Sam-endipity

Okay, so you remember my lilac bush of a few posts ago? You should know that lilacs are absolutely my favorite flower. How can you not roll your eyes backwards in ecstasy at their smell? Don't get me wrong, I like roses just as much as the next girl. But I had never met a "next girl" like me until I met Ella's mommy. I remember when our families had first moved to town -- they were living in a University rental number just like us. Except Ella's mommy was lucky enough to live next door to an insane lilac crop. The spring she lived there, she fell into a transcendent state telling me all about it. Never had I met someone else who, like me, flouted all girly stereotypes and declared from the rooftops that lilacs were her favorite, for rilly reals.

We O'Neals have lived in our house for three springs now, and each spring, my solitary and towering lilac bush has delayed its blooming until May 1st, to the day. Our new friend Sam used his Jedi mind-powers from inside the womb to arrange it differently. He conjured some kind of crazy global warming such that this year, the blossoms of my lilac bush unfurled the day he was born, a full 1-1/2 weeks early. Baby Sam arranged this because he knew I would lop off a bunch of stems and bring them in a vase to stink up his mommy's hospital room. Not even born yet and already a charmer, this one.

And seriously, he is a charmer. We can attest.



Sam squeaked at Isaac and Jacob, repeatedly, and they talked about it for hours afterwards, raving that it was the cutest thing they'd ever heard.



And have you seen all that hair? We can all tell you from experience that it is so soft. We can only hope his big sister is up to the task of bestowing upon it all the kisses in the universe.



(note: pictures all shamelessly stolen from Ella's mommy)

The way to a Jake's heart is through his stomach

A couple of Jake-isms to share with you, to keep you abreast of what he values in life.

Saturday we're climbing on the holly trees as usual. Those trees have the pokiest leaves imaginable, so I'm hanging out near Jacob, tearing off the smaller live branches that thrust their leaves right in climbing's way. I wrestle with one in front of Jake's face for a bit, finally leaving a pithy, imperfectly torn stub behind.

"Wass dat?" he wonders, and pokes at the fleshy-looking tree interior I've exposed. "Zat chicken?"

---

This morning I decided we finally need to learn the real words to "Frere Jacques". Not because anyone in our house has a desperate desire to learn French, but because the boys learned the song in imperfect French from Tom and Jerry, and they won't shut up with singing an almost-perfect version of it. I look up the words online and teach them to Jake, who sits on my lap as I read the lyrics off the computer. "Frere Jacques, Frere Jacques .... can you sing it, Jacob?" But no sooner do I pass along the real words than Jacob spies an old (and full) snack container on the computer desk and makes up his own words.

Perfectly in tune, he sings, "Me want Goldfish, me want Goldfish..."

No ducks for you!

Finally, my last recap of Boston!

Isaac's best homegirl Ella was born in Boston, so perhaps by some stretch of the word could be called a native. When she learned that we would be visiting the city of her birth, she and her mom conspired to give Isaac the 1940s Robert McCloskey book Make Way for Ducklings for his birthday. The boys really dug it, but I became a wee bit obsessed with it. We could actually visit some of the places mentioned in the book! How cool is that? (Two out of two O'Neal boys agree: yes, mommy, perhaps it is cool)

Friday was our last day in Boston, one fraught with conferencing for the Daddy-person. I vowed that the boys and I would use our time alone to hoof it 5 blocks or so to the Boston Public Gardens...



...because it was in there that we could see specific scenes we had read about in our McCloskey-authored Boston Preschool Travel Guide. There turned out to be some serious glitches in the plan as it corresponds to modern-day April. We watched Mr. and Mrs. Mallard swimming in the pond...



...but we were expressly forbidden from tossing them peanuts to eat, as was done in the book.



We saw the cute "island" where they made their home...



...but couldn't ride around it ourselves in those magnificent swan boats. They didn't start running for the season until, oh, THE VERY NEXT DAY. Poop on that.



I learned from a travel book (thanks, Sarah!) that there was also a statue of Mrs. Mallard and her eight ducklings on the sidewalk somewhere, and that Mrs. Mallard's head was kept highly polished by the bazillions of kids who sat on her to pose for a picture. Because of some extensive landscaping going on at the time, this is as close as we could get. I mean, come ON!



Oh well. Even if we didn't get to feed the ducks, we did enjoy a lovely snack of our own by the lake, bought from a local grocer at the park's corner.



And Boston Common, right next door, was much kinder to us. We ran laps around some monuments:



And they had a playground there! Nestled right in the middle of the bustling city, it was.



After all that, we were pooped and ready to go home. Being that it was Friday afternoon on I-95, it would take us 9-1/2 hours (versus the less-than-6 it took to get there) before we were back in our very own driveway. Daddy calculated at one rest stop that we had driven 45 miles in 3 hours. All that mwah-ing I felt about New York on the way there? I TAKE IT BACK.

A new friend

Isaac's very dear friend Ella became a big sister this morning.



Welcome to the world, Sam. We can't wait to bestow our biggest hugs upon you.

If My Little Ponies threw up in your yard, it might look like this

Every spring, our neighborhood turns into one big pastel explosion. Our yard is partly to blame. I enjoy photoblogging about it because absolutely none of it is our fault. We get to sit back, relax, and enjoy the fruits of the labor of the avid-gardener old couple who lived here before us. Well, I get to relax. Daddy moans and groans about his bloodshot eyeballs and stuffed-up head.

In the front yard, we have a redbud tree...



...a mystery fruit tree that sports teeny tiny crabapple-looking things in the fall...



...and about a dozen azalea bushes in white, pink, and PINK!, of which this one was the first to erupt in showy color.



In the backyard we have two dogwood trees...



...three or four more azalea bushes, daffodils aplenty, lilies of the valley (which are not yet blooming), and, my very very very favorite in the whole world, a big honkin' lilac bush.



None of these, however, meet the boy criteria for "interesting". This is filled now by our little grove of holly trees. We've recently discovered that they are just about the most perfect climbing trees ever.

Faneuil Hall

After a long post-aquarium nap, we were geared up for another family adventure -- dinner and people-watching in Faneuil Hall Marketplace. Daddy wanted to try his hand at waving down cabs, so we treated the babies to their first-ever taxi ride. This was particularly amusing because we had no idea how to pronounce "Faneuil". Apparently we slept a lot during high school American History, because I now know that Faneuil Hall is pretty famous, the site of enough inflammatory pre-revolutionary speeches back in the day to have earned the title "Cradle of Liberty".





Nowadays it's more like the Cradle of Shopping. Pretty much anything you could ever desire to buy, you could, from three historic marketplace buildings repurposed into indoor/outdoor malls.



Okay, well, it's also the Cradle of Statues and Plaques. Isaac was fond of posing next to these. Here he is with a suave-looking, if unnamed, metal dude.



All three boys with THE Celtics coach, the late great Red Auerbach.



Next to Red we found some big shoes for Jacob to try on, shoes from another guy with Indiana roots.





Just a few more years, Baby Shaq.

Sharks and sting rays and tylosaurs, oh my!

Thursday morning started with some conference time for Daddy and some breakfast time for the munchkins and I. Lucky for us there was a behemoth Shaw's grocery store across the street from our hotel, where we acquired fresh-baked muffins and fruit tarts. There, we also basked in some serious Boston hospitality in what was to become a trend. As I tried to check out using the U-Scan and Jacob started to bolt, two friendly female Shaw's employees chatted it up with my boys, keeping them less interested in escaping while I finished buying stuff. Isaac told one that we were off to the aquarium, and she gave him the scoop on how his mind would be blown by the actual sharks that would swim right by his face.

Daddy met us back at the hotel room around 10 and we were off to see some sea critters. Being the great fan of public transportation I am, I insisted we take the subway. Isaac was very puzzled as to why a train would go under the ground. And yet there it was.



It dropped us off on State Street about 3 blocks from the aquarium. We walked right past Faneuil Hall and the Old State House, which was under some kind of revamping.



Before long, we were standing before the quirkily-architectured New England Aquarium.



It was smaller than I thought it would be, but they had a few big draws for us. One of the babies' favorites were a tide-pool petting zoo, where they could touch starfish and clawless crabs and mussels. The other was this four-story central tank, where there really were big sharks and sting rays. Made to mimic a Carribean coral reef, there were also three huge sea turtles and lots of colorful fish. A lady giving a lecture at the top of the tank told us that they keep the sharks from predating the other fish by keeping everyone REALLY well fed.



Afterwards, we took in a 3D movie at the aquarium's IMAX theater. Isaac picked it -- "Sea Monsters: A Prehistoric Adventure". It was really fantastic. Dinophile Isaac still talks about the main lesson we learned, that a tylosaurus eats everything. He also likes to remind me that those dinosaurs swimming over my head? They aren't real. It's just a movie, don't you know?

Dinner and a fashionable stroll

After Daddy checked in to his conference, we had plenty of sunshine left to go exploring. Turns out our hotel doubled as an upscale mall. The boys had fun watching a bit of Ratatouille on a big-screen plasma TV at the Sony store, but it wasn't long before we were clamoring for some face-time with the Boston streets. Besides, we were hungry. And who better to feed us than nearby and famous Newbury Street? Perhaps you can make out the street sign behind my son, the one who's giving me the finger?



Ah yes, there it is.



As we walked along, hunting for some kind of food that Isaac might deign to put in his mouth, we stopped to enjoy some excellent bluegrass street musicians. Isaac gave them a dance and 75 cents.



We wandered past beautiful buildings and expensive shops. In typical Boston fashion, these shared streets with places where actual history was made.



This is the Old South Church, whose congregation was founded in 1669, and where Samuel Adams gave signals for his fellow Bostonians to begin the Boston Tea Party.

But I digress. We did find food that my picky four-year-old would eat, at a Pizzeria Uno.



What goes great with pizza? Beer. Lots and lots of beer. Hey, nobody was driving.



We started our meal outside, but quickly the late-afternoon Boston breezes kicked the cold up a few uncomfortable notches. We settled back inside for a story ...



... and an arm-wrestling match.





Then it was back to our hotel to end the day with a nightcap.



Apple juice! What did you think it was?

Next up: Thursday!

Girl Power!

Because Daddy and I are from Indianapolis, we are really digging this story.

Danica Patrick Makes History
Racing to Victory, and Leaving the Men and the Doubters Behind

A whirlwind Boston adventure

What did we do this past week, you ask? Oh... we went to Boston for 48 hours.



Daddy's presence was required at a conference there. He went to some talks on Thursday and Friday, and presented a poster of his own Friday morning.



We drove there Wednesday. It was pretty easy and very scenic. I got to drive past or through all kinds of places I've never been before, like New Jersey...



...or New York City.



We even paid $8 to drive over the George Washington Bridge.



It was JUST like Sex in the City, except for the Tom & Jerry DVD blaring from the backseat. And the part where we drove straight through NYC and didn't stop until we hit Connecticut.



Once we got there, I was amazed at how little time we had to do anything at all. I was also amazed at how little the babies cared about that. 95% of the trip for them was that they got to stay a hotel. And with a view of the Charles River like this from our room, can you blame them?



But we did have two big Boston adventures. Stay tuned!

Isaac in two dimensions

This past Tuesday was Isaac's first parent-teacher conference. Since his preschool does one evaluation per year, Miss Susie and Miss Barbara have apparently been filing certain things away and keeping diligent notes on Isaac's progress all year long. If I was as organized as these two, I think my life would be better in about a trillion ways. Yet another reason Miss Susie and Miss Barbara are like gods to me.

My conference with them was 15 minutes long, and directed entirely by this three-page report they had filled out about Isaac. The report evaluated general areas -- social/emotional development, language, cognitive development, physical development, and large motor skills -- breaking each area down into a list of over 70 specific skills. Next to each skill, Isaac was given a non-threatening letter grade, either "E" for "consistently evident", "L" for "learning", and "N" for "not yet evident." Examples of skills on which Isaaac got an "E" included "follows simple directions", "asks for help when needed", "handles bathroom routines independently", "recognizes numerals one to ten", and "runs smoothly".

Isaac had a pretty good mix of "E"s and "L"s. Miss Susie and Miss Barbara were quick to tell me that was perfectly normal, and even expected, for their 3's class. His "cognitive development" scores are his best, true to his nerdy genes -- he knows almost all of his letters and can name words that begin with them, among other things. His "large motor skills" were mostly "L"s, because he can be fearful when it comes to climbing and playing ball games.

Isaac got only four "N"s. Two were in "large motor skills" -- he won't pump his legs on a swing (because, with me at least, he hates swinging), and he won't walk on their brand-new and skinny balance beam. Duh. The only thing his teachers wanted me to work on with him over the summer was his "N" for pencil grip. While Isaac is writing letters like nobody's business, he insists on holding his implement with his whole fist. They gave me a list of activities to do with him to boost his fine motor skills, such as stringing beads and gluing-type crafts.

Isaac's last "N" made me laugh out loud. I found it under "solves problems with words". Miss Susie and Miss Barbara told me many of their 3s struggle with that one. It's good to know that we aren't alone, because LORDY if that one doesn't cause daily frustration in this household.

The report ended with a section "Your child especially enjoys..." . Are you surprised that Isaac got a check next to "dramatic play"? He also likes "manipulatives" and "books". Welcome to my day, Susie and Barbara.

His teachers praised his progress through the year over and over, giving me a startling visual example of how far Isaac has come. Towards the start of the year, they asked each kid to draw a self portrait. Here was Isaac's:



Then, just recently, they asked for another. Miss Barbara actually said, "Drumroll, please!" when she was whipping this one out:



Miss Susie and Miss Barbara ended by telling me Isaac was an eager learner and they look forward to working with him next year. And with him already signed up for their 4s class, we look forward to another year of their patient tutelage.

Bring the pain

Isaac saw Dr. M today for his 4-year checkup today. I knew for a fact he would be getting at least one shot, so I prepped him well in advance. We've been reading Nicky Goes to the Doctor regularly for a couple of weeks now. I told him that yes, it would hurt, but it would only be long enough for him to say "ow!" and then it would be over. He told me, "When I get a shot, I'm going to go like this:" and then he pressed his lips tightly together, wordlessly saying that there would be no fussing from THIS big boy.

Isaac measured in at the 50th percentile for height and weight, at 36 pounds and just shy of 41 inches tall. Because I enjoy this adult-height estimation calculator, I plugged in his numbers. It told me Isaac should top out at 5' 11" -- a respectable, manly height, yes?

He was delightful and cooperative with Dr. M throughout. She set the tone by asking him the questions, not me ("Are you eating your vegetables?"), so I let the two of them carry on and did my best to suppress my giggles. He was amazed by his reflexes -- "Did you see that? My leg jumped up all by itself! Why does it do that?" -- and by having his blood pressure taken -- "I can hear my heart!"

Also delightful was the fact that, though Dr. M sat and patiently listened all around his chest for several minutes, she could find no trace of the innocent heart murmur she heard last year. And, although everyone and their moms reassured me that it was no big deal, I still heave the biggest sigh today. I am thankful to be lucky among women because my kids are so healthy.

Turns out Isaac got not one, but two shots today -- a DTaP booster and another round for polio. He sat on my lap, and the nurse told him to count to three, that by "three" his shot would be done. As he said "one", she stuck him good, and he said a big and reasonable "OW!" When she reached "three", she withdrew the needle and stepped back, she and I both watching him intently to see when he was going to lose it. As he clawed at his arm and slapped it like he was trying to swat a fly, he took a look at us silly ladies openly staring at him and said, in the most annoyed voice he could muster, "I'm FINE! I'm fine." And he was. The same story with the other arm. The nurse and I fawned over him like he'd just come home from a war.

All-American Saturday

Isaac had baseball practice again on Saturday. This time a few things were different. For one, there were four coaches for 20 kids instead of two, which was a big help. But Isaac still has a soft spot for the head coach, Randy. Randy really has a way with the kids -- he was cracking jokes with them about not catching the baseball with your head, and you know a gaggle of 4 to 6-year-old boys were about to pee their pants laughing about that one. When we first got there, Daddy told Isaac to go ahead and run out on the field with the other kids, since we were running a little late. Isaac took off like a shot, clutching his glove and yelling, "I'm coming, Coach Randy!"

This time, the kids picked their team name. Coach Randy put a hearty word in for The Sluggers, but with a few kids super-tricked out in baseball paraphernalia, perhaps it was inevitable that they would choose The Red Sox.

Also different this time was that Daddy brought his SLR, bless him. More action shots for your money! Isaac practices throwing with Coach Brent:



Catching grounders:



And tell me we haven't all made this face as a baseball neophyte?



So important, too, to practice running the bases. Gotta bone up on such skills before THE BIG GAME, where goodness knows how many runs can be scored by the unstoppable Red Sox.



Also different this time was that Jakey and I tagged along. There was a playground nearby and Daddy shot at us, too. Hiya, stranger.



I have to say I didn't really want to come, because Daddy was right. I could only watch Isaac's practice for a minute at a time -- any longer and I was tearing up like a big sappy baby. But we needed to stay together because when baseball ended, we were off to our next event.



Our fair town turned 250 years old this weekend, and lordy if they didn't have the mother of all parades to celebrate. No less than six marching bands there were! The boys both got colonial American flags and three suckers each from the paraders.







Isaac showing off the aftermath of a green sucker:



You notice not a trace of green because his palate had already been tainted by a blue Airhead.