Nate Nate

Driver's Ed

Do you think you have a good idea of what our life is like?  Watch this video. 

Pajama $*&!!?! Day

It's Spirit Week at Nate's school!  Today is pajama day.  You may recall that Nate doesn't wear pajamas, preferring instead to go to sleep looking like the world's tiniest frat boy in his sweats and thermals.  No matter, I think, I work in a major city.  I'll just run out at lunch and pick up a cute pair.

So I run out to the Gap.  Turns out the large Gap near my office has a grownup Gap and Baby Gap, but no Gap kids.  While I think Nate could likely stuff himself into a pair of size 5 Baby Gap PJs without a whole lot of stuffing, those little 2-piece sets, with their gentle lions and laughing monkeys, are not exactly cool enough to wear to kindergarten.  So my 5 minute run-out job becomes a bigger project as I hop on the Bart and head over to the giant mall at Union Square.  No Gap.  Gap is across the street.  I tunnel my way out of the mall, dodge the many anti-Prop 8 activitsts (my response: "Sorry!!  I'm just running out to buy PJs!  I already signed the online petition!  Prop 8 sucks!!!!"), and journey to the top floor of the giant Gap.  DId you know Gap Kids doesn't actually sell pajamas?

Back to the mall.  Up to the top floor of Nordstrom (a ten minute odyssey in itself).  No pajamas.  Ah, one tiny sales rack of pajamas.  No cute button down, banker-dad-in-minature sets, which is the look I'm going for.  But that's ok, because there is exactly one pair in size 5/6, and it's cute enough; navy blue shirt with a baseball, slouchy blue pants with baseballs.  Perfect.

I race back to the office and head home.  Where, naturally, I discover that Nate, the world's tiniest almost 6 year old, is floating in yards of extra material; folding the top over twice does not prevent the pants from sliding right down to his ankles the minute he takes a step.  And, of course, the drawstring turns out to be phony.  Apparently there are some people who find drawstrings decorative?  So I snip the end off a drawstring from one of my sweatshirts and commence painstakingly threading it through the little pajama pants, centimeter by centimeter, by massaging the outside of the waistband.  Finally, finally, we not only have pajama pants, but they will stay on.  My work is done.  I am awesome.  I am Supermom!

Nate glances at the Spirit Week flyer.  "Wait, it says I'm supposed to wear my favorite pajamas.  These aren't my favorite pajamas!  I can't wear these."

Isn't it swell having an early reader?

I left for work.  Nate went to school some time thereafter.  When I get home, he'll either be wearing the pajamas still, and I'll know that he wore them to school, or he'll be wearing sweats and thermals, and I'll just go ahead and tell myself that he went to school in the pajamas I spent 2 hours on a workday acquiring and just changed into this normal gear to get ready for bed early.  And I'll believe myself, and I'll be happy.

In other news, it's spelling bee time!!  We've been playing eagerly at our house, now with new participant Jonah.  Here's a sample:

Me:  "Nate, your word is 'claustrophobic.'" 

Nate:  "Claustrophobic.  C-L-O-S-R-F-0-B-I-C.  Claustrophobic."

Me:  "Great!  Jonah, your word is 'cat.'"

Jonah:  "C-A-T.  Cat!"

Cute, right?  I also gave Nate the three words I remember having in the only year I made it to the city-wide bee, including the word that did me in.  Nate's takes:

Word: Cellophane.  Nate: "S-E-L-A-F-A-I-N."

Word: Nuisance.  Nate: "N-E-W-S-E-N-T-S."

Word: Psycho-analysis (I still hate that word!).  Nate: S-I-C-K-O-A-N-A-L-E-S-I-S.

I think he's ready.

Jonah The Friendly Kitty

Say what you like about Jonah Butler, but that guy has the ability to make a new friend on a moment's notice.  We had a great time playing with our visiting friends Tamsin and Emma on Sunday, followed by a trip to the city via ferry on Monday.  The moment we boarded the boat, Jonah struck up a conversation with fellow 3 year old Max, and the two of them spent the rest of the trip snuggled in a window at the front of the boat together, loudly providing misinformation to each other ("See that right there?" Jonah asked, pointing to a container ship.  "That's a fishing boat!").  Once we arrived in the city and bid Max goodbye, we settled into a little park to kill some time before meeting Daddy for lunch.  Jonah scrambled up a statue, where he found a four year old named Evie, who asked, two seconds after meeting him, "Do you want to play kitties with me?"

Did he ever.

So Jonah and Evie played kitties for a very long time, after which we followed Evie's family all through the ferry building.  After a nice lunch and visit with Daddy, we headed back to the ferry...where we immediately ran into Max, heading home after his visit to the submarine at Pier 41.  And so Jonah and his old friend Max spent the entire trip back getting into trouble by climbing on, over and under every chair on the boat.  It's a wonder my usually empty threat about getting kicked out didn't actually come true.  What an exciting day.  Jonah is currently passed out in his bed, with the ice cream that I didn't get a chance to wash off before he fell asleep still smeared all over his face, for a quick nap before swimming.

Nate, not usually one to play kitties, enjoyed hearing all about Evie's dad's earthquake experiences.  It's always interesting to watch adults react to him as they slowly get where he's coming from.  "What's your favorite part of kindergarten, Nate?" asked Evie's friendly dad.  "Earthquake drills," lied Nate.  So Evie's dad told him about being in SF for the big 1989 quake.  "What time??" asked Nate excitedly.  "5:07," replied the dad.  "5:07 what???" demanded Nate.  "5:07 pm."  "Ahh, so 8:07 pm in Rhode Island," Nate offered. 

Another Nate tidbit: The story of how I got to thinking of this is too long to reproduce here, but as we were walking to lunch, we walked up a set of stairs.  When we got to the top, I asked casually, "Hey Nate, how many steps was that?" "Six!" replied Nate.  After repeated questioning, he explained that he does not always count how many stairs, etc., but that sometimes he does.  I guess I got lucky by asking when it was one of those times.  Another fascinating piece of the mysterious puzzle that is my little Nate.

Don't Call Me a Pianist

Nate is becoming quite the master of the musical malapropism.  His terminology isn't quite keeping pace with his blossoming dexterity.  Last night he informed me that the chord you can play with all black keys is "F-shark manger." 

Also, his class has been learning the song "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out," by Cat Stevens, which includes one couplet that goes "You can do what you want/the opportunity's on."  When we were in an argument yesterday about whether it was time to play Wii, Nate came up with the following argument:  "Yes, I can play Wii because we have to follow the Sing Out rules, and I can do what I want, the opportunity's on!"  This was only a few days after he asked Andrea, quizzically, "We live high, yeah?"  Because the song says, as you know, "If you want to live high, live high/and if you want to live low, live low." 

Posted by Daddy.

Nate Interprets A Classic Street Sign

It's funny how whatever your own family's weird little quirks are, they start to seem perfectly normal to you until you hold them up to the eyes of a third party.  Today's hysterical story began at our swim lesson, when Nate started saying, "No outlet! No outlet!"  Of course, this seemed perfectly normal to us, but Coach Tim found it confusing, which required Jonah to explain that it's Nate's favorite street sign.  Which in turn required a brief explanation of how our kids are very into street signs.  To prove the point, Steve asked Jonah to name his favorite street sign.  Without hesitation, Jonah rattled off, "Do Not Enter, No Dumping, and No Outlet."  Coach Tim found this very cute.  And also very strange.

On the way home, Steve and I were talking about how useless the "No Dumping" sign really is in 2009 in the Bay Area, because really, who on Earth is dumping here?  I mentioned that I had recently seen someone toss a Pepsi can out of a car.

"Well," Nate suddenly piped up, "if you pay $1000, it's fine for littering!"

It takes a minute, but man, is that funny. 

Blue Skies

The boys on the canoe dock; Nate at Coit Tower: 

Around the Bend

Here's a quick little half-video I (Daddy) made while experimenting with Movie Maker: 

According To Nate

Tonight the subject of babies came up, what with many people we know having some, and I asked Nate, just to test the waters, how the baby gets into a mommy's tummy.  Nate, a student at a very good school, was confident of his answer.  "It goes through the legs, through the liver, through the small intestine, through the large intestine, and then into the stomach.  And then it comes out the belly button."

"That's exactly right!" I exclaimed.  We can revisit it later.

This Is Not The Four Seasons

I'm sitting here in the home office, trying to work while guys are supposed to be sleeping, when I hear Jonah yell, "MOOOOOOOMMMMMMYYYYYYYYY!!!"

"What's the matter?" I yell back.

Pause.

"I'm not cozy."

Otitis Zooitis

Jonah's regularly scheduled pediatrician enjoys distracting kids from the horrors of an ear exam by pretending that he's looking for elephants.  Our old pediatrician in LA had a similar trick involving birdies.  And Jonah has a long memory.  Such that today, at our follow-up appointment with our hero pulmonologist, when Dr. Fong set about to do his ear exam, Jonah was ready with a piece of advice.  "The problem," Jonah offered helpfully, "is that I have a lot of little animals in there."

[All joking aside, Jonah passed his follow up exam with flying colors and got his dosage lowered to, for readers who are interested in such things, a single puff of Flovent 44 twice a day, a dosage that our doctor described as "pretty much the same as not taking anything."  So, good!  We revisit the dosage in the fall in preparation for asthma season.]