Dang it! I’m totally behind again on my Project 365 stuff. I’m going to try to catch up over the next few days, so brace yourselves!
July 2, 2010: Augie runs across the back yard with one of his beloved plums. Our neighbor’s tree rained plums down on our driveway for several weeks and every time we went outside I spent the whole time trying to keep Augie from eating rotten plums.
July 3, 2010: Now here Augie chows down on one of the ones we picked from the tree. The other challenge with the plums was keeping the boys from eating so many plums that their digestive tracks blew out.
July 4, 2010: Wyatt got to try out his first sparkler on the 4th of July! We were at a friend’s house for the afternoon and in addition to putting on super hero costumes, the kids ran around the yard with sparklers (closely supervised, of course!).
July 5, 2010: Wyatt decided it was “red day” and collected as many red things as he could fit on the pull out cutting board.
July 6, 2010: Trying on Dad’s sunglasses. He looks a little Tom Cruise-y here, I think.
July 7, 2010: Wyatt and I had a free afternoon after his morning pirate camp (Augie was at day care) so we got lunch at his favorite restaurant, Denny’s (?!) and then we went to the bowling alley. He totally kicked my butt, but in my defense, he got the bumpers when he bowled and I didn’t!
July 8, 2010: I had completely forgotten about this incident until I pulled this photo up! Wyatt was up to one mischievous activity after another and finally got sent to his room to get his act together. He fussed and whined about it for a very long time, but then things went quiet. I knew better than to think he had calmed down so suddenly, but I was so thankful for the quiet that I decided to just let it go for a bit before checking to see what he was up to. Before long, he came out of his room, dressed all in white with his body pressed up against the white wall. He inched along for a bit, convinced he was camouflaged and that his dad and I couldn’t see him. I actually think that Augie didn’t notice him at first, but eventually he got to the oak bookcase and the jig was up! Busted!
June 25, 2010: Augie dug my 10 year old king monkey beanie out of one of my dresser drawers and the kids spent minutes — minutes! — playing with it. I think Wyatt looks insanely cute in this picture.
June 26, 2010: I spent some time clearing off my super-scary messy desk and managed to get enough free space to do some scrapbooking.
June 27, 2010: Wyatt lost his first tooth! He’d loosened it up a lot a few days before when he was eating corn on the cob so we were on high tooth alert around here. It came out at some point while he was eating dinner and he must have swallowed it because it was no where to be found. The swallowing of the tooth was a cause of great concern for Wyatt because: a.) He was afraid the tooth fairy wouldn’t come and b.) he was worried it was dangerous and would make his tummy hurt. I told him the tooth fairy would understand, but he wrote a note to her explaining the situation just in case. She came through, as I knew she would and she left him $3:
$1 for his tooth
$1 extra because it’s his first tooth
and $1 extra because he accidentally swallowed it and it gave him a psychosomatic tummy ache.
So I guess he’s officially a big kid now!
June 28, 2010: Plums ripening on the tree that hangs over into our back yard. The property this tree is on is empty right now, so I’ve gone crazy harvesting the fruit this year so it won’t go to waste. I always pick the plums on our side of the fence but because the house is empty I’ve also snuck into the other back yard a few times to get the fruit I can’t reach. So far I’ve made plum crisps (in jars of course) and plum jam and I’ve got my eye on this plum chutney too.
June 29, 2010: Bed time stories.
June 30, 2010: Wyatt and I spent the morning in San Francisco with the Help A Mother Out folks and a stunning number of diapers. For those of you who haven’t heard of Help a Mother Out, they are a non-profit that works to supply diapers to families who can’t afford them. (You can learn more about diaper need and the stresses it puts on families here.) The people at Huggies made a huge donation to my favorite non-profit so they invited supporters to come by and help pass diapers out to some of their partner agencies. The diapers you see here may seem like a never ending supply — and don’t get me wrong, it’s a fantastic donation — but these pallets of diapers don’t even come close to filling the need in the Bay Area.
July 1, 2010: Augie’s favorite book at the moment is Go, Dog. Go! and as I was reading it to him one night I realized that it is a perfect match for Wyatt’s reading abilities. Bing! A light bulb went off! I could have Wyatt read it to Augie! They have since spent several happy mornings reading it together.
June 18, 2010: Wyatt decided he wanted to “do science” when we were playing outside, so he got a magnifying glass and hunted for bugs. Here he investigates a particularly interesting specimen.
June 19, 2010: Augie just about always falls asleep in the car on the way back from dropping Wyatt off from camp and I’m lucky that he stays asleep when I move him from the car to his crib. On the days when he doesn’t drop right off to sleep, I’ve been known to take the long way home — through the Starbucks drive-thru — to encourage him to nod off.
June 20, 2010: Our local grocery store sponsored a kids coloring contest and Wyatt worked diligently on his entry. He was positive that he was going to win because of his superior coloring job. He’s not yet received a prize though, so I don’t think he won. I’m hoping it just kind of fades in his memory so he isn’t too disappointed.
June 21, 2010: Zach and the boys played a pre-bed game of catch in the disaster zone known as our living room. In addition to the many, many toys on the floor you might notice the 32 blankies Augie dragged into the living room. He really likes blankies.
June 22, 2010: Poor old Augie just can’t catch a break. He was sick with a cold (probably more than one) and a stomach bug for the first few weeks of June. Then just as he started feeling better he fell down and knocked his head. Then after that passed, he caught another stomach virus. We thought that one was on the way out when his fever suddenly came back. This was too much sick for me, so I called the doctor for a little reassurance and to make sure I shouldn’t be freaking out. He was not happy with what I told him, so had me bring Augie in for an emergency after hours appointment. It turns out my mom’s intuition was right because Augie was in the beginning stages of pneumonia! Poor buddy! Here he snuggles up with Daddy (and a blankie and his rhino) before bed.
June 23, 2010: So if you haven’t picked up on it yet, August is really, really into his blankies now. He doesn’t have any particular favorites — just about any blanket will do — but he does like the thicker, fuzzier ones a little more than the flannel ones. I normally won’t let him have them when he’s in his high chair, but pneumonia gets you special privileges in our house.
June 11, 2010: Schooooool’s out for summer! Schooooool’s out for-EVAH! OK, really it’s only out for the summer. Wyatt’s got quite a few years of school ahead of him, but for now let’s just concentrate on the wonder of a kid’s first real summer vacation. To kick things off, I took him to Baskin-Robbins for an ice cream cone while Augie was taking his nap (Zach was working at home, of course). We totally lucked out and bumped into Wyatt’s best buddy from preschool while we were there so the boys got to play while the moms caught up.
June 12, 2010: It was a scorcher on this day. 90 degrees, which is virtually unheard of for the area where we live. We felt a beach trip was in order which is apparently what everyone else in the Bay Area decided too, because it took us 3 hours to drive to the beach! Yowza! We had a lovely time though with Wyatt leaping through the waves and Augie digging in the sand. We finished up our afternoon with dinner at a seafood place and this lovely view.
June 13, 2010: I pulled a bunch of rubber stamps I don’t use out of my craft supplies with the idea that I’d sell them online. I dumped them onto the coffee table and Augie started playing with them. Unfortunately, there was a self-inking one in the pile and he started running it across the coffee table right after I took this photo. I grabbed it away from him and he launched into a major temper tantrum, arching his back and falling backwards on the floor. He conked his head on the floor and we braced ourselves for the piercing scream that usually follows, but instead our toddler’s whole body shuddered and then went limp. I was so scared I thought I was going to throw up. Zach and I both ran across the room to him and in the few seconds it took for us to get to him and scoop him up he was moving and responding again but we were unconvinced that everything was A-OK. Zach ran around the house getting the phone and calling the advice nurse while I talked to Augie, made sure he responded when I said his name, checked to make sure he could follow my finger, and all those other things they tell you to do when your kid cracks his head on the floor. The advice nurse was concerned enough by our description of what happened that she told us to bring Augie into the ER. So we gathered up the diaper bag, a blankie and one of Augie’s stuffed animals and Zach took him to the hospital while I stayed home with Wyatt. The ER doctor checked him out and told Zach that he was probably fine (Augie was acting completely normal by this time) but he told us we shouldn’t let him sleep for more than 2 hours at a time for 24 hours. Zach and I set the alarms on our phones and took turns getting up to completely wake Augie throughout the night. No one slept very well, but in the morning Augie was still acting normally so we were confident that he didn’t have a brain injury. Yay!
June 14, 2010: Chopping nuts for crisp topping. I mucked around with my go to recipe a bit and added these almonds in but it was a dismal failure. The crisp didn’t get crunchy when I baked it and the consistency was off. Oh well — live and learn.
June 15, 2010: Wyatt and I worked in a cafe in the morning — coloring books for him, flowcharts for me — then grabbed some burritos for lunch before I took him to summer camp.
June 16, 2010: Working on my laptop at the kitchen table. The flowers were a gift from a neighbor.
June 17, 2010: The boys cooked up this ingenious contraption that allowed Wyatt to pull Augie in the wagon while he pedaled the trike. Cool!
May 28, 2010: Augie got a haircut. Finally! I was getting so sick of that awful shaggy do he had going.
May 29, 2010: It was really hot around here and nothing puts me in the mood for a mojito more than a really hot day! I fixed them up for us in a couple of mason jars which makes them infinitely more refreshing!
May 30, 2010: Ahhhhh…now this was an especially fun day for our family! Wyatt’s uncle works at Pixar and we got to attend an early friends and family screening of Toy Story 3 on the Pixar campus. There are all sorts of cool things in the lobby of the main building including a fantastical life-sized Ken’s Dream House, giant Woody and Buzz statues made from Lego bricks, a giant chair and this cool action figure prop. The movie was amazing, of course, but if you’ve seen it you already know that. And yes, I sobbed at the end. As I heard someone say, “They made it 3D so your kids can’t see you bawling behind the glasses.”
May 31, 2010: Still stinkin’ hot, so the boys and I went to Toys R Us to get a swimming pool. (The one we had the last two summers cracked over the winter.) We opted for the fancy one with a built-in slide this time and it seemed a little on the small side until it was time to shove it into the back of the station wagon and the boys had to ride home with a swimming pool roof over their heads. When we got home, we filled it up and the boys spent the afternoon hanging out in it and squirting each other with the squirt guns.
June 1, 2010: Yay! Peaches! Plums! Nectarines!
June 2, 2010: Post-nap, August makes a nest using as many toys as he can find.
June 3, 2010: The boys were out back playing when Augie walked over to the hose, picked it up and started sucking on the end of it. I guess he was thirsty!
May 21, 2010: Wyatt waits patiently for a temporary tattoo to transfer onto his hand. This isn’t the first temporary tattoo he’s ever had, but it the first one he left on for more than 30 seconds before freaking out and demanding I take it off. This one stayed about 3 or 4 hours.
May 22, 2010: Augie helps me vacuum the living room. It was also Zach’s birthday, but I didn’t get any pictures of him! (Bad photojournalist wife!) He went to the shooting range with some of his friends — a very rare treat for him — and then the boys and I met up with everyone at T-Rex, a barbecue place in Berkeley, for an impromptu birthday dinner. It was a really fun night.
May 23, 2010: Zach practices his hula hooping skillz at Maker Faire.
May 24, 2010: “Mom! This lemon is almost as big as my head!” So it is, my dear. So it is.
May 25, 2010: Augie cuddles up to one of his favorite snugglies — the food scale!
May 26, 2010: Wyatt’s new skill is climbing the doorways barefoot.
May 27, 2010: Part of our big Prather Ranch meat purchase before I unpacked it from the cooler!
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daily life · photo · project365
and as I was reading it to him one night I realized that it is a perfect match for Wyatt’s reading abilities. Bing! A light bulb went off! I could have Wyatt read it to Augie! They have since spent several happy mornings reading it together.
