Chatting with Mommy

Since I haven't seen Mommy since Sunday morning - over three days ago, the longest ever I have gone without Mommy in my life - I was getting a little down and depressed and wondering if I would ever see her again. But luckily, my great big brother Jasper said he had just the thing to make me feel better - a way to see Mommy before she actually gets back home to us at the end of the week.

You see, apparently in the past, before Mommy went back to work, it was Daddy who had to travel for his job most often, and when he had to take a particularly long trip, Jasper would miss him the way we miss Mommy now. So he and Daddy started to "chat" on the computer! Jasper was excited about this opportunity to show me exactly how it's done -

First, Jasper set up the computer and fired up the right program, and then let me do the final keystroke to "call" Mommy.

Hi Mommy - it me Everett, and Jasper!

Jasper was such a good instructor about using the video chat program - he showed me the right buttons to press and adjusted the screen so I could see better.

As you can imagine, I had lots of fun chatting with Mommy...

But I still want her to get back home soon!

Mommy, where are you?

We miss Mommy while she is away at her conference, and can't wait for her to get home later this week. But in the meantime, we are doing our best to be good little boys and to play well together so that Mommy doesn't have to worry about us. See for yourself -

And a bonus shot of Everett looking happy, just so Mommy knows I'm taking good care of him -

Come home soon, Mommy. We miss you!

Great day with Mommy before her trip

Mommy is leaving on a big business trip tomorrow morning so Jasper and I spent the whole day with her. First thing in the morning, Jasper and Mommy were off to the playground and farmers market. On their way home, they decided to have lunch at a local cafe.

Veggie sandwich for Mommy and grilled cheese for Jasper. The best thing about this cafe is that most of the items on the menu are vegan so that means NO EGGS!! Jasper enjoyed his entire meal - sandwich, apple slices and vegan sugar cookie.


In the afternoon, we stopped by the big Spring party happening at the park near home. And what a party it was! There was a bouncy house, arts and crafts, music, food, jugglers and puppets! Even Sandy the Seagull, the Brooklyn Cyclones' mascot, was there!

Jasper and I each got to enjoy treats - Popsicle for him...

And milk for me.

We both made quite a mess! But boy was it yummy.

Afterwards, we came home and Jasper and Mommy got right to work planting the plants they bought at the market this morning. Jasper picked the plants out himself. First, they had to fill the pot with soil followed by the flowers...

And then add some water. Look how pretty the flowers are! I can't wait to see them grow.

Before we knew it, it was time for dinner. Mommy whipped up a yummy feast of fish, sweet potatoes and napa cabbage - all of which she and Jasper bought from the farmers market this morning. Nothing like fresh local food! I can't wait to have some.

But I only got to have some milk, oatmeal and pears. Hmmm, doesn't seem fair to me.

What a fun day with Mommy!

Play dates

Since Daddy took this week off from work, he has been spending all his time with me and Everett. As you know, yesterday when I was at daycare, he took Everett to Manhattan. But what do we do when I'm not at daycare? Well, Daddy has been arranging playdates for me most afternoons.

On Tuesday, Daddy got a whole group of my friends from Beansprouts together on the field across from our house.

In this picture you can see Krina standing on the right, then Stella sitting on the ground holding the yellow ball, Leoni (my current favorite friend from Beansprouts) in the yellow dress and Arianna in the red coat apparently trying to sit on me. And then of course me, the lone boy among all my (girl) friends.

Once we got done goofing around on the field, we walked over to the nearby playground for some time on the swings and slides...

And of course what would a trip to the playground be if I didn't badger Daddy into giving me a dollar for the balloon man? This particular day, I asked for a Poodle on a leash -

And then this afternoon, Daddy set up a playdate with Ella and Shea.

We had the playdate at Ella's house, and Ella's Mommy treated us all to a lollipop. I actually think the lollipops were a prop to keep us standing still long enough so the parents could snap a few pictures before we scattered.

When's the next playdate, Daddy?

Day with Daddy

Daddy decided to take this whole week off from work so he could spend it with me and Jasper, but since Jasper was in daycare all day today, I had Daddy all to myself. Or to be more accurate, Daddy had me all to himself!

And what does Daddy do when he has me all to himself, you ask? Well, apparently the exact same thing that he used to do when he had Jasper all to himself back in the day - take close-up pictures of my face.

After a while, Daddy started to embellish and play dress-up with me - what exactly is he trying to dress me up as here?

It's a little early to start with the indoctrination, no?

After picture time, Daddy decided to take me into Manhattan. I have the feeling that in addition to trying to make me into a Yankees fan, Daddy is also trying to make me into a fan of the NYC subways. Maybe because he knows that's the easiest way to teach me the letters of the alphabet?

But my favorite part of the trip into the city was Times Square - Daddy took me there so that I could look at all the lights.

Once I got used to all the people, all the noise and all the hustle and bustle in the square, I relaxed and enjoyed the show.

Boy, my neck is starting to hurt from staring up at all the neon - time to go home for my nap!

He's Back

First, it was Babcia. Then, it was Ah-Boo. Now, it's Dziadek! It's like the parade of the grandparents! Everett and I were so happy to see Dziadek. Here he is pitching in and feeding Everett some lunch.

I think that he needs a little more practice getting the food into Everett's mouth.

Dziadek also got me a present - Annie and Clarabel! For those of you who don't know, they are Thomas the Tank Engine's two passenger coaches whom he loves very much.

Actually (which is my favorite new word these days), Dziadek bought them several weeks ago but I wasn't allowed to have them because I wasn't fully participating in tumbling class. Actually, I pretty much flat out refused to participate in tumbling class the last couple of weeks. But, today, I earned my new coaches. Maybe it was because it was graduation day or maybe it was because I knew that I wouldn't be going to tumbling class again in the near future and I wanted to leave a good impression on Mason. See for yourself.

A day at the armory

Today was Healthy Kids Day at the Park Slope Armory YMCA, and Daddy and I were just about the first ones there. I was so excited! You see, the Park Slope Armory is a great big building near our house that used to house an Army regimental drill facility, but has been sitting empty for years. It was recently renovated and turned into a multi-purpose YMCA fitness facility, and now looks like this:
It's a beautiful space, and in my eyes was made even more beautiful today by the addition by all kinds of activities for kids, like bouncy castles, music stages, arts and crafts stations and more. Here's what it looked like - see the giant blow-up slide and climbing wall in the back?

And which bouncy castle do you think was my favorite?

It took me about five seconds to find this one on the giant Armory floor, and then even less to climb inside.

I won't get into how much time I spent playing inside, let's just say that Daddy kept glancing at his watch... and glancing... and glancing...

Until finally, he was able to pull me away and off to the next attraction - face painting! When the nice ladies doing the face painting asked me what I wanted to be, the first thing I though of was Halloween, and yelled out "lion." Daddy, though, suggested that maybe it would be nice to add a little variety to my costumes, so we compromised on a tiger.

ROAR!!!

But my favorite part of the trip to the Armory? The giant climbing wall, of course. You might remember that I've really started getting into rock climbing a while back, so I was super excited to see a giant climbing wall here - and I mean G-I-A-N-T.

It was actually so big that I was technically not allowed on it. It was reserved for kids at least four or five years old and older - many of the ones climbing the wall were six, seven and even nine. There was actually a man there with a big measuring stick going around to everyone in line to make sure they were tall enough to go on the wall. Daddy could tell right away that I wasn't even close to tall enough, but since he could tell that I wasn't going anywhere unless I climbed that wall, he sneaked me into line, and when the measuring man came around, told him that he'd already measured me last time...

I admit that I needed some help to get to the top, but considering I wasn't even supposed to be anywhere near that climb, never mind the top of the mountain, I think I did pretty well for a barely three year old...



What do you think - am I ready to tackle El Capitan?

Sheeeeeee's back...

That's right - Babcia is back in town, taking care of me.

Boy, those Grandmothers of mine sure know how to make me laugh!

Most excellent weekend

I had such an excellent weekend, I'm sad to see it end (even though technically every day is like a weekend for me...) Things got off to a great start when Jasper let me tag along on one of his favorite weekday outings - the periodic trip to Costco.

You see, Jasper loves going to Costco with Daddy because he gets to have croissants and orange juice and pizza all in a span of an hour. And he especially likes riding the giant "stepless escalator" because it's long and flat, and your cart rides along with you (this is NYC after all, so our Costcos are multi-level.)

(Sorry about the odd-angled pictures of me - Daddy was taking them with me strapped to his chest in a baby carrier.)

The next day, Saturday, was the return of the outdoor Brooklyn Flea, the best flea market anywhere. The Flea goes indoors during the winter months, but returns to its original and flagship location in a school yard in the Ft. Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn once the weather starts to warm up in the spring.

The Flea is full of great vendors selling all kinds of vintage items, clothing and gourmet food. But the best part is that Ft. Greene is also where Mommy's friend Linda lives, together with her kids Naomi, who has been Jasper's friend for a long time, and her younger brother and my new friend, Eli. Since they live just down the street, they all came out to meet us. Naomi was nice enough to give up her seat in their double stroller so I could hang out with Eli for a while.

Meanwhile, Jasper stumbled upon this...

... and froze in place refusing to move, entranced by the dancing flames and hot, bubbling pizzas going in and coming out. You see, this is a mobile wood-fired pizza oven built and operated by one of Brooklyn's many artisanal pizza makers, who makes his pizzas to order on the spot outdoors at the Flea.

By the time I caught up with Jasper again, he was already well into one of the pizzas -



All done!
Boy, that's a lot of pizza you just ate, Jasper. Meanwhile, Daddy practiced his self-portrait skills on the two of us -

Sunday finally rolled around, and we decided to spend some time relaxing around the house. Except that Daddy's idea of relaxing is to "help" me learn how to crawl. How does he do that, you ask? Well, just take a look at all of my toys - neatly arranged in a semi-circle around me, but just out of arm's reach...

Does this qualify as child abuse? But I really want to get my hands on one of those toys...

But I can't crawl yet, no matter how hard I try. I think that it may have something to do with the proportions of my body, but never mind about that. It looked like I was out of luck, but then I remembered when Jasper told me about how he overcame this very same problem when he was around my age, and so...



Bingo! Like I said, it was a most excellent weekend!