Birthday Celebration Part III

We got to celebrate Samuel's birthday at school on Friday.

 

 And Teacher Rachel read the second to last chapter of "My Father's Dragon"

 All the kids are in love with this book.  When I found a copy of it in our bookshelf (as well as book 2 and book 3) Samuel's eyes lit up.  Steve and he have been reading it every night as well, repeating the chapters that have been read it in class.

Is it possible that my first born is 5 years old today?

We headed to Dolores Park, per Samuel's request to celebrate

 We stopped at Pancho Villa, first to get burritos for our picnic lunch.

Wait, is this Steve's birthday or Samuel's?  I see a tradition in the making.

The new park had some very cool slides

 And xylophones

 Samuel and Shira had a great time playing together

 

 Not sure how I could be any luckier 

 When they were all played out they had some much needed cuddle time

 They convinced me to do a train down the super long steep slide

 And then they remembered the ice cream

 So to Bi Rite we went.  Samuel was going to have the banana (he didn't even want any samples!) and Shira wanted "the one with cookies".  Then they both tried my sample of strawberry balsamic, which won the day for both of them.  Obviously I need to train them better - no one is allowed to get the same flavor.  

They took full advantage of Steve and I following that cardinal rule, however.  Steve wasn't sure he was going to get any of his ginger and Shira made sure to have more than a few licks of my chocolate coconut. (Since they foiled me in my attempt to get strawberry balsamic...)

Today

The Space Ship.  Shira's under there too.

 Also, these are apparently Samuel's "favorite" scissors. I have no idea why, or when they became his favorites.  But I was informed of this as he took these three pictures and then gave me specific instructions not to erase the pictures.  So here you go, Samuel.  I've included your fave scissors in the blog.

Preschool Field Trip (Shira Style)

A couple of weeks ago we went on Samuel's preschool train field trip, and yesterday we went on the same field trip with Shira's preschool.

Shira was very excited for the trip.  She kept saying, "Samuel will be at preschool.  Daddy will be at work.  It will just be me and Mommy having special time on my field trip."

On Monday morning she came running into our room and said, "I super excited for the field trip today!"

Who knew teacher Mindy could look like such a nut?

One happy girl 

 We found the Canada Geese.  At dinner, Shira loved having Samuel and Steve try to guess what kind of animals we saw at the park.  I finally told them it was a type of bird.  They still couldn't guess.  Shira started telling them she saw an ostrich and cracking up.

 Exploring

 Heading back to the train

Birthday Celebration - The First of Many

This past weekend we celebrated Samuel's and Shira's birthdays with Bubbie, Popsi, Lena, Sara, Uncle David and Auntie Suzette.  Hard to believe that I am soon to be the parent of a 5 year old and 3 year old.

Rough Cycle

We have definitely been riding the behavior roller coaster all the way to the bottom of this set of track with Samuel for the past couple of months.

Yesterday, he was staring in the refrigerator when I told him to close it, if he was still hungry, he had a quesadilla sitting on the counter.  He picked up said quesadilla and flung it across the room (whacking me hard on the arm with his throwing hand in the process.)

I actually think we may be on the upswing, though.  I was surprised by the flinging of the beany, avocadoey, cheesy tortilla item through the air because we had been having a lovely day up until that point in time.

Last week the violently tossing of foodstuffs across the room would not have shocked me in the least.  It would have paired perfectly with the yelling at me for not doing exactly as he desired every moment in time, purposefully wandering the house looking for things he knows he should not do, and deliberately finding ways to make his sister scream, repeatedly, until I intervene.  Shira for her part has responded to this behavior by hitting and biting Samuel, and then telling me that she did it very matter of factly.  I imagine that is my fault since the first time she responded badly to Samuel's deliberate needling, I told Samuel that it wasn't surprising that she acted that way, and was likely to get hit by lots of people if he treated others the way he has been treating his family members (I also told Shira she shouldn't hit or bite, but I imagine the lack of sympathy for Samuel - bordering on satisfaction at her response - set a bad precedent.)

My very attached child has apparently discovered he is an independent being and is doing everything he can to prove he is not me.  I believe I'm getting a nice window on adolescence.  It looks awesome.

He just informed me that he doesn't want me to be present on any of his playdates anymore - including in our own house.

As an added bonus, now after Samuel asks me what I'm making for dinner, he usually responds by saying "yuck!"  The only things he won't complain about eating are fruit, nuts, bread products and cheese.  Everything else he insists he hates, even if he then proceeds to eat it and enjoy it.

Woo hoo.  Loving parenting right now.

The Garden April 2012

The tomatoes below are all volunteers.  We haven't planted anything yet, this year, but all of these tomatoes decided to seed themselves from last year's crop.  We have no clue what any of them are.  I think we'll still have to plant one or two somewhere else, just in case none of these are successful.

 The bay tree that we've managed to almost kill and then bring back to life several times, is once again coming back to life after looking very sad for the last year.

 Artichokes! 

I've actually been giving away artichokes, recently.  Shira and I love them, and will eat two per night, but I've been picking 5 a day, some as big as Samuel's head.

 The artichoke plant below is several inches taller than I am.

  The pear tree has a few pears on it already.  We were very disappointed when our neighbor told us we should pull the fruit off this year, so the roots would grow stronger and it would produce more next year.  I haven't had the heart to do it yet.

 The stone fruit tree has also grown a lot, and begun fruiting.  Unfortunately, the nectarine and peaches seem to have leaf curl.  I'm pulling all the fruit on this one too, and we'll have to be sure to sulfur it in the winter.