Party Animals

Thank you all for continuing to read, even though I haven't posted anything new for a month. I can explain: we Zoglmans have been partying it up pretty hard around here. Observe:

Wait, no, this is a picture from our honeymoon five years ago! But this is what partying used to mean, right? Slurping alcoholic beverages from giant pieces of fruit? To be honest, I think I only did this the one time, but in retrospect even my low-key, nerdy party style before children arrived on the scene was pretty wacky compared with my current lifestyle-- which, of course, I love. I think maybe kids are onto something. Parties should involve presents, and the pinning of appendages onto paper animals. We all get sugar highs and pizza hangovers, and we stay awake until three o'clock... in the afternoon. Crazy! Are you starting to see why I've been too pooped out to blog? I thought so. 

There are certainly things I miss about social gatherings in those years B.C. (Before Children). For instance, I miss the freedom to make loud noise past 8:00pm. We still have friends over in the evening from time to time, and we don't tiptoe around or anything, but the reality is that our house is small and our children sleep only about fifteen feet away from the TV speakers. You know how prey animals will sit bolt upright when they sense a predator is near? Yeah, I do that at least once a night when my mother sense tells me that Someone Is Awake. Then, to alert others in the room, I stand up with my eyes wide and my hands palms-out as though frozen in the act of performing jazz hands. This is body language that screams shut up, with the result being that even if the girls go right back to sleep without a hitch, I have usually managed to kill the mood of frivolity.

Even more than a noise-tolerant atmosphere, I miss playing board games (although I suppose, to a certain extent, the two go hand-in-hand). Avery and I still do play games together, rotating through our collection of two-player games and modifying the rules of others, but it isn't quiiiite the same. Maybe that's just because our B.C. board game playing was off the hook. We used to regularly grab a stack of games, carry them to our neighbors' house up the street, and then just sit around drinking Red Stripe or whatever until we had played all the games. It was an endurance sport. If you got up to use the bathroom, you might return to find that someone had drawn a cartoon of a naked person on your scorecard. Often we would walk up the street to the grocery store for "provisions" when our snacks ran out. It was kind of glorious. Obviously I wouldn't trade the life I have for anything, but there are moments when I yearn for a long, loud, semi-drunken board game marathon-- the kind that would be nearly impossible in my house right now. Fortunately our copy of Trivial Pursuit will wait until the girls are a little older; it was made in 1981, so a few more years are hardly going to make it more out-of-date. I think I'm holding onto it in the weird hope that history will recycle itself, and all of those questions about obscure actors from the '40s will somehow become relevant again. But I digress.

Our kid-centric party selves have been having a blast, truly. As a child I never once considered the fact that my parents might be having fun hanging out with the other parents at these events, but that is exactly what happens. Plus, the concepts of births and birthdays are so wonderfully, excitingly new to little kids, and I think a bit of that rubs off on us been-there-done-that adults. By the time they turn three they've forgotten what it was like turning two, and the look on a child's face when you write his name on a whole cake, light the cake on fire, sing a song and then give him the cake... well, it's priceless. The littler ones are just happy to be in the midst of all the hubbub, twisting their heads from side to side like sunflowers as they watch the herd of older ones charge through the house. We all wear our party clothes, which promptly become covered with crumbs of food, and the area quickly becomes a graveyard of abandoned juice boxes. And it all starts right away in the morning-- no sitting around waiting for fun to begin. You just get up, get dressed, wrangle the kids into the car and par-tay!

Here are some pictures of the Party Animals. No one is drinking booze from a pineapple in these pictures-- living immersed in the world of a two-year-old is surreal enough already. What we are doing is celebrating some wonderful happenings with fantastic friends. Lucky us.


Goya's 3rd Birthday Party:

Valentine's Day with Mrs. Ledesma:

Oskar's 3rd Birthday Party:

And finally, Allison's Baby Shower:

P.S. I haven't given up on board game parties: a couple of weeks ago I made Geneva play Scrabble with me. Mostly we just played around with the tiles, identifying letters and sounds. She spelled "map," "cat," and (accidentally) "saber." 

Rated R for Language

I mean it. Sorry, Mrs. Ledesma's fourth graders. I'll write a school-appropriate post soon!

Geneva's vocabulary has expanded beyond the boundaries of standard English, and often includes words-- especially onomatopoeic verbs-- that perhaps should exist, but don't. Ever wonder what a word meaning "to drop wet breakfast food from your spoon into your bowl" might look like? Now we know! According to Geneva, I blapped my yogurt. This is just one example. The following is another.

Let me set the scene: although the weather has been in the 40s and dry for the last week, we still have a two- or three-inch layer of snow over our entire yard. This makes it difficult to play outdoors because snowproof clothing is much too hot for 40 degree weather, and temperature-appropriate clothing tends to be thwarted by the persistent blanketing of slush. Nonetheless, we persist, and the other day found all four of us girls outside, crunching around in our sneakers and making the best of it. At one point I lost sight of Geneva around the side of the house and after a few minutes I thought I'd go and see what she was up to. I found her morosely holding one sneaker in her hand, her pink sock covered with snow. Trying not to laugh at her predicament, I exclaimed "Oh no! What happened to your shoe?" Geneva stared somberly up at me and, flipping her hand over to demonstrate, replied...

..."it fucked off."

Yep, Geneva, it sure did.

Navidad 2011

Last Easter I predicted that Christmas 2011 was going to rock. Well guess what? It did. I must be psychic. Quick, ask me to predict something else! I'm in the mood to prophesize.

We started the holidays off with a little Solstice celebration in our backyard-- just us, the neighbors, a crackling fire and an unusual dessert which was supposed to be a layer of dark chocolate souffle over a layer of pudding, but was instead one giant layer of dark chocolate souffle soaked in pudding. I was going to call it a failed dessert but we ate it all, scooping the delicious semi-sweet goo out of mugs as we sat by the fireside. Butchy, our neighbors' outdoor cat, was beside himself with joy: laps! Warm laps! And on the longest, darkest night of the year! You could just see utter contentment written on his little kitty face, and honestly, he looked how I felt.

Christmas this year was not nearly as chaotic as I had imagined it might be, which I think had little to do with the actual logistics of the holiday and was mostly a product of my particular state of mind. As I have written earlier-- and as some of you unfortunate readers have experienced firsthand-- I get, um, wound up when entertaining guests. Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore hosting friends and family. I'm one of those people who show love and affection through the proffering of food and warm beds. But I also become kind of wired; I laugh really loudly and acquire the ability to see individual specks of dust on any given surface. Nevertheless, this Christmas through some combination of nursing hormones and my own efforts to take a chill pill, I was fairly mellow, and although this meant messier quarters and non-standard mealtimes for the Zoglman Christmas attendees it was wonderful to really relax and soak in the holiday. And there was a lot to soak.

Christmas Eve, though not as hectic as last year (when Avery and Nita were up until the wee hours assembling Geneva's kitchen center) did present its own challenge: where oh where do we put all the presents? I was, in the most humble and appreciative way, kind of horrified at the outpouring of giving which had localized itself in our living room. It was a sight to behold.

Here are the full stockings-- with extension piles--of Geneva, Lavender, Avery, Nita, Jordan, Andreen and myself. Don't worry, we carved out a place for my mom to sleep on the couch.

Lavender awoke at about quarter to six on Christmas morning, and ten minutes later Geneva was wide awake too. And who can blame them? This was Lavender's first Christmas (although I'm guessing that's not what woke her up) and Geneva's first Christmas where she understood what was going on. The latter's first words upon awakening were "did Santa come? Did he bring my dolly stroller?" Oh. Um. Crap. Avery and I had forgotten to put it under the tree the night before. Fortunately the offer of hot cocoa in bed kept Geneva from sprinting out of the bedroom while I frantically set up the stroller, and in five minutes all was right with the world. Sure, we were all groggy and the sun hadn't even started to think about coming up. I always thought that's just how Christmas mornings with children go, and I'll admit I would have been disappointed had it gone otherwise.

 Nana and Lavender, very early in the morning.

 Lavender Jane's fist Christmas.

After a big aebelskiver breakfast, with many thanks to Andreen for her help in the kitchen, we began opening presents in earnest. I would highly recommend giving presents to an actor; I don't know if Jordan was truly as excited about this puzzle as he looks, but it was intensely gratifying for me, the puzzle-giver.

Geneva proved to be a very capable present-unwrapper, which was not at all surprising. She was also very good about sharing presents with her little sister and about bringing gifts to other family members to open, which was kind of surprising.

Each of us gave some pretty amazing presents, both big and little. It was a joy to see each one being opened and shared. Avery found a beautiful set of wind chimes for me...

...and I got him a banjo! Knowing how difficult it would be to wrap, I just hid it in the corner behind the tree a couple of days before Christmas. I was feeling pretty sneaky until Geneva walked up to Avery and announced "there's a banjo behind the tree. It's a surprise." Avery claimed not to have understood her, but I have my doubts. Oh well! He acted surprised on Christmas Day, but more importantly, I think he was really happy.

It was well after noon by the time we finished opening presents, and despite my intention to put on fancy clothes for dinner it never actually happened. So, that was our Christmas: a pajama day. A giving day. A feasting day. A wonderful day.

And I haven't even told you the best part.


On the evening of Christmas Day, after they had returned home to Portland, Jordan proposed to Andreen and she accepted! This is by far the smartest thing my brother has ever done-- which is not to disparage his past decision-making skills, but rather to highlight what an amazing person Andreen is. And oh, you should see them: they just ooze love. You can't hardly look away. I'm so thrilled for them as to be (almost) at a loss for words. Congratulations, Jordan and Andreen!

Yessss! I'm finally going to have a sister!

Feeding Time

Here's a video of me feeding Lavender.

Okay, okay, so she's not actually a baby sulcata tortoise, but I think she and the tortoise would have a lot to talk about. I'm certainly not concerned that Lavender seems to be an inexpert eater-- she's six months old, and nursing round the clock, so eating solid food at this point is purely recreational. But oh, she wants to. She sits in her high chair at mealtimes, smacking her lips imploringly at her chewing, swallowing family members. It's hard not to sympathize.

About a week ago I went on a baby food-making bender, and our freezer is now stocked with enough mashed apple and sweet potato to feed a veritable infant army. We've barely made a dent in our ample supply, because so very little of the food actually makes it into Lavender's stomach. The first hurdle is getting her to open her mouth, which inexplicably clamps shut right about the time I have finished heating a tiny bowl of mushy vittles and am sitting down to feed her. My knee-jerk reaction is to make all sorts of Jim Carey-esque faces, although I'm aware of a small voice in the back of my mind telling me that this has never once caused her to open her mouth. Eventually of her own accord Lavender opens up and I swoop in with the spoon, at which point I encounter the second hurdle: her tiny, ninja-quick hands. Suddenly she has the dexterity of a concert pianist and is hell-bent on inserting that spoon directly into her nose. If I can manage to reclaim the spoon before all of the food has been spilled, then I can proceed to hurdle number three: getting the food to stay in Lavender's mouth. The second the spoon touches her tongue her face contorts in surprise and displeasure; imagine the tragedy mask of ancient Grecian theater. Any puree that made it in comes dribbling right back out again. I proceed to feed her the exact same bite of food about fourteen times, at which point it is indistinguishable from her own saliva and she happily swallows it. Aaaaaaaand scene.

I had forgotten what it was like to feed a baby. My foolish brain edited out the goofy faces, the awkward hand-spoon-mouth angles, the giant, giant messes. My recollection of feeding Geneva is mostly of us scarfing down cream of wheat together out of pretty Christmas dishes. I think I idealized those early meals because, frankly, it got so much more challenging. Next came the Dropping Food on the Floor Phase, the Oh My God, Are You Choking? Phase, the Eating Everything Including Sand Phase, the I Don't Know Which is Worse, Using Your Fork or Not Using Your Fork Phase, the Requesting Every Imaginable Condiment Phase, and Geneva's current Phase: May I Be Excuuuuuuuuuuused? So I know I have my work cut out for me. Lavender may even invent new phases I haven't yet experienced. Then in two years when she's contriving all sorts of excuses to leave the table, I can look back with fondness on the days when, although she stunk at it, she loved sitting at the table and sharing a meal with me one painstaking bite at a time.



Oh look, cream of wheat in Christmas dishes! I'm nothing if not predictable.

I'm including this one only because it fits in with the title of the blog post. Nana was taking a well-earned Christmas Nap when Geneva decided to line up the various components of a plastic sandwich on her sleeping form. Some cruel person (me) decided to photograph rather than intervene.

Dear Santa,

I love you! I would like to visit with you. I want presents like a drum and a penguin or maybe a stroller. Here's my idea: give me a toy to play with and you can give my old toys to girls and boys. I have a cake for you. I like to snuggle you and play with you. Maybe I can give one of my old cameras to other kids. Thank you for sitting on your lap and visiting with me. My tree is kind of cute. I decorated it. What were the girls singing at the house for? They sound pretty. I want to tell you more stuff, like how we celebrate. What are we celebrating for, Santa? I think we are celebrating Jesus' dance party. Jesus told people how to be treated by other people: kindly.

Goodbye, Santa. You can write back to me.
Love, Geneva

P.S. I'm Flynn Rider.

Fear Itself

Geneva is not afraid of much. When I read her Grimm fairytales (wherein someone usually gets cut up or otherwise horribly mutilated) she listens calmly and often corrects me if I try to edit out the gorier parts. She identifies with predators and always wants the Big Bad Wolf to win. Lately she has taken to declaring that she is a barracuda, at which point the rest of the world is expected to react with the appropriate amount of fear and awe. Even illustrations that legitimately give me the heebie-jeebies are nothing more than interesting for Geneva the Brave. Here are just a couple of examples:

So imagine my surprise when, as she was flipping through one of her books, she suddenly jumped up and ran from the room with tears in her eyes, shouting "I'm afraid!" What horror could she have possibly discovered? What ghastly image was I about to encounter as I approached the book lying open on Geneva's bedroom floor? Here's what I saw. Brace yourselves.

So apparently even Geneva's bravery knows some limits after all. She has nothing to fear but fear itself... and, you know, startled rabbits.