Two Nights at Nana's

The Corn Tiger graduated from baby to two year-old big boy last week.  He spent two

nights at Nana's house by himself and gave up the boob (the latter, not without a tussle).

It was one of the hotter weekends of the summer season so far and we spent a lot of time outside with as few clothes on as possible, meaning a light dress for me and nothing at all for CT.

We had breakfast, lunch and dinner in the yard, went swimming at the pool in the afternoon, had icy cold drinks.  He was so 'cited that he couldn't lay down long enough for a nap, which meant we fell asleep together around 9 pm and got up by 7 am, a might early on both ends for my schedule.

He brought me some little bean plants that he had started by himself with his poppa in his garden in the city and we transplanted them into my garden, shaded them with a beach umbrella and watered twice a day to keep them from wilting.  He helped me water and picked up leaves and pinecones wearing the miniature version of garden gloves I got for him.  "I'm a working man, " he told me solemnly.

He re-invented the game of baseball with a hard rubber ball and a long plastic bubble container he found in the yard.  I took him to the dollar store to get a plastic bat and ball so he wouldn't bean himself or me while he was practicing hitting.  I tried showing him how to "keep your eye on the ball," but he's better at throwing the ball out himself and swinging at it, connects with the ball about every third time.

Filling the buckets for water play.

"This is my tub."

It was so hot when we drove to the dollar store that I had to put a towel over one of the metal car seat buckles so it wouldn't burn his legs.  We stopped downtown for what had to be one of his first ice cream cones.  He already knew he wanted a cone, not a cup.  A cone for "only me, Nana, only me."  I've never seen someone so concentrated on soaking up every bit of the taste on his tongue, one slow lick after the other.  He took his time, enjoying every lick and every bite. 

On the bench our friend Sarah painted.

Whole tongue lick.

Lick.

Lick.

The poppa of CT's best gal Joon is Fireman J. He came by on Saturday morning to take the kids to the fire station. Came equipped with two-kid bike wagon, two kid-sized water bottles and copious snacks.  I was prepared to ride along on my bike, but FJ said "You've got an hour.  Do what you gotta do and we'll meet you downtown."  Dad award for the summer.  Maybe the year.

Saddled up.

Poppa FJ getting ready to roll.

Saturday night it was still hot at 8:30 pm, so we walked down the street to the park with the neighbors just before dark.  He loved being out on his scooter in the warm night, playing in the deserted playground with just Chloe, his big girl friend from across the street.  By the time I got him to leave, I had to wheel him home as he sat on the scooter platform, his feet carefully held out straight in the air to keep them from dragging.

In the sand pit.
"I missed these guys."

Scooting to the park near dark.
Helmet light on.

We got through the second night with the promise of "Momma is coming tomorrow morning.  We'll go to the bus station to pick her up."  He slept through the night with no diaper and no accident in the bed.  So proud to be able to tell Momma, so excited to see her.

Watching Mother Goose a la Richard Scarry with Momma.

I'm not saying we didn't have a dark hour in the night.  He broke my heart when he woke up at 5 and 7 am the first night crying "I need my Mom" in tragic tones.  But we got up at 7 and started planning our day and he got interested in yard work and play.  And there were some moments of sorrow and even anger when he realized that, though Momma was here, he wasn't getting any more boob.  But she has been gradual weaning him for months and it was a good time to make the break.

It's so hard to give up the baby but so much fun to have our time with the little boy.

More soon.

Little boy kisses for now.

N2

The Tiger Turns Two

It seems that time runs faster with each generation. It doesn't feel like twenty four months have passed and yet, the Corn Tiger turned two last week. The Dear Daughter started sewing banners a couple of weeks ago in the little time she has at night after the Boy is in bed. Uncle George arrived and got caught up in the fun of crafting the felt party hats. ("Pom poms! We must have pom poms!") My friend LC and I drove down the night before to help with the party prep.

Joon organizes the party hats.

Let's get this party started!

Party animals.

Sid proudly showed off his new room that Mama had painted and furnished as his birthday present.

Papa drew a special birthday message on the new blackboard wall.

Nana baked the two cocoa apple cakes.

Everybody brought presents.

Dumping finger

puppets on Papa.

A favorite gift from Rob.

Party dregs.

Time to get outside.

It was a fun family gathering with Papa's and Mama's families and friends well represented.

So glad I made it back from the Far East in time to be there!

More soon.

Cocoa apple kisses for now.

x0,

N2

That Side and This

The Corn Tiger and the Dear Daughter helped me with the packing at home, which went on until midnight in spite of my 5:30 am wake up call the next morning.

Ah, well, it included treasured moments such as CT "packing" himself into my suitcase and practicing jumping out, as he intended to do when he surprised me in Saigon. Sooo hard to resist! But his Mama insisted on keeping him home.

My dear friend C valiantly volunteered to pick me up and deposit me at the SoCo airport so I could catch the 6:45 am, an hour which is normally very late at night for me, shuttle to San Francisco Airport. The light was beautifully stark as we crossed the Golden Gate.

Getting to the plane and into the air went very smoothly. (SF International is one of my favorite terminals for just that reason.) The flight was lo-ong, of course, but it took 10 instead of the 14 hours on a very dry Northwest Airlines flight that I remember being pretty excruciating in 1989. We stopped over at Narita Airport in Japan, the same path I took with my video partner on that first trip. I am sure Narita has improved in the ensuing 23 years, at any rate, it, too, was easy to navigate, even in my jet-lagged state, and I whiled away the layover time getting a preview of the current Japanese culture -- interesting, even funny, snacks, respectful snack bar servers!, young Tokyo hipsters getting ready for their flight to Los Angeles ...

Then on to the next All Nippon Airways flight for the 6 hours to Vietnam. I sat next to a Vietnamese/American who immigrated to the US when he was six years-old. He lives with his family in Houston, Texas, and works for his father in the family-owned machine shop. He was traveling back to Vietnam to visit his grandmother here. One of the kinder and more helpful seat mates that I've had for awhile.

During landing on this flight, they displayed the feed from an "airplane nose cam", so we saw pictures of the touch down and the taxi to the terminal from that angle, a first for me and I do travel a bit, as you know. The new international terminal at Tan Son Nhat is right up to modern standards -- more windows open to check passports than at CDG in Paris or Kennedy in NY, the baggage came in more quickly and painlessly than it does at many airports in the world, much better than London Heathrow, that's for sure, where it is not unusual for your bag to just not show up. My brother and his lady friend were waiting for me at the exit and whisked me into the busy, warm and humid night life of Saigon.

So, I've made it to the other side of this pond.

More dispatches as the journey continues.

Hugs from Ho Chi Minh City for now.

x0,

N2

PS-Check the N2 & LC Dailies link in the upper right corner of this blog page for more pictures.

Christmas. Passed. Fast.

I hadn't had a Christmas tree in years, but I couldn't resist

getting a little tree for the little guy this year.

Most of the time I cut button eucalyptus branches at a friend's house and decorate the mantel piece with that, fairy lights and candles. This year we had a formal hanging of stockings as well, like when "the kids" (now in their mid thirties) were little.

But this is what makes Christmas sweet, right?

And this.

And this.

Sid. Open.

That'll be the Corn Tiger. Sid. He knows his name and talks about himself in the third person.

Sid do it. Sid eat. Sid shoes black. Watching him learn how to talk in Nana time is so much fun.

I got the gift of three days and nights with the Daughter and the Corn Tiger at my house over Christmas. It was great to have them around for breakfast, lunch and dinner, for mornings in Nana's bed, walks downtown, splashing in the bathtub, bedtime stories and singing to sleep.

Jooon!

D and CT got to go visit her high school friend and daughter, R & Baby June, down the end of the street and we had R and BJ up here for dinner. So great to see this second generation of friendship forming.

He already knows how to ride his scooter "Fast, Fast!".

Here's hoping there were moments of magic in your holidays

that will follow you into the New Year.

More soon.

Fast kisses for now.

x0 N2

Vrooom!

The Dear Daughter and the Corn Tiger are installed at the apartment down in the City and I am missing the gift of participating in their daily life. He can't quite ride the "scoot bike" I got him for his birthday, but he still likes to take it out. When they were here he would look through the glass panes in my front door before he was even dressed for the day.

"Vroom?"

He would call to his little wooden bike parked on the front porch, asking if it was still there.
"Vroom Walk!"

He would hold the handles and walk it down the front steps from the porch, with me at his side saying, "Careful. One step. Now careful."
Across the stepping stones in the front walk and right at the sidewalk.
"Stop at the corner and wait for Nana. Look both ways. Anybody coming? Have to be careful of those big cars. OK. All clear. All business in the street."
Once across, we'd turn right in front of the elementary school and he'd take off running beside Vroom.
Those little hips wagging. Those little sneakers pit-patting on the sidewalk.

"I FAST!"

Vroom! The days slip past. And he's only 20 months at Christmas.

More soon. Love for now.

N2

It's About Time

I know, I've been a Bad Blogger all summer. Bad Blogger! Bad, Bad Blogger!!

Sit! Sit, now.

Post!

That's a Goood Girl.

What can I tell you? It's been a bizzzy summer and will go on that way into Fall.

Thanks to those who sent a mail to see where the heck I was. So thoughtful and I didn't even get back to you. Too bizzy for that, too. But I hereby send apologies and hugs back at ya'.

~~~

I'm going to get back in the saddle the easy way, with pictures of the Corn Tiger and family.

They came here to California and then I went to Brooklyn to visit them. We'll do the same in September, in reverse. I'll go to Brooklyn first and then the Dear Daughter and the Boy will come to stay with me for awhile.

Nana is excited! (CT never did say Grandma. I wanted to be Nana anyway, and Dee said, "Well we'd better start calling you Nana then." And he heard that and said "Nana", and so it was.)

Dee said the boy asked to call me today and they left a message on my machine. He said "Hi Nana." 16 months old. What a smarty! When he was here he played back the messages on my machine from the handset, something I didn't know how to do. Three times. So it wasn't only by mistake. He liked listening to the two old messages on there all the way through. Funny Boy!

At first he just wanted to try on my reading glasses, because I have them on most the time and he wanted to see how they felt. Once he caught sight of the floor through the lenses, he would walk around with them on looking down to get this closer view of the floor as if through a magnifying glass.




Such a baby still sometimes and yet already such a Boy!

It was wonderful fun to get up early and have breakfast

outside in the sunshine while he explored my backyard.

And I am usually not a morning person!

We went early, June instead of August, for our weekend vacation on the Eel River.

Had a lot of fun with family and friends and Baby June came up for her first visit with us there.

We love swimming in that river! And the new owners of the lodge created access to a new beach this year which was perfect for the little ones.

A few weeks later, I went to Brooklyn on my way to a big re-union of my Father's family in Boston (140 people! More in a later post...).



The Dear Daughter and I took the Boy into the Village for a little children's street fair and stopped for lunch in a pocket park along the way.

He liked the bunch of balloons tied to the railing.

Ball! Anything round is a ball.

Reach. Pinch. Pop!

We hung around the apartment, wearing as little clothing as possible. It was NY in the summer: Hot and Humid! I never was good at that kind of heat, but we managed, at first with one little fan, then I had to buy an air conditioner for the window.

CT had no problem keepin' bizzy, throwing the ball for the dogs and, you know, movin' furniture and such. He's a real city boy, he makes that truck noise when he backs up "Beep, beep, beep!"

As opposed to "Brrrooom!"

Comin' through!

We went out in the mornings there, too, to the park down by the East River to enjoy the breeze with our iced coffee and almond croissant, and then to the playground for some slidin' and water play with Poppa.

Then home to crash for a good, long nap. You notice how he's nearly filling that crib already?!!!

My how fast they grow! And we see it all the more from the relative leisure of the Nana side.

Thankfully, we got a little time with Uncle George, just back from a friend's wedding in Italy. CT and I took a car over to his new apartment on the edge of the Clinton Hill neighborhood. The Momma met us there after her shift at the co-op food store.

Every day was a good day to be with my Loves, even in That Heat.

More soon.

Light Summer kisses for now.

xO,

N2