Mexico!

We made it! It's awesome, as expected. 75 degrees at night, 85-90 during the day. Lurving it. :-)

First official pre-schooler pedicure and a vacation

We're going on a long-overdue vacation. Our first as a family of four! Fun! Exciting! Crazy! All that and multiple bags of snacks. I don't mean that in an urban slang way. We really are taking  big ziploc bags of snacks. 'Cause we're all thrifty and hungry when traveling like that.

Last year, Seattle's summer was an oddity: very little sun. I know that's surprising to folks elsewhere who think it rains here all the time. But summers here are actually pretty spectacular: temperatures in the 70-80s with no humidity, with crystal clear (as in no smog) views of mountains, lakes and water in all directions. I call them amnesia days: they make you forget about the other nine months of craptastic grey and/or rainy dreariness.

So since summer stunk last year, it's been months since my toes have seen the light of day outside of my bathroom. As such, there are probably Preakness Winners with better looking hooves right now.

I didn't want to scare any small children (especially my own) poolside with unkempt feet. We're going to Mexico, so I had a mental picture of me flip-flopping out to the pool with the fam only to overhear some nino exclaim, "Sus pies son como un burro!" ("Their feet are like a donkey!")

So Ava and I hot-footed it over to a local mall and had some mommy-daughter time with side-by-side pedicures, Ava's first in a real nail salon.

We sat back with our fro-yo and smoothie and reveled in the girl time. As you can see, Ava is still so small that even with the seat flipped up, her feet barely made it to the water. But they managed, and she kept giggling and saying, "Mommy, I'm having so much fun!"


It was a reminder of how important it is for me to remember to build in time with me or J. and just her or just Dylan. We're usually so busy rushing through each week hoping to keep all the plates spinning, that we don't take time to savor each other and spend time just enjoying each other's company. The vacation should help some.

Ava got to wear and break in her new vacation sandals (Hot pink sparkly flip flops. Of course.) and chose a hot pink nail color. When the nail technician offered to do a flower too, you might as well have waved a magic wand and told her M & M's and Gummy Bears were about to rain from the heavens. She was thrilled.

She couldn't wait to get home to show her Daddy and brother her new pedicure. Dad oohed and aahhed and exclaimed as expected. Dylan just smiled, happy that his sister was happy.


I didn't get shots of my pedicure, but it was lovely too. It didn't take a belt sander to smooth my rough heels, as I feared, but I assure you, the nail tech earned her money that night. And I did tip accordingly. Mexico, here we come.

Saturday salon day: 1st haircut

After three and a half years, it was finally time to get Ava's hair trimmed. We've been dealing with frequent snags even with conditioner, so we headed to the shop of our family hookup: my husband's cousin's wife, who is a hair stylist.

Even with her eight year old cousin helping and trying to entertain her, Ava was too busy crying and trying to climb out of the hair wash chair, so we didn't get any shots of that. But after the wash and blow dry, she sat very still as her curly tresses were flat ironed.

Followed by the trim.

Dylan wandered about trying to sweep up hair. Sweeping is one of his favorite activities and he was elated to find a tiny broom and dustpan set seemingly made just for him, oblivious to the transformation underway nearby. And voila...

Seriously straight, big girl hair. Ava looks kinda bummed in the pictures, especially compared to her reaction to the home blowout I did a few months ago. But by the evening, she'd come around. "Can you help me wrap up my pretty hair?" she asked. You betcha little one.With head bands and ponytails during the day and wrapping at night, it lasted several days this time, sans rat's nest effect.

Dylan's first ER visit

After crawling, pulling up and walking, visiting the ER is a pretty standard milestone, isn't it? Dylan's hitting it at 14 months, courtesy of a gash to the forehead in an unfortunate laundry room mishap: a fairly minor fall at just the wrong angle against the drying rack his dad was setting up.

We called the consultant nurse who said to take him to the ER. The pictures were actually taken at the 2nd ER we went to tonight. The first had at least a dozen people waiting and a three to four hour wait! With both kids in tow and the witching hour of 8 pm fast-approaching, that kind of wait wasn't feasible unless staff there was prepared to hand out opiates to everyone in the waiting room to deal the ear bleeding caused by two shrieking children.

So we drove to another ER on our health plan in a neighboring city where there were just two people ahead of us and where we were seen within minutes of check-in by the triage nurse: a kid-friendly, burly man named Dan (of course).

After about 10 minutes, another nurse (not Dan) taped some numbing medicine to Dylan's head to prepare for the procedure ahead.

While we waited for it to take effect, I explained to Ava why there was a huge box of latex gloves in the room. The word "proctology" may have come up. Then I made a glove balloon to keep them entertained. 'Cause I'm all mad-crafty like that. Fo-shizzle.

When the pediatrician finally came to work his magic, I was given the unenviable task of sitting atop my wailing, flailing, screaming toddler on the gurney while a technician squirted saline solution into the short but frighteningly deep gash to clean it out.

 Given the aforementioned wailing and flailing, attempting to suture a gash so close to his eye would have been like trying to play that game Operation, except if you mess up, instead of getting a buzz, you stab an already-unhappy child in his eye, while his horrified mother, barely restrained father and protective, spitfire sister watch, mere inches away. But you know: no pressure.

They opted for fast-acting wound glue instead, held in place by a couple pieces of tape. My little guy left all patched up and looking like a miniature prize fighter. Hopefully this ER visit will be a rare event, not the "first in a series" in the years ahead. UPDATE: several friends with boys have since shared their own "first ER visit" stories and told me "don't bet on it." Sigh.

Original art Valentines for classmates

Ava's original art Valentines for classmates. I did the hearts and words, she did the art, in her signature pink. Good thing she has a small class!