Seven Years

Tonight it's cold and it's rainy and it has gotten dark far too early. I am grateful to have a trip to look forward to. And this trip is a really big deal. We will spend a month in our old city, our old neighbourhood, back in the States. It was seven years ago this Tuesday, we arrived in Wellington. That's usually what I think about on the anniversary our arrival. But this year I am thinking about our departure. We woke up that morning, got in our rental car, and drove to our friend's flat to unload one more thing - an old computer. Then we stopped in a cafe - I think it was Royal Ground. We sat there with our coffees, looking across the table at each other, spending these last few minutes in our city. I was so busy with logistics up til that moment, that it hadn't hit me, really down to the bones hit me til then what we were doing. I remember that as the moment it started to feel real.

Seven years later we are going back for the first time. I am anxious about logistics once again - that's just who I am - but I'm starting to feel something else. Excitement. Anticipation. It will be so amazing to see everyone. It will be really strange but also really good to see our old city again. We usually spend our anniversary of moving to New Zealand by visiting a new place in New Zealand. But this is the year we look back at what we left behind. And it will be Spring. This year, we get an extra month of Spring.

Last week in pictures

 Sebastian in his monster PJ's riding his bee down the hall with his stuffed piggy

Loren and Sebastian looking out the window on the train. We usually go out to brunch on Sundays. Sebastian really wanted to ride in his stroller instead of taking the car, so we got him in the stroller and walked to the train station. We went into downtown Wellington and walked around and had brunch at one of the cafes at Midland Park.

 Last day of my circus aerials class. I asked a classmate to take pictures. I especially enjoyed the tissu (what I'm on in this photo). This is me in a foot lock - not the most flashy move, but one I am particularly pleased to be able to do. It involves tying a knot around one foot with the other foot while up in the air, and it took me all nine classes to be able to do it. In the back ground you can see the apparatus we spent the other half the class on: the static trapeze.

We have been coming up with rainy-day activities as we get on into Autumn. Tutu got Sebastian some water colours to play with.

This week: Playground and Garden

 Sebastian putting his hands in his pockets and looking so grown up

 We did an excursion (a.k.a. field trip) with Playcentre this week. We went to Central Park in Brooklyn (a suburb of Wellington). It's a nice playground, and far enough away that we had not explored it yet.

  He liked the playground's fire engine, of course. Here he is operating both wheels at once, and probably saying "vrooooo!"

 watering the new garden bed - and wearing Mama's gloves

Sebastian helped me plant sugar snap peas this week. On Monday, he collected worms from the compost heap with Granpa's help. This is one of Sebastian's favourite things ever right now - catching worms. While they did that, I dug out an old flower bed - a raised bed near the front door that has been mainly neglected by us. I put in some compost, and Sebastian came along with his worms so I asked him to put them in the new soil. He happily dumped them in, then helped me water the soil.

On Tuesday he helped me put up the trellis. Though there wasn't much he could do, being so short, so he also did some raking of leaves and inspected the large spool of twine I was using for trellis construction.

On Wednesday, I completed the trellis while my parents took Sebastian out to Pataka (the local art museum). When he came back, he helped me sow peas! I poked holes in the ground, gave him the peas, and he planted them in the holes and covered them up with dirt. He did about 3/4 of the row with me this way. Then he wanted to cut open a pea to see what was inside. I finished off getting the peas in the ground, then cut open a pea for him to inspect. I am a new but enthusiastic gardener, and I love that Sebastian is old enough that I can start to share this with him.

Sowing peas

Weekly Posts?

I am trying something new here. At the end of the week, I am going to try to write a post, and, however short or badly edited, I am going to put publish it. I will look at my phone, and add a picture or two. Maybe the post will be just a picture or two, with captions. That's okay too.

I didn't take many pictures last week. This is pretty much it:

I finally got myself a gathering basket, and I was rather pleased with it. Last week I got out to the garden with it and harvested some late runner beans. I had announced to my family that my runner beans were finished and they could start buying beans at the grocery store again, and then one of my perennial vines came out with a whole lot of late season flowers, so we enjoyed some unexpected runner beans last week.

21 Months Update (Where Did The Summer Go?)

I have been neglectful of this blog, I know, but it's been a busy summer. Full of trips to the beach, little excursions, gardening, and generally spending time outside with Sebastian whenever possible. In Spring, my parents fenced in our little patch of grass, making it toddler-safe. This Summer, they made the deck leading out to the grass safer, too. This made the hugest difference for us this Summer, because we could finally open the door in the living room and just walk outside and explore the yard. And finally we could leave that door open and get some air flow through our house on a hot day.

Sebastian, at 21 Months:

At Lindale Farm, "riding" the tractor with Daddy. He is saying "vrrrrrrrr!"

I actually had to go back a few weeks to find a picture where Sebastian is looking directly at the camera. He is a very busy little boy, and most of my shots of him recently look more like this:

 Checking out the paints at Playcentre

I got a smart phone over the Summer specifically because I wanted a decent camera that I could take with me everywhere and that wouldn't be too distracting to Sebastian when I used it. I have been using the camera phone exclusively since I got it, and it takes great pictures. Most importantly it has allowed me to take far more pictures in more situations than I ever would have with my big, bulky SLR.

At 21 Months, Sebastian is playful, busy, interested in everything, and has a great sense of humour. He loves to tease you and make you laugh. One of his new favourite jokes is to call something the wrong word or call someone the wrong name. It's so clear when  he's doing it on purpose because he gets this mischievous smile on his face, and because it's something you know he knows the right words for. For instance:

Sebastian: (points at his father) Tutu! (what he calls my mom)
Me: That's not Tutu, that's Daddy!
Sebastian: (points at Tutu) Daddy!
Tutu: I'm not Daddy, I'm Tutu!

.... And so on. He also does this with characters in his favourite books, with colours, with anything he knows the names of well enough to play around with them.

Another favourite joke is this: For a while he has liked to bring me or Loren our shoes if we are getting ready to go outside. But now he'll bring both shoes over, and while you're putting one on, he'll run down the hall and toss the other shoe in the corner out of sight. Then I'll go "Sebastian, where did my other shoe? Do you know where it is?" He thinks this is hilarious! Now he is doing variations of this game with socks, or just about anything where he can create an expectation that he is bringing us something, and then change course and go hide it somewhere instead.

This is taking me forever to post, so I'm just going to wrap up with a few photos from the previous month and call it a day.

 Reading books with Tutu. We think they must have been saying "roar!"

 

Checking out the bees with Grandpa at the honey shop near Lindale Farm. The shop had an indoor bee hive, covered in clear plastic, with a clear tube leading to the outdoors (that is what they are looking at here).

 Making bread with Sebastian. He's been into play-dough so I thought he might enjoy bread dough. I had never been brave enough to make bread before this. We both had a lot of fun with it!

Citizenship Day

  Today Loren and myself became New Zealand citizens. We had to attend a ceremony and pledge our loyalty to Queen and Country. I showed up on time and without incident, not a small feat with a toddler. In fact, it went smoothly. Sebastian took his nap in the car on the way over, woke up sleepy and relaxed, and was exceptionally chill through the ceremony. We got several looks of "awww, what a sweet little boy" from the others in our small group ceremony of ten. When Loren got up to say his Affirmation, Sebastian came over and stood next to him, looking solemn the whole time. It was really sweet. I don't have any pictures, I didn't even bother bringing the camera. It was enough to have simply made it. We were given native plants as part of the ceremony, though, so we did come away with some memento of the occasion. I look forward to finding a nice cozy place to plant them in the garden.

Seventeen (and a bit) Months Update

At Seventeen Months...

 

I have taken very few pictures this month, what with the Grandparents away, but I did get this shot of him saying "no-no" while climbing on his kiddie table the other day. He knows when things are a no-no and he loves to tell you about it while he does them!

When Sebastian turned fifteen months we bought him a Learning Tower. It is a stable platform designed to support a child at kitchen-counter height. It was a significant expense but so worth it! Sebastian is a busy little boy, and he always wants to be involved in whatever others in the household are doing. Now he can safely participate whenever I'm in the kitchen. He uses it every day, "helping" me prepare meals and wash the dishes. When the grandparents are around I try to do one baking project with him every week. I love to bake, and before the Learning Tower arrived I hardly ever had time to.

Making Granola

Making Pizza (and sampling all the ingredients) 

In the pantry

  Now that Sebastian is down to one (mostly) reliable nap a day, our days have a more consistent rhythm. I'll attempt to share some of it with you without getting into the minutiae of nappy changes, tooth brushing negotiations and other details that are a regular feature of live with a toddler.

If I'm lucky, I get up a bit before Sebastian and get some time to wake up and drink some tea before he's up. Then we do breakfast, and get ready to go out. Loren gets up and has a short time to hang out with Sebastian before giving him a piece of his morning biscuit and saying "bye-bye."

We go out in the morning. Some days we have an activity we go to; on other days we may go to a playground or get the grocery shopping done. Right now it's Baby Sing Along on Wednesday and every other Monday. I volunteer with the running of this one, and I lead the songs on a Wednesday. The alternate Mondays we go to our coffee group with the mums from my antenatal class. Tuesdays are now Playcentre days, starting just a few weeks ago. Playcentre could be a whole topic of it's own, so just briefly for those who are not New Zealanders: it is a parent run and parent led early childhood education centre, part of a national network of centres throughout in New Zealand.

We get home and do lunch, then it's nap time

It's getting warmer here in the Southern Hemisphere, so these days afternoons are largely spent outdoors. After the initial wake up/ books/ nurse/ nappy change/ etc. we get our shoes on and our bag packed and we are out of here. First is the series of things that Sebastian likes to do in our garage and yard. This currently includes re-arranging the garden features (the few that are light enough for Sebastian to carry), sweeping the pavement, inspecting the screw drivers in the tool box, pretending to operate the leaf blower and weed eater in the garage, watering the potted plants, and getting out the hand trowels and doing some weeding.

 After all that he is usually happy to get into the stroller so we can, as far as he's concerned, go look for trains, birds, and ducks. From my perspective, it is a sanity-saving way to get some exercise in the fresh air. We go for about 45 minutes, pausing to watch trains (we live just a few blocks from the train tracks) and taking a detour to our "secret duck spot" (a house that always has plenty of ducks in the front garden because a nice old lady feeds them). On the way back, if there's time, we may stop by the playground that is just a 5 minute walk from our house. By the time we get home, the afternoon is spent, and the return of Daddy is not far away. Then comes dinner time, etc. If we are lucky, Sebastian is asleep by 8:30, and I still go to sleep with him most nights.

And that's what a day with Sebastian looks like, more or less.