Picture of This Day

Making friends wherever he goes.


December 29, 2010
Big Bear, CA

Picture For This Day

Concentrating on the directions as he assembles his new Lego Antlantis Exploration Headquarters, a birthday present from Sandi and Pap-Pap.  I love his focus as he does this.  The way it makes me feel as I watch him doing this, while pretending not to since he wants the final product to be a surprise...well...it's beyond my ability to describe in words.


November 30, 2010


P.S. Sorry for the crappy iPhone photo.  I just had to text this moment to his grandparents.

Rocking Number Six

The bulk of Kiernan's birthday celebrating happened over the holiday weekend, with his big party on Sunday.  I'll hopefully find some decent pictures from that event (translation: hopefully Brutha Mitch will send me some because the ones I took are pretty crappy) and post them.  This post is just about the birthday proper, which took place on Monday.  A school day.  These are a couple of odd pictures from that day, for you.

After school we gave Kiernan the option to choose what to do next.  Strangely, running straight home and doing homework was not his first choice.  His first choice, when he saw us there to pick him up, "Can I go to the play structure and play as long as I want to?"

Yep.

Just about every day Kiernan wants to head over to the play structure located near his old Kindergarten class and play with his friends.  Usually I say we can do this for a little while and then we head home.  So the difference this time was that he got to determine how long we stayed and played.  We watched him as he ran around with his friends and played a little tag, then, as is his wont, went into his lunch box and started working on his lunch.  He almost never eats any of his lunch during the actual lunch time provided in the school day.  Far more important things are on his list of things to do at this time.

Fearing "as long as I want to" would mean staying until the next school day, we gently reminded Kiernan that he had a couple of exciting things on the horizon.  1) He was going to get to choose where we went for dinner. 2) There were presents waiting to be opened at home.  Upon mention of the latter he immediately went and picked up his backpack and proclaimed that it was time to go.

As we headed out to our cars, we broached the subject of dinner.  We did this with some trepidation.  More than a week ago we had been at one of Kiernan's favorite places to eat, California Pizza Kitchen, and he had announced that he wanted to have his birthday dinner at CPK.  That was fine with both of his parents.  We can find plenty of good stuff to eat there, and Kiernan loves their curly mac and cheese.  In point of fact, CPK is about the only place that makes macaroni and cheese that Kiernan will eat.  In his defense it is quite good, but then again I think just about any recipe will seem "quite good" if an extra pound of butter is incorporated into it.

Then, a couple of days ago Kiernan announced he wasn't interested in going to CPK for his birthday dinner anymore.  What was his replacement choice?  Burger King.

Ugh.  Facepalm.

Wendy and I went back and forth about this.  I absolutely hated the idea that our kid was choosing fast food for his birthday meal, and Wendy was none too pleased either.  But what are you gonna do?  It's his birthday.  He should get to choose his own meal.  Plus, he was a pretty good sport at my birthday meal last Friday when I chose a restaurant where the only thing he could find to eat was croutons.  Uh-huh.  Not joking.  As a lad myself, I always chose my mom's incredible skillet enchiladas, but then I was a child of discerning tastes.  It seems my boy has not quite reached that point yet.  So we took a deep breath and headed to Burger King.

In the parking lot Kiernan dropped his next request.  He wanted me to run home and gather up all his presents so he could open them at dinner.  At Burger King.  Sorry...I couldn't do it.  For some reason that was a bridge too far.  The mental image of us opening gifts in that setting, while Kiernan ate chicken bits shaped into crowns...it just filled me with a mixture of disgust and sadness.  So I had to say no way.  But I was willing to compromise.  If he wanted to, we could take the delicious BK food home.  He went for that.

So not only did he choose fast food for his birthday...he chose take out fast food for his birthday.  Sigh.  I don't get it.  To me that's like going to Paris and having dinner at McDonald's.  But what do I know?  At least we were going home.

Where my mood improved considerably.  We threw a blanket on the floor in front of the fireplace and had a picnic in front of the fire.  Yeah, it was Burger King food, but at least I could have a glass of wine with it, which apparently you can't do if you actually eat at Burger King since their new product, The BK Big Wine Sipper, hasn't yet been rolled out.

He started tearing into his presents, which was a lot of fun.  I like watching Kiernan open presents.  Sometimes he does that thing I imagine most kids do, that give-me-the-next-present thing where it seems they can't tear through them fast enough.  More often than not, however, he wants to stop to read the book he just opened or open the package and explore the new toy or game.  This can be crazy making at Christmas, when there's a crowd waiting to open the next present, or when the services of Dad are required for technical assembly.  When it's just him opening the presents in front of the fire, it's cool though, especially since this year he's so into Lego sets and Bionicles.  I get a great deal of joy when I see how excited he is to open those packages and unfold the directions.  The way he concentrates on putting together those things is just so arresting.  Yeah, it can get frustrating too, but mostly it makes me proud.

One of the most interesting gifts he got this birthday was a rock collection from our family friend, Pat.  This was such a nifty gift because it was so personal, something Pat had owned for a long time and was passing along to someone he thought would appreciate it.  Boy was he right.  Kiernan opened the box and he just lit up, mouth wide open.  He was just so excited to identify the different rocks in the collection and point out which rocks he already knew about and work his way through pronouncing the ones he did not.  "Obsidian!  There's Obsidian!"

It was just a lovely moment, capping a wonderful birthday.

Let Slide

We celebrated more than one birthday this past holiday weekend.  One of the greatest gifts given was the gift of solitude.  That is to say, Kiernan was invited to a friend's birthday party on his dad's birthday, and said dad was excluded from said event by one amazing mom/wife.  Said dad might risk coming across as disingenuous by saying he was sad to miss the event, but it's probably best he just admit he loved going to see a shoot-em-up movie starring The Rock instead, all on his lonesome.  Especially since said shoot-em-up movie was showing at a theater at which said dad could sit down to a lovely beer beforehand.  Sometimes it's good to live in California.

Oh.  Sorry.  Back to the blog at hand.

I wasn't there, so I can only speak in the pictures I found on this memory card from the camera.  Kiernan went to the birthday party of his friend Ryan with his mom and Gammy.   The party was held at a place called Scooter's Jungle.  It's a play place.  Imagine a blow up slide on steroids and you'll come close.  So here's a picture from the event.  Kiernan on a slide...with Gammy.

This picture is all you need to know to understand what I mean when I say the following...Kiernan has the greatest grandparents in the history of grandparents.

Oh...and his mom is pretty great too.

Wendy may get annoyed at the inclusion of this picture.  It's a weird blurry picture.  But it says so much, and I loved finding it on the memory card.  It's so perfect.  Kiernan's active, fun, happy mom.  Also, I've got to say...I think she looks hot.  This picture makes me smile.  Kiernan and his dad are lucky boys.

Finally, a picture of Kiernan with a couple of friends.  There on the right is the birthday boy, Ryan.  I think that's his friend Jon, on the left, but I could be wrong about that.  Regardless, I love the faces here.

Picture For This Day

At Kiernan's school, birthdays are celebrated on a monthly basis.  That is to say, at the end of each month the entire grade--in Kiernan's case 1st--gathers at the lunch area on a day late in the month to celebrate all the birthdays of that month.  Parents of that month's celebrators bring in cupcakes and drinks and there is a big to-do.  The kids-of-honor wear crowns and stand on a table in front of the assembled and there is much singing and frivolity.  I took this picture as the first grade kids lined up in front of the lunch area in preparation for the festivities.

If I had to caption this picture, I think I'd just throw up my hands and fall back on that wonderful French turn of phrase...joie de vivre.

The best thing about being one of those annoying people who takes pictures all the time?  You get life lessons in constant and sustainable installments.  My boy teaches me something every day.  Sometimes months later.  And for that, I am so thankful.


November 2010

The Non Pie-olent Protest

One of the lovely little byproducts of a grandparent visit is the sleeping in that often happens.  Kiernan is so excited to see the grandparent he can barely contain himself each morning.  As a result, his mom and dad get to steal a bit more shut-eye.  I want to take a moment right now to say this is not our primary joy in having visits from Kiernan's grandparents these days.  No no no no no.  We love having our parents visit because we love our parents.  First and foremost.  Getting a couple more hours sleep each morning is far down the list.  Way far down.  Really.

One morning we arose to find a note on the floor similar to the note pictured.  Kiernan spent a lot of Pap-Pap's visit acting like he was a seal, and Pap-Pap was his owner.  They developed a whole lovely fiction around Kiernan being a seal, doing tricks and getting fresh fish as reward.  He spent a lot of time going "Arp! Arp! Arp!"  Pap-Pap would translate.  I'll just go on the record and say that this was not annoying at all.  Nope.  I'll also say I consider it one of life's little miracles that this seal game seems to have left with Pap-Pap.

So the note we found on the floor that morning informed us that the two of them were running off to join the circus because there was no pie in the house.  We'd taken my dad to lunch at one of my favorite spots, a diner called Four'n 20.  They make some lovely food there.  One of the best BLT&G sandwiches I've ever had (that is Bacon Lettuce Tomato and Guacamole, of course).  But most importantly they make pie.  Oh, goodness do they make pie.

We took Dad there after a mini-golf outing with Kiernan's friends Ryan and Kyra and we took a bunch of pieces of pie home.  Those were dinner that night.  The boys woke up the next morning disappointed with the fact that the pie had not magically regenerated overnight.  So they ran away in protest.

I find this reaction to be entirely reasonable.  Being a pie lover* myself. 

Luckily the boys returned, but a few days later we found the above note on the door.  Fearing the guillotine I made a special trip back to Four'n 20 while Kiernan and Pap-Pap were in school on Monday.  Thus I avoided a full-scale revolt.

I need another picture to end this post.  I'm just gonna use a random pic from Pap-Pap's visit.  This has nothing to do with pie, and isn't a high-quality photograph at all, but it's too lovely not to post somewhere.  So here it is...

Dad is talking with Sandi.  I totally stole this moment, as the very next second Kiernan scrambled away and under Pap-Pap to keep me from getting another picture, as he is wont to do.


*DOWN WITH CAKE!

Picture For This Day

Kiernan and Pap-Pap on their way in to school for the day.


Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Another Picture For This Day (from that same day)

Marble Party Day happened to coincide with another wonderful event: the arrival of Pap-Pap for a week long visit.  Happiness ensued.  Also ice cream.


Woodland Hills, CA
November 9, 2010

Picture For This Day

 

 

Last Tuesday, Kiernan's class had a Marble Party.  The class earns one of these by getting their jar of marbles filled; as they do great things as a class throughout the day, their teacher puts marbles in a jar.  Once that jar is filled...Marble Party.

The class voted on a pajama theme for the party, and in the afternoon they watched part of a movie (I think it was a movie with Lilo in it, but not Lilo & Stitch).  Wendy broke out some brand new pajamas on that morning, which was good because the ones he wanted to wear were clearly too small for him.  Most everything of his is getting too small for him far too quickly.  He grows like crazy.

He was so excited about the new pajamas that he immediately proceeded to get syrup all over them.  Oof.

Anyway, the Marble Party was a great success.

Woodland Hills, CA

November 9, 2010

 

Picture For This Day: Stuff I Missed from 2010 Edition

Rainbow, uncle, and nephew!  What does it mean?!?

A couple of pictures from our May visit to Virginia.

Gloucester Point, VA
May 21, 2010

Slideshow For This Day: Stuff I Missed from 2010 Edition

A lovely sunset from one of our favorite places.  Think of it as a little mental health break for the day.


San Clemente, CA
February 13, 2010

Quote For This Day

One of the final rituals of bedtime around these parts is snuggling, in which one of us parents cuddles with Kiernan as he falls asleep.  Usually this task/privilege falls to Wendy, but as she is off gallivanting in Missouri with her wacky teacher friends presently, snuggling is my job this week.

Bedtime tonight, as his breathing began to change, signalling the transition to sleep, he made the following statement in a decidedly sleepy voice...

"Pap-Pap will be here in five days."

We talked to the East Coast Murawski folks last night, but we didn't talk about this at all today.  Sweet that this is on his mind as he drifts off tonight.  I counted off the days in my head.

"Yep," I said.  "You're right.  He'll be here in five days."

A contented sigh was his only response.

Picture For This Day: Stuff I Missed from 2010 Edition

A couple of lovely pictures I think I missed from our January trip to Virginia.  Kiernan out on the shore of the York River with Pap-Pap and Sandi.

Gloucester Point, VA
January 2010

Between the Aunt and the Deep Blue Sea

From the 'Stuff I Missed in 2010 Files':

Last March we celebrated a big birthday for Kiernan's awesome mom.  We had a surprise celebration in lovely Oxnard, CA.  After the surprise party proper, Wendy and her girls went off to play mini golf.  While they were doing that, the men (such as they are) took the kids down to the beach (such as it was) to play.  After a couple of hours of this goofing around, one of the girls joined us.  A very special girl.  Aunt Amy.

Let me tell you, it was so cool to see Amy at this time.  We'd just gotten the news that Amy was expecting a Quinn, so it was exciting to lay eyes upon her again.  But also, for me, it was welcome to have Kiernan's black-hole-like need for attention be focused on someone else for a few minutes.  The day--not to mention the previous weeks of surprise party planning--had been a doozy.  If not for my awesome cohorts, Dr. Rachel and Dr. Sally, I would never have made it.  So Amy showed up at a great time.  Kiernan needed a break from me, and I needed a break from thinking.

They proceeded to work together on a project.  A writing project.  First Amy wrote something.

Awww! Isn't that sweet?  Aunt Amy is the bestest ever!

I snapped pictures, happy to have another adult around to keep his attention.  Next Aunt Amy encouraged Kiernan to write something in the sand.  Something lovely, for the Woman of the Moment...his aunt.

Look at that there!  How beautiful is that?  Kiernan loves his Aunt Amy.  He loves her so much he's taken the trouble and time to put it down for all posterity in a substance the Bible thinks so highly of it suggests you build your house upon it.  I think I learned that in Sunday School.

This was all well and good.  Very sweet.  Then Aunt Amy and Nephew Kiernan started on a new project.  I was told not to look.  Hmm.  Should I have been suspicious?  Nah.  What, me worry?

A boy and his aunt.  Yep.  Good times.

Let's just say I'm looking forward to some quality Quinn-and-his-uncle time in the years to come.

Twilight of the Toa

There he is.  Our sweet little boy.  He hasn't been the same since that rally he attended in DC over the weekend.

In case you didn't know it, Sunday night was Halloween.  The tradition in these parts is for Kiernan to go out trick-or-treating in the neighborhood with his friend Sam.  Sam and his folks, a group that now includes Sam's little brother Ben, come on over and we all head out to hunt and gather.  Excepting one Halloween a couple of years ago, when we were on a family trip in Hawaii, it has always been thus.  I hope it continues.

I imagine you're having trouble sussing out what Kiernan's costume is in the above picture.  I'm surprised at you. Really.  He's clearly Vakama.  I can almost see you nodding at your computer right now and thinking to yourself, "Vakama.  Of course!  One of the Turaga of Mata Nui.  He was once the Toa Metru of Fire, if I'm not mistaken!"  And yes, you are correct.  He was once the Toa Metru of Fire.  Nicely done!

Maybe the homemade fire-sword threw you off?  Hmm.  I bet if I'd put up a proper picture with the mask down you would have gotten it straight away.  So here...

See?

Okay, okay.  Enough.  Vakama is a Bionicle, Kiernan's most recent obsession.  For awhile it was all Bionicles all the time in this house, but I think the obsession is beginning to fade.  This is a good thing in that the stores seem to have run out of Bionicle characters for us to buy.  I'm just relieved he stayed interested enough in the characters for the costume to still be relevant.  He loved being Vakama, even if he plays with the Bionicle toys less and less.

As the years progress, I'm finding this phenomenon more and more unnerving.  He goes through cycles of interest in toys--Star Wars figures for instance--and subjects--dinosaurs, the Solar System--as I'm sure all kids do.  I just never could have foreseen of how this would create an oddly stressful dynamic at this time of year.  I'm not just talking about planning a costume, although that's part of it.  I'm talking also about the impending holidays, birthday included, and how these cycles impact wish lists.  We tell folks what he's into, or he declares what he wants to put on his wish lists (this year: "A LOT of  Bionicle toys!") and we cross our fingers hoping some goofy friend of his doesn't nudge him over into something new--Pokemon cards, I'm looking at YOU!--before we claw our way into the new year.

I know this is an idiotic thing to be stressful about in a world where so many children want for the most basic things, things like fresh water, but such is the world of parenting.  I reckon this dynamic will only get more volatile in the years to come, so for now there's another blessing to count.

Trick-or-treating went nicely for the most part.  Ben, Sam's little brother, dropped out of the expedition well before the older boys.  His dad, Joe, brought him back to the house where I was on candy-dispensing duty.  This was an unexpected plus for me, as Ben and I haven't ever had a chance to bond before this.  We conversed on a wide range of topics, from Reese's to lollipops, and I think we really made a connection.

While I missed the actual house-to-house action, I did get to see the photographs.  Pretty neat.  I shall use my favorite to end this post, because it perfectly complements the picture up there at the top.  Kiernan, fierce warrior...and...

...reader.

When I saw this picture I laughed out loud.  This house is around the corner from ours, and I saw these little gravestone decorations last week when I was out for a walk.  I noted in passing that I should stop sometime and read the little jokes printed on them with Kiernan, but this thought flitted right out of the transom of my mind and I never did.  It was oddly pleasing, then, to see him crouching and checking out the jokes with his friend in the midst of gathering all that candy.

Good stuff.

[P.S. Hopefully I'll get some more and better pictures from Sam's mom, Heather, and post those later.]

Into His Gourd

As I mentioned in the previous post, there's a lot of excitement around here about Halloween.  So last weekend we joined the festivities in earnest with our annual trip to the pumpkin patch.  We have a local school called Pierce College that started as an agricultural school and maintains a couple hundred acres of its land for farming to this day.  On one side of the campus there is a farm center which hosts a Halloween Harvest Festival, which is a fun place to go and get a couple of pumpkins this time of year.  It's a tradition.  A couple of you have joined us there in years past.  I think Pap-Pap went one year, and Hope another.

I will confess that sometimes I don't always have the best attitude about this.  In addition to the fact that the pumpkins are much more expensive here, I'm not a big fan of paying a lot of money to be around large groups of large people eating fried foods, which seems to be the point of most festivals and fairs.  But both Kiernan and Wendy were excited so we did it again.  I'm glad we did.  The adventure started off on a very good note.  After parking the car down the street (the lot at the Farm Center was overflowing), I joined Kiernan and Wendy in the unbelievably long line for buying admission passes and ride/activity tickets.  I tried to convince Wendy that this was a bad idea, that we should just go to the pumpkin patch area and skip the rides this year since admission was going to expensive and annoying, when a young woman interrupted us.

"So when you buy an admission package you get a number of free admissions," she said, holding out three free tickets.  "And we have these extra activity vouchers.  It's so crowded in there and the kids are just on this crazy sugar high so I figure we'd better get them out of here while we can."  She smiled and handed over the the free admissions and the activity tickets.  Then she turned to go.

Wendy and I stammered our thanks.  She turned to acknowledge us, waved, and disappeared.

"Well, that's that," Wendy said, pulling us out of line and heading for the entrance.

"What was that?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"Who was she?"

"I don't know," Wendy repeated.  "You just saw the first time I ever talked to her."

"You mean," I responded, confused.  "You didn't meet her before I walked up."

"Nope.  She must've just seen three people standing together."

It was so weird, the way she approached us.  The way she started talking to us as if we'd talked to her previously or something.  And then she just disappeared.  The whole thing was like one of those stories about angels at Christmas.  A Halloween angel?  Okay.  I'll take it.

We headed inside and cased the joint, trying to decide what activities to do.  Kiernan immediately opted to spend one ticket on the bouncy house.  He loves those things.  Goes nuts for them.  I think even if we had one permanently installed in our driveway, he'd never get tired of it.  After a few minutes of bouncing he moved to the giant bouncy slide and spent another ticket there.  The picture at the top of this post catches him immediately after hitting the slide a second time (two slides per ticket, don'tcha know).  Then we got some food (an ice cream sandwich for him, popcorn for Wendy, and a frozen lemonade for me) and sat down to decide upon our next move.  How to spend that final ticket?

"I want to do the corn maze," Kiernan said.

Ugh, I thought.  Not the corn maze.  We've never done the corn maze.  To me it looked like this weird combination of dopey and dangerous.  Dopey, because the idea of walking through the corn didn't seem particularly stimulating on the outside looking in.  Dangerous, because there were large warning signs that said variations on, "If you get lost.  Don't panic.  A maze master will find you."  When we inquired as to the cost the girl working the ticket booth said, "If you get lost, just yell for help."

Yell for help?

I tried talking Kiernan out of it, but he wasn't having any of it.  He insisted and soon had swayed Wendy to his way of thinking.  So, we bought thirteen more tickets and headed in.  Once again, I was glad they convinced me.  The corn maze was neat.  Easy enough to navigate and clearly fun for Kiernan.  We got a little game card the size of a postcard that directed us on a fact-finding mission to find signs in the corn where questions about the farm on the card were answered.  At each sign was a hole punch so we could prove we'd found the answer.  We even ran into one of Kiernan's classmates, there with her mother.  It was lovely.  And I've got the slideshow to prove it.

Finally we headed over to the pumpkin patch to pick out a pumpkin and get a family picture with a giant fake pumpkin.

All in all, a pretty cool time.

Picture For This Day

Last week Kiernan decided to wear some part of a costume every day.  The first day he picked out a huge green St. Patrick's Day hat.  Next was a gigantic red, white, and blue patriotic hat.  Day three was cape day, apparently.  In each instance he would wear the costume bit into school, bask in the attention, then hand over the costume bit to me as he lined up with his classmates.  I was proud of him for being responsible like that.  I was not so crazy about the fact that he'd insist I put the hat or whatever on, no matter how much doing so amused him and all his little friends.

He's having a blast with Halloween this year.  He was so excited when we got out the decorations and jumped right into dressing up the house with Wendy.  He wanted all the costumes from the costume box to be housed in his room so he could get into a costume whenever, and that weekend when he had the twins, Jon and Matt, over for a playdate he wanted it to be a costume playdate.  Wherever we go he comments on the decorations and loves to pretend to be afraid of ghosts and ghouls hanging up in grocery stores.  For a kid who is so quick to turn off a movie or TV show when it gets the least bit scary, he sure is embracing this holiday.

I find this beyond cool, because it's making this Halloween all the more exciting for me.

October 20, 2010

Picture For This Day

On Saturday one of my friends from my Starbucks days had a small reunion party.  Her son, Samuel, invited Kiernan to join him in his favorite tree.

Looking at this picture I am reminded of my time as a lad in Killeen, Texas.  I was a bit younger than Kiernan, and I spent many hours in our backyard tree.


Palmdale, CA
Saturday, October 16, 2010

Picture For This Day

Sometimes after school I let Kiernan hang out and play for a bit with his friends.  Yeah, this is irresponsible of me.  There is, after all, work to be done.  First grade does mean more homework, which so far has been a good thing overall.  He's learning to brainstorm ideas for writing and in the interest of trying more challenging math he took a whack at his first Sodoku puzzle (btw...don't look at Blogger's spelling suggestions for Sodoku if you happen to be typing up a blog entry with your kid...yikes). I know we should be heading straight home and getting cracking on homework, but some days I can't resist letting him play.  Moments of play are getting more and more precious.

After a little playtime, we walk up the hill next to the school to our car. Often we do this with Oliver and his two little brothers (and Mom).  On this day, as we walked I turned around and saw this.  I realize that the image of Kiernan reading is one I post often.  I can't help it.  I'm just so constantly tickled by how much he loves to read. To see him engrossed in a book with his friend...I just find that priceless.


October 7, 2010

Picture For This Day: Stuff I Missed from 2010 Edition

In May we visited Virginia for the graduations of Aunt Hope and Uncle Mason.  Hope graduated on the first weekend of our visit, and Mason on the second weekend of our visit.  You can see his reaction to being at Hope's graduation from law school here.

In going through a bunch of files recently I found these two pictures from Mason's graduation from CNU.

Graduation was held inside due to a deluge of rain.  Hmm.  It happens.

Oh, yeah.  The guy taking the picture was proud, proud, PROUD of his brother!


Newport News, VA
May 16, 2010

Picture For This Day

Last weekend Kiernan got to attend the birthday party of his friends Jon and Matt.  I spent a lot of time brushing his teeth that night.


October 10, 2010

Picture of This Day

Before school play time today.  With his friend Nicholas, who is in Kindergarten and has been Kiernan's pal since they were in Preschool together a couple of years ago.  They tend to structure a lot of their play around a creature called "BaBa Guinea Pig".  This creature, in turn, seems to be inspired by Kiernan's sleeping companion, Guinea Pig.  I've tried on many occasions to get Kiernan and Nicholas (and his twin sister, Veronica) to explain to me exactly what BaBa Guinea Pig is, and how he works into the GP mythology, but it's always to no avail.  They can't explain it, or don't want to.

I love the colors in this picture.  Also, I'm always proud when we get to school early enough that we have time for Kiernan to play.  It's the little things.

October 13, 2010

Picture For This Day: Stuff I Missed from 2010 Edition

At the end of Kindergarten last year, we had a final  parent conference.  Run by Kiernan himself.  Kiernan led us to our seats and offered us some refreshments (cookies and juice, natch).  He proceeded to show us a portfolio of work samples from over the course of the year, work samples that he had chosen.  Then he took us on a tour of his classroom to see more examples of the work he and his peers had done.

So cool.

June 14, 2010 (or thereabouts)

A Shortcut to Vegetables

We got our first CSA box two days ago, and I'm just so excited I can barely contain myself.  Contents of said box:

It's silly to get excited about a box of vegetables, I know, but I've been wanting to do this for a couple of years now but have been reluctant to pull the trigger for a couple of reasons.  CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and for those of you who don't know, it basically means getting a box of produce from local farms a couple/few times a month.  My sister-in-law JoAnne has been doing this for awhile, and I love how she incorporates the produce into the meals we've had when visiting the Tobias Fam.  She's much more talented as an improvisational cook than I am, so I was hesitant in part for that reason.  But also, as is well documented, I live with a couple of Picky Eaters, so I had to be honest about the fact that I'd be the one consuming most of the contents of the boxes every week.  Laying out the bucks just for myself seemed a mite counterintuitive.

Then I got lucky.  A friend of ours, we'll call her Dr. Rachel, worked with a local farm called Underwood Family Farms to get a CSA program going at CSUN (her and Wendy's employer).  Once a week boxes of produce are delivered right to campus where folks who participate can pick them up more easily.  I liked this idea, but still was hesitant due to the above reasons.  Lucky for me the boxes of produce were too much for our friend Dr. Rachel and another friend, we'll call her Dr. Sally, to handle.  So they wanted to start sharing boxes with us.  That would mean us getting two boxes a month, one every other week, for a very reasonable price.  I was mildly dubious as to why these friends of ours were having trouble consuming the vegetables, as they were subscribing to the "small" boxes in the Underwood Family Farms CSA Program, but I figured this would be a good place to start.

Let me just say that farmers clearly have a different definition for the word "small" than the rest of us do.  Here's the small box:

It's only the first of our boxes, but I have to say I'm totally in love with this program.  I'm totally into surprises, and so getting this box home and opening it and laying out all the surprises on the counter was pure heaven.  Kiernan really got into it too.

All your counter space are belong to us.

Last night we had the first of the produce with dinner.  Main course was one of my favorites, artichokes.  Not a part of the box, alas, but I found some lovely ones at Trader Joe's for $.99 a piece!  [Lookie there!  A reason to love living in California!]  I cooked up two of the ears of corn (microwave method: in husk, three minutes, turn, three minutes, wrap in kitchen towel for five minutes on counter), cutting the kernels off of the corn for Wendy and Kiernan since one just started on braces and the other is missing most of his front teeth.  Cut up some of the carrots in a salad with that lovely lettuce and some of those radishes.

Amazing, beautiful stuff.  Best corn I think I've ever tasted.  Also, I've gotten into a rut buying packages of baby carrots.  These carrots are so much more...um...carroty.  And the radishes were just vibrant.

I'm not sure what to do with the other stuff.  Any suggestions are welcome.  Especially for this monster:

Anyway, happy times.  If you're at all curious about the CSA thing...do it.  Find a friend and split it.  Just do it.