Travel and other adventures

Toddlers are so literal. For the first year and a half to two years after a child learns to talk, a block is only allowed to be a block. A blanket is only allowed to be a blanket. A monkey is only allowed to be a monkey. Then it seems like overnight around three years old, the child begins to engage in imaginative play. The block suddenly becomes a boat, crossing the blankie shaped waves of crocodile lake. The monkey, well, it’s still a monkey. But it is being swooped up by a pterodactyl and taken to the pterodactyl nest to feed the baby pterodactyl.

This is so fun to experience as a parent. Carina’s imagination takes us to places I’d have a hard time dreaming up. It’s absolutely amazing watching her mind work.

“Good night, Baby Lion.  I love you.”

Bedtime was a breeze tonight.  Carina decided about 1/2 hour earlier that she wanted to play Baby Lion and Mommy Lion.  We spent about 15 minutes hunting for food.  Baby Lion seems to be a vegetarian.  She steadfastly refused to pounce on any stuffed animals, preferring the tomatoes and potatoes from her kitchen.  Mommy Lion was able to avoid any pre-bed tantrum potential by following Baby Lion on all-fours to her den.  Baby Lion showed considerable skill at changing into PJs and brushing her teeth (“So Baby Lion’s teeth don’t get holes!”).  There was a slight problem because baby lions can’t climb or jump into beds.  Fortunately, we were able to find a rope (dolly blanket) and Mommy Lion was able to pull Baby Lion up into bed.  Two stories later, Mommy Lion tucked Baby Lion into her den and brought her some fresh water.

How many nights do you think I can use that before the novelty wears off?

Eleanor can crawl. 

Yes, it’s a commando crawl.  Doesn’t matter – it’s enough that she is currently emptying toy bins onto the floor.  Enough that we have to start closing the baby gates.  She’s been doing it for about a week, deliberately.  Drake is jealous.  He watches her, fusses, and pulls his arms and legs off the floor to kick and belly-wobble.  I think it’s harder for the big kids like Drake and Carina.

This presages the next phase of twindom.  The one where you have to corral them or go nuts chasing them in different directions.  I watched our friend Liz with her twins a bit after this age trying to keep them off our fireplace, and it looked exhausting.  Oh boy!

WAAAAHHH!  WAAAAHHHH!

I put aside my laptop and trot up the stairs.  Carina has placed her pillow in the hallway so that her head is outside her room but her legs are still inside.  She’s looking at me as I round the corner, but quickly covers her face with her blanket so that I can’t see she’s out of bed.  Whatever.  As long as she’s lying down, I really don’t care.  

I turn short of the pre-schooler testing her limits and turn into the babies’ room.  Drake is on his tummy, holding his head up, pacifier in hand and crying.  I flip him back over, replace the paci with a receiving blanket strategically positioned to hold it in his mouth, and crank the mobile up again.  Eleanor is on her tummy, looking at me and starting to fuss now that she sees a parent.  I ignore – she will sleep on her front.

I leave the babies’ room as quickly as possible, still ignoring Carina on the floor with her blanket over her head.  Back down the stairs listening to Eleanor fussing – can’t soothe that one before a nap, it just makes things worse.  And here I sit, my heart rate slightly elevated from rushing up and down the stairs, hoping the blankie-paci trick holds out until Drake falls asleep.

And hoping I actually get some down time during naptime today.

I’ve begun to really appreciate Kurosawa.  Several years ago I watched Seven Samurai and loved it.  A month ago I started watching a few other of his films and have rarely been disappointed.  He is known for being inspired by American and British stories and transferring those plots to feudal or modern Japan with great success.  All of these movies are available for instant watching on Netflix.

(1950) Rashômon (2/5)
The retelling of a crime from 3 biased points of view, this may be one of the first movies to use that approach in a story.  It was mildly interesting, but the pacing was too slow for my liking.  Cinematography buffs will enjoy some of his techniques.

(1952) Ikiru (4/5)
Set in post-war Japan, an old bureaucrat and widower learns he has terminal cancer.  Instead of being crushed by the news, he manages to live heartily in the last 6 months of his life.  I really liked this movie; his new spirit and attitude remind me of my grandmother.  I think if I ever go through a mid-life crisis, I would do well to watch this again.  A little slow to start and again in the middle.  The long funeral scene at the end was quite moving.

(1954) Seven Samurai (4/5)
One of the great epic movies, with a band of samurai helping to protect a village.  It’s long, but awesome pretty much the whole way through.  I should rewatch this soon, maybe I’ll bump it up to 5 stars.

(1958) Hidden Fortress (3/5)
Two peasants survive a battle and stumble across the  hidden fortress where the losing side’s last remaining royal family, the princess and her general, are hiding out.  Together they try to escape across the border.  The story was decent but the pacing was too slow in the beginning for my tastes.  I wonder if Lucas got his idea of Threepio and Artoo from this movie.

(1961) Yojimbo (4/5)
The first of two awesome movies.  A  samurai comes across a town divided by two feuding families, and each side tries to hire him as a bodyguard.  A great mix of story, acting, and occasional brevity.

(1961) Sanjuro (5/5)
The sequel, with the same samurai who has wandered on to another town bedeviled by corruption.  His chance arrival saves the lives of 9 men who are just starting to recognize the local officials as what they are, and together they attempt to depose them despite great odds.  What worked great in the first movie comes back even better in this movie!  I think I was spoiled by watching Yojimbo and Sanjuro first before the other Kurosawa movies, but they’re still my favorites of his.

(1963) High and Low (4/5)
Set in the early 1960s, a wealthy businessman must chose between saving the life of his chauffer’s son (who was kidnapped by mistake; they meant to take his son) or protecting his position in his company by buying more shares.  A great movie with several twists along the way.    The first half of the movie focuses on the businessman, the second half focuses on the police investigation.  Great pacing and acting all the way through.

I have a few more movies of his to watch, but I would recommend any of the 4+ star movies above to everyone!  Especially Yojimbo and Sanjuro.

Carina seems to be transitioning into threeyearoldhood pretty well; she’s mostly back to normal for us, but she seems to enjoy testing others to see what she can get away with.  Follow-through is really all that is needed for her to see you’re serious.  She enjoys talking a lot more these days, often during storytime we’ll digress and talk for several minutes about dogs or school or the babies.

The twins are coming along nicely.  Eleanor is rolling left and right quickly across the floor, we’re starting to have to use the baby gate so she doesn’t roll down some stairs by accident.  She almost has the commando crawl down.  Drake is getting to be very good at sitting up, except for the occasional faceplant on a toy in front of him.  He can roll over a little, and does push-ups like a champ, but isn’t very mobile yet as Jen has noted.  I’ve been pouring through a movie or two a week recently, as I get 40-60 minutes a night while feeding the babies before I get to bed.  I’ll post some of my favorites soon.

Work these days is an interesting mix.  Being a phase engineer for Orion is fun; lots of exposure to all of the subsystems on the vehicle.  There are some great challenges we’re solving as we try not to be distracted too much by all of the politics going on.  Every week the future outlook changes; many people have stopped worrying about it by now and focus on figuring out how to get Orion flying.  After over a year of near-hibernation, my old role in MSL is starting to reawaken.  It is a welcome distraction from the many meetings of Orion, as I get to work with old and new friends as we hammer down a few things left in the flight software and begin to think hard about how we’re going to fly this spacecraft.

Ha, I say HA!

Our trip to Palm Beach this morning was pretty encouraging, but going to a water park with a three-year-old and twin 7-month-olds is a bit tiring.  I also had a scare when I temporarily lost sight of Carina – she had followed her dad up to the food counter when I looked away to deal with a blowing beach umbrella attacking the babies.

Also, it is hot out in July in Houston.  HOT.  I wonder how people had babies here before air conditioning, because I was totally stressed out watching the babies flush while they were napping.

We did get the babies into the water for about 15 minutes.  We had two floaty-ring-things for them.  Gavin says he was trying to secure the sun shade to Drake’s and had to keep stopping every couple minutes to keep Eleanor from floating away.  He thinks that was amusing folks around him.

I really like it that we try to get out and do things even though we have young kids.  However, I think I spent at least as much time preparing to go to the park as we spent there .  Not to mention the stuff is currently in a pile in the foyer waiting for me to put it away / into the laundry.  So, there’s a reason that we don’t go on jaunts like this every weekend.

Currently, Carina is hanging on my arm waiting for me to finish this blog post so that she can “do letters on my keyboard”.  I keep telling her that every time she interrupts my thought, it will take me longer to finish.  This concept is not getting through her little brain.  So, I guess I’d better go.

2 posts in 2 days.  That might be a new (After Twins) record. 

Um, I just looked at the blog and realized all my posts back to April 27 fit on one page.  That’s pretty pathetic.  So, I’m resolving to write more.  We’ll see how that goes.

Roxy is upset that Eleanor is now able to prusue her around the house to a certain extent.  7-month-old babies are really good at taking a handful of dog hair and skin and yanking unpleasantly.  I remember this phase with Carina, where the dogs realized the baby can MOVE and it changes their whole relationship.  Those pink things are no longer just interesting smells.

It also means it’s time to start closing the baby gates again.  I have to say, the baby gate phase is one I left joyfully behind when Carina grew out of them.  And here we are again with the double trouble.

We’re planning on heading down to Moody Gardens Plam Beach Park tomorrow with BAMOM.  I hope it goes OK.  The twins have been sick and sleeping an awful lot; Eleanor had a 101 deg fever yesterday.  I guess if it’s a bust our tickets only cost $12, but Carina will be dreadfully disappointed if we only get to stay half an hour.

Somebody has stolen our sweet, biddable girl and replaced her with A THREE-YEAR-OLD.  She has told us she wanted to go to time out every day this week, and usually then contrives to do something that forces us to actually put her in one.  Then she comes out, and comes out, and comes out…  I was definitely glad it was Gavin’s turn to do bath and bed tonight.

Drake started sitting independantly a week or so ago.  He’s pretty good at it, but tends to slump over after a minute or so.  The few times he’s fallen over, mostly then he laughs like it’s the funniest thing that has ever happened to him.  He rolls very well from his back to his front, and then wobbles around on his tummy.  Carina used to do that trick when she was a baby.  In fact, Drake reminds me a lot of Carina at his age.

Eleanor still isn’t actually crawling, but that doesn’t stop her from getting pretty much where ever she wants to be by rolling and squirming.  She’s started sleeping on her side, which is so cute it makes me want to cry every time I see it.  There’s just something about a 16 lb baby curled up on her side with a thumb in the mouth that melts the heart.  She likes taking her weight on her feet, too.  I think she might be a ballerina when she grows up; she always stands en pointe.

Gavin and I had our 10th wedding anniversary on Saturday.  A whole decade – happy anniversary, honey!  We actually got to go out for a date on the big day, in spite of 102 deg fevers and other unpleasantness in the house. We had a good time.  PSA, though, “market price” is pretty pricy right now – be warned!  When we got home, our babysitter made a point of telling us how exhausting taking care of all three alone is.  Yep, there’s a reason we don’t like to do that too often!