Wonder Aunt Power...Activate!

Form of...an awesome cool aunt!


Shape of...an ice sea anemone!

Okay, I have no idea what that second thing means. I just punched the button on my internal "Wonder Twins Form/Shape Generator" and that's what popped out. You can't strike gold every time.

My sister Hope just left on Saturday, and we're all still in mourning a little bit. Actually, a lotta bit. She was here for a week and we had a terrific visit with her. Kiernan clearly adores her--the way he would light up when he saw her first thing in the morning was just beautiful--and she clearly reciprocates that feeling. She was great with him, and was a huge help during a week when Wendy had to be out of town on business. Hope would get up with us every morning and help get Kiernan ready for school and then join us in the drive to school. She and I would then return to the house and I'd do some cleaning, a little bit of work, and then the two of us would talk for a bit. Then we'd head back out to pick up Kiernan from school and go on with our day. Rather than expecting to be entertained or anything like that, she totally wanted to focus on jumping in and being a part of our day to day routine. This made for a great visit, for all of us.

In honor of that, I shall now post one of her favorite pictures of her nephew from her visit. She took this during the birthday party we attended over the weekend.


Cool picture.

The party was for Kiernan's friend Julia and was held at this cool little nature center in a place called Placerita Canyon. We got there and found the party just where Julia's mom, Brenda said it would be, at the Butterfly Garden. Kiernan immediately started exploring while Ranger Mary--our guide--prepared the craft project that would kick off the party. Kiernan was less than interested in settling down to do the craft project, which consisted of taking a cross section disk that had been cut from an old Christmas tree and gluing various bits of nature to it in order to create a "creature". These bits were mostly rocks and flora...Kiernan may have been more interested had the project included a little fauna. Oh well. He focused long enough to make a simple creature then dashed off to explore some more.

I love this picture of him settling down to do the craft. I love that Hope caught this moment, because this captures a thing he does that really makes me happy. When we're reading together, or just hanging out, he'll often drape his arm over my shoulders. For intance, I often read the comics to him from the paper. I hate the comics, have hated them since Calvin & Hobbes [rightly] deserted their pages years ago, but he loves me to read them to him, so I do. I like to lie down on my stomach while reading them, and he often sidles up to me and throws an arm over my shoulders. It's such a cool buddy move.

After this Kiernan spent a little time jumping off a bench while we waited to go on a nature hike. Hope's pictures might give you an idea of the action.

After this bit of jumping, in preparation for the nature hike to come the kids lined up to make trail mix for themselves. Each kid got a zip-top bag and got to scoop one spoonfull from five or six containers of trail mix ingredients. Plain M&M's. Raisins. Assorted nuts. Peanut butter M&M's. Something else I can't remember. The kids were limited to one spoonful of each selection in creating their trailmix. The genius move on Julia's mom Brenda's part was putting a spork-like utensil in the Plain M&M's container. She knew that anybody in their right mind would try to Bogart extra M&M's, and she was prepared. Genius.

The nature hike was next, after a quick stop at the restrooms. Well..."quick" may be the wrong word. We are talking about twenty toddlers here, and four port-a-potties. So let's just say this "bathroom break" took a bit of time. Time enough for Kiernan to polish off his entire bag of trail mix. Oh well. Onto the trail!

The hike was cool. Ranger Mary stopped every few steps to explain something about Poison Oak or coyote scat ("On the trail we don't call it 'poop'..."--giggles all around). The highlight of the hike was when she stopped to show each and every kid a trapdoor spider that had set up shop along the path. She crouched down and took out her knife and gingerly opened the spider's trap door. Then she allowed each child to file past and peek in at the spider. The kids loved this part of the adventure.

After we arrived back at the Butterfly Garden, Ranger Mary started bringing out creatures for the kids to see. She brought out a snake for them to look at. Also a tortoise. Also a tarantula. After the tarantula we took a break for cupcakes and some amazing concoction Brenda had created for the parents called "dirt 'n worms" or something that was basically cake, pudding, and gummy worms in a bowl. After licking the icing off his cupcake, Kiernan was happy to dig into this other dessert.

Ranger Mary then brought out an owl for the kids to see. That was amazing. A real owl that she had adopted. The kids thought this was just fine, but the adults were clearly mesmerized, asking questions and pretty much forgetting they were at a six-year-old's birthday party. I love moments like this.

Finally we all filed into the gift shop and picked out party favors. Kiernan got a long yellow snake (plastic) and some weird insect encased in goo and housed in a plastic egg. I'm not sure what we're going to do with that thing. I'll keep you posted.



All in all the party was great. Julia's parents, Brenda and Michael, did a great job hosting the party at a new and interesting place. Good on them for pulling that off. I know I could never have done that. Wendy could. Not me. I'd be constantly thinking about the coyote that had left that scat, asking myself, "Why would a coyote--or anybody really--leave his scat right in the middle of the footpath? Isn't that just embarrassing? Unless he was taunting us. Setting a trap for us."

Oof. I know. I watch too many movies. Or too much "Looney Tunes" in my youth. Who knows.

But that coyote should be ashamed of himself. Seriously.

Little Big Foot

Last weekend was heavy on the social obligations for Kiernan. On Saturday he attended a play that was a fund raiser event for his pre-school. On Sunday he attended the birthday party of a friend of his whose mother works with Wendy. On Monday he attended another birthday party, this one for a friend of his from school. I will post pictures and do write ups of the two birthday parties presently. I doubt I'll be able to post pictures from the fund raiser. Sorry about that. Nobody had a camera at that event. Not a soul. Can you believe it? And really nobody was even paying attention. Not at all. Unbelievable. The temerity of these people. These California elites. Seriously. That's the reason you won't be seeing any pictures from it. It has nothing to do with the fact that I was required to appear in a bull costume and crawl around on my hands and knees for an hour.

Nothing at all.

Anyway, I'll get to those events in upcoming posts. First I wanted to quickly post a couple of pictures that I find amusing. The first picture is from the party on Sunday, which was a birthday party for Kiernan's friend Julia. Her parents organized this great party at a nature center in a canyon not too far from where we live. It was a great idea, and something I don't think I could handle in a million years, but somehow they did it. I have plenty of pictures from the party, all thanks to the preparedness of my sister, Hope, who is in town for a visit. I'll post some of those later. Right now I just want to post one picture that really struck me...


On its own, not that big of a deal as a picture. We've just arrived at the party and the first organized activity is not yet underway, so Kiernan is exploring the environs. No big deal. Except that the instant I saw this photo when I was transferring pictures from Hope's camera to my computer, I thought of this...

The quintessential, some might say iconic, photograph of Sasquatch.

That's all. No further commentary. Future generations can make whatever observations they want about a boy and the size of his big foot photo.

Hope 2008

See what I did there? I bet you thought this post was going to be about Barack Obama. Well, it's not. It's about my sister. Gotcha! Tee-hee.

My sister Hope is visiting for the week, taking advantage of her fall break to spend a little quality time with me and her nephew. She can't stand Wendy, so she is refusing to spend time with her. Kidding! Wendy is out of town on a business trip for most of the week. Got you again, didn't I? Man, this is too easy.


That's a shot from Hope's first night in town, a picture she took of us in the middle of one of our pre-bedtime rituals. This may not look like it, but what is going on above falls under the heading of "jumping on the bed". Most nights, after Kiernan has had his bath and has been dried off and has brushed his teeth and picked out his pajamas--which, as you may be able to see, always must be mismatched--Kiernan insists on a few minutes of jumping on the bed. This used to be just what it sounds like. We'd retire to the master bedroom [sounds grand, doesn't it?] and Kiernan would jump on the bed for a few minutes. A little exercise to get him riled up before it's time to try to get him to sleep. Incidentally, this is one of Gammy's favorite things about our parenting, and she fully supports it. Yep.

Over time, "jumping on the bed" transmogrified into other things, some related to jumping, some not, but all still kept under the "jumping on the bed" event heading. The two unifying principles of these events are, 1. They must involve Guinea Pig; 2. They always involve Kiernan watching what he is doing in the mirror. Before he climbs onto the bed he makes sure the bathroom door is shut so that he can take full advantage of the full-sized mirror on the door. I swear I've never seen a kid who liked to watch himself in the mirror as much as Kiernan does. I mean it, Narcissus has nothing on this kid.

A few weeks ago the "jumping on the bed" event became a competition between Kiernan and Guinea Pig. Kiernan would direct me (or Wendy) to lie down at the end of the bed, crossways. He would hand over Guinea Pig--'GP' or "Ginzers" for short--and then stand next to me. Then he'd say, "Ready...Set...Go!" Then he'd jump/dive into the pile of pillows at the head of the bed. GP would "jump" at the same time (parentally assisted, of course), and as soon as they both landed Kiernan would immediately ask, "Who was higher?" Upon being answered he would then ask, "Who was faster?" This permutation did, at least, have something to do with jumping, even if it was not what is classically referred to as "jumping on the bed".

The newest wrinkle, however, has nothing to do with jumping. It's really just falling. I have to lie across the bed, facing the mirror. Kiernan climbs on my back and says, "Go up!" I push myself up. He falls off onto the aforementioned pillows. He finds this endlessly hilarious and really would do it all night if I'd let him. Sadly, business must intrude. I have a lot of things I have to get to once I get him to sleep. Most notably, collapsing.


My favorite pic is the third one down, where it looks like I am heavily under the influence of some sort of controlled substance. I'm not, other than a glass of wine or several. What you see in this picture is my body preparing for the aforementioned collapsing after a day of being pummeled by toddlers. Yes, I meant the plural there. Remind me to tell you about my experiences picking him up from school, sometime. I swear I must have the term "jungle gym" tattooed on my forehead in some sort of ink only visible to children.

Hope loves the top picture best of this series. "Look at him! He's posing while he's falling!" She believes this is clear evidence that Kiernan knows exactly how cute he is. I think he's just being accommodating. Helping out the photographer.

I'm sure that's it.