Gametes In Love

G: Dad, if you’re vegetarian, and you turn into a Zombie, do you eat brains? Or heads of lettuce?

Today, G you are 9. I’m thoroughly enjoying confirming that there are no more 8 year olds residing in our home (for the moment). Not that 8 was bad (quite the opposite, actually!), but it feels good to celebrate another year with you.

As I was thinking about writing this, I wanted to highlight some of the amazing ways I’ve seen you grow. I don’t know if these are changes that really happened this year, but certainly something I see more obviously today. For starters, I am seeing you develop into a caring and protective person. This is amazing! I’m seeing you stand up for your brother more, and take care of him in ways that you hadn’t in the past. Thank you!

You’re also more adventurous today. As a toddler, you were the kid that would sit on the sidelines and observe for awhile before you threw yourself into an activity (but then you rocked it!). In HI, I watched you volunteer to be the first family member to go down the zipline. Something you hadn’t seen before, and was up high. Of course, you rocked that too!

I’ve seen you struggle with writing and reading in the past year, but not quit, and accept the extra work and help necessary to press on. Of course we had to sell you on the idea of a tutor (by calling her a “coach”), but once you got the point, you’re with us. I admire this about you, and hope every day that you don’t lose this drive.

Love you Monkey!

Now… here are your favorites:

What is your favorite color? Blue
What is your favorite book? Vs.
Who is your best friend? Brayden & Milo… and me . You are your best friend? Ya!
What is your favorite movie? Fantastic beasts & where to find them
What is your favorite song? It’s raining tacos
What is your favorite show? Pokemon
What is your favorite animal? Snake
What is your favorite toy? Pokemon cards
What is your favorite food? Grilled cheese
What is your favorite shirt? My Peninsula United shirt. How come? Because it has my fidget tag
What do you want to be when you grow up? Hmn… a baseball player. What position? Hmn… First base.
Give me one piece of advice. Hmn… let me think. Umn… never stare into the solar eclipse.

Aaah, summer is coming to an end for us. Boys start school on Wednesday (tomorrow). We spent our past week in Maui, just as we did last year. Turns out — it’s a great way to end the summer. Camps are hard to come by, and if Shane and I need to take time off of work to chill with our monkeys, doing so on the beaches of Maui is a pretty sweet way to go. The kids and I loved our trip last year, so we ended up more or less with a do-over. Same hotel, same wing of the hotel, mostly same restaurants and luau. We did try a new beach for snorkling as a family this year, and also went on a submarine tour and did some zip-lining at a local fruit farm. All fun. I didn’t want to leave. Can’t wait to book the next trip!

Warning: Heavy picture post ahead. Load on your phone (off wifi) at your own risk 🙂

Griffin found a pokemon player seated next to him. He’s level 35. She just started. She got some schooling. Oh, bonus? We found a Corsola out in HI — so one more (new) pokemon to the pokedex.

Kids didn’t last through the evening. Mistake on booking on my part. We didn’t acclimate to the time shift in time. Extra bummer is that G got a shout out for his upcoming birthday… and he missed it because he went up to the room by the time they did it.

Submarine day!

Maybe next year the kids will be ready for some surfing lessons.

We saw the submarine emerge from the water.

If you look really hard, below the sunken ship is a white-tipped shark. We’re told it’s not a man eater. Prefers just women and children :-/

We also saw a spotted ray. Definitely one of the coolest things out there.

Our boat captain slowed the boat down and told us he had to slow down for a while. Imagine the whole load of passengers (me included) immediately standing to see. Ya, ya, joke’s on us — let me introduce you to Bubbles, the whale. I bet he never tired of this.

Monkeypod with the monkeys. Yes, of course there was pie.

A quick stop at Maui Brewing Co for some rootbeer (for Shane) and huge came of 4 Square (for the boys).

This is his happy dance for winning the first round. Griffin won the others.

Nubs makes for good eye cover

Our room was right over the luau. The kids watched it from our balcony just about every night. And in the morning, we got to see the pig get prepped.

First time trying dragon fruit. It was delicious!

Testing out the harness.

Griffin went first.

Storm was second. Clearly, he’s not excited at all! 🙂

Oh, and of course — TURTLES!!!! This guy (or gal) swam right at me, and then let me follow it for about 5 minutes.

Let me transcribe to you a short event in our household tonight. Backstory: I keep a secret chocolate stash in my room. It’s all mine. Mine!!! ‘cuz, you know… the kids eat it all otherwise. In reality it’s not all that secret, but it’s not kept with the rest of the treats. It’s also Milka (aka “the good stuff”).

G: Mom! I stole all your chocolate.
Me: No you didn’t!
G: Yes, I did!
[I proceed to go check on my stash. Which is perfectly safe and untouched]
G: Ha! Now I know where you keep your secret stash.

I totally fell for it. Damn it, kid! I don’t even know that this was intentional planning, but knowing him it likely was. Possible phisher in our house growing up here. Maybe I shouldn’t teach this kid to code, after all.

Last year, for Thanksgiving my sister and her husband came up for a visit. Both are Pokemon Go players, and they asked for a day trip to Pier 39 so they can play. Shane and Griffin had played for a little bit, and knowing that Griffin was into the game I figured it’s a good way to spend the day. Unfortunately, Shane couldn’t come with us that day, so Pokemon Go ended up on my phone for that adventure.

Since that day, Griffin asked me to spin poke-stops, and catch pokemon as I walk between my car and the office.
This expanded to me progressively reading up more about the game, and strategies of play.
It also has grown to the two of us taking occasional drives out so he can fight gyms (and now Raids).

All this has given me an opportunity to interact with him at a lever other than homework nagging and screen-time negotiations. It’s been good for us. Shane and he have sports. I won’t catch up there, but Griffin and I, for now, have this.
En route to gyms we get to talk. It’s been nice! Yesterday, for example, we talked about storming out of the house when he’s angry.

I never imagined a video game can be an “in” to relationship building, but I’ll take it. Before Storm was born, I was Griffin’s “person”. Once his brother was born though, Griffin’s world became mostly about Daddy. I love that Shane and he are so close; but I want to know he can and would come to me too.

So yeah, judge my Pokemon Go playing — I’ve got something making it worth-while.

If the kids wake up before Shane and I, they run into our room, straight to the office where they proceed to entertain themselves with the ipad (taking advantage of us still being asleep and unable to say ‘No!’). This morning, however, the two decided to entertain themselves by making balls out of rubber bands. Cuz’ you know… why not???

At one point though, after I woke up, I over-heard the following conversation:

Griffin: Who’s your favorite? Mom or Dad?
Storm: Mom!
Griffin: I like them both.
Storm: Yeah, I like them both, too.
Storm: …
Storm: We’re tweensies!

Side note: I’m “in” with Griffin! For me this is HUUUGE. I feel like it’s taken years to be viewed as equal to Daddy in his eyes. Like, no joke, years. Feels like 6-and-a-half, to be exact. But I’ll take it as long as it lasts.

Participating in Science Fair is a requirement for the 2nd grade class of our elementary school.

Griffin had long-decided that he wanted to do his project on crystal growth. Unfortunately growing crystals on their own isn’t much of a project, since there’s no hypothesis there. So he ultimately called out that he wanted to grow crystals in various temperatures to see which will grow faster.
We had some good, dinner-time conversations refining his hypothesis and experiment design, to make sure he was controlling for the right variables.
He grew his crystals in the fridge, room temperature and heating pad. The room temp and hot sample we kept in the downstairs bathroom, because there’s no natural light in that room: this was so that light didn’t become a factor in the experiment.
We had to keep Zoe out of the bathroom too — 1) so she wouldn’t get too curious and want to drink the crystal solution; 2) so that she didn’t decide to play with the sample containers. In revenge, she DID play/break one of the samples AFTER it was done, and thankfully AFTER I had photographed it for the fair poster. Life with pets and kids, man — it’s why you can never have nice stuff.

Oh — in case you’re curious, hot sample grew the fastest.

I’m raising tea lovers.

Growing up, my parents weren’t keen on allowing my sister and I to drink coffee. It was an “adult” drink, and I remember secretly ordering coffee at McDonalds with my Sausage Muffin in High School. Joke was on me though: after all the time, coffee just tastes too bitter to enjoy. To this day, no matter what I’ve tried coffee is yucky. The amount of creme and sugar it required to be palatable doesn’t make it worth it. With that said, I greatly enjoy coffee ice cream, and a few drops of coffee in my milk. Oh… and Turkish Coffee — the way my mom makes it. That is delicious (on account of the pound of sugar, I’m certain goes in it). But it’s also a rare treat I’m exposed to every few years.
Shane similarly doesn’t have a taste for coffee, which is why you won’t find coffee in our house. We DO have a coffee maker, and will go out and purchase coffee when we have relatives coming to down (we’re not tyrants! ;p)

So, tea is has mostly been for me.

A few years back, for my friend Molly’s baby-shower we went to Lisa’s Tea Treasures (in Campbell), where one of the teas served was a Butter Truffle. I found myself yearning for it, only to discover that a tea house a block away from my office sold it. Here is where Tea Time entered my world. Butter Truffle was my gateway tea into high-quality, loose-leaf teas. As I progressively went back over time to refill my stash, I would take Griffin with me. One day we sat down for high tea there. Griffin became an instant fan, and has drank tea since.
And he’s kept asking me to do high tea again… with his brother.

The week-end after Mother’s Day, on (somewhat) of a whim, we went.

Now I have two kids at home that enjoy tea. Their favorites are: Lychee, Butter Truffle, Ceylon, and White Peach Pomegranate.

We’re slowly working on Shane.

A few random memories from our tea excursion:

• Storm discovered sugar cubes. No, I didn’t let him eat any straight… though he asked… multiple times
• A lady next to us broke a tea set. Can’t say I wasn’t relived it wasn’t MY kids
• Storm also discovered Bagel Bites. He’s a fan.

Cinnamon rolls are probably one of Storm’s favorite breakfasts. I’d like to say we make them from scratch, but the Grands rolls are about as good as we get. He’s pretty happy with the outcome.

This year I saw some egg dyeing article floating around where you could dye eggs using food color and shaving foam. I got all that we needed, re-read the instructions, got the eggs ready… and this is how they turned out.

Yep! These were our dyed eggs. Even dyed them twice. Winner!!! Not!!!

But at least enjoy the pics 🙂