezer cooking recipes. Well, today is Saturday again and we are busy busy busy this morning. I am going to be helping at the school with cleanup and summer shutdown; and C and the kids will go to Farmer's mkt and to Arjun's swim class...

Arjun's story: Once upon a time, there was a little boy and he began walking on the street with Arjun's Mommy and Daddy. Then what happened is a whale came up through the sea and he met a boy named Booga. That whale was hungry. A big, big giant cup came. And coffee came in that big giant cup. A shark came in the water and ate that whale. Some money came in the water. A big tooth came and poked the shark. The shark ate the money.... (Lots more in this vein, but I lost it resizing a window in blogger..)

The family has been busy this incipient summer. Saturday was the first Farmer's market this year, and we went. CZ seems to sort of blossom when she first sees the market, and this is a welcome return to the summer and fall ritual of going there Saturdays. Then there was a barbecue for Dan and Cindy and Katie, visiting from S. CA; Tandoori and beans and salad and strawberries on shortcake with real whipped cream made right there in the Kitchen-Aid. Colleen and Jerry and Lynne worked all day to put this together, I mostly held baby and kept the other one happy. My home entertainment systems have acquired a reputation for being complex and Jeff and Ed who were there as well, apparently tried unsuccessfully to get sports on the TV upstairs - "We pushed 5 buttons on the remote and nothing happened" and needed help. Then Dan's family got a tour of the home theater downstairs and Dan is now a convert. He stayed down there watching the Stevie Ray Vaughn memorial concert for hours until dessert was called.... good party overall. New beer: Widmer Betty, blond ale.. Then there was yesterday: Nick came over and I cooked with some serious sous-cheffing from C and Jerry; makhani chicken; beans and aloo subji, Punjabi style; rice, and some seriously flawed goda shira. I ran out of time but Nicka is forgiving. Later, after dinner, we sat around and watched Emeril Live on Food TV and drank Taj Mahal Beer from Kalyani. Indian beer available up the street from Burlingame grocery. Who'da thunk it? It was a long day; I had Lily from 8-12 while C parent-helped at MPS with Arjun. Long day.

Arjun had some sort of bad dream at about 2:30 am. Sanjay was rather cranky with him. Arjun finally decided that what he needed was some cold water and a snack. I wish we could have little windows into their minds and find out why this happens. As a result of all of this, Lily woke up too. I tried to get her to sleep with some na-na, but she kept fidgeting, finally, I got up and went to the bathroom and she fell back to sleep on her own. I can now hear Sanjay snoring in the other room, ahhh...the sounds of sleep.

Arjun had another huge meal tonight. Chicken with BBQ sauce (he never mentioned the fact that the chicken was really really spicy!), asparagus and his first ever artichoke. I think that we need to stop telling him that there is dessert, he seems to focus better on dinner if we don't. BTW, we had rhubarb crisp with vanilla ice cream for dessert, super yummy!!!

Today I am cooking oatmeal, and for Bob's Red Mill it is always 2:5 or 1:2.5 for oatmeal to water. So I have 12 fl oz of oatmeal and I am getting water, and off the cuff I ask Arjun, hey what's 12 times 2.5? And without a blink this child answers - 30. Now this is not real, so I ask him to repeat it, and he says, 30. So I ask him, how did he know that, and he answers- by accident. 3 years old.

Ok, time to get this famblog offa da grounda. Arjun is now EATING. He ate a whole bowl of oatmeal for breakfast; and at least three big oatmeal cookies in addition to a lunch; and a hamburger patty and an orange for dinner

Oy, life with a four month old!! I am completely exhausted, and she is bright and shiny at 10pm. Ugh. I got to be Parent Helper at the school today, the frustrating part was that no one told me that I was supposed to bring a snack for the kids or any of my other responsibilities. I fumbled my way through, and would rate it a success overall. We are leaving for LA on Monday, and me being me, I am going nuts. Completely overwhelmed with what needs to be done, probably taking on too much stuff at the last minute, and there is very little support. Frustrating, but hopefully worth it. I'm sure Arjun will have a ball at Disneyland and spending the week with Zena (Uncle Ed's girlfriends daughter). At least I got sushi tonight ;-) Off to change laundry...or do dishes....or pick up the house....or pack....or something.

Moved this to duckz