a moment of quiet, please

I'm off to Cape Cod on a mama vacation with my best friend. Five days of blissful mama-less-ness, eating to my heart's content, staying up late, sleeping in, no schedule, random spontaneity, adult conversation, adult beverages, and sleep, glorious sleep. Till my return on Tuesday.

a haircut makes everyone feel better on a hot day

Pics from Friday and Saturday, with a haircut in between:

two words

Luke is now putting two words together! Some examples from the past few days:

hold it

watch it

have it

jacket off

ezra's daddy

freight train

train book

poopy all done

(gotta love that last one!)

a loverly weekend

The weather's been really odd here lately: super-hot one day and super-cold the next.

Saturday was our hot day: 85+ degrees and sunny. We spent the entire morning in the backyard, splashing in the kiddie pool, scooping and pouring with the water table, blowing bubbles, and playing with the new dump truck Pop-Pop sent us. Luke was so tired, that when I laid him down in his crib to rest while I warmed up a bottle of milk, he fell completely and utterly asleep. And didn't wake up for 3 hours!

Sunday was our cold day: 65 degrees, foggy, cold wind. We all bundled up and went to Tennessee Valley Beach. We picnicked on the beach, bundled in a fleece blankie to watch the waves, and laughed and laughed as Dada served as Luke's horsie. It was a super-fun weekend.

wordless wednesday

7:09 and all is quiet

It's 7:09 a.m., and the house is absolutely quiet. The little monkey is sleeping in, after a very fun Father's day at the San Mateo Central Park. The hubby and the cat are both sleeping, as well. It's the quiet sound of a content household.

thinking of pop-pop

separations and reunions

We've been having a tough time these last two weeks with the regular separations of the day -- saying goodbye when Mama goes to work, or when Dada goes out to get his coffee. Luke, who has never been even mildly perplexed at our leaving, has suddenly started having major separation anxiety. As soon as he notices that one of us is about to leave, he starts to cry, protest, even stomp his (adorable little) feet. He clings to us, and protests as loudly as he can -- no! no! no! Mama! Mama! Mama! He is fine 3-4 minutes after we leave, but I've been carrying around a mental picture of that sad little face, glued to the window. I know this is normal and developmental, but it's tough for Mama.

the ebay trains have arrived!

feelings

Amazingly, our little man is starting to talk about his feelings! When Jean-Max left for the East Coast on Sunday night, he was telling Luke about it (dada, going to the airport, going in an airplane, back in 3 night-nights). Luke started crying, and then stopped, said, "Sad!" and leaned into Jean-Max for a hug. Oh, wow. On Monday, at our gym class, another little boy bumped into Luke on the trampoline runway, and knocked Luke over. Luke stood up, make a scrunchy face to me, and said, "Mean!" Oh, wow, again.

same

Luke's been working hard on the concept of "same." He takes a red crayon and puts it next to a red train car and says, "same!" This has been the word (or cognitive milestone) of the week. Here's what's the same in our house:

- Fire truck puzzle and fire truck picture

- Train puzzle piece and wooden train

- Momo (Luke's beloved monkey blanket) and a picture of a monkey on his wall

- A photograph of Luke and Momo together and the real Momo

- A picture of Dada that's hanging in our bedroom and the real live Dada!

audacious

we heart pg&e

PG&E set up shop outside our house to repair a variety of underground lines. This meant the arrival of a backhoe (oh, praise be to the construction gods!), a scraper, a digger, and a very large dump truck. This provided quite a bit of entertainment to the resident truckologist.

sneaking a taste of play-doh

Our little man knows that he's not supposed to eat play-doh. It's a sure-fire way to elicit the "bad face" from Mama. But, Luke's generally so great about following the rules, trying hard, sharing, etc., that we give him a break from time to time and "pretend" not to see a minor transgression like the play-doh. Dada caught this one -- notice the very sly look!

all about trains

Trains have now joined trucks at the center of Luke's heart. He adores his wooden train set, and I have finally been successful at finding some well-priced additions. I won a variety of items on an eBay auction and while we're waiting for those items to arrive, we'll make do with our favorite train book, Thomas the Tank Engine stickers, and the steam train at the San Francisco Zoo: