Frith O’Steen

Decker sings all day long. His favorites are “Rudolph” and “Jingle Bells”. But being a multicultural kid, he also sings that classic for the ages, “I had a little dreidl”. Here’s his version: “Oh dreidl, dreidl, dreidl/I made it out of clay/And when it’s dry I’ll play with you”. (It’s cute in person, trust me).

The countdown to Christmas has begun. He continues to ask me when it will time to open the presents. And then goes back to report the results to his baby brother. The two of them have been pretty good together, considering they’ve been stuck inside quite a bit with various bugs and rainy days. Sutter’s quite mobile, so he tries to do EVERYTHING that Decker does, and most of the time Decker is a good sport about it. Last night they started squabbling over a toy phone and the next thing we knew, they were playing ‘follow the leader’ in an impromptu game, running circles around the couch, with Decker as the ‘leader’, pulling on the phone receiver, and Sutter bringing up the rear, grabbing onto the pull string and laughing his head off.

And Sutter has a new game - if you wink at him, he blinks his eyes very deliberately back at you and then grins - such a flirt. Very cute.

Until again, faithful readers…

Decker to me, after singing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” : “I’m gonna ask Santa to give Rudolph a game for Christmas, because the elves are naughty and won’t let him play. Then he’ll be happy”

Decker, explaining Christmas to his baby brother on the way to preschool: “So we have to go to sleep, and then Santa comes down the chim-a-nee, and hides presents under our Christmas tree, and then he takes the carrots back up to the roof for the reindeer, and then he has milk and cookies, because that’s how he does!”

Notable quotes from Decker over the past week:

“Stop making my nose smell your food”

“The Grinch won’t steal OUR Xmas tree (?)”

“I love Xmas! Sometimes I hate Xmas and it makes me grumpy. But today I LOVE Xmas!”

“Mommy, you can come downstairs with me and have juice tomorrow morning, because you are my friend”

“Sutter, stop playing! It’s sleepytime” (this, after having wound his little brother up with multiple rounds of ‘throw and fetch the toys from the bed’)

Decker, do you remember where Santa lives?  “On the roof!”

“We’ll give Santa carrots to bring up to the reindeer on the roof. But not oats, because they don’t taste very good”

(Pulling my hair up into two tufts on either side) “Mommy, you look like a fox!” (hey, I’ll take that one!)

“All of us, all of us smell…” (attempting to sing along to “Rainbow Connection”)

This child has lost his mind this Xmas season, and is nuts for all the stuff. Particularly the advent calendar, tree ornaments, and battery-operated singing Rudolph toy. He cuddles it in a near-hypnotic state, and plays it over and over and over and over and over and over and over. And yes, Sutter adores it too.

So I just got back from the store, and came upstairs to what I thought was Decker taking a bath, and Sutter hanging out watching from his crib. But - instead I found both my lil’ guys hanging out taking their first real bath together! SOOOO daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggg cute! Sutter held his own and LOVED it. I immediately ran and grabbed the cameras. And I’m so glad I did, because not only were they so awesome playing together, but I also managed to capture the following exchange:

Decker: Sutter, I want to ask you a question. I love you in the whole wide world! I love you so much in the whole wide world!

Sutter: Phhhhbbbbb

Decker is such a great big brother. Yes, he’s 4 and therefore can drive me nuts. But then he says stuff like that completely unprompted, and I just wanna pop I am so proud of him. No wonder Sutter worships his brother like he’s the sun and moon and stars and everything else in between. I can’t even be jealous, cuz it’s just awesome.

(the other benefit of all the bath footage, of course, is extra blackmail material for when they go to prom someday).

Hi all!

First of all - cats and/or other predatory creatures suck. They just do.  Right after I posted about the sweet little birdies that had hatched in our hanging basket, something ate them! All I could find were sad little gray pinfeathers on the ground - Mother Nature can sure be harsh! So I will never allow myself to get attached to little critters again! (On the other hand, I then recently saw a mouse -TWICE - run by our sliding glass door along the patio - to which I say, “At ‘em, cats!”.)

Now…on to my life lately. It is all about preschool, preschool, preschool. Decker is attending his speech program again this year (and very happy to be back!), but also will be starting an additional school that will run concurrently. This wouldn’t seem so complicated, except they are on very different schedules! So one school goes MWF in the mornings, and the other runs T-F in the early afternoons. So each day is going to differ where we are, whether we are in a hurry to get from Walnut Creek to Pleasant Hill, and whether or not I am co-oping that day or not! It’s gonna be crazy for a while, I get the feeling! But I’m psyched for Decker, and I think he will enjoy both experiences. I’m psyched for me, too. I kinda miss the whole community/committee thing (much as I may gripe about long-running meetings), so I think it will be enjoyable for me too. If I can remember where the heck I’m supposed to be that day!

We have a number of hanging plants outside on our patio, and a few weeks ago a very nice little bird couple moved in and made a nest. Pretty soon, 4 little eggs showed up! I didn’t want to get too excited, since we have very mean crows and hawks that live around here and they like to destroy all the cute little nests that try to get started. But I guess our patio was just well enough hidden and close enough to the scary humans that the big birds stayed away this time, and a couple of days ago, the eggs hatched! I find myself quite taken with watching them - they are so dang cute! Fuzzy little heads, and it seems like they are always stretching up their little necks and opening their mouths looking for food to come their way. I feel an empathy and an affinity for the parents! I’ve seen that same look on my own kids faces - eyes closed, mouths wide open, going ‘feed me!’. (Plus the fuzzy headed little baby birds remind me of my own fuzzy headed little babies). Welcome to our backyard, guys! I think I’ll name you A,B,C and Z.

Ok, so July is just turning out to the be the month of awesome authors releasing awesome books! In my previous post, I of course raved about my allegiance to JK Rowling and her fantastic novels. Well, there is another pretty great writer whom I was lucky enough to go hear speak last night in SF with Tully and my dad. His name is Jasper Fforde, and he is fflipping ffunny! He’s written a number of books about a literary detective named Thursday Next, and I really can’t describe them well enough to do them justice, so to crib a line directly from the author himself: “Trust me - just read it!”. I wore my very geeky “Jurisficition” tshirt and brought my new book with me for him to sign, and it was just so cool to meet the man and listen to a very entertaining talk from a very imaginative person!

For those who haven’t had the opportunity to try a Jasper Fforde book yet, trust me - just read it!

So, Sean is a pretty understanding guy…because for the past 8 years he’s had to share me with the other man in my life, Harry Potter. My sis Tully hooked me on the series back in 1999, and it’s been a true love affair ever since. New books have been anticipated with only slightly less excitement than the arrival of my kids (jk Decker and Sutter! maybe!), and this past Saturday the final chapter, Harry Potter #7, was released into the world. Here’s how awesome my weekend turned out to be, thanks in huge part to Sean and my sisters:

Saturday morning - Where’s my book? Where’s my book? Oh where oh where is my book? Sean takes Sutter with him, and goes to the UPS store (where it was due to arrive, although we didn’t know when) and waits there for almost 2 HOURS for it to arrive! (Out of fairness to me, I did take Decker to get his haircut that morning - but still!). Then, when the book made its way into my eager lil’ paws, Sean bid me farwell and sent me off to Tully’s place for some uninterrupted reading poolside. Katil and Tully each got their copies very quickly after I did, and we spent the next 6 hours reading in silence, puncuated only with gasps or giggles. The book doesn’t disappoint - it starts off with a bang on page 1. Sooo good!

Saturday night - I return home, resigned to having to spread out the pace of my reading, as I do have kids to feed etc, responsibilities and whatnot. Sean however, instructs me to go hide with the book as soon as I can, and I get to read until about 2 am that morning. (Stopped to nurse Sutter, but it was for the best - my eyes were drooping).

Sunday - chat with Tully and discover that she and Katil are ahead of me - DOH! Sadly, I realize I won’t be able to pore through this last book nonstop, as two little boys tend to not give you that much uninterrupted time to yourself. Sean has to work that day, so I figure I will grap snatches here and there in the coming evenings, staying up way too late. But wait! Decker and Sutter and I go to dinner at my folks, and my sisters walk in, having finished the book just minutes before! Argh! I am distraught! And then…Tully tells me she brought her book with her, goes out to the car go get it, hands it to me, and then she and Katil and Dad take the boys upstairs and give me the next 2 1/2 hours to finish the book all by myself in peace and quiet and wonderful wonderful suspense!

Between Saturday and Sunday - what a gift of time you all gave me. It was perfect, and the book is everything I could have hoped for and more. I can’t wait to read it again and again! Thank you to my reading pit crew! And JK Rowling - I salute you. You have created a work of fiction that I think will never be equaled. I feel so lucky to have been able to be a part of the original generation to get to read them. Now PLEASE PLEASE write an eighth one! It can be an encyclopedia, that would be just fine! But I want to know more! Please oh pretty please!

Decker’s excited about Santa, Sutter is smiling all the time, and we’re all finally recovering from the preschool plague - Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year everyone!

Wow - I haven’t added anything to my personal blog for 3 months! (I’ve blogged for D, but not for me! Hee! ok, I’ll stop…). Anyway, the big news of course is that now I am a mom to TWO boys! I have kids, plural. That is so weird to say out loud! “Oh, the boys and I …”. Yikes. But it’s also been amazing and wonderful and exhausting and great all at the same time. Sutter Muir O’Steen, who joined us all in this big big world at 9:43 am on Friday, October 20. (Born on a Friday, just like his big brother!). Most of what I have to say about him will be expressed through his own blog, but I will offer up these few little tidbits for now:

First off, I feel really really really lucky! He is four weeks old today, and has stayed very sweet and mellow. He cries when he’s hungry or gassy or lonely, but we try to stay on top of all three of those things, so as a result he’s an easy-going kid. Decker for the most part seems to have adjusted well - he’s acted out a little bit, but never towards the baby. Mostly I think it has to do with being 3 years old, rather than having a baby in the house. But he tries to talk to him and play with him a little, so that’s nice! I was nervous I had forgotten everything about babies, but am psyched that most of it seems to have come back fairly quickly. I’m also a lot less nervous with this one, so I think that plays out in his mellow demeanor with us. (Or maybe he’s just programmed that way!). I also had forgotten how extremely sleep deprived you get! But Sean has stepped up and helped out in that area, taking care of D in the morning so that Sutter and I can snooze a little longer after the 6 am feeding! Amazing how that extra 30 minutes can really help!

Sean laughed when I told him the biggest adjustment has been in prep time to go anywhere. Basically, I’ve found as long as you take the normal amount of prep time, and then add 20 minutes to it, you’re ok and will make it on time to where you need to go. It’s not scientific, but it’s true!

I had also forgotten how much laundry is involved with a newborn! So now, with me and the 3 guys - well, our energy bill will be interesting to look at! Plus right now we all smell like Dreft!

So, now I have one in preschool and one in a bassinette. When did I become ‘mom of 2′? It’s like I’ve shifted into a completely different paradigm than when I was ‘mom of one’ - don’t ask me why, it just feels like itl. But it’s also really cool. The second time around is a very fun ride!

Given my fatigue level, I’m not sure how often I’ll blog for myself (or how often it will be coherent). But for now let me say - yay babies! and yay sons! and um…yay motherhood! (and yay caffeine!)

- frith