Yes it’s July of 2017, and I’m writing about something that happened in December of 2016. Mostly I wanted to post a few photos for the sake of having them up here.

Ian, 2 years old

Ian’s birthday, which is on December 18th, got squished in before the Christmas holiday descended full force. We did what has become our normal thing; we ordered some taco fixings from a local restaurant (our go-to for this sort of thing is Torchy’s Tacos) and invited a bunch of people over to help celebrate.

I’m not sure it even occurred to me on that day that I lit four candles for him.

Ian has kind of a thing for Mickey Mouse, especially back at the time of his birthday. It’s amazing, almost overwhelming, the amount of themed birthday things available for purchase when your kid likes Mickey Mouse instead of, say, cephalopods. We made a big chocolate chip cookie cake for something to light and share. Then we made a cupcake tower using a Mickey Mouse stand. The cupcakes even had Mickey Mouse sprinkles (which Ian calls “frinkles”).

This kid!

We had a really nice turn-out considering that Ian’s party happened during the busy holiday season, and we’re thankful for all our friends who came out to help celebrate. Ever since Maya’s birthday celebration in November, Ian had been asking at regular intervals when his “happy birthday” was going to happen. With the party, cakes, and of course gifts, I think he felt like he got his “happy birthday” too.

(Yeah, I’m 6 months behind. Pretend it’s Thanksgiving 2016.) It started out as a good idea earlier in the year: instead of cooking this year, let’s drive to New Orleans and spend a few days over Thanksgiving. And our lives just erupted. Due to staffing issues at work, my job was chewing up a ton of time. The kids kept getting sick and missing school, so we kept taking time off to hang out with them. We never really managed to set aside time to actually plan our simple vacation. Instead we were going to wing it. FYI – we suck at winging it.

Maya age just-turned-4, Ian age not-quite-2, New Orleans 2016

In true Woods vacation fashion, we started our trip early with Maya vomiting the night before we were to leave. We took Ian to school the next morning (the day before Thanksgiving), but due to a communication mix-up, he wasn’t given his lunch so when Sean picked him up at midday, he was understandably cranky. Plus, we had to take time to feed him once we got home. Because we’d been up late the night before, we wound up packing in the morning, so between that and Ian’s lunch, we got on the road late. Because it was Thanksgiving, what should have been a roughly 7.5-8 hour trip took us closer to 11-12 hours. Because the kids slept in the car, they were kinda ready for action when they got to the apartment. It was a long day.

“Scary Ladies”

We stayed in an AirBNB apartment in the Bywater area of New Orleans. It was convenient for the things we thought we might like to do, and with the bedroom layout, it suited our needs well enough with the kids. It really is nice to be able to wake up in the morning and make everyone a relatively stress-free breakfast before we head out for the day. There was some interesting artwork in the house as well, which I liked. On one wall of the living room area was a large adhesive of a woman and a girl, kind of abstract and ghostly. Maya was scared of it. She didn’t want to be around it at all. But the neat thing was that she kept having theories about why the little one was sad. And she decided that the bigger one was her mom. To this day, she continues to talk about “those scary ladies on the wall in New Orleans.” I kind of love it that it made such an impression. We haven’t braved taking the two of them to any art museums or exhibits yet (not counting the sculpture garden), but maybe we should consider it.

Ian, getting into the spirit

On Thanksgiving day, we wandered around a bit in the French Quarter around Jackson Square and along the Mississippi River. The kids were really needing to run their sillies out and we hadn’t found a great way for them to do that. Because it was a holiday, most of the restaurants were closed, so our figure-it-out-as-we-go approach wasn’t really netting good results. We wound up ducking into a fried chicken joint for some chicken strips and honey-buttered biscuits. It was solid, if not particularly adventurous.

We were fortunate to have been invited to our friends’ parents’ Thanksgiving dinner, so after kid naps, we headed across Lake Pontchartrain. Maya was still out of sorts from being sick and the long day of travel, so she was a little unruly (of course, she’s always a little unruly), but in general we all had a really nice time. The food was amazing, and I can’t say enough nice things about the hospitality. We were made to feel welcome, and it really was nice to spend the holiday with friends.

Ian inexplicably dislikes doughnuts

The next day, we decided to take the kids to District Donuts for a good start. We wound up with a chocolate milk doughnut (by far the best), a brownie doughnut, and something pink of Maya’s choosing whose name i do not remember. The only thing we could get Ian to eat was the chocolate chunks from the brownie doughnut. And the table. Maya had a fine time watching the folks in the back make the doughnuts by hand.

Not 100% sure this was meant to be climbed

After that, we were off to the Insectarium. There were lots of touristy activities we could have done with the kids, but we wanted to shake up the zoo-aquarium-children’s museum rut we felt we had fallen into, so we took them to a bug museum instead. It was really neat, and the kids seemed to have a good time. There were many species of bugs in enclosures that were low enough to the ground that both kids could wander up and easily see what was going on. There were plenty of places for them to climb around (whether they should have or not is debatable) and interact with the exhibits. We popped into the cafe and had some treats made with bugs. Maya took a stab at eating a cricket and Ian tested out a mealworm. Despite my open attitude toward food, I tend to balk at eating bugs. I did eat both the cricket pumpkin pie and the mealworm cornbread, thank you very much. Gotta set a good example for the kids, you know.

Celebration in the Oaks was a big hit

That night, we went to the Celebration in the Oaks. The already incredible New Orleans City Park is rendered ethereal by a thorough coating of holiday lights and decorations. We rode a train around the park, which Maya loved and Ian hated. We snacked on kettle corn, learned about Cajun Santa, saw the most amazing miniature train set-up, and played in Storyland. We even scored photos with Santa! It was probably my favorite thing we did while on this vacation.

The next day, we really did need to give the kids time to just run and play, so we kept it low key. We had beignets at Morning Call (because you kind of have to have beignets somewhere). After that, we just wandered over to the first playground we saw in City Park and let the kids play. They climbed on a giant oak tree and swung and slid until they both looked like they might like a nap.

We had lunch at Cochon Butcher that day. It was easily the best meal of our trip. The kids were again a little finicky about their food, but Sean and I dined on all manner of things I can no longer remember and had a wonderful time doing so.

Maya loved the street car

After a rest at the house and a dinner not really worth mentioning, we took Maya for a ride on the street cars. I don’t know what it is about mass transit, but she loves it. Busses, trains, airplanes – she’s always ready to go. Maya had been watching those street cars during our entire visit, and she loved the ride. Ian, surprise surprise, hated it.

The next day was our very long 12 hour journey home. Like many of our vacations with the kids, this one was hard, maybe one of the harder ones we’ve taken. Apparently we are nostalgic folks though, because looking back on the photos now, we seem to only focus on the fun we managed to have.

Maya started Montessori school this past summer. She’s in a class with kids ranging in age from 3 to 6 years old. I don’t really know how early children form friendships, but Maya has been indifferent to interacting with other children. She loves grown-ups and is excited when we have people over for dinner or whatever. But kids her own age, as far as we can tell, have been of little interest to her. Given this, we weren’t sure whether to try to have a kid-focused birthday party this year or default to our buy food and beer, bake a cake, and invite our friends to the house approach. We finally decided we’d try it out. If nothing else, it would give her a chance to interact with kids outside of school.

Birthday girl!

Lolli and Pop came over to Texas, and we had a little family dinner on the actual day of Maya’s birthday. Anna, Lolli and Pop, and all of us held down a big table at Louisiana Longhorn and let Maya have all the fried seafood she felt like eating (which was apparently very little, since she was so enamored with the fried pickles). She and Ian even left with a few strings of beads, much to their delight.

The next day, we had Maya’s actual party at Jump USA and invited her classmates and some of her friends to join us. It worked out well. Maya and the other kids got to run and jump and expend their energy. Then we all hung out in a little set-aside area and opened gifts and ate cake.

Party at Jump

Maya had two cakes this year. The first, per her specifications, was chocolate, icing-free, and had an octopus on it. The second, which we took to her party, was a yellow cake that I coated in blue icing. We bought some pre-made sugar decorations so that Maya could help me pretty up the cake, which she enjoyed. There were some Finding Dory candles on there as well because of course Maya loves Hank the octopus.

Decorating her party cake

Speaking of our favorite cephalopod … I asked Maya what she wanted for dinner after her party and she immediately shouted “Octopus!” She’s eaten it really well in the past, so we figured we’d go for it. It would be fun to share some with Lolli and Pop too. The ones we’ve cooked in the past have all been small, less than a pound a piece. Sean bought a relative giant this time: one octopus who weighed about three pounds, even without innards or a couple of his tentacles. I prepped it the way I have in the past and it turns out, I think I like the larger ones even better. If cooked properly, octopus is firm, but not rubbery. There was more meaty flavor to enjoy with the larger tentacles. Sadly, Maya has turned a corner on culinary octopus love. She didn’t have more than a bite or two before she gave up on it.

The only rough spot was that Maya had been battling yet another illness for a few days leading up to her birthday. She wasn’t really sick enough to stay home, but wasn’t quite well either. I think her party kind of pushed her over the edge. She was hacking a blue streak by the end of the night and was clearly run-down.

Ian, for his part, enjoyed Maya’s birthday very much. He had so much fun that for the next month, we regularly fielded questions about when he would have his own “happy birthday.”

Maya – age 4, Hank – age ~12 weeks

Our house has suffered heavy feline losses this past year. We thought it might be time for Maya to have a pet of her own. We discussed a fish tank given her love of sea creatures, but figured she’d lose interest since they don’t interact. Ditto for hermit crabs. We considered gerbils but had read that Maya’s age group isn’t as gentle as they’d need to be with something that small. Guinea pigs would be better, but they really need to be bought in pairs, and they’d need to be in a large cage that would require daily cleaning. It all got to sound like too much of an ordeal. Ultimately, since we’re already set up for them, we decided a cat would be the way to go. It just so happened that someone had brought several abandoned kittens into our vet’s office. Sean found one that was particularly affectionate and after a bit of discussion, that’s who came home with us. Maya named her new kitty Hank, and the two of them are most definitely friends.

Hank is a putty-colored short-haired cat who has a giant purr and a very sweet disposition. He’s a little skittish if you come up on him in a hallway, but if you’re safely sitting down, he won’t hesitate to make himself comfortable in your lap. The kids both love how silly and playful he is. Maya erupts in peals of perfect giggles whenever Hank attacks our feet, her toys, or his own tail. The only one who’s met Hank and not fallen in love is Pumpkin. She was content to be the only feline member of our household and would frankly rather be snoozing than dealing with a kitten.

Since her birthday, Maya has found all sorts of things that her four-year-old self can do now. “I can reach this now, because I’m four.” It has mostly worked in our favor, but she of course still decides when her age is relevant and when it’s not.

Maya and Lolli

She’s a very tall girl, and true to her genetics, she’s thinning out as she lengthens. She wears size 5 and 6 clothes. Thinking I was clever, I bought some sale size 5 things for her last fall to save for our lengthy spring-summer-fall warm spell this year, but she’s stretching out at such a rapid clip, they may not even fit her when spring rolls around.

Maya’s current interests run the gamut from art projects, to collecting leaves, sticks, snail shells, and acorns in the front yard. We are also collecting bottle caps to turn into a fish craft later on. She likes Finding Dory and Shopkins and Paw Patrol. She watches Creative Galaxy, Tumble Leaf, and Stinky and Dirty on Amazon. She’s been learning how to use a scissors and also helps me out in the kitchen by cutting things with a butter knife. I have made her some sight-word cards because she knows all her letters and their sounds and expresses interest in learning to read. It ruins me a little the speed at which she is growing and maturing. I can feel myself shutting down when people make jokes about how soon she’ll be driving or going off to college. For now I’m content to revel in silly poop jokes and the fact that she thinks of a snail shell as “treasure.”

How many people with a three year old kid can say that their kid has already wanted to be an octopus twice for Halloween? Because we can. Maya was Hank, the octopus from “Finding Dory” this year. She had the costume picked out early on. We toyed with the notion of having all four of us dress up to coordinate with Maya, but we couldn’t quite pull it together. Instead, Ian was Mickey Mouse.

Maya as Hank, Halloween 2016

Unfortunately, a couple weeks before Halloween, Ian came down with some kind of miserable coughing, stuffy-headed, fever-inducing crud that kept him out of school for three days. Maya followed behind him that very next weekend, going one further and developing an ear infection on top of it.

Ian as Mickey Mouse, Halloween 2016

This is the first year she was going to go trick or treating. The past couple years, we’ve taken the kid or kids to the local block party instead. Last year, we tried to talk her into it, but she told us she wasn’t going to actually say “trick or treat,” so we decided against it. She was very excited about it this year. She and Ian had been practicing their delivery and had their cool candy buckets all ready to go.

But Maya was sick. Ian was over the worst of his illness, but he was still coughing a bit and was clearly a bit run down. We vacillated on whether or not to stay home, but in the end, we decided to let the kids try out a few houses and see how it went. We were careful to keep our germs to ourselves and kept our outing fairly short. The kids seemed to really love it, and our neighbors had gotten into the spirit of things, decorating yards and houses and wearing costumes themselves. Maya not too subtly suggested that we should decorate our house too next year.

Jack-o’-lanterns

We did carve pumpkins. Sean ran out and got a big pumpkin for each kid. During our date night, Anna helped the kids choose a design and draw it on their pumpkins. Then I gutted and carved them as time permitted during the week. Maya chose, you guessed it, an octopus. Ian has been pretty smitten with jack-o-lanterns, and so he and Anna went the more traditional route on his. I don’t know if it was the quality of our pumpkins or the warm, moist air, but those pumpkins rotted very quickly this year. I bet we didn’t have them out three or four days before they had to be thrown out.

The Friday before Halloween, the kids attended the carnival at their school. This was before Maya got sick, or we wouldn’t have gone. This basically means that Ian walked around with us and nibbled on candy. Maya alternated between the bouncy house and the big blow up slide the school had set up in their parking lot. We tried to take Ian into a slightly more sedate little blow up maze type thing. He crawled about two feet inside, sat down and played with plastic balls until I pulled him back out.

Pumpkin Patch – early October – 90 degrees

I’m really glad we eked out a bit of Halloween fun in all this. That illness was a soul-crusher. The kids could hardly sleep for coughing so horribly. Maya was actually to the point where her breathing was labored. Both of them wound up hitting the albuterol again. Sean and I, of course, both got sick too, but it was definitely less pronounced with us. We didn’t have any fever, and it didn’t seem to last quite so long. From Halloween on, our year is full of birthdays and holidays. All of us being well during that entire time simply isn’t very likely. We do our best to celebrate regardless.

Our plan had been to take the kids to visit their grandparents over the week of fourth of July. After some serious sticker shock over the price of flights, we scooted our trip to the week of Labor Day and did this crazy deal where we flew into Memphis, drove down to Birmingham, drove from Birmingham to Friedheim, drove from Friedheim to Memphis, and finally flew back home. All in the name of saving money on our four plane tickets.

Ian is slowly making his peace with air travel

In many ways, our travel luck on this trip was terrible. It took something like two hours for us to get our rental car in Memphis that first evening, which pushed our arrival in Homewood / Birmingham into very late territory. On our way home on the last day, they simply cancelled the Houston to Austin leg of our flight, and we wound up renting a car and driving home. This wouldn’t have been too bad except it took them FOREVER to get our bags off the first leg of our flight and into our hands. We could have gone on and they’d have sent our bags to us, but we had to have them because Maya’s car seat was checked. We got home very late, and then on top of that, Sean dropped me and the kids off so I could get them to bed, while he went and returned the rental and picked our car up from the airport.

On the other hand, Ian seems to now be capable enough of entertaining himself that he didn’t scream for the entire flight. It was amazing. The amount of relief I felt cannot be adequately described. Here’s hoping it’s not just a fluke! Even the sometimes long car drives were handled with relatively little distress.

We got to do many fun things with the grandparents. In Alabama, we again got to go to the very fun pool in Homewood. Maya and Ian showed off some of the jumping-in skills they were learning in their swim lessons, and everyone had a very good time playing in the water.

Pop on a bed of nails

The kids also got to visit the McWane Science Center again, which kept both of them busy and entertained for a period of time.

What was nice about the McWane Center visit in particular is that Sean and I did our best to melt away and let Lolli and Pop hang out with the kids. With Ian, if I’m too close, he’s probably going to stick with me, and during the Alabama leg of our visit, he was still getting over a bit of a cold and wasn’t feeling very sociable.

More McWane center fun

The kids both loved all the cats at Lolli and Pop’s house. Ian, hugger of all things furry, was especially enamored with Baa-baa, who would put up with Ian laying on him and giving him a full-body hug without complaint. We even caught him several times sitting comfortably in Baa-baa’s pretty pink cat-bed.

Ian loves Baa-baa. Baa-baa tolerates Ian.

Maya, like her cousin AP before her, has developed a complete infatuation with Pop. It feels like we hardly saw her while we were in Alabama because all she wanted to do was hang out with him. He taught her how to play hide and seek, which she has been playing with us at the house ever since. He played with her endlessly, whenever she wanted. It was very sweet.

Grandpa teaching Ian about money and credit

The two things Maya had latched onto about her past visits to her grandparents’ house in Missouri was their really spectacular room full of toys and their equally fun pond full of fish and turtles that Maya got to feed. Unfortunately, their pond had “turned over” earlier in the year and everything in it died. When we got there, the pond had dwindled to “large puddle” status and was devoid of most living things. Maya and I still walked down there and watched the dragonflies skim along the water though.

Discovery Play House

The kids’ fun outing in Missouri was to visit the Discovery Play House. There were so many things for both the kids to do there. Other than Ian falling and knocking the bejesus out of his poor forehead, it was a very fun visit.

Aunt Rachel, Maya, Grammy, and Nathan

We had a day where all the cousins were at Grammy and Grandpa’s house too, and that was a lot of fun. Maya and Ian joined Henry and Rosie and Lily and Nathan in making spin art paintings. Paper spins quickly in circles and the artist drips paint (or in Maya’s case, squirts a giant glob of paint) onto it, and the spinning motion flings the paint outward. The kids all seemed to really enjoy it, and they made some really neat paintings.

Toucan twins – Maya and Rosie

As many of our trips have been, this one was hard, but good. The kids really seemed to connect with their grandparents more quickly this time around and spent a lot more time playing with them. It was fun to see Maya beckon Sean’s dad with an extended “Po-o-o-o-o-p!” from whatever distant room she happened to be in. It was cute to watch Ian climb around on Grandpa and grin when he played with his beard. It was adorable to hear Ian talk about his “Wahwee” (Lolli) and to see Maya monopolize Grammy’s time to color stencil after stencil after stencil.

Believe it or not, it isn’t all about cats dying at our house. I haven’t written about the kids in a while, and here’s why: they’ve both started preschool now. We are now without our Anna. Her last day with us was July 1st, and the kids started their new school on July 5th.

Super-nanny Anna!

It was a bit of a rough ride at first. We had actually tried to start Maya at a more traditional preschool back in June. I won’t use the word “disaster” but it didn’t go well. The potty training in particular took a huge step back. I think they just weren’t in a position to offer her the kind of attention she needed. The other thing that bothered us is that we couldn’t figure out if Maya was really eating lunch. They served food family style and we’d get reports from Maya like, “the other kids got all the food first” and “I didn’t like anything.” It already felt so strange having her away all day, not knowing how she spent her time and who she saw and what she learned. Then to pick her up every day to find her pants wet and to wonder whether she had eaten was just too much.

That’s our girl!

The kids now go to a montessori school. We discussed Maya’s transition at length with them before we agreed to attend. What I was impressed with was their kindness. They seem to have a good learning environment and a lot of structure, but they temper it with what seemed like a clear concern for their students. I can’t say it hasn’t been without a few bumps in the road, but Maya is doing very well now. She adores her teacher and the potty training is actually going exceedingly well. Plus, I have to pack the kids’ lunches, so I at least have some feedback on how they’re eating.

Seriously, this guy!

Ian is Ian and of course has settled right in. These days, I come in to pick the kids up and several of the teachers (including the school director) tell me how much Ian loves them. I don’t bother telling them that he loves everyone. When they first started going to the new school, he’d cry every time a teacher came to take him. He’s still a bit clingy from time to time, but now, Sean barely sets him down before he’s trucking it back to his classroom.

Maya, not quite four and Ian, not quite two

Before school started, we bit the bullet and got Ian his first haircut. It made me a little sad to cut off his curls, but his hair was so long in front it was causing him trouble. By now it’s so long, we really need to get it cut again.

Ian’s first haircut

Maya as well had been telling me she wanted her hair to be short. Initially she wanted it to be short enough that she’d be able to see the skin on her head. Sean and I discussed letting her do it, just so she could see, but we were worried about her getting sunburned. Instead we settled on a sensible bob, and she loved it. That haircut suits our ability to get her out the door in the morning (no need to install a ponytail) and it suits her inability to keep said ponytail in for more than a few minutes.

Maya had her first piano recital over the summer as well. Her music school makes a point of having them perform early and regularly so that it simply becomes part of what they do and hopefully takes away some of the associated anxiety. She did fine of course, even adding her own little hop at the end before the final bow.

Maya posing on the ball at Target after a successful recital

With the start of preschool, the kids wound up getting sick A LOT. I thought we had done a pretty good job of getting them out around other people and exposing them to a good barrage of microbial life. I guess nothing really compares to the disease stew that is a group of toddlers and preschoolers. We were lamenting how our summer had evaporated without us really noticing. I think it’s because we spent the better part of a month and a half fending off one kind of illness or another.

I’d love to say we’re past all that now, but as they say, winter is coming. I expect a fresh round of awful is heading our way. I keep reminding myself that we’re building good, sturdy immune systems in those kids. Here’s hoping.

Maya posing with Hank from “Finding Dory”

Earlier in the summer, Maya got to enjoy her first trip to the movies. We took her to see Finding Dory. We were sort of on the fence about whether she could sit through it (spoiler: she couldn’t), but then we noticed that one of the characters was an octopus, and we all know how Maya feels about those. Then we found out that the Alamo Drafthouse was doing a little carnival. It was on. We actually took an afternoon off work so we could take her while Anna watched Ian. Maya had a great deal of fun at the carnival, and did an acceptable job of sitting in the theater. We made many trips to the bathroom, almost certainly because she was bored, and she told me repeatedly that the movie was too long.

Ian and Mom in the pool at swim lessons

The kids are both enjoying their swim lessons. Maya, while obstinate, is doing a good job of propelling herself through the water. Ian, despite also being capable of propelling himself through the water and even controlling his breath, now steadfastly refuses to do so. He will jump in the water all day long, but if you hold him in the water and ask him to cover three feet between the swim instructor and you, he will no longer do so. There’s not much for it but to keep trying. He’s very comfortable in the water; he just hates forced swimming.

At any rate, what we have to share right now are their school photos for this year. Maya has an interesting way of smiling when she’s doing it intentionally that looks more like a grimace. But we’ve had her take selfies before too, and she’ll work her grin around till it’s just the sort of grimace she wants. It’s not like she’s unaware of it. My original plan had been to fill in some of the things described above with photos; I suppose there’s an outside chance we’ll come back and do that in the not-to-distant future.

I am now the last Missourian left at our house. The week before last, we lost Velvet, the only remaining member of the trio of kitties that moved from Missouri to Texas with us after we graduated college. Since she was a stray, we don’t really know exactly how old she was, but we’re guessing in the neighborhood of 19.

Velvet

Sean rescued her in 1999, while I was actually already in Texas, having graduated and become gainfully employed. He lived in a basement apartment and the people in the upstairs apartment appeared to have moved and left her there. He didn’t think too much of it until it got cold; then he started to worry. I received all this information during our nightly phone calls. My memory is inexact at the best of times and downright terrible after 17 years, several jobs, and two kids, so treat this as a dramatization. The timeframe, though, is accurate.
Night 1: Hey, I think the people upstairs may have left one of their cats. She’s really sweet.
Night 2: It’s supposed to snow tonight. I’m worried about that cat.
Night 3: So, I took our new cat to the vet today for shots. She’s really mean to the other cats. We need to come up with a name for her.

Food, glorious food

When Sean took Velvet in, she weighed about 6 pounds and was a full-grown cat. They estimated her age at 1-3 years. As I heard it, she’d hunker down in one spot in the apartment and hiss and growl if any other cat got near her. And wow did she eat. She ate like there might never be food in front of her again. In other words, she ate like she had been abandoned. Neither of us were used to cats that didn’t regulate their diets fairly well, so she achieved a fair “bowling ball with legs” body shape before the vet kindly pointed out that we may switch her to lower calorie cat food. It changed nothing. There was even a point many years back when Velvet had a dental issue and had to have all but her tiny grooming teeth removed. Even then she didn’t lose weight. At her peak, she weighed 16 pounds. When she died, there was less than four pounds of her left.

We often called her Velvet Elvis, or Velvis for short, because her lip would get stuck on her gum and it would kind of look like she had the Elvis snarl going on. It also didn’t hurt that her physique would have looked at home in a sequined jumpsuit with some rhinestone sunglasses shading her eyes. Maya even regularly referred to her as Velvis, though she certainly didn’t understand the reference (we’ll work on that).

Velvet in the snow, probably unwillingly

Another facet of Velvet’s abandonment manifested in her unwillingness to be outdoors. We’d take the three cats outside to let them roam a bit. Applet and Verbo would happily sniff and poke around (or run up a tree). Not Velvet. She would immediately run back to the door and wait there till someone would let her in. We figure she thought the other cats were insane. C’mon guys, what if they don’t ever let you back in??!!

She was the sweetest lap kitty that ever lived. That’s all Velvet really wanted: to sit in your lap and be petted. We used to call her Hooks after the cop from the Police Academy movies who had the quiet little voice. She’d sit at your feet and whisper meow at you till you sat down and then she’d happily hop up and and settle into your lap. As rotund as she was, she made a great monorail cat, tucking her feet up beneath her girth, but her preferred way of sitting was more interesting. What she liked to do was have her butt in your lap and her face toward yours. Then she’d stre-e-e-e-etch out her front legs as far as they’d extend so that she looked like a giant furry raindrop. She sometimes would even knead your face a little with those extended paws.

Velvet snuggled up with my pregnant (with Maya) belly

Velvet also really loved string. She would wake from a dead sleep half-way across the house if she heard the whisper of string unspooling. I’ve never (and I mean never) seen that cat move fast except when she had string to chase.

Travel was a little difficult with Velvet. She was terrified of the car. The poor thing would pant when she was scared. In the car, she would pant to the point that she’d have giant shoestrings of drool dangling from either side of her mouth to the floor. Needless to say, after a point, we tried to let her stay home more often than not.

Velvet loved it when we had a baby; she could lay on all the baby stuff!

At the beginning of this year, Velvet began to have a lot of what I’ll delicately refer to as litter box trouble. We had been dealing with her kidney insufficiency for a number of years by then and had just been told she was likely to have intestinal lymphoma as well. Since she was on her last legs at this point, we decided that we’d put her in a cage and let her live out her days there. Sean found the giant-est dog enclosure he could at the pet store. It was large enough to have a litter box, a bed, and water with decent separation between them. After the first couple days, she decided she loved it, even getting a little pissed at us if we didn’t put her back in her cage quickly enough after meal times.

But cats are astonishingly resilient creatures. She puttered on like that for months and months. She spent nearly all of her time curled up in her bed sleeping. But she’d wake up for petting. She’d wander out of her cage to eat her meals. She’d even get pretty vocal if she thought we weren’t conforming to her preferred timeline for dinner.

Velvet curled up on the turtle Lolli had crocheted for Maya

She put up with Ian’s abuse like a champ, seeming to welcome it even. When she was caged, he’d stick his pudgy little arm through the bars and she’d rub her face on him, Ian giggling all the while. He still stands up on the couch looking over the back of it and pointing to where the cage used to be while yelling, “Belbet! Belbet!” And I sadly explain to him every time that Velvet died. She’s all gone. We don’t have her any more.

At the end, Velvet was carrying around a pretty heavy burden of diagnoses: hyperthyroidism, kidney insufficiency, intestinal lymphoma, and pancreatitis. Sean had taken her in for some fluids (for her kidneys) and an injection of Procrit (to help with her anemia) and was told that she was severely dehydrated. A day later, she wouldn’t move to eat or drink or use the litter box. We had her euthanized that same day. We’ve struggled since the beginning of the year with the question: was this the right time to put her down or was there still some quality to her life? The vet had advised us back then that if she stopped seeming like herself, it was probably time. That day it was obvious. Velvet had left the building.

Verbo died this past week. She was over eighteen years old, a good long lifespan for a cat. It still felt too soon.

Pretty Verbo

She was one of the three Missouri kitties that had moved with us to Texas in 1999. Applet died in 2012, and with him and Verbo gone, Velvet is the last Missouri cat standing at our house, and even she’s on her way out.

We adopted Verbo from a shelter in Rolla in 1998, largely because Applet, our first cat, seemed lonely when we were away at our college classes. We went to the shelter and were amazed to find a cage full of bouncing, long-haired kittens. Nearly all the little cats came running up to us, meowing their most forthcoming meows. One little gray and tan kitty scuttled to the back of the cage, trying her best to be invisible. We worried no one would pick the one who ran away from attention, so we took her home with us.

Little ball of fluff

Applet hated her. For three days, he postured and hissed. Finally one day we came in to find him giving her a bath, and from then on, he was known as “mommy Applet,” and she was in the club. Even early on, she was a destructive force. Little ball of fluff that she was, there was no place that she couldn’t wedge herself into, no height she couldn’t achieve, no scrap of food she wasn’t willing to scavenge for. We found her atop 6-foot tall shelves, rooting around in the trash, demolishing rolls of toilet paper, chewing up strings, tags, photos, and books. Her cumulative property damage bill would be substantial.

Verbo and Applet

In Verbo’s mind, she was a cheetah. Not long after we had gotten her, we took the cats outside to play in the yard. Applet was always a stop-and-sniff-everything cat, so we weren’t too worried. Verbo, we came to find out, was a runner. We had barely set the cat down before she covered 30 yards, bounced sideways a bit, and then looked at us to see if we were going to chase her.

Sean loves to tell the story of how Verbo had gotten out of the house he lived in toward the end of his college career (the 808 house in Rolla was a renowned residence of the college DJ set, and has since been torn down). She waited on the sidewalk till Sean walked out and then sprinted around to the back of the house. He was barefoot, so he had to go back in to put shoes on. When he came back out, she was waiting for him on the sidewalk again, as serene as a spring breeze. As he moved toward her, she again bolted around the house. Sean thought he had her then since she was heading for a dead end. She waited till he got to her and then tore past him to get back to the front of the house, where she proceeded to run straight up a tree, seeming to maintain speed even as she went from horizontal to vertical. The shoes Sean had chosen were flip-flops, so he went inside yet again to change into real shoes so he could climb up and get her. When he returned, she had come down the tree and was yet again waiting for him on the sidewalk, clearly enjoying their game of chase. Sean, by this point, was through playing and lured her in with a can of wet cat food.

This cat could relax like no other

We were poor in college and couldn’t do anything so regal as board the cats, so we drug them home to visit our parents in Missouri and Alabama. Applet and Verbo were great road-tripping cats. Applet would often lay across Sean’s shoulders or sleep in my lap, and Verbo would sprawl out in a console or row of cup-holders. Once Velvet came along, traveling with the cats became harder. She would pant in fear till long shoestrings of drool would dangle out either side of her mouth.

Their lives in Texas were pretty ordinary, but Verbo, being the curious cat she was, still managed to get herself into trouble from time to time. For example, there was the time she got sealed into the wall. Thanks to some questionable new home construction practices, leaky plumbing destroyed some of the drywall in our first house. A hole had to be cut into the wall to allow for things to dry out, and apparently while the workers were away, Verbo nosed her way into that hole. When the workers returned, we’re assuming she panicked and ran further in. Not noticing the cat, the workers sealed up the drywall and went home for the day. Later that evening, we were searching high and low for the cat and were starting to worry that someone might have let her outside when we heard a quiet meow coming from the ceiling. Sean sawed out an opening and gently pulled Verbo out. While she beat a hasty path to her litter box, Sean left a very colorful message on the construction supervisor’s voicemail.

Verbo was a fairly vocal cat

Questionable construction aside, things were pretty great for those cats till we had kids. Once Maya and Ian came to town, they became second-class citizens in our house. Velvet and Pumpkin (our only Texas kitty) have learned to tolerate and even love the small and unintentionally rough hands that pat and rub them. Verbo, on the other hand, was always an avoider, and it was tough because she was easily Maya’s favorite. In the past few months, Maya had taken to trying to pick Verbo up and move her around and hug her. The cat was not impressed.

Sean wanted photos of Verbo going after sunflowers. It took zero coaxing on our part.

Verbo was the great food thief in our house. Everyone knew they couldn’t leave anything out, even for a minute. She has tried to steal frozen fish from a baking pan, she’s chewed through countless plastic bags to get to food, and she has made it to every conceivable surface in our kitchen in search of some tasty morsel. And she wasn’t just a great food thief, she was an amazing eater. Especially when she was younger, there was very little she wouldn’t happily consume. Sean was once sitting in a chair eating a doughnut, and Verbo was right there in his lap, biting into the doughnut from the other side, yanking for all she was worth. All meats were in her repertoire, of course, but also odd things like tomatoes, broccoli, and even jalapeños. The absolute strangest though were corn husks. If we brought fresh corn home, she’d be dancing at our feet fairly frothing in excitement. I’d shuck it straight into the trash can, and there she’d be, ready to get it back out and chew it up. She had a real fondness for greenery.

Verbo’s death caught us entirely off guard. She had been rock solid forever. We were pretty sure that she would outlive us. Velvet has been struggling with kidney insufficiency and intestinal lymphoma (among other things), and so most of our non-child-consumed energy had been focused on her. Cats are great masters at hiding their infirmities, and Verbo was probably more masterful than most.

Probably begging for food

To us, it seemed like Verbo’s illness came out of nowhere. A week before she died, she was still jumping up on furniture and stealing food from the kids’ plates. A day before, she was still dancing around under the table begging Sean for table scraps and nearly removing his finger when he offered her a few small cubes of steak. And then we noticed her stumble. Verbo, as a rule, did not stumble. She was the embodiment of feline grace and agility. We thought she had been losing weight, but picking her up, we were alarmed at just how light she had become, how all her lithe and wiry muscle seemed to have melted away. Sean took her to the emergency vet where she was found to be intensely anemic. She was given a blood transfusion over night. We knew it was over when we got her back home the next morning and watched her for a bit. We should have seen immediate improvement after the procedure, and instead, she was so much worse. After some examination from the vet, it was determined the likely culprit was intestinal disease of some kind. She was euthanized that same morning, but in the state she was in, she wouldn’t have gone on much longer.

Maya has taken it pretty well, thankfully. It’s hard to explain death to a three year old, and while we kept it simple, I’m certain she doesn’t quite understand. She tells us she’s sad and that she misses Verbo and asks often to see photos of her. Sean and I are still working through it. We still put things with tags or strings up high so she won’t chew them, we still keep a watchful eye on our food so she won’t steal it, and our eyes still fill with tears when we don’t see her tucked away somewhere, calmly watching us from a distance. She was the cat-est cat we’ve ever had, and we will miss her.

I won’t say we took this trip on a whim, but last month we kind of did. We wanted to take a spring trip, and San Diego sounded nice enough, so we just went for it. From all accounts, there’s really no bad time of year to go, and while it was a bit cool, I’d characterize the weather during our visit as very pleasant.

As seen in the Spanish Village Art Center in Balboa Park – Probably a good thing for two techies to remember

We booked a Homeaway rental for our trip, and it’s been our best experience yet. The downstairs of this couple’s home had been converted to a standalone living area, complete with kitchen, washer and dryer, and its own entrance. Maya referred to it as our San Diego home, which must have made us sound very well-to-do to anyone who overheard her. It suited us well. They had a stroller and a high chair in their closet. They had a rail we could put up so Maya wouldn’t fall out of bed. The house is right in Mission Beach, so we were less than a five minute walk to the bay-side beach in one direction and the ocean-side beach in the other.

Our travel days were a little odd this time. Since Maya has started piano lessons now, we wanted to leave after the kids’ music classes on Saturday morning, so we booked an afternoon flight. It was great for us getting packed and loaded up at a slightly less insane pace, but it did make for an incredibly long day.

As usual, Ian was un-thrilled with flying and let everyone around him know about it. Toward the end, I must have looked as desperate as I felt because the man sitting next to me took pity on me and told me I was doing a good job. It was a very kind gesture, and I appreciated it. Maya was great on the flight. The iPad and her enthusiasm for getting to go to San Diego carried her through the trip on the plane, baggage claim, and the shuttle to the rental car place. While we were waiting for the rental car though, her pent-up San Diego-beach-zoo energy became too much to contain. She full-on sprinted back and forth through the rental car place, and let me assure you, not all our fellow travelers were impressed with her display. Sean and I may as well not have been there for the amount that she heeded our advice to not run into people, or run out the door and out into traffic. (She didn’t run out into the street; it was just the scenario that played through my head every time she bolted toward the door.)

We finally got our rental car secured, two car seats installed, and luggage and children loaded up. Thanks to Waze and the instructions from our landlords, we found the house with no trouble. Also the San Diego airport is right in the city, so once we were in the car, it really didn’t take us long at all to get to our house. We got everything set up pretty quickly and kids to bed. Then we did something we’ve not done before on our family vacations: Sean ran out to the grocery store and loaded up our little kitchen with simple breakfast items for everyone and some snacks for the kids. Our normal mode is to try to sample as many local restaurants as we can. However, during our Denver trip last fall, this often meant that we didn’t really get a start on whatever activity we had planned till 10-10:30 or even later. Thanks to the time zone change being in our favor and quick breakfasts at “home,” if we wanted to, we could get a pretty brisk start on our day.

Maya at Balboa Park – 3 years old

We decided to spend Sunday at Balboa Park. We could have spent our entire vacation here and not seen everything that sounded interesting (which was, you know, all of it). Balboa Park is a collection of museums and other attractions sprinkled throughout sprawling outdoor spaces right in downtown San Diego. The San Diego Zoo is in Balboa Park, but we would be devoting an entire day later in the trip just for that. Even saving the zoo for another day, we still had to be selective about what we tried to see. We started our morning visiting the Nikei Gator (haven’t been able to confirm this spelling) sculpture outside the Mingei International Museum. That’s where the kids played while Sean ran and grabbed a map.

Ian (and Mom) at Balboa Park – 16 months old

Next we took a hike through Palm Canyon. I hauled Ian in a backpack carrier, and Maya doodled along collecting rocks and sticks and other interesting pieces of nature. The walk was easy and peaceful, the scenery beautiful. Since we took the short walk at Maya-pace, by the time we finished, it was nearly time for the puppet show at the Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theater. The show, Whispers of the Forest, was anchored by a giant talking tree who was visited throughout the show by various forest creatures all while an ax-weilding man napped in its roots. Ian was ok with it as long as there was plenty of action, but it was tough to contain him during the show. Maya was fidgety in her own seat, but did better once she climbed up on Dad’s lap. I think Sean and I were a little ambivalent about the show, but Maya still occasionally regales us with bits of the story they told, so I guess it left an impression on her.

Crazy puppet show at Marie Hitchcock Puppet Theater

The wise folks at the puppet theatre have a display of variously-sized puppets for sale on the way out the door. Maya chose a little yellow duckling, who she has named Quacky. She loves Quacky, and apparently, so does Ian. We would regularly hear the kids in the back seat of the car during our trip (for the remainder of the vacation, Quacky and Oddipuddy shared status as things that must ride in the car with Maya). Maya would “quack quack quack” her duck puppet at Ian, and Ian would giggle.

Our lunch at the Tea Pavilion was acceptable. They were out of sushi … and chicken. The limitations were frustrating, but the kids eventually ate more or less enough to pretend they had had enough food.

After lunch, we took a very pleasant walk up to the Bea Evenson Fountain. It took a lot of convincing to keep Maya out of it. Actually, now that I think about it, keeping her from diving into fountains was a recurring theme during our park visit. After the fountain, we meandered over to the Spanish Village Art Center. By this time, Ian had fallen asleep in the carrier on my back. We strolled over painted rocks, listened to an acoustic guitarist strumming out jukebox standards, and window-shopped the various arts and crafts on display. In one corner lived a fat squirrel named Mr. Fluffytail. He had his own bowl of peanuts tucked into one of the flower beds and seemed unalarmed by the passersby.

Mr. Fluffytail at the Spanish Village Art Center

We made our way back to see the free 2p concert at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, which houses the largest outdoor pipe organ in the world. It was truly amazing to listen to that giant organ, but by this point, Maya was getting really antsy, so we only listened for a few minutes before loading up and heading back to the San Diego house for a rest.

Since Ian had had such a good sleep on my back, he was disinterested in further napping at the house, so he and Sean checked out our local beaches while Maya had a little snooze. Once rest time was over, we all went to the ocean-side beach, collected shells, and played in the water a bit. We didn’t let Maya bring Oddipuddy and Quacky to the beach, so instead, she insisted instead that they sit in the stroller together while we were gone. At one point, Maya stopped playing in the sand long enough to inform me that they had texted her. Curious, I asked her what they had to say. They wanted to let her know that they were having fun in the stroller. I guess they didn’t need us and our stinky old beach.

First afternoon at the beach

Dinner that night was at a Mission Beach restaurant called Single Fin Surf Grill. It was solid. Sean and I had a couple of local beers. The kids had fried fish tacos. The adults split three dishes. The two memorable ones were Sriracha Shrimp tacos and Nasi Goreng, both of which were wicked good.

We gathered up the next morning to drive into downtown and try out the Donut Bar for breakfast. The line wasn’t too bad and it wasn’t long before we had way too many doughnuts to sample. Maya had one called Homer’s Donut. Sufficiently carbed up, we headed to the New Children’s Museum to let the kids run around and have fun. And they did have fun, but the adults were less impressed. Maybe the museum was in some kind of transition phase just then, because there weren’t very many exhibits. I think I just expected more. Even with letting the kids take as much time as they wanted to playing and exploring, we still were finished well before lunch time.

Maya eating Homer’s Donut

Lunch was a bit of a disaster. We decided to try Underbelly, a rambunctious little ramen bar. The food was great, don’t get me wrong. But there were no high chairs. Ian is to the point that he’s just about impossible to feed while he’s on my lap. He’s difficult to contain and he won’t sit still on his own. Within minutes, I had sauce on my pants, Ian was in tears, and of course, no one was really able to eat. Instead, Ian and I went for a walk and played outside on the sidewalk while Maya and Dad finished up their lunch. It was actually really nice. There was a fountain Ian could splash around in, and the entire city was sprinkled with purple-bloom-coated trees that we later discovered are jacarandas. Later that afternoon during rest time, I had the rest of my buns. Believe it or not, they were still actually pretty good.

Maya at Belmont Park

That afternoon, we decided to walk to Belmont Park. It was only about a mile away and we didn’t feel like figuring out parking (not remembering that it was the off season and parking wouldn’t be a problem). This was an error. For one, a mile at 3-year-old pace takes an amazingly long time. For another, it had gotten cold by then. Most of us were fine in the cooler air since we were walking, or in my case, packing Ian on my back. But poor Ian was cold.

Ian at Belmont Park

We wandered around Belmont Park, watching the roller coaster cycle for a bit. We rode the carousel, which Maya seemed to enjoy and Ian was unsure about. Then we went inside to the arcade so the Ian-monster could warm up before our walk back. Maya and Dad played skee-ball and shot hoops while Ian and I moseyed around poking at buttons and pushing in the little doors that allowed access to prizes. Maya (with Dad’s help) acquired enough tickets to trade them for a piece of candy and a tiny plastic octopus.

We picked up Mr Ruriberto’s for dinner and hiked it all the way home. There were a handful of acceptable tacos, but the real winner was the carne asada fries. If I were ever to find myself slightly knackered in San Diego, I’m pretty sure carne asada fries would be what I would want to eat.

The next morning, we hit the road early to get to the zoo. The San Diego Zoo is widely held as one of the best in the world. We had been talking it up to the kids, telling them about all the exciting animals they’d get to see: the standard elephants and monkeys and giraffes, sure, but also more exotic creatures like pandas and koalas. Maya wanted to know if there would be ducks. Every time we talked about it, she made sure to verify that there would be ducks. I honestly wasn’t sure what to tell her.

Panda!

We were there at the opening and got to see the ceremonial release of the parrots. Maya was thrilled watching the jewel-hued birds launch from their cage up into the trees. Because we had heard there could be long lines and because Ian and Maya aren’t spectacular at putting up with said lines, we decided to head to see the zoo’s star attraction, the panda bears, first thing in the morning. We were rewarded with absolutely zero line and two rotund black and white bears, mother and son, happily munching on bamboo. The son even climbed up and checked us out a little.

Koala!

The weather was fantastic and the grounds were beautiful. If the kids were a bit older or it was just Sean and I, I think we could have happily meandered away our entire day. As it was, we had to pick and choose a little. The pandas were great, but my favorite thing to watch all day long was the polar bears swimming. Those giant (and I mean giant) bears were just swimming languidly about in their water, and graceful as otters. We watched them pop up and munch on carrots, mess around with a toy ball, and dive in to swim some more. We also saw koalas, which are kind of unique. They didn’t really move a whole lot while we were there, but that isn’t surprising since they spend something like 20 hours of their day sleeping.

We ate lunch at one of the zoo restaurants and had the best smothered tater tots I’ve ever eaten. They were cheesy and topped with bacon and holy wow I was happy. (I changed my mind. If I ever find myself knackered in San Diego, THIS is what I want to eat.) While we sat there, much to Maya’s delight, we were frequently visited by what seemed like a whole flock of mallard ducks, complete with a string of ducklings with a very protective mother. They hung around the tables clearly scamming for some people food. I think it was probably the highlight of Maya’s zoo experience, and Ian was pretty tickled about it too. And I was relieved that she got to see the only animal she actually asked about!

The airport is right in the city

After lunch, we decided to ride the aerial tram. Ian was pretty much finished with being held or in any way restrained by then. The ride was pleasant though. We got to see the zoo and the rest of Balboa Park from above. Sean even managed to capture an airplane in one of the photos.

Sean and I could have easily kept wandering around looking at animals, but the kids were getting tired. On our way out of the zoo, we stopped in at the souvenir shop so they could each choose a stuffed animal. Ian shopping for stuffed animals is adorable. He’s a very snuggly guy, and that extends to his animals. He must have hugged and tried to kiss every animal toy we encountered. Eventually, Sean held up a couple of stuffed pandas for him and he chose his favorite. Maya on the other hand, simply could not decide. Had it been up to her, she’d probably have gone home with a giraffe that was bigger than she was. As it was, after picking up and putting down who knows how many and covering the entire store several times (and driving Sean bonkers in the process), she went home with a big, red macaw.

After a good rest, we went out to meet a friend of ours from college and her husband for dinner at Station Tavern. The food was tasty enough, and of course the company was great. I was a little worried (terrified) that we were again not going to have a high chair for Ian, but in the end, it worked out. In between kid-wrangling, we had a very nice time catching up. My favorite line from the evening though was from Maya at the bathroom. Let me back up by saying that this kid did an AMAZING job of dealing with a variety of difficult potty situations on this trip. We are so proud of her! In this case, she told me she had to go, so we headed over to the rest room. We had to wait a bit for another person to finish so Maya had some time to check things out. She had been learning how to tell which one is the men’s room and which is the women’s, so she’d been very focused on the signs on the doors. After staring at the door for a while, she looked up at me in surprise and said, “She’s doing it on the moon!” I was a little confused until I saw what she saw, the way she saw it. There was a handicapped access symbol on the door, and sure enough, if you don’t know better, it kinda does look like she’s doing it on the moon.

Ian at Coronado

We took the next morning at a leisurely pace and arrived midmorning at Coronado. The beach was wide and pretty, and the kids had fun running around in the sparkling sand. The seashell collecting was great closer to the water. At our beach (yes, we’ve already come to think of the bay-side beach by the rental house as ours), the seashells were mostly worn and broken. Here they were whole and their texture was still distinct. Maya loaded up Sean’s designated seashell pocket and tucked a few in my pockets to boot. From our brief toe-dipping at the ocean beach by our house, we knew the water would be cold, but the kids wanted badly to get in, and we were going to let them. After suiting them up, we took off toward the water. Of course we knew Maya would be excited, but even Ian was tugging me along as fast as his little legs could go, grinning and squealing about that ocean. We stood there, probably not even mid-calf on me and let wave after frigid wave roll into us. Ian giggled as they crashed into his belly and chest and didn’t seem overly fussed when his face was splashed. Maya wanted to go further in.

Maya at Coronado

Eventually the kids were looking kind of blue, so we took them out against much protest. We tried it one more time after letting them warm up for a while. Maya was all in, naturally, but after a few waves crashed into his legs, Ian remembered how cold he had been the last time and wanted to be picked up. It was getting to be lunchtime by then, so we went up to the beach bathroom, showered the sand off the kids, and got them dressed.

Lunch that day was really great. We tried out Fish Market and managed to get a seat right by the windows in their glassed-in patio. Even with two wiggly kids, it still managed to be peaceful. We could look down and see water through the slats in the floor. The birds landed right outside our floor to ceiling window. We watched all manner of boats trolling around. We even enjoyed our food. It was like picnicking without the hassle of breeze-blown food and unwanted insect life.

We took the rest of our day at a leisurely pace. We went back to the San Diego house to rest then played at the seashell beach (Maya’s name for the bay-side beach). It was this afternoon that Maya decided that they called it SANDiego because of all the SAND on the beaches. This is the same girl that has deduced that fluoride shouldn’t be swallowed because to comes from the floor. We assume that later on, she’s going to be a pun-spinning genius. Later on, Sean picked up dinner from Arslan’s Gyros. It was one of those follow-your-nose deals. It had smelled so wonderful when we walked past it that he decided to try it out. Even a little cold from the delay between pickup and meal time, it was still pretty good, and because we could just sit at home and eat, it was a nice, stress-free decompress for mom and dad.

Dad, Maya, and Ian at Cabrillo

On our last day in San Diego, we took the kids down to Cabrillo National Monument, intending to check out the tide pools. The main parking lot near the tide pools was closed for renovation, which turned out to be a stroke of good luck. We parked at the next lot down and walked along the coastal path back toward the tide pools. That hike was gorgeous, punctuated by rocky bluffs, crashing waves, and lots of pelican fly-bys. Maya, true to form, hiked the entire thing by herself (except for one giant set of stairs toward the end that Dad just wanted to power through). The tide pools themselves were not much to see just then. My guess is that the low tide wasn’t quite low enough for us to see the good stuff. Still, the hike alone was worth the visit.

Beautiful hike to the tide pools at Cabrillo

We stopped in at the visitors center and took a walk up to the old Point Loma lighthouse. Maya was exceedingly enamored with all the bees that frequenting the many flowers lining our path. She still talks about all those San Diego bees getting nectar from the flowers. Ian was enamored with moving moving moving. The more he got to walk, the better. He had been cooped up in the backpack carrier during nearly the entire hike, and now he just wanted to roam.

Point Loma Seafoods was our destination for lunch. We had beers on tap, freshly prepared fried sea creatures to eat, and a big dining room to settle into. I was the big winner for that lunch, having tried out whole-belly clams for the first time. YUM. I’m sure the delicious beer and reasonably content family colored my impression a bit.

The only thing Sean had specifically asked for on this trip was to visit the Ghirardelli Ice Cream & Chocolate Shop, so that’s exactly what we did after lunch. They plied us with samples on the way in. Sean and the kids split a giant chocolate brownie, and I enjoyed an extremely rich cup of drinking chocolate.

Maya and the beloved beach ball

After this, we did our now-routine have a rest at the house and then visit the seashell beach afterward thing. We took the beach ball along this time. We had been meaning to the whole trip and just kept forgetting. The kids both knocked it around for a while in the sand, and thanks to the lack of wind, it didn’t run away from them too badly.

Jellyfish!

Maya and Ian both desperately wanted to get into the water. Maya had even managed to sneak her toes in with Daddy’s supervision. Looking down at his own feet, Sean was startled to notice a jellyfish. His dad-instincts kicked in and he immediately checked out what Maya was doing. Yeah, her toes were about an inch away from one of them. Further exploration revealed that they were thickly spread all over the shallows where the kids wanted to play. She was not impressed that she would have to stay out of the water.

That tiny little dot is her ball.

It wasn’t long afterward that the real drama occurred. A little gust of wind caught the beach ball and it flew into the water. Faster than I’d have imagined, it was swept out where we couldn’t grab it, even if we were willing to tromp through jellyfish. In fact, in no time, that ball was halfway across the bay. Maya was distraught. Full-fledged unhappy, tears running down her face, distraught. She exclaimed in her sad, sad voice, “I need my beach ball very badly.” We were both so impressed with her grammar skills, especially under duress, that we looked at each other in wonder. And then she informed us that the jellyfish needed to get out of the water so we could go get her ball for her.

We tried so hard to get the kids to walk together. They had their own ideas.

Once everyone was settled we drove down to the Crystal Pier. It was neat to walk out, hand in hand with the kids, past the cottages on the pier and out to the very end where folks were lined up fishing. We watched the big waves roll in and took in the surfers riding them for all they were worth. I mentioned that the water was cold, right? Most of these folks were wearing wetsuits, but there was one crazy man out there in nothing but swim trunks. He must be part polar bear. It was amazing to watch them. Ian enjoyed trying to climb the fence and Maya enjoyed trying to catch sea gulls.

Our last meal in San Diego (not counting toaster waffles for breakfast) was takeaway from Rubicon Deli. Their sandwiches were pretty great, and the kids weren’t too crazy at dinner time. It was kind of the calm before the storm since we basically had to completely pack for our return trip after the kids had gone to bed.

Heading home

The return trip was pretty uneventful. Ian screamed. Maya played with the iPad. All in all, it was our usual kind of flight. Thinking back on the trip, I wish we had substituted something else for our day at the New Children’s Museum. A trip to La Jolla to see the Birch Aquarium and take a hike along the beachside cliffs might have been time better spent. All in all though, I think it was a great trip. No, Ian still doesn’t fly well, but I do think he got more out of this vacation than the one to Denver. Maya loved her visit, and Sean and I loved it too! We now regularly discuss relocating to San Diego, though we aren’t sure we can stomach the sharp uptick in cost of living.

It’s annual bluebonnet photo time again. Poor Maya and Ian (and Sean and I) spent about two weeks with some kind of miserable crud earlier in the month, and it has taken a serious bite out of our lives. We haven’t gotten around to our springtime things yet. We haven’t hung the hummingbird feeder. We haven’t planted anything in the flower pots in the back yard. The barbecue grill is still a neglected mess (which has been its state ever since we’ve had kids).

Ian in the bluebonnets – 15 months old

The bluebonnets kind of caught us off guard this year. Once you notice them out on the highway, if you have a weekend with nice weather and no other plans, you jump on it. You never know when rain or the odd cold snap could muck up your plans. This past weekend, the weather was pretty nice and we had some time, so we cobbled together some outfits for the kids and hauled them out to our usual spot.

Maya in the bluebonnets – 3 years old

Maya and Ian individually can be coaxed into taking nice photos. Okay, to be fair, getting nice photos of Maya is more due to luck than any coaxing. But Maya and Ian together in a photo both looking at the camera and smiling is a flippin’ unicorn. It drives Sean nuts.

Our uncooperative subjects

Ian is walking now, though he’s still pretty wobbly. He’s been able to walk for a while, but he enjoys the security of a hand to hold on to. The turning point occurred when he and Maya and Anna went to a park with lots of little round pebbles. Ian was so enamored with the rocks that he forgot he couldn’t walk. That evening, walking was all he wanted to do, all over the house. It was so much fun. In the bluebonnets, he was on pretty uneven ground, so he regularly plopped down on his butt – much safer that way.

Dad has a camera!

Maya is doing some new things too. For a while now, she’s been playing this Stack the States game and is able to identify all fifty states by shape, can place a number of them on a blank US map by herself, and can call out a number of states if you give her the name of a capital city. She even has her favorites: South Carolina (it’s a triangle), Louisiana (looks like an octopus), Texas and California and Alaska (“they’re big guys”), Minnesota and Kentucky (<shrug>).

She has also amped up the drama lately. We now routinely get things like “but it’s my FAVORITE” and “I don’t EVER want to listen.” Her ability to express herself continues to grow in vocabulary and inflection. She will now deliver whole paragraphs at a time about her day, and while it’s sometimes tough to follow her particular brand of storytelling, it’s enlightening to see which things have made an impact on her and which details weren’t worth noting.

Take all the photos you want, Maya won’t give an inch

The kids are now both requesting music to listen to when we’re in the kitchen. Maya requests things by name or sometimes cryptic description (play the one Ian likes, no the OTHER one). Ian gestures. He claps his hands and then points to the speaker when he wants “Six Little Ducks,” which is his favorite. He throws his hands above his head when he wants Maya’s favorite. She calls it “the hands up song.” It’s actually “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus. Blame Sean. (Funny aside: Maya seems to think that Miley is in the room with us. She’s forever showing her things like her octopus, her brother, and how she’s dancing right now.)

Next month, we’re going to try another family vacation, this time to San Diego. Maya has been much more interested this time. San Diego already has one big thumbs up because it’s in one of the aforementioned favorite states. It gets another because there’s a zoo. And beaches (though we haven’t told her yet it will probably be too cold to get in the water much). She flips through a travel guide we bought and points out photos, “I want to go to there.” Usually it’s the beach.

For my part, I’m dreading taking Ian on the airplane. But for now, here are way too many bluebonnet photos!