Mixed up Measurements

According to Ami:

This tower is 5 million feet high  and I am 2 pounds tall.

Sundays are for staying in doors, all-day sleep wear, and somersaults.

Friday Night Lights//Manual

Yesterday was a rare day for me and the hubs. Where usually our Tuesdays involve long hours, little sleep and late-night arrivals yesterday we had an unexpected break in our hectic schedules and decided to make it a movie night. When we got home Ami was still napping (at 6:30pm) so we transferred him from his usual napping spot (the couch) to our bed. Since neither of us were hungry we opted out of dinner, got in our pajamas and joined the Kid.

Unfortunately, Netflix was acting up and we couldn't stream anything via the PS3.

I offered up my West Wing dvds as an alternative, but the hubs wasn't having it. He offered up his Lord of The Rings DVDs, and I was not about to go down that road. As a compromise-- and because the only other DVD we had in our room that was not West Wing, Lord of the Rings trilogy, Star Wars, or the Matrix trilogy-- we watched Total Recall.

At some point during the movie Ami woke up but we didn't realize it until he shuffled quickly under the covers. He sat up after a few minutes and said: "Your movie is scary. I am freaking out." To which we responded with uncontrollable laughter.

Parents of the year, right here.

Travel Town// A-Team

I lived in LA city-proper for 5 years and discovered very little of what it had to offer. My adventures were confined strictly to the Westwood/Santa Monica/South Bay area and it is only now that we've moved back down South to the OC that I find myself discovering LA and regretting that I didn't do it sooner. I guess it's true that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

Maybe it was because I didn't have a kid then, but I never knew Griffith Park had a little old train depot and museum hidden in it hills. We took the boys up there this weekend to hang out and to get a close-up look at the old engines. The Kid and AJT are totally into trains at the moment; like all other 3 year olds they discovered the magic of Thomas and the Island of Sodor and are now fascinated by the engines and the sounds and the locomotion. Growing up I knew that my dad and my grandpa had a special bond over train sets and now looking back I see how sweet it is to have that kind of bond with your child. Every year my dad would send my grandpa a new set and they would talk every now and then on the phone about the latest train set the latest set up my grandpa had configured. Being a girl, I never got into it, but now as I've had to learn all the parts of the train and the varying scales in order to impress my 3 year old, I've fallen in love with the romanticized notion of train travel. I can imagine the excitement of hearing the whistle as a train pulled into a station and the anticipation of voyages to new frontiers and new adventures. Honestly, I don't know who enjoyed the trip to Travel Town more, me or the kids. It was all I could do not to buy all the retro railroad pins and all the little tin trains. Definitely a place we'll return to soon.

Ami's Annual Check Up// Mama Ditch Day

Took a trip to the doctor's yesterday morning (bright and early) for the annual physician's approval of my parenting ability, or otherwise known as the Kid's yearly well-visit. These days are always guaranteed to be an adventure because we usually schedule the appointment for ridiculously early times (8am) and therefore always have to contend with ridiculously ridiculous Westwood traffic. We are always running late, which means that traffic issues provide us with an overdose of anxiety and adrenaline. Luckily, this year we made it within the 15-minutes-late window so everything was kosher and we didn't have to reschedule.

This (I think) will be the first time I write down the Kid's stats which probably makes me a horrible mother, but I didn't have things all that together the first couple of years, so whatever. And anyway, it is only as he is getting older that the reality of him one day not being attached to my hip is setting in and I want to be able to look back and remember every detail. 

Without further ado: Ami at 3 years, 2 months, 10 days:

- 95th percentile in height
- 41 inches tall (which means he is only 21.4 inches, or LESS THAN 2 FEET from being as tall as I am!)
- 55 inch head (which confirms we were correct when we nicknamed him Big Head)
- still drinking too much milk (I dare Dr. L to ween that kid from his milk addiction. At least we dropped boob and bottle a long time ago)
- intelligent and articulate (but we already new that)

Even with the stress of getting there on time I really look forward to these days because it usually means I can skip work and hang out with Ami for the rest of the day. We went to breakfast with the hubs, then hung out just the two of us (+ my mom part of the day) when Mark had to go to school. It was a good day.

Found on Phone//Ami

Although I have multiple cameras my go-to is always my phone. I love the good -- yet lo-fi -- quality of pictures I can take. The ease of whipping out my phone to take pictures has resulted in an image over-load and I usually end up taking about 20 pictures a day on my phone alone. Sometimes I snap so many I forget that I took them and they stay on my phone for months. That is exactly what happened with these gems. I believe these were taken in December because 1) Ami still had hair/ horribly cut bangs; and 2) we are outside El Campion waiting for tamales (early bird trip to El Campion for tamales could only mean holiday  time).

I can't get over how much he looks like a baby. He's face has thinned a little bit and now he looks like a big kid. It really seems like he grows overnight. I've been thinking of taking his picture everyday like that guy who took his picture everyday for 8 years, but I don't know if I can pull it off. It would be cool though, to see the subtle-to-extreme changes in his appearance through the years, or maybe just months.

Playdate

Loves//My Boys

Finally got my film developed. Only took about 5 months. But it was such a nice surprise to see my loves looking so different back then.

Imagination//

 

We had an excellent weekend! Give my kid some floss and he will transform into "STRING MAN"!