Illinois wedding

 

Three weeks ago we spent a long weekend in Illinois to attend Jack’s cousin’s wedding and to visit with family we rarely see.  We also met up with my aunt and uncle, who coincidentally live fairly close to most of Jack’s family. 

Aside from the wedding, we didn’t do much, which was a wonderful break.  We got more sleep and did more reading than is normal.  Small town America also offered several other perks that are hard to come by at home:

• I had a walk-in hair cut that I’m happy with for $20, which I’d been meaning to do for months. 
• Similarly, we walked by a jewelry shop and a nice lady took a link out of my watch band for $5 with no waiting.  It has been surprisingly hard to get this at home.  Near us are three types of jewelry stores that don’t suit me.  Downtown has glitzy diamond stores that scare me a little bit.  The International District has store with no web presence.  So, I called one and the person who answered the phone didn’t speak any English, as far as I could tell.  Then there is the Central District.  I walked in to one store (actually I had to be buzzed in), and waited a few minutes behind a much more promising customer who was fondling the biggest roll of bills I have ever seen and sporting diamonds in every orifice I could see, before I decided I didn’t have time to wait.   So I was pretty happy to get his done in Illinois.
• Lastly we got to rake dry crunchy leaves.  I used to like raking leaves but we live in an apartment and my parents don’t have any leaves to rake any more either.  It was different from raking the soggy brown bran flake leaves of my PNW youth.  D got involved too.

This little girl wanted to dance with D but he wasn’t ready for that.  He was ready to say “cheers” a lot.

 

We were pretty worried about the flights but D was a champ.  He only napped 25 minutes on the day we traveled there, but still didn’t melt down.  He’s a good boy.  At 18 months, our flight recommendations are:

• fabric busy book
• stickers
• play dough (also for restaurants)
• crayons
• snacks at take off and landing and while buckling him in to his car seat

Happy Halloween!

 

 

 

 

 

construction: month two

 

Previous posts: September

Over the last month, the foundation was completed (including radiant floors, plumbing etc) and framing of the basement began.  Jack caught one potential mistake related to insulation in the foundation before it happened.  We’re lucky be able to visit the site so often.

vexillology

I came across this delicious new word recently in a novel and it stayed with me because I was once a young vexillologist. 

Vexillology: the "scientific study of the history, symbolism and usage of flags or, by extension, any interest in flags in general". The word is a synthesis of the Latin word vexillum ("flag") and the Greek suffix-logia ("study").

I started collecting national flags when I was about eight and my collections, which I believe is my parents’ basement, grew to about 50 flags.  My dad made me some holders that we mounted to the wall and they were quite nicely displayed.  I had a t-shirt and poster of all the national flags on my wall.  I do not, however, have a picture of my collection.

While we’re on the subject of vexillology, let me share two flag related tidbits that I learned in the past few weeks. 

One, New Zealand will be voting next year on whether or not they will change their flag to something more representative of their culture.  Since their flag is pretty unoriginal, I would support it, though I don’t like the designs that look more like logos than flags.

Two, the Union Jack has directionality to it that I’d never noticed.  Flying flags upside down was a nautical distress signal that didn’t work very well for the Brits.

sailing season

 

In second grade, in my autobiography, I proudly wrote that I could drive a boat.  At that point, driving only meant the act of steering with a tiller so I was telling the truth.  However, the more I learn, the more responsibility that falls under the umbrella of “driving,” so I’m still working on it.

Over the past seven months, I sailed out of Shilshole in Ballard quite a bit.

• 2 social sails
• 4 full days of sailing for sailing classes
• 3 practice sails with the women’s team
• 13 races

Although I’ve been on sailboats since I was a baby  (see picture of my first cruise at 6 months), I learned a lot this year. 

I took the ASA 101 and 103 classes.  In the 103 class I learned a lot about the engine, docking and dropping anchor.  I think most of my apprehension about docking was really a lack of comfort with engines.  I feel a lot better now and hope to practice more over the winter.  In the 101 class I refreshed my knowledge of the points of sail and rights of way and some terminology. 

Racing was a good experience, though we were not very competitive.   We had an all women’s boat of 5-7 people and we did noticeably improve our process, if not our results.  For your amusement, here’s a list of all the reasons we Did Not Finish races:

• grounding – This was a regrettable first race but we got off on our own by heeling and turning on the motor.  It was in mud and there was no damage, thankfully.
• seasickness – We had to take someone back just before the start though it turned out to be food poisoning.
• over early – We crossed the line early along with a bunch of other boats.
• radio off – The committee boat had to leave to rescue someone and we failed to radio in our finish time.
• wind too strong – We weren’t allowed out once.
• ridiculous spinnaker tangle – We had to keep sailing downwind, without crossing the finish line when the spinnaker got tangled in the jib roller furler.    It took four of us about 15-20 minutes to untangle it.   No one fell overboard and we didn’t have to cut any lines, but dang it was a stressful mess.

To our credit, we did not have any accidental jibes or collisions.

Highlights were some really good starts and spinnaker raises/douses, seeing improvements, a few experienced guest crew members (including my dad once) and the beautiful scenery.  I saw many sunsets, some dolphins, and daredevil kite boarder that buzzed the back of several boats.  It hardly rained at all.

play Development Dead Zone

Next time you are walking in downtown Seattle, I invite you to play a new game I came up with.  To play, stand on any sidewalk in the city, where you can see at least two blocks in to the distance (no hiding in alleys).  Slowly turn in a circle, looking high and low, and if you can’t see a building under construction or a crane, you get 10 points.  That’s it.  Get out there and try it!  I haven’t scored any points yet, but I’ll keep trying.

Even though I am well aware of how much development is happening, I am still regularly astonished by it.  Here’s a snapshot of where large projects are underway in our neighborhood.  For a ongoing updates, check this site.

Here are a few recent pictures, from the Yesler Terrace project where they are rebuilding several blocks all at once, and Occidental Park, which will have a big impact on Pioneer Square.

more buses

 

Bus watching is a regular part of our day, living downtown  Our record sighting is twelve buses at one time from the windows of our living room, so D’s ongoing bus obsession is totally understandable.  We’ve also been singing The Wheels on the Bus, since day one and, of course, they sing it at daycare and even at swim lessons.

D now sings an adorable wanh wanh wanh (to the tune of the first “round and round”) and reminds us with signs and words to sing particular verses.  Unsurprisingly the toy bus and the books about buses (and other urban things) are quite popular as well.

Here’s a bonus fire truck picture too!

 

construction: month one

 

We broke ground in August, and now the foundation is done.   So far, so good.

 

These openings are little bike garages, accessible from outside the house.

D loves the dogs!

 

We had a fun birthday (mine) weekend, filled with family, swimming, wading pools, baseball and dogs!  D enjoyed the company of seven different dogs and also spent some quality time with Emo.

D’s 15 month vocabulary update

Just after my previous vocabulary post in mid April (the state of the vocabulary), D went radio silent, except for variations on “baa,” for a whole month while he focused on walking.

We are now in the midst of a language explosion where D demonstrates new words and signs almost every day!  I don’t know who is more excited, him or us.

Let me preface this by explaining what qualifies as a word for us.  These are words observed a by attentive parents (and a linguist, to boot), with a lot of context.  Everything here has been observed at least twice.  Verbal words have some of the right sounds, but usually not all of them.   These words come and go.  Sounds like the /s/ at the end of “bus” have come and gone and come back again over the course of 5-6 months.  The signs, like the sounds aren’t quite right, and they are limited by his dexterity.  Despite all these qualifications and caveats, I am confident about this list:

In each category, the most commonly used words are at the top.

“More” and “milk” just become spoken words in the last week, after many months of signing. 

D recently started signing “Daddy”.  He taps his temple with an index finger, rather than making an open hand tapping the forehead with the thumb. If he wasn’t also saying the word, one might think he was indicating his head. 

We sign and count as we ride the elevator  which is where he gets “two”.  He looks at his hand while saying “two” and tries to fold in the extra three fingers, but can’t seem to do it. 

I’ve been signing and saying water for months, but it just emerged recently with the pronunciation “wa wa”, which I highly expect is something he heard from another kid or adult at his new daycare.  He just signed it today for the first, time although he couldn’t get his fingers in to the “W” shape.

The meanings don’t always line up with adult meanings.  For example, he does say “yellow” and “blue” and he often seems to say them in reference to color, he isn’t consistent or accurate in which colors he labels with them. 

The story of “big” is one of my favorites.  We were hiking in late July and he stood on the trail and spread his arms wide and said “bii” then turned 180 degrees and did it again and again, like he couldn’t get over the size of the forest and the trees.  He probably said it 10 times then, and I haven’t heard it since. 

He has combined a few signs a few time, like “more food”, “siren truck”, “where daddy” and “done pooping”.

It’s been incredible to watch his comprehension grow too.  At times his efforts to learn new words and signs seems very intentional.  At this point, he can apparently hear a word only once and produce it months in the future. 

ready, set, go!

It’s been three years since we got serious about building a house and we just passed the major milestone of closing on our construction loan with Washington Federal.  Construction will start in August and the house should be inhabitable in the spring!

I checked back on my previous house building timeline post from April 2014, and the new projected completion date is only two months later than we predicted back then.  The steps along the way that took the most time weren’t quite what we predicted, but I was pleasantly surprised that the start date wasn’t too far off.  Here’s a new timeline and a pre-construction picture of the three of us. 

Bizarrely, last time I posted a timeline, there were only two of us! 

recent photo favorites

 

Some of D’s many interests are reflected in these pictures: books, family, airplane spotting, water play and exploring his new physical strength.   I love the one with his grandma and great grandma!