Finding Balance in San Francisco

oh my, do we love dinosaurs

This morning was one of those mornings that we were on the slow train in terms of getting ready.  Sometimes, you're just on the slow train. I'm going to blame the dinosaurs for our lateness this morning.

A couple days ago, "Masters Quinn and Jordan Hassanein" got a surprise box full of dinosaurs from Ryan's childhood friend's mom (thanks again, Teresa and Harry), much to their delight.  There must have been 50 new dinosaurs in there.  When we opened the box, Quinn and Jordan kept saying in amazed voices "Wow.  There are so many!!" and "Mommy!  Look at this one!  What's his name?"  My favorite quote came from Quinn: "these are gorgeous."

So.  The dinosaurs have been a monster hit, needless to say.  The world has been revolving around these dinosaurs for a few days now.  Hard to tear the boys away from the dinosaurs. We have had to impose limits on number of dinosaurs you can sleep with. Both boys went straight to the "dinosaur box" this morning and started pulling out one dinosaur after another, wondering aloud which one is the most dangerous, which one is the fastest, which one is the strongest.

After I finally pried the boys out of the house, caught them in the garage (they enjoy running from me) and was at long last strapping the last boy into his carseat, I smelled a poopy diaper.  Perfect.  Love it when that happens, especially when we're late already.  Add 5 more minutes to the departure time.

I confess that I was speeding a little on the way to school.  There's this one light at Lombard and Chestnut streets that's particularly long, so when I saw it turn yellow I gunned it. 

The boys had opposite reactions.  Jordan said "Oh, mommy!  That's too fast!"  Quinn said "Woo hoo!  We made it!"

Then he thought about it for a minute and concluded: "Mommy, I like fast things."

Certified Child Passenger Safety (CPS) Technicians

I recently purchased a high-weight-limit (the kid can use it up to 80 lbs.), 5 point harness car seat for our not-yet-4 year old, who is almost 40 pounds and over 42 inches. 

Motor vehicle crashes are the No. 1 killer of children between the ages of 4 and 8           .  According to SafeKids.org, car accidents kill one million children each year around the world and permanently disable many more.  And almost all of these injuries are preventable.  I want to do everything I can to mitigate that risk.

This morning I was surfing around the 'net for car seat installers because apparently 4 out of 5 car seats is installed incorrectly... and I'm aiming to be in that 1 out of 5 group.  I don't trust my mechanical skills as much as I would those of a Certified Child Passenger Safety (CPS) Technician, so I'm planning to get our new car seat professionally installed.

I learned that I can get my car seat checked at some AAA locations, my local police department and by the CHP.  Various phone numbers I found on the web have been disconnected, wrong, etc., so I figured I'd share what I learned from my research this morning, in the hope that I can save someone else the time and effort of going through the same research exercise.

AAA of Northern California, Nevada, and Utah - the main number for AAA is (800) 637-2122.  The phone number for San Francisco is 415-565-2305, and the woman's name is Yolanda.  I left a message a couple hours ago, but have not heard back from them.  AAA is where I went to have the car seats we have in place now installed, and I remember that getting an appointment can take a couple weeks.

The phone number for the           San Francisco Police Dept (same number for all locations) is 415-575-6363.  I left a message a couple hours ago, but have not heard back from them.  The last time that I went to have car seats installed I didn't have any luck getting the police to call me back.

          California Highway Patrol-San Francisco phone # is 415-557-1094.  They'll transfer you to Officer Chase's voicemail.  Officer Chase promises to call back "within a week."  I left a voicemail, but I'm not holding my breath that I can get it done today or even this week.

There's also a guy who's a certified installer named Alan who does car seat installation as a side job.  He charges $20 and can't do it during business hours at all.  His cell phone number is 415-216-7331.  He answered his cell phone right away, but scheduling seems to be a bit more challenging because of his hours restrictions.

The NHTSA website offers a link to help with locating local car seat installers.

I'm hoping that with a little luck I'll be able to get our new car seat installed sometime this week.  I'll keep my fingers crossed.

June is Bustin' Out All Over (and so am I)

As the song goes,

June is a love song, sweetly sung

June makes the bay look bright and new
Sails gleamin' bright on sunlit blue

I wasn't in a whole lot of plays growing up, but my brother and I were in Carousel one summer (we were both Snow children) and I always thought that "June is Bustin' Out All Over" was bustling good fun. 

We've been bustling with good fun ourselves here in San Francisco.  It was a gorgeous 80 degrees today.  The birds (many of them the famous Parrots of Telegraph Hill) have been singing their little hearts out and the flowers are in full bloom. 

The boys and I planted various things in the back yard about a month ago (tomatoes, California Poppies, Geraniums, onions) and it's been fun to watch them grow.  The lemon tree in the back yard is still kickin' out bags full of yummy Meyer lemons that we can't give away fast enough.  I keep meaning to make Meyer lemon tarts but haven't quite gotten around to it.

Part of the issue is that I've also been trying to work out more to whip my body into at least slightly better shape for our trip to the French Riviera next month (think string bikini), and lemon tarts aren't going to help me in that quest.  Actually, maybe the lemon tarts wouldn't change a thing- I feel like I've been gaining weight and inches since I started working out more- it's me who's bustin' out all over! 

Maybe I should just relax and eat some lemon tarts, for crying out loud.

Tomorrow morning Quinn's pre-school lets out for the summer and it's going to get even busier around here.  The boys are little twinkling balls of probing energy these days.  One of Quinn's favorite teachers is leaving the school to go travel with her partner through India and Southeast Asia to do more yoga, massage and teaching poor children (what an adventure!), and we'll be sad to see her go.  She wrote in a farewell card to us that she loves it when the 3 of us burst into class with such enthusiasm.

Such enthusiasm indeed.  I feel like I've got a pair of wild horses on my hands sometimes.  Quinn's school is very zen and we do wind up creating a stir each and every day, despite my best efforts to the contrary.  I was pleased and relieved when Mira wrote that it's one of the bright spots of her days to see my wild horses run in.

Speaking of my wild horses, I've got to dash out to scoop them up. Pretty soon the house will be filled with the sweet, rambunctious song of childhood again.

Bouncing our way into Jordan's 3rd year

It is indeed a Happy Mother's Day.

Saturday morning, our just-turned 2 year old and his 3.5 year old brother woke up to our flat all decorated in orange and pink

and on Saturday afternoon we had a birthday party here for our darling Jordan, complete with a dragon JUMPY HOUSE!

Jordan got 2 different renditions of happy birthday

and everybody seemed to have a good time

Actually, it's been nonstop fun here since Nana arrived Thursday night. Nana brought lots of presents, Buzz Lightyear and Woody being the highlights

I feel happy and blessed today.

Blessed to live in the gorgeous city of San Francisco.
Blessed to be spending Mother's Day with my family, including my own mom and my mother in law.
Blessed to have such good-natured, handsome boys in tow.
Blessed at this moment by our Sweet Miss Shasta Moon, sleeping peacefully right by my feet.
Blessed with good friends.

My 3 year old just came to bless me with a song for Mother's Day that he's playing on the guitar. In this moment, right now, I feel bliss- a wonderful gift.

My Earliest Memory

Earlier today I was visiting Sarah Lane's blog, and she had a short post about her earliest memory.   I've been thinking about her post and the comments that went along with it all day.

I wonder what someone's first memory says about them, if anything.  I also now have lots of fresh, new territory to worry about as a mom.

Here's Sarah's:

When I was 2 years old, both of my parents worked full-time and during business hours I went to daycare. It was a place in Santa Cruz called TAM School, where "TAM" stood for Teen Age Mothers, even though my mom was 33 years old. Who knows.  

I remember laying on a cot in a dark room with a bunch of other kids, not sleeping. Not upset, just laying there with my eyes open. Some time later, my mom comes to pick me up and as we're getting my things together to go home, the person in charge says to her, "Sarah didn't take a nap today." To which my mom replies with a sigh, "Oh, well, that's ok."

And then under her breath, "Shit."

               

One of the comments to her post made me laugh out loud:

My earliest memory, was a time I was hiding from my mom in the closet, and when she stuck her head in the closet I slammed the door and broke her nose. I remember quite well, when she said, "Fucking son of a bitch my nose!"

On so many levels, I think 'oh, that poor mom' to that one.  Broke her nose.  I try valiantly not to swear around my kids, but... I could easily see myself swearing if Quinn or Jordan did that to me.  They do hurt me sometimes, like pulling out whole handfuls of my hair... in part to see what will happen, I think. 

Jordan hit me in the face with a hockey stick the other day.  Searing pain in the nose.  I was so mad I yelled a few sentences at him and threw the hockey stick down on the ground.  Hopefully that won't be his first memory, for crying out loud.

It will, however, be a lovely lasting impression of me on my new neighbor, who walked past our open garage just as I was yelling and hockey stick throwing.  I wanted to run after that neighbor and explain that I'd just gotten a hockey stick to the face, but didn't.  It was just one of those unfortunate, unlucky moments that we all come across from time to time.  At least I got that unlucky moment out of the way.

It did seem to me that a common element to the first memories in Sarah's comment section was some element of shock on the part of the kid (in one case, quite literally... the kid stuck a screwdriver in a light socket).  So it's entirely possible that my kids will happen to remember one of those less than stellar moments. 

My own first memory had no shocking elements.  It's just me and my dad, sitting on my parents' bed.  I was wearing a red plaid coat.  I think I was 2 or 3.

I remember loving the buttons on the red plaid coat and not wanting to take it off because it was so pretty.  My dad was gently teasing me about wearing a coat around in the house and I was enjoying being teased and laughing. 

Then I remember my mom calling up to us from downstairs, but that's it- the memory fades completely after that.  Just one random in hundreds of thousands of moments I had in those first few years, but for whatever reason that particular moment is the one that stuck long-term.

Ah, well.  These things can't be scripted.  I wonder if either or both of my kids (currently 2 and 3) has formed his first lasting memory yet, and if so I'd love to know what it is. 

Hopefully it's a happy one.

I remember laying on a cot in a dark room with a bunch of other kids, not sleeping. Not upset, just laying there with my eyes open. Some time later, my mom comes to pick me up and as we're getting my things together to go home, the person in charge says to her, "Sarah didn't take a nap today." To which my mom replies with a sigh, "Oh, well, that's ok."

And then under her breath, "Shit."

               

I have survived spring break!

Doesn't seem like so long ago that spring break was cause for me to feel glee.  Post kids, that feeling has reversed itself: I've been dreading spring break week all year.   Now that spring break is officially over, the glee has returned.

With Ryan starting another trial next week (read: he works past 2am most nights), spring break = single handed with both boys all week, without their school helping me fill the hours.  And I always try to do it without the aid of TV (or videos) to the extent possible- though when I'm really pooped I'm ok with the occasional video.

Sunday night the boys and I spent the night at my parents' house, and then we hung around their house most of Monday, so that helped start the week off with a glide.  Kind of like a flip turn in swimming... gets you part way down the pool without exerting much effort. 

On the other end of the spectrum, today I took them to the zoo. Enriching, good exercise, outdoors... all good things... but high effort. Neither one wants to be in a stroller, they often run opposite directions, selective hearing (theirs) is in full flower.  Plus I still have an underlying anxiety about the animals breaking free. So when the lion roared at us today I hustled the boys along and kept looking back over my shoulder to make sure he wasn't following us.

The rest of the week was a mix of high and medium (and, I have to say, at times low) effort, but I did it! 

I feel like opening a bottle of champagne.  I probably won't because... well... who drinks champagne alone? 

Plus I'm sure I'll be asleep inside of 10 minutes, especially since I'll be single handed with both boys all weekend.

Their questions are getting more difficult, already

Not too long ago, I could answer all of my kids' questions easily. 

In recent weeks, I've had to turn to the computer to answer some of them.  For example:

• what does an octopus eat?

• which is faster, a tiger or a leopard (the animals, not the Mac OS)?

• why is there wind?

• why do people eat animals?
  

Answers:

• An octopus eats fish.  The octopus is actually a tough predator.  See the Octopus Eats Shark video here.  I did not show that video clip to my son.

• Though I'm a bit doubtful of this source and this source, most people I read and most people I talked to agreed that a leopard is faster than a tiger, though I didn't find a site that really hit the nail on the head for this question.  Incidentally, a lion and a tiger apparently run at roughly the same speed. Again incidentally, it's an upgrade on a Mac to go from Tiger to Leopard.

• Wind is the movement of air over the surface of the Earth, from areas of high pressure to low pressure. This answer worked well enough for my son, but if he asked what causes the changes in pressure I would answer that ultimately all the energy on our planet comes from the Sun, and try hard to leave it at that.  Radiation and planet rotation are a bit too complex for a 3 year old, after all- as is high and low pressure, for that matter.

• This was a tough question, and I basically punted.  My son Quinn is a bit of a natural vegetarian, and I just know that the concept of people eating animals is horrifying to him, so I talked about how Quinn likes to eat cereal instead.

God bless the Internet for quick reference!

sunday afternoon fun

Well, despite a long jaunt at the playground today, neither boy would nap.  About 3:30, I officially threw in the towel:  Quinn and Jordan had been begging to "nap together," and I said sure.  This meant simply that I'd leave the door open between their two rooms.

They've now been playing and entertaining each other for over an hour, with relatively few disagreements.  When I open the door and ask why they're not yet sleeping, they dash back to the bed, shrieking and giggling.  I guess it's fun for them to have a common enemy (in me).

I think they've now taken out every single toy in both rooms, but they sure are having a nice, bonding time together.  I've got a video monitor "eye" in Quinn's room and I've been immensely enjoying spying on them via the video monitor in our kitchen.  It sure is lucky to have siblings who get along with one another so well.

To entertain myself (and them), I'm thinking about marching back in there and asking why they're not asleep yet, to give them something to giggle with one another about.

Conflicted mommy lucks out

Earlier this week, when I picked up Quinn from pre-school to take him to his regular once a week Spanish immersion class, he ran into my arms, said "I love you mommy," and gave me an extra tight hug. Then normally dutiful Quinn precociously declared that he absolutely did not want to go to Hola Kids that day, he just wanted to go home.

Like the rest of us, periodically Quinn needs a bit of cheerleading to get him excited about the next activity, so I fell into my normal routine, complete with songs. He wasn't buying it.

He cried and begged.  He then he added sweetly "I just want to spend some time with you, Mommy." That was incredibly effective. I nearly steered the car straight for home, but couldn't get over not wanting to reward crying and whining. Unhappy as I was about the situation, I kept driving the car towards Spanish, trying to soothe Quinn, who with each turn towards Hola Kids was increasingly going ballistic.

I felt terrible, sick. Part of me was rationalizing that maybe my sweet boy really did need a little one-on-one mommy time and I was about to shut him out in the cold. An equally strong side of me kept thinking of sleep training and everything else... with the bottom line being that consistency matters a lot. Rewarding even one melt-down could easily lead to future misery.

Horribly conflicted, I pulled up in front of Hola Kids, braced for a scene.

Happily, delightfully, I'd forgotten that they're on spring break this week. Quinn and I locked eyes and, grinning uncontrollably, I said "oops- it's closed."

Quinn couldn't believe his luck. His tear stained face brightened immediately- he was downright beaming, as was I. Bullet dodged. I don't think I've ever been happier to see something closed in my entire life.

Sleeping, day dreaming, talking and trying not to laugh

Our Black Lab, Shasta Moon, has now officially switched sleeping allegiances.  She used to sleep in our bed but at this point she sleeps with Quinn every night, more or less exclusively.

Quinn seems to be developing a robust imagination.  The other day he said out of the clear blue sky: "was that you, me, or the ghost?"

Jordan's language skills continue to amaze me.  Like my friend Courtney, I feel conflicted in even mentioning it, but I'm so proud of him I feel like I might burst sometimes.  He's comfortably speaking in full sentences, using plurals and pronouns, even present and past tense.  He knows the names of a wide variety of people and calls them by name... hopefully he'll keep that up later on in his life- it sure would be a helpful skill to have a good memory for names.

As for me, my abs are sore today.  I'd been feeling pudgy around the middle, so I really concentrated on my mid section at the gym yesterday... and today I'm feelin' it.  Jordan did something funny this morning and laughing was really quite painful. 

Off to Crissy Field...