3's

Citizen Kane-Ish

Lake Temescal

Today we went to Lake Temescal, which is an idyllic little spot about 5 minutes from our house in the crook of highways 13 and 24, just down from the Caldecott tunnel at the very base of the Oakland hills. It's an East Bay Regional Park, which means as members we get in for free.



Lake Temescal trivia: The lake sits on top of the Hayward fault, which happens to be a fault many geologists think will experience a major quake, basically any day now. You can see on part of the walkway where the two sides of the fault are slowly pulling the asphalt in opposite directions.



Parker has come here twice with Rachel, so by now he knows his business. This part of the lake doesn't get deeper than maybe 20", and Parker feels pretty comfortable playing in the water with his ring.



It got a little cold in the shade so we moved to the sun for some sand play. Parker enjoyed moving scoops of sand from one container to another, and dumped a good bit on the grass just for kicks.



And the girls, having had a nice bottle and some nice fruit, sat and entertained themselves, about as sweet as you could wish for.



We've had to pull out one of Parker's old hats for Elizabeth. She insists on removing her hat, and this one has a good strap.



Then we went home and the kids all had nice long naps, waking up happy and refreshed.

Oso y León

Anyone who has spent much time with Parker knows Ted and Lion, his bedtime buddies and all around boon companions. Well, apparently Ted and Lion have learned Spanish, because señor Parker was addressing them this morning with their south of the border names. Although I'm not sure that Oso is an exact translation of Ted.

Faces of Miranda

Eli drinks

Meow

The girls love Zeke. They probably love Noe too, but since Noe runs away any time anything that isn't me comes by, it's hard to know for sure. Zeke is a good kids cat. He allows the pulls, ungentle pets and even the grabs. He seems slightly annoyed the whole time, but stays there putting up with it. He could just stay away or leave when the going gets tough. But he doesn't.

Zoo!

Parker was sent home from day care today for having impetigo (which he does not have and which annoyed me to no end). So...I had all three and decided to go on a adventure. The girls napped and then we all headed out to the Zoo. There is very nice children's zoo at the zoo in Oakland. You don't see many animals there, but it is fun none the less. Parker played on all the slides (tunnel, tree, and elephant), walked on the giant snake, and crawled with the bugs and spider web. With the exception of a minor freak out before we left, he did quite well. And the gals were good too.

I saw two other sets of twins there. One mom with 23 month old twins and a 6 month old. And then a set of 18 month old twins. I got lots of "Boy, you sure have your hands full comments" from the non twim moms.

Then we came home, attempted naps, failed and went to the doctor as the girls had their 9 month check up. There, the doctor confirmed ("that sure ain't impetigo. in fact, it isn't anything") Parker was fine. Girls are just under 20 pounds, with Elizabeth still heavier than Miranda by about 12 ounces. All is well.

Everyone was sleeping for about 20 minutes until Miranda woke up screaming. I'm trying to ignore them now hoping they will go back to sleep.

The Blue Chair

When Parker was a baby, Grandma Judy got him a blue chair. At first we were a bit confused, wondering what a baby needed with a cool blue chair. It turns out it is also a hobby horse. Which makes it even more cool! Parker spent hours playing with it and on it.

Today Miranda discovered the joys of the chair.

After Dinner

Michael and Parker spent some quality time tonight after dinner with an activity book. It has everything. Letters, numbers, dinasaurs, bugs, trucks, trains. Seriously everything. AND some markers for learning how to draw/write.

Big Calculator

As you know, I went to Utah this weekend to visit with my pal Kirsten. She used to work with me and moved back to her home in January. I had wanted to see where she lived, spend some time with her and her dogs (Pete and Maddie) and take a break from the kids for a couple days. While there, we walked, ate (too much), did some sight seeing, I got a massage, saw a movie, saw Les Miserables where she works, and most importantly, slept in to 9am. One day two with her, we went to Brookstone to get her a very hip alarm clock. It was $15 with purchase of something else so we looked aroudn the store to see what to buy. She saw nothing, but I saw this giant calculator. Perfect, I thought! Parker would love that.

So today when I got home, I played with the gals a bit and then we went to get Parker. At home, I got out the giant calculator. He DID love it. Immediately. He quickly learned how to turn it on, clear it back to zero and make all sorts of numbers. He did 17, 100, 99, 66 and many others on his own. He had a blast (as you see from the last picture.)

The thing that we wonder is...who the hell would buy this thing normally? Some financial guy with a really big desk? Some accountant with bad eyesight? Really, it is quite big.

They can't crawl, but...

they are gonna stand soon. Miranda can basically pull herself up to a standing position and then stand there on her own for a second or two. Eli isn't far behind, but is usually too excited to be standing (bouncing around) to stand on her own.

Single parenting, part three

Well, last night was another hum dinger. Miranda was in rare form, even for her. She was up at 10:30pm, and then 11:15pm, which is when I brought her down to the crib in our room, where she was asleep by about 11:40pm, which is when I went to bed. She was up again briefly at 1am, and then Parker had a little incident at 2am, and then Miranda had a full-on shriek-fest from 3:00am to 3:30am which was fun for the both of us, not to mention the neighbors. When she woke up at 5:00am I brought her into bed with me, which by 5:10am I knew was not going to result in any more sleep for me. Which was convenient because that's when Parker started yelling. The three of us sat in Daddy's bed until 5:55am, at which point the day officially began with milk all around.

It's about 6:15 now, and Elizabeth is just now waking up.

Fashion statement

Translation: "My father dressed me today." Which is totally unfair, because Elizabeth looked fabulous in her ensemble.

Funks

Everyone seems to be in a funk around here. I think it's because mommy is gone, and all the kids are on edge. But Parker cried when I dropped him off at daycare this morning, Miranda took 90 minutes to fall asleep tonight, and Elizabeth only drank about half of her evening bottle.

Single parenting, part two

Last night was much better than the night before, although still not quite up to the texbook ideal. All three kids spent the night in their own beds, which is good. But Parker and Miranda took turns waking up in the night and causing a ruckus, which wasn't good.

During Parker's 2am episode, his crying woke up the babies, who started crying, which made Parker stop crying and start screaming. I spent about 20 minutes going from bed to crib to crib, trying to get everyone settled down. As soon as I'd get one calm and move to the next, the calm one would re-erupt. Good times.

children eating