With All Duo's Respect

As is often said, a friend in green is a friend indeed. (Or something to that effect.) Adie and Olivia posed for this pals portrait after their class at the UU.

Fall Out Down Boy

Reed has taken the fall season quite literally, having gone to the ground after an exhausting game of chase-the-pigskin. We were at the fall food & fun family festival at Olivia’s school, whose administrators hope that the gathering is the only time and place their students ever see a cluster of the alliterated “F.”

Olivia was busy running around with her classmates – so busy, in fact, that I failed to get a picture of her – but I did capture these others of Reed when he was upright, wandering the schoolyard with a cookie in his hand.

Roll over Beethoven, Move over Mozart

The ivories may tower over him, but Reed makes game attempts at tickling them when he’s able to sneak back to the piano corner of our living room.

That's Amore

With apologies to Dean Martin:

♪
When the pizza pie hits your mouth
Like a big half moon, that’s amore
When the world seems to shine,
About the spinach, too much whine, that’s amore.
♫

Hot Cross One(-Year-Old)

Reed’s a little teapot, not because he’s short or stout, but because he emits a high-pitch sound when he’s reached his boiling point. The kid is ebullient 90% of the time, but the times when he’s had it – watch (and listen) out. Like those times when he’s embroiled (em-broiler-ed?) in a debate on what a safe distance from the oven is...


…or when his dad has to take away his sidewalk chalk when marks started showing up on the dog, sliding screen, and patio furniture, among other non-sidewalk places.

Let the Music Take Control

We need to get to Carpet City because this toddler just cut a rug.

Toddler Two-Step from chris k on Vimeo.

On the Same Page

September 8, 2010

Dear Reed,

Reading, as they say, is fundamental, and you should know that in that regard, we are a fundamentally sound family: our home abounds in bounded texts. From an early age, your sister took to the written word, and you certainly have shown a similar proclivity. You are lucky to have a sibling who loves to share her love of reading with you, and we are lucky to have children who share this fundamental interest.

Your mom and I are looking forward to the day when we are all sitting in our living room or the library or a coffeehouse, each of lost in the worlds and knowledge that books open up for us. (And you have permission to yell at me to stop being distracted by all the unplayed Scrabble games on my cell phone, and that I need to return to the family activity at hand.)

Love,

Daddy

Pocky Around

What better way to encourage our poky little daughter to attend to her chores list than the possible prize of Pocky (pronounced poh-kee) Sticks – giant ones, at that? And where does one purchase said jumbo choco-sticks? At a giant Pocky store, of course! Like the one discovered a couple years back on Vancouver’s Robson Street (last picture of this post).

Most recently, as in this past weekend, I also spotted these confectionary titans in L.A.’s Little Tokyo, where I spent some time with my friend Jim reminiscing over and sampling the candies of my childhood. And most surprisingly, I found the box that Olivia is holding at a small local Asian grocery store, thereby vaulting the business into the top five of my Best Things About This Community list.

Hanging Out and Laying Low

Setting a high bar with Aiden's sister Alayna

If Olivia got to spend time in the past with her buddies at the gymnastic center, it only seems fair that Reed eventually gets to do the same with the younger siblings of those buddies, in a festive mood I’ve described before as sibling revelry.

Foam fun with A.J.'s sister Madison