Home At Last

14 degrees, Baby!! Whee!

I have this to say about travel: yuck. And don't blame Iain. He was great. In future, I'm planning to apparate wherever I need to go.

The picture above is Iain's first photograph. Granted, I held the camera, pressed the button, and chose the settings. But I pointed it where he was looking, and he grunted his approval. So this is his portrait of what was, that day, his favorite lady (he's fickle). My boy likes some Megan-time.

Now, it's 11:30pm EST and all I have to do is revise my syllabi, email them to myself, make my lunch, and go to bed so I can get up at 6am in the ice and snow and teach all day. Easy peasy.

Kidspace, Part 1: Inside

Yesterday Miss Megan took me to Kidspace, a children's museum in the Arroyo Seco. That is, right next to the Rose Bowl. That is, in what looked a lot like a disaster area. Football fans generate a lot of trash, that's all I'm saying.

Anyway, they had a chalk table. I was not that into it.

They also had a land cruiser as part of an archaeology exhibit. The science-y part was all about dinosaur bones and whatnot. Me: not a hoot. The truck? LOVED IT! But you knew that, right? Here I am climbing in, with Miss Megan checking me out from the far side.

I'm driving here, Mom! Driving, driving, driving! I can't see out the front window, but that's not important. I can press buttons and turn the steering wheel and that's all it takes to drive.

Kidspace has a lot of stuff for kids 4-8 or so. For kids like me, they have a special room with gymnastic equipment and books and some puzzles. Here I am, getting out a puzzle that had a firetruck, a convertible, and a pickup truck in it. Hmmm...I wonder if there are more trucks in here?

Why yes, yes there are. And I found them, of course. Because I have an instinct for trucks. I can smell them from 50 feet. No truck escapes my gaze. It's kismet. Fate. Destiny.

Or maybe I'm just a boy. Whatevs. More pics to follow, of things I did outside.

How to Conquer Boredom, by Maddie

YAWN...the late afternoon certainly can drag. Nothing to do...snack eaten by Iain...surely there's some solution...

The Dad! What a guy. He says: how about reading? He should work on Sesame Street. They're always pushing that kind of "learning" and "growing," too. But he's ok. Maybe reading would be a good idea.
Let's read this book. (You can't let the grownups pick out the books. They always gravitate towards silly stuff like history. Booooring.)

Ooo! That book was great. I luvs reading.

Maddie Says: Wow You Eat A Lot

Iain arrived in time for Maddie's post-nap snack. Unfortunately (for Maddie) Iain is a snack machine. He at the yogurt, he ate the berries, he disdained the tomatoes. Maddie ate tomatoes. The panda doesn't eat.


After, Iain was feeling saucy. He played with Maddie's toys, checked out her front yard, and stepped gingerly around her Dad. Given that her dad says that when Maddie's a teenager she can visit her boyfriends "in the basement," I think Iain has a healthy sense of trepidation. Maddie's Dad is serious business when it comes to his Precious Lady.

And isn't she precious? She showed Iain how to play with sorting toys, how to carry a handbag (one needs a wallet with one's identification cards, for example. This is very important.), and how to play kitchen:

You want to make sure that when you sautee the chicken legs you already have the milk in the dishwasher and the bread slices in the oven. Otherwise things don't come out at the same time. Also, keeping your wooden spoon in the microwave really helps with prep.

Maddie lives in The World's Cutest Bungalow. Unfortunately, the neighbors fall far short of ideal (intrusive, maniacal and larcenous, anyone?) and the sewage pipes need work. So I doubt Maddie will stay that long. But for the moment, her little nest was a welcome spot for Iain to spend a pleasurable hour. When we left he was saying "Maddie House!" and Chris called to say that Maddie was sitting in her green chair chanting "Iain! Iain! Iain!"

Sooo Tie Tie

We spent the afternoon in West Hollywood with Miss Maddie. It was great fun (many pics to follow). After snacks, play, two diaper changes, and a certain amount of shop-talk from The Staff, we took off for Brentwood to visit with The Mom's friend Joan.

More on that later, when The Staff is better rested. For now, all I have to say is: I totally horked in the car in Beverly Hills. In rush hour traffic. After eating blackberries. Rock on, dudes!

Pork!

After we dropped Daddy at the office, Iain and I checked out the park inside the neighborhood. Yes, because we've become so lazy that we think the park 5 minutes down the road is too far.

Anyway, Iain played in the picnic table part (which he called "boat!"), then peeked through the windows at me:


Then it was time to go back for snack and nap. Post-nap we're going to lunch with Daddy, then up to LA to party with Maddie, then to dinner with The Mom's friend Joan.

Tomorrow we leave our comfy nest in Irvine and truck up to Pasadena. We have plans for lunch with Megan, a visit to the Children's Museum, and (on Saturday) more dim sum and a birthday party. Busybusybusy.

Did I Mention the Back Yard?

It's nice out here, y'all. Nice. And it's not just the pool and the hot tub and the fountain lights and the tables, chairs, grill, and flowers.

Like the little lovely below:

It grows along the fences, and eventually it'll cover them in a blanket of lavender.

Oh, and what's this?
Pomegranates!!
Iain was fascinated when I pulled out some of the kernels to show him.

Today, we: drove up to LA to see Maddie, did not see Maddie, took a lovely tour of Inglewood, popped by the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, then drove back down while discussing (in incredible detail) our experience flying out here. Iain's obsessed with airplanes. Obsessed.

We also calculated how many fruits Iain ate today: apples, nectarines, grapes, oranges, blueberries, bananas, kiwis, and tomatoes (technically a fruit). The fruit world trembles.