Frith O’Steen

So on Saturday we took Decker to the zoo with my folks and my sisters, because it was Mom’s birthday and she said, “Let’s go to the city!”. (You shouldn’t have to ask which city, people, but in case you don’t know - it’s the ONLY city that matters, San Francisco!). Never ones to turn down a chance to go play by the bay, we thought it sounded like fun! And it was, especially because when we travel with my family things tend to get really silly.

They’ve made some pretty big changes to the zoo since I was last there. The entrance is in a completely different place, and they’ve added some new places for the giraffes and lemurs. Other stuff is just as old and worn-out as always, but my memory of them as a kid was always “wow! so cool!”, so I’m sure Decker was still impressed. Well, with what he paid attention to anyway. I think he’s still learning to categorize things, and so perhaps in his head the day went something like this:

“There’s a big orange striped thing. It looks like a kitty. That  must be a kitty. There’s a big gray thing…hmmm, not a kitty. There’s a big black and silver hairy person sitting in a tree…hmmm, must be a grownup taking a time out, sleeping on some straw. There’s a …ooh! something on the ground! Maybe I can eat it! Hmmm…dad took it out of my hand, so not ok to eat. But fun to watch dad’s reaction, so I will try again…”

And so on. It was fun now that he can walk, too. A taste of what to look forward to as he gets more mobile and verbal. Looking forward to our return trip!

For those of you dying to know what I’m reading/listening to/watching currently:

What’s on the bedside table? - New Yorker (I’m 3 issues behind though), Entertainment Weekly (sadly, all caught up), Time, Parenting, and “The Devil in the White City” (very good! architecture and true crime - interesting mix)

What’s playin’ in the car? - “Bert’s Blockbusters”, “For the Kids” (awesome collection of groups like BNL doing covers of kids songs), “First Steps” (jazzy music from 40s/50s for kids…sense a theme here?), soundtrack to “50 First Dates”,  Norah Jones (the second album - I like her duet with Dolly Parton)

What’s on the telly? - “Scrubs” (I love you Zach Braff!), “The Apprentice” (sad but true), “Sesame Street”, “Today”, and as many “MST3K” dvds as we can get our hands on from Netflix. I love Netflix. They bring me such joy (and in a very timely manner!).

My poor dad. This summer his primary occupation (aside from his regular job) has been re-doing the roof on my folks’ house. This means climbing up steep inclines protected basically with only a rope harness around his ankle, and working in the blazing hot sun. Still, he was undeterred… a man with a mission. The only times he would come down off the roof was when it got so hot that the tar was melting under his feet! He’s been trying to get everything done as fast as he can, so that it would be complete before the rainy season began. Since in our area that usually doesn’t start till October, I figured he’d finish no problem with no inclement weather to deal with. And then this morning? It started raining hard core at about 6 am! I guess dad, mom and Tully ran around the house trying to catch all the leaks and dripping water and that things got so ridiculous that they started to laugh - as in, “well, what the hell else can we do? hurricane ivan has hit our house!”. I know things will get cleaned up eventually, and that the damage could have been worse. But the fact remains that it rained in several parts of the house this morning! Dad still has the roof to finish…I wonder if he starts to feel like Job sometimes…

Unaware of what was in store for him this morning, last night Dad and Tully and I had a really fun time at the movies. We went to see “Hero”, and I actually liked it better than “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon”. I thought there were more redeeming characters and the plot was better. I liked the ending better too. And the visual effects were amazing. It was like one continuous gorgeous moving painting. Add in some popcorn and some Mike and Ikes, and you’re set!

It’s been really fun to watch Decker this week as he becomes more and more sure of himself and his abilities. I realized in observing him playing with his train today that he is definitely a little boy now! He doesn’t just bat at things anymore indiscriminately, but instead has ideas for how he wants to play with them and what different buttons on his toys mean, etc. He’s still very young, but it’s neat to see his brain developing into a toddler and not just a baby. He’s so interactive with his surrounding world! Hard to imagine that so much can happen in the space of 13 months.

So on Wednesday night my dad treated me and Sean to A’s game tix, and the two of us along with my folks, Katil and Tully all indulged in multiple ‘dollar dogs’, which were sooooo good! I normally don’t eat hot dogs, but man - at a game they are really the thing to have. Well, and malteds that you eat with a wooden spoon. And nachos. And giant sodas in souvenier cups. Yeah, that’s good stuff, you bet. The game was ok, although I’ll fully admit I didn’t pay as much attention as I could have. I was having too much fun gabbing with everyone and using dad’s binoculars to look at folks in the bleachers below, etc.

Katil and Tully also came over last night so we could watch the new NBC lineup. I hate to say it, but I am sucked in once again to “the Apprentice”. So good! A little mac ‘n’ cheese and some no pudge fudge brownies, and we had ourselves a stellar evening! Ah, the small pleasures in life.

Oh! And I got to hang out with Rebecca on Wednesday over in Pinole. She wanted to shop the one day sale at Mervyn’s, so Decker and I went and joined her for a couple of hours. Not the most thorough of visits, given I was wrangling a toddler who desperately wants to explore EVERYWHERE, including other people’s dressing rooms, but still it was nice to see her and catch up a bit. Married life seems to be suiting her quite well!

I’m gonna go see Jet Li’s “Hero” tomorrow night…stay posted for my exciting review!

So Decker decided this weekend that walking is indeed something he could really get into! It’s been so amazing to watch - just like a light switch had turned on inside him that said, “Hey - Decker - walking is actually the more efficient (and less knee damaging) way to get around!”. I cannot get enough of watching his two chubbly little baby legs toddling (such the perfect word for it!) in front of me. He let mom hold his hand as he led her around the plaza in WC, and he appears to be so much more sure of his balance and the mechanics of it all. He can carry an object in each hand (and often one also in his mouth), and then will determinedly forge ahead, often leaving us to wonder exactly how far he’d go if we weren’t there to stop him! Being Decker, he’d probably end up somewhere with a door to try and open.

It’s so exciting to see him try out his independence, and to see the huge grin on his face when he realizes what he can do. Every day he seems to register in his little noggin something new about the world and his place in it. And he has a sense of humor! He has a set of wooden stacking rings, each a different color. The yellow one is really big, and he likes to carry it around and chew on it. Well, having learned recently that he can feed me cheerios, yesterday he decided to keep trying to feed me this big yellow ring! (I kept calling it a giant cheerio). He even goes so far as to giggle, try to pry open my mouth, and push the ring in my direction! Not wanting to repeat the infamous front-teeth chipping incident of ‘93, I of course don’t actually let him succeed. But it sure looks like he’s learning how to “play a joke” on mommy! What a funny kid…

Back to more normal weather today … hooray! It’s a trip to the park for us!

I love being a Californian. Especially a Northern Californian. It’s an awesome place to live - the Bay Area is really diverse, there are so many cool things to see and do, and for the most part the weather can’t be beat. I didn’t realize until a conversation with my dad earlier this summer, that it’s not normal to go without rain during the summer! I mean, it’s normal for California and our Mediterranean climate, but not for a large part of the rest of the country. I always assumed (since this is what I grew up with) that summer meant that the rain goes away and everything stays dry until about October or November. Who knew that so many other folks in the US get rain and it’s not because of global warming? This was an “ah hah wow I feel really stupid” moment for me, much like when I realized in my SENIOR YEAR of highschool that the word “xing” at a crosswalk is shorthand for “crossing”. I always thought that the two white lines that you walk between across the street were called a xing. Yeah, I know. Yes, I still got into grad school!

Anyway - I love that the summers in California are usually fairly predictable, dry and warm so you can go outside and enjoy the great parks and have outdoor barbecues and all that. But boy, you can also always predict that at some point in the later summer, it’s gonna get HOT! And it’s hot right now. I’m no Al Roker, but my obsession with the weather comes from having a small little person in the house who sort of precludes us going outside right now. There’s no way I’m gonna drag him out in the heat if I don’t need to - he could wilt like a begonia! (Do begonias wilt? Well, some fragile plant!). So we hang out here in the a.c. (thank the heavens for whoever installed a.c. in our place! Our next door neighbor doesn’t have it!), and I periodically attempt to persuade Decker to go in the plastic kiddie pool on our patio with me. So far it’s a no go, so I end up with a cold wet tush and he ends up naked, slippery and out of sorts. Good times.

For my German-speaking peeps out there: Es ist sehr heiss! Schade, denn ich kann nicht zu Civic Park gehen mit mein Junge, Decker. Aber, wir werden CNN sehen, und vielleicht vielen Apfelsaft zusammen trinken. Tschuess!

So I’ll admit it proudly - I went to see “Princess Diaries 2” last night. Sean and I gave Katil the DVD of the first movie, which came complete with a pre-paid ticket to see the sequel in the theatres. Katil called me this week to inform me that she was going to cash it in and go watch the movie with Tully, and two of Tully’s friends, Sharon and Anna. I enjoy this bunch, as we all basically get to act 12 when we’re together (typical evening includes some teen flick and a rousing game of “Settlers of Cataan”, and a big batch of some chocolate pastry). Decker is learning the concept of free will as of late, which the past few days has equated to him expressing loudly and for a long while his desire mostly to be constantly picked up by his mom, which of course is not exactly practical, the result being that after an hour or so I think I need to call for an old priest and a young priest to come and exorcise my son…

Anyway. Definitely needed a night out. Sean was great and came home early, took over with little guy, and I took off to watch the movie. And it literally was a “girls’ night out” - as in, everyone else there was either under 10 years old, or over 40 (parents of aforementioned under-10 set). And then here’s us 20 somethings (well, and me - 31)! But the movie was seriously really funny! I actually laughed out loud often! And it was nice just to go be brain dead and eat some Mike and Ikes and be silly. Some little girls were there in their pj’s already…not a bad idea!

So I wrote another fan letter, this time to the author/illustrator Sandra Boynton. Yes, Boynton as in the greeting cards that were so popular in the 80s. Well, over the past few years she has written a number of really cute and fun children’s books, a large proportion of which reside in Decker’s library. Being such an avid collector of her work, I figured I might as well write and tell her how much we like her books. I didn’t hear back from Sandra Boynton herself, but I did hear back from Pamela Boynton, who I figure must be her sister or sister-in-law or cousin or partner or something. I looked her up - she designs jewelry and sailor’s valentines.

Anyway, here’s my correspondance: