grillin', washin', readin', etc.

Tom and Dylan making bugs - at Festival of the Book
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

We've been keeping Dylan busy with lots of fun activities. Last Friday, we went to Gilroy Gardens (formerly Bonfante) with Heather and Taliana. Then, on Saturday, after brunch out, Tom spent most of the day with Dylan while I ho-hummed and worked at a nearby cafe. But, once we got home, we decided to wash the cars and then have a BBQ dinner in the good ol' backyard. This was the 2nd bbq we've had since we bought a little cast-iron LODGE grill a couple of weeks ago!

Dylan obviously loves it. He bounces around in the Bounce Round, sweeps up, checks for ripe strawberries and nectarines, waters plants, throws his play balls around, and actually stated, while we were eating, that he liked his backyard (yes, everything is clearly his these days!)!

Today, was another Wharf to Wharf run. Unfortunately, Tom's knee is still not well enough for him to run, so he took Dylan out in the BOB stroller and walked the last 1.5 miles or so of the course. I took a very brief running break to say hi to them where they started their walk and then we met up at the finish line.

After showering, Heather and Taliana came by and we all headed to Festival of the Book, a wonderful Santa Cruz Public Library event which marks the end of their Summer Reading Program. There's free lunch for the kiddie participants (Dylan tried a tofu hot dog, had some chips, apple juice and a frozen fruit bar), activities (Dylan and Tom made a bug!), and we redeemed our "reading dollars" (a buck discount at participating stores for every inch of books read).

The kids had great fun!

We ended our weekend with another BBQ dinner...it's become clear that Dylan is a huge fan of ketchup!

Other notable Dylan things these days: he has really embraced the phrase, "No, I don't want to..." often followed by "...maybe later."

Ay. Challenging!

two's

2 year olds posing for picture
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Ellie turned 2 and we joined her for a wonderful celebration at a park in Sunnyvale. Dylan got all but 20 minutes of napping in (en route to the party) but, of course, he perked up as soon as he saw bubbles, balloons, a pinata, a wagon, and Ellie!

He got especially cheerful when he got to pick which cake he could eat (Mark and Yu-Chen were so nice to serve a vegan spread and vegan birthday cakes!)!

Dylan was remarkably good about relinquishing the limelight to Ellie...when we first mentioned "birthday", he made his shy face and I thought he might be thinking we were going to celebrate his all over again, but he happily watched Ellie blow out her candles.

Now that Dylan is 2, he can readily and accurately identify groupings of 2 things together (2 vacuums, 2 cookies, 2 kids, etc.), and we often count larger collections together, but he surprised me at the park when he counted 11 agapanthas all by himself (after 11, he jumped to 13 and then 16)!

More picture highlights of the bday celebration are here.

bumpin' along

hanging with daddy while I run
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Poor Dylan still has trouble staying on his feet! In this picture, you might notice that his upper lip looks a little like he got a little botox job. In actual fact, he slipped and bumped his little mouth (and nose!) on the ground while attempting to extract his blender from his kitchen cabinet. This happened the same day he jumped on the couch and bounced right off, hitting the back of his head on the area rug (gratefully, he missed the train table). And, right now, he's sporting two skinned knees. I can't wait for the day when I don't have to worry about these kinds of injuries (from falling down while walking or running), but I'm not looking forward to having to worry about worse!

Jungle Run and last week

wearing Jungle Run finisher's medal
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

This week has been busy, as always. We're still doing gymnastics on Monday and now we're going to the summer session of Music Together right before we head to the library for story time!

This past Wednesday, Dylan really put up a fuss about going to Music Together; I think he was cranky from not sleeping well (he's still not napping consistently in pre-school). But, once the class got going, he had so much fun!

The only somewhat unfortunate thing is that he is obsessed with putting things away, to the point where he'll just stand there waiting for clean-up time! I wish he'd enjoy the music more because he really does love singing and playing instruments!

We finished off this week with the Jungle Run. Sadly, Tom couldn't run it because of his knee, but both Dylan and Tom came to watch me finish. I was so happy to see them at the home stretch, I managed to eke out enough energy to sprint to the finish.

Back Log: At this time last year, Dylan was elbow-deep in signs! It's amazing how far his communication skills have come! He's really talking up a storm these days....

a day with Hailey

Day 132: Dylan and Hailey doing some stacking
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Little Hailey has a new baby sister, so to help out, we got to play with Hailey this past Friday! Dylan and Hailey have been going to the same pre-school since they were babies so they've been seeing each other a few times a week nearly all of their lives!

They were really cute together -- they shared well, brought each other drinks and snacks, said thank you's to one another, played chase (with Taliana) and laughed a lot.

Hailey did a lot of "c'mon dylan" and "wanna do X or Y, Dylan". They were so much like miniature adults, it was so very cute!

Berry picking

found some yummy ones
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Last weekend, we went berry-picking with Taliana and Heather to make up for the berry-picking trip I missed with Cindy and Dylan (and Jason and Tyler). We got 2 flats in total -- about 20 pounds of strawberries!

After picking and sampling, we headed to Heather's house to make vegan strawberry ice-cream, strawberry smoothies, and strawberry sorbet!

We still had plenty when we got home, so we made strawberry cupcakes (partly so Dylan could have cupcakes for a pre-school bday celebration), more sorbet, and strawberry sorbet-sicles (thanks to these great Heather-inspired popsicle molds we picked up from Bed, Bath and Beyond)

It was great fun and we're so inspired to make more summer frozen fruit treats!

july 4th

Day 125: Taliana, Jason, Tyler, Zoe, Alexa and Dylan
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

This was the first fourth of July sans fireworks we've ever had! But, the fireworks folks (or fire marshal?) in Morgan Hill felt the winds were too risky to put on the show this year. We arrived at the park at 7pm and waited and waited and waited while the band played for hours, and finally, at 10:30pm, they announced that the show was canceled. Bummer.

We suspected they'd cancel after they didn't start the show at 10pm (the originally rescheduled time) because none of us could detect any changes in the wind conditions and couldn't imagine that they'd change anytime soon!

All of the kids had really been looking forward to it -- Dylan was so excited to see all of his cousins AND Taliana -- that, even as he was dropping off at 9:30-ish pm, he was still saying "want see fireworks"!

This was the first year that he probably would have really dug seeing them, so it was a bigger bummer than it might have otherwise been, but hopefully Santa Cruz will set off some fireworks for their anniversary celebration in October and we won't have to wait another year for him to see some....!

Although it was altogether disappointing to have a fireworks-free celebration, it was probably better not to have risked fire given the drought and dry conditions....

an extra day off

Day 124: my day off with Dylan
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

My job gave us an extra day off for July 4th, making me feel slightly more inclined to be patriotic (hence Dylan's t-shirt selection)!

I was happy for the day off -- the rest of the week was extra busy what with daycare being closed and our garage door breaking, and the couch cushions getting puked on and what not.

Dylan and I spent the majority of the morning at this great park in Capitola (Jade Street) where we played and played and played and, in between playing, ate a lunch of pita, hummus, peaches, and Stonewall's Jerquee.

After lunch, he sacked out for a nap (as hoped for)! Then, after nap, we went out for a few more errands (glow necklaces for 4th of July tomorrow), food/snacks (also for tomorrow), and then he played in the backyard while I washed his garage-sale wagon (also for tomorrow!!). I'm tired, but he's all energy, and it was a special treat to be able to hang out with him today instead of going into the office!

dylan at the dentist - 07/01/2008

dylan at the dentist - 07/01/2008
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

We took Dylan to the dentist today to have his 2 front teeth re-checked. We'd noticed some discoloration and knew that this was a common side effect of amoxicillin, but still, since those teeth were damaged in his fall a few months ago, we wanted to make sure it wasn't a cavity. If it was a cavity, we wanted to get it taken care of right away so as not to jeopardize future teeth or any other teeth!
Dylan was just a doll. He was so patient with the dentist (who, incidentally, was just fantastic, as were all the staff there!). He let her brush, floss and polish his teeth! He even sat still for a couple of x-rays they wanted to take.

The good news is that he's not in any immediate need of treatment aside from swabbing his teeth with ACT Fluoride rinse and brushing with a fluoride toothpaste once a day. Since they don't want him to ingest too much fluoride, we're going to stop the tablets we've been giving him on a semi-daily basis.

He was an especially stellar patient considering he'd been out ALL DAY long picking berries with his cousins and Auntie Cindy and didn't have a nap. Here he's posing in some shades they gave him to shield his eyes from the bright exam lights. That cheese smile almost looks natural! (Oh! And, as of today, he has only 4 more molars that need to come in!)