Celebrating a half birthday at Chuck E Cheese

Our little boy is 18 months old today! It's hard to believe that he'll be closer to two years old than one year old from now on.

Mom, why am I on this Jeep?

Lachlan's latest trick is putting two words together. He began with 'mo chee' (more cheese) and 'mo gaba' (more garbage cans). Today it was 'bye horsey' and 'bye truck' when we left Chuck E Cheese. I think he's also beginning to learn commands. He's listened to me tell him what to do for 18 months and now he's practicing giving out orders, too. I thought I heard him say 'Mom here' yesterday.

We went to Chuck E Cheese this morning not necessarily to celebrate this half birthday, but because a couple of mom's group folks were going. Fortunately at 10am on a Thursday, the Chuck E Cheese in Cupertino was mostly deserted. Lachlan took a mild interest in the toddler zone, but quickly wandered out. We spent our tokens on a photo booth that prints your picture onto a make believe ID card, a Whack A Mole type game and a couple of moving rides that Lachlan wasn't sure he wanted to be on.

It was amusing when Lachie's little buddy Albert tried to put the award ticket back in the machine. The tickets that are so precious to bigger kids mean nothing to 18 month olds. We donated ours to a kid who looked about four who delightedly accepted them.

I hadn't visited a Chuck E Cheese since I was a kid and the one in Cupertino is only slightly different than the one in my memory. I remember Chuck E Cheese being a very dark place, lit primarily by the flashing lights of the games, but Cupertino's has a lot of natural sunlight. I remember exchanging quarters for tokens and that each game cost about one. It's funny how that's still the same today. I guess arcade prices have remained flat. Unlike the CEC of memory, this one didn't have a ball pit or a huge cast of animatronic characters who sing every 15 minutes. And perhaps for the sake of Lachlan's immunity and sense of security, that's a good thing.

Book Advent

One of the best parts about having a toddler around at the holidays is starting new family holiday traditions. We decided that in lieu of a traditional advent calendar involving little windows or small gifts or chocolates, we would give Lachlan a Christmas/winter book for each day of December leading up to Christmas Day. We enjoy reading as a family and picture books provide a gentle introduction to the idea of Christmas.

Day 4 of the Christmas book advent - Dinosaur Vs Santa

My mom took charge of the idea and added up the number of old holiday books we already had from Lachlan's last Christmas and years ago. Then she bought some new books and then I bought some new books from Scholastic... and then her friends bought some books. Anyway, we now have more than 25 Christmas books and we're making a game of giving them to Lachlan each morning.

Auntie Paulette generously decorated each gift bag with a numbered stocking and vehicle stickers (non-Christmas-y, I know, but Lachlan's into trucks). We encourage him to find the bag by following a purple ribbon that we string from the top of the stairs to the bag's location.

It's day four of our book advent and I'd love to say that Lachlan is thrilled with the new tradition, but, as with most things, it's taking him a while to get accustomed to the idea. He doesn't yet totally get the concept of following the ribbon, but we prod him along. He enjoys the Christmas books, especially one about a baby called Fa La La, but he doesn't request them on repeat the way he does with other favorites. Still, he doesn't often take to books immediately; instead, he warms to them over time and goes through phases where he's especially interested in one book.

His favorite parts of Fa La La are when the baby smashes a gingerbread house that his Dad has very painstakingly constructed and when the baby finds a choo choo under his Christmas tree on Christmas morning. Perhaps Lachlan is hinting that he would also like a choo choo under his tree.

First Ever Field Trip

Lachlan and I went with his preschool this morning to Hidden Villa Farm in Los Altos. We'd been there twice before as a family, but never on a tour without our stroller!

All bundled up at the farm

Teacher Diane advised us to dress warmly because mornings are chilly on the farm. Rain was in the forecast, too, but we stayed dry. I was worried that Lachlan wouldn't tolerate his hat, but he didn't mind when he noticed that all of his classmates were also wearing warm hats. He was particularly interested in Matthew's hand-knitted Thomas the Tank Engine hat.

Our teacher also mentioned that we should leave everything in the car and foolishly I left my stroller in the trunk. Lachlan is difficult to corral these days and doesn't really follow me when we're walking somewhere. I and the other parents got a workout carrying our 18 month olds around the farm.

He was nervous around Cleo the cow and didn't want me to get too close. By the time we saw the goats, though, he had warmed up and enthusiastically petted two kids called Pancake and Waffles. He kept saying, "nice, nice!" because I had assured him that the goats were nice. Lachlan's confidence with the animals led him to chase chickens into their coop all the while saying, "nice, nice." I tried to explain that the chickens were nice, too, but they would run away before he could catch them.

Swim Class at the YMCA

Lachlan started swim lessons when he was just four months old at the Cook and Phillip Pool in Sydney. I use the word 'lesson' loosely here because four month olds cannot learn how to swim, but they can get better acquainted with the water, a small stepping stone on the path to actual swimming.

Big boy rash guard and trunks.

We had taken a break from swim classes while we moved overseas and got ourselves settled here in Mountain View. Now that we belong to the Y and summer was coming to an end, we decided to give swim classes another go.

We were the only family enrolled in the 9:15am class and I suppose that meant we were technically entitled to a private lesson when we had in fact paid for a group lesson. Because we were the only family, though, the instructor didn't take the class very seriously and told us to 'swim around' and 'do whatever you want.' We switched to a 10am class so that Lachlan could enjoy the company of other little swimmers, but even in a group setting, our instructor's abilities are a bit underwhelming. We miss the professionalism of the Cook and Phillip Pool staff and their indoor, perfectly-heated facilities.

Still, we're doing our best to make the most of swim class. I demonstrate blowing bubbles to Lachlan over and over though he'd rather lap the water with his tongue. In my most enthusiastic voice, I encourage him to kick and splash his way across the pool, but the toy ducks and frogs serve as his only real motivation.

There's a 19 month old boy in our class who annoyingly already knows how to swim. He goes underwater, jumps in the pool from the edge and splashes/paddles and kicks his way to the edge. I overheard the mom say to the instructor that they have a pool at home. 'Why are they even here then if he already knows everything? Showoffs,' I thought to myself ungenerously.

I remind myself that every child is different and that Lachlan will be a fantastic swimmer in years to come. For now we'll count not crying during back floating time and cracking a smile during hokey pokey as swimming victories.

Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga... Choo Choo!

Love this one of my sweethearts watching the forest go by.

Prior to moving overseas, I had lived in the bay area (Berkeley, Oakland and San Jose) for about six years. I thought that moving back here would be easy because I already know the area, but it turns out that I knew little about the peninsula and almost nothing about what it has to offer kids/families.

Big trees indeed.

It's funny how being a parent provides one with a new lens through which to view the world. As an adult without children, I was focused on great places to eat and drink with friends. These days we explore public parks and rank them according to which ones are closest, least crowded, have the most redwoods and afternoon shade, cleanest sand, best play structures for little tykes, etc. I could probably do an entire post on our favorite parks in the area, but I'm sure other bay area parents have already done that online, probably in great detail and perhaps with metrics and colored graphs.

One of the kiddie destinations that we took Lachlan to recently was the Roaring Camp Railroad in the Santa Cruz mountains. We rode an actual, open-topped steam train through the redwoods on a gorgeous day. Lachlan is just starting to get into trains, (he likes to make the 'woo woo' whistle noise) and so we thought it might be fun for him. He enjoyed looking at the forest and especially loved observing the other children in our train car, but staying seated for an hour and fifteen minutes while the train was moving was a challenge for him. Perhaps we'll take him again just before he turns two; he may have more patience and will still get in for free.