San Jose Giants

I took a trip with my parents when I was in my late teens and on that trip we stopped in New York at the Baseball Hall of Fame.  I remember a great many things from that trip, but perhaps the most clear memory is of sitting across a restaurant from another family - the kids were screaming and crying, the father was yelling at them, and the mother was frantically going through a bag looking for something.  My dad said to me, "That is a family that tried to do too much in one day and got altogether too tired."

With the memory so clearly etched in my memory, you'd think I would have learned from it.  Sadly, I seem not to have.

We set out as we do most Thursdays, to Livermore to visit Grandpa and Grandma.  On these days, the kids don't get a nap because they stay until 3 or so, but usually they sleep for 45 minutes or so in the car.  This time, we planned to stay with the Grandparents until 4:30 and then head down the eastern edge of the Bay Area to get to San Jose and park with time for the 6:00 opening of the ballpark.

At exactly 3, Max asked when we were leaving.  It's creepy how well he can tell time!

We avoided most of the traffic on our way out of town by using the HOV lane and got to San Jose a little earlier than we'd anticipated.  We bought tickets and got in line - the kids were really excited about going to a baseball game, but it was already becoming apparent that they were too tired and it was too hot and this might've been a little more than we could tackle.

The first stop after we got through the gates was the bouncy house.  There are a handful of carnival-like games for kids to play at $1/play, or $5 for 10 tickets, the option we took.  This bought the kids 9 minutes each in the bounce house.  I remind you it was about 90 degrees.

About halfway into their time, the young lady in charge asked if we minded if some bigger kids joined them.  We didn't, so there were six kids in there at one point.  The big kids did a really good job of looking out for the little ones, but at one point Daniel did collide with a boy.  He fell to the "ground" and, in a repeat of one of his more adorable moments, grabbed his face and lamented, "My eyebrow!"  He bounced back up, but Caroline had already been alerted to her brother's pain.  She bounced right up to the bigger boy and said, "You don't hit my brother! That not nice!"  To his credit, the boy apologized again and bounced away.

When their time was up, I had to scramble into the little door to drag them out, which can not have been my best image.  But it was efficient.

We went on to Turkey Mike's BBQ.  Daniel lined up with Joe to get food while I took Max and Caroline to find seats.  And then Caroline went insane.  Any time anything flew off the table in the wind, she screeched at the top of her lungs.  She begged for things and then, when I gave them to her, she screamed that wasn't what she wanted.

When Joe got to the front of the line to order, I grabbed Daniel to sit with us.  When Joe brought the food over, I turned and somehow Daniel was lying on his back on the ground, crying.  Caroline was screaming.  Hot dogs fell on the floor.  Water spilled.  Everyone was just getting hotter.  And we were getting dirty looks for not keeping them quiet during the national anthem.

So I did the only thing I could think of to salvage the situation.

I bought them ice cream.

We carried it, along with all the food we hadn't yet eaten, to the other side of the ballpark to try to sit down in the shade.  We took a wrong turn (hard to imagine, if you know how small San Jose Municipal Stadium is), but it gave the kids a chance to glimpse the field, and Caroline briefly met Gigante, the team's huge orange mascot.  He shook Caroline's hand and kissed her on the head and she could NOT stop talking about it all night.

Then we found a picnic table behind the accessible seating area and dug into our soft serve.

Even better about this spot, we were right by "the monkey's house" - better known as Gigante's locker room.  While I didn't see a second of the game on the field, I did participate actively in the "watching for the mascot to appear" game.  We were also right next to where the participants in between-innings antics lined up to wait.  One of these people was a teenage girl wearing a pink tshirt who was practicing doing cartwheels.  Caroline saw her and made the instant connection that she must be Stephanie from Lazy Town.

When it looked like we weren't going to get another visit from the mascot and everyone's ice cream had melted to soup, we finally decided it was time to head home.  To try to avoid the inevitable whining to return to the bouncy house as we exited, I steered the kids toward the program/scorecard stand, being manned by "The Queen".  Caroline was very impressed and the boys didn't think she was too shabby either.

And just then, Gigante came back around!

We made it out to the car, buckled up, and got out to the freeway relatively quickly and got everyone home and in bed just about on time.  Not bad.

Caroline was so taken by the Queen, in fact, that she insisted on wearing a tiara the next day.  She was sitting in her chair at breakfast and pointing at the china cabinet across from her, saying she needed, I swear, a chihuahua.  After laughing at me a couple of times and saying it more slowly, I finally noticed that there was a toy princess set sitting on top of the cabinet that I'd been given as a gift for my 35th birthday.  I snatched it down and asked her if that's what she wanted and she said, "Yes! Tee-ah-wah!"

As you can see, the tiara comes with earrings, necklace, and a ring (not pictured)

Daniel's Eyebrows

Sometimes when I change Daniel's diaper, he distracts himself by naming the various parts of my face.  While this started out with the basics, eyes, nose, teeth, he's been adding to his repertoire of late.  With the goofiest smile on his face, he asks, "Mommy? Cheeks?" and then reaches up to tap my cheeks.  It continues - "Mommy? You chin? Ears? Teeth?" and my favorite, "Mommy, eyebrows?"

Yesterday, the kids were playing at their new favorite game - jumping off the couch and onto the cushions they've piled on the floor.  At one point, Daniel was lying on his back when Max flung himself off the couch.  He landed in a tangle of Teenies, his knee colliding with Daniel's forehead, leaving a red spot.  Daniel put his hand up to the spot and after a moment started to wail - "Muh EYEBROW! Mommy! Muh EYEBROW!"

Poor baby - his eyebrow!

The Things Kids Say...

OK, we all know that "kids say the darnedest things", but really, my kids do.  And what's maddening is trying to figure out WHERE they learned them!

We spent the day with Grandma and Grandpa Salvatore in Livermore on Thursday.  On Friday when I got Daniel up from his breakfast and started to wipe off the berries that were smeared all over his face and hands, he started to fret, saying, "Oh DEAR, my hands dirty! Oh DEAR, berries on my face!" with just the same inflection Grandma gives to "oh dear" when she's laughing at some tragedy they've invented.  The same day, Max decided that everything we did was "amazing" - "These strawberries amazing, Mommy," "Sporticus is amazing, Mommy!"

They are slowly warming up to the concept of "love", occasionally telling Daddy or me that they love us.  But more often we are not the objects of their affection.  Caroline "loves Baby" (whom she has started to call "Baby Sister" because "I not a Mommy - you the Mommy, I the Sister!") and Daniel recently admitted that he "loves raspberries".  Well, they all still have their little kid accents, so really he "wuvvs wazbewwies" - and it is so much cuter that way, don't you agree?

Speaking of accents, it is hilarious to me how differently they pronounce things even though they have all the same influences.  Max and Daniel are IDENTICAL TWINS and yet Max says a traditional, flat California "o" in "Mommy"while Daniel still pronounces it moh-mee and Caroline has a comedy voice she does to make me laugh that I cannot describe adequately in words - it's sort of a satire of a tony, Cary Grant-style upper class accent as she says, "Mommy, mommy, mommy" (think "Judy, Judy, Judy").  It's the same with their names.  Caroline gets called "Carmine", "Caremine", "Carenowine", and probably a bunch more.  Max is generally "Maks", though Caroline still favors calling him "Mass".  And while Max pronounces Daniel's name pretty perfectly, Caroline still calls him "Done-yo".

Max continues to play the magician, hiding things and asking, "Where they go?"  He will parrot things right from TV (see the previous discussion of "Sporticus right back"), but he's building his sentence structure.  Today at bath time, he wanted to take charge of the sound system.  The choices tend to be the Elmo CD or baseball on the radio.  He couldn't decide, flipping between the two and saying, "Baseball! NO! Maybe I try Elmo this time."  My favorite moment though, recently, was when I finally relented and let him watch an episode of Lazy Town.  He was sitting next to me on the couch, bolt upright with his knees bent, the soles of his feet touching each other in a beautiful yoga posture, and grinning ear to ear.  At one point, he grabbed his feet, rocked back and forth a little bit, and said, "Mommy? I happy!"  This apparently made me laugh so much that he announced, "Mommy! You happy too!"  and now he asks me from time to time, "You happy, Mommy? I happy!"

Daniel is still the most considerate of the three.  Or at least he seems to be - I'm not entirely certain he hasn't figured out that he can get away with a lot by flashing a little smile and saying, "I sowwy, moh-mee".  Tonight during his bath, he had filled up a cup and was balancing little Elmos in it like they were lounging in a jacuzzi.  When he turned to get something, he knocked the cup over and the water spilled all over the floor.  We both said, "Oh no!" and I started to clean it up, explaining that this is why we need to be careful with the water.  He was moaning about his Elmos, which had fallen to the outside of the tub, and as I scooped them up to return, I laughed and teased him, "Oh, so that's what you're upset about? Not that Mommy has to clean up all this water you spilled?"  His face changed a bit and he looked at me very seriously and said, "I sowwy, Moh-mee. I weewee, weewee sowwy."

They trade off fighting with each other and making up.  Max's version of an apology is to pat his sibling and say, "You fine,"  but when Daniel was sobbing in the car because he didn't want to wear the clothes we'd put him in and wasn't happy with the pacifier (and was generally just NOT happy), Max turned to him and said, plain as day, "Calm down, Daniel.  It's OK!"

Caroline is still the verbal leader, but she surprises us with her really impressive recall.  Yesterday, Grandma was over to help with cupcake construction and mentioned that she had to go to Dublin this evening for a meeting and hoped she didn't get lost on the way.  Tonight at dinner, Caroline announced, "Gamma at a meeting tonight," followed by, "but Daddy's at the baseball game," and "Uncle is at Wendy's house."  Adorably, when I asked her where Wendy was, she offered that Wendy was at Uncle's house.  Not likely, since that would be here and we hadn't seen her.

With all of this discussion, Max looked at me with a big smile and said, "Mommy - you home!"  I think he's still taking in the wonder that is a teacher's unpaid summer break.  That's right, Max, with a few interruptions for school board meetings and Giants games, Mommy gets to be home until August 14th!

Happy Father's Day

This year, Caroline knew it was Father's Day coming up.  For about a week ahead of time, she kept telling me she wanted to make Daddy a cake for Father's Day (or, sometimes, for "Daddy's birthday"), so we thought about what kind of cake he would like - she knew he didn't want chocolate, even though that's HER favorite, so she suggested "wemmon cake".  Next question - what type of icing goes with lemon cake?  Obviously, key lime!

So, I went shopping for all the ingredients and even got some fun sprinkles to decorate with and I called Grandma to ask her to come over to help on Sunday morning (and to stop off and pick up some cupcake liners, since I couldn't find the ones I'd bought).  The minute I got the kids up in the morning, Caroline came streaking out chattering, "I make cake for Daddy today?" - I could barely hold her off until Grandma got here at ten.

The boys had shown NO interest in our baking project over the past week, but the minute Caroline was perched up on her "stairs" next to the counter in the kitchen with Mommy and Grandma, they decided it might be worth getting involved.

Caroline adds the ingredients

Max and Mommy crack an egg

(Max is a little nervous about heights)

Daniel is a little more hands-on with the egg-cracking

Time for mixing!

Daniel takes a crack at the mixing

Max always knows where the camera

(and a little extra Mommy encouragement)

And Caroline finishes it all up

The next step was to fill the cupcake liners!

Daniel really, really enjoyed filling the cupcakes!

Caroline grabbed the camera while Max was spooning the batter (I was busy grabbing Max!)

Here they are decorating - everyone has his own tub of frosting and knife (and Caroline has a mouthful of cupcake to boot!)

(I told you, Max always finds the camera)

Daniel took a moment to frost a mini cupcake to eat himself

The final product (Daniel's two are decorated with the dinosaurs in the back, Max's with the bears on the left-hand side, and Caroline did the stars and moons in front)

The proud baker!

This picture was supposed to be "without the 'cheese'"

This picture was supposed to be "looking mean"

When Joe got home from work, I heard him coming up the steps and warned the kids that I thought Daddy was on his way up the stairs.  Caroline raced over and asked if she could open the door "to find out for sure".  And the minute he stepped through the door she jumped up and down squealing, "Have your wemmon cake, Daddy!"

We held them off for an hour or so, and then all dug in.  They were surprisingly delicious and refreshing on what had turned into quite a warm day.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy!

Manipulative Max

Important background information - Max is completely and utterly insane for an Icelandic children's show called Lazy Town.  It's available on the Sprout channel and On Demand and we have a handful of "Lazy Town" apps on our assorted iPhone/Pod/Pad devices.

A few months ago, Max started to sneak the remote out of its hiding place in an effort to watch his favorite show.  He had watched attentively enough to know which button was which and would press the On Demand button for the menu, but we had to put the parental controls on that after he ordered a few different movies (and once, somehow, locked us out of watching NBC!).  When you enter the passcode, it's hidden on screen, so Max now hands me the remote and says, clearly, "Press button! Press button!", followed by, "Stars? Stars? Stars? Stars?" - it took a while to figure out what he meant before I realized that the passcode comes up as stars when you enter it.

But he's SO addicted to the show on tv and the apps on my phone that we have to try to regulate his access.  And he knows it.  Which is where the manipulation comes in.

Knowing we won't give him the phone just to play with his Lazy Town apps, he asks instead to "Call Uncle?" (we have a long history of FaceTime chatting with Uncle), and if for some reason Uncle isn't available, he runs down the list - "Call Daddy?", "Call Boppy?", "Call Gamma?" - but as soon as we connect and the person says hello, he smiles, says, "Good-bye!" and then "Max push button!" to hang up and assume custody of the phone.

Similarly, knowing we won't bring up an episode of LazyTown just because he's been chanting "Sportacus right back?", he will wait a bit and then name some other show he knows we can find On Demand - "Tommy Twain?" "Science Kid?" - but change his tune the minute the On Demand menu flashes on the screen!

While Max is by far the worst afflicted, the show has infected the other two as well.  They have Lazy Town dolls that they must take with them everywhere and they use them, or themselves, to act out scenes from the show.  In the theme song, they sing, "Stephanie is new in town..." and Caroline will introduce you to her Stephanie doll by saying, "This Stephanie - her new in town!"  They goad me into singing the songs from the show as they do their best to mimic the dance moves - one time Daniel and Caroline even almost got the fancy dip at the end of the dance!

The main character, Sportacus, eats only "sports candy" (fruits and vegetables, frequently apples), and his nemesis, Robbie Rotten, has in a number of episodes sent him into "sugar meltdown" by giving him a "sugar apple".  The boys whine incessantly for "sports candy apples" (Max) and "sugar apples" (Daniel) and the other night, Daniel played out a full scene where he would run into the room, take a bite from his "sugar apple" and then collapse onto the floor until you gave him a grape and he was revived by the sports candy.  This continued for quite some time.  This afternoon after nap time, all three of them giggled as they fell over in their cribs yelling, "Sugar Meltdown!" and then lying motionless.

But Max is definitely the ringleader...we're going to have to watch out for that one.

Addendum -

After posting this blog entry, I was reminded of a couple of Caroline moments.  Because we so often have to tell Max, "No, no, Max, no Lazy Town right now," there was one time when Uncle was babysitting that Lazy Town came on TV at its regularly appointed time and Caroline turned to Max and berated him, "NO! NO LAZY TOWN!" and it took Uncle five minutes to convince Max it was OK to watch it.  After naptime, as if to make up for that incident, the boys were whining to watch the show when Caroline walked in with her baby doll and told Uncle, "Baby wants to watch Lazy Town."

So maybe Max isn't the only manipulative one...