the coolest playground ever....

Today, we were introduced to the coolest playground ever. St. Edwards Park. It has a lovely park and woods around it as well as picnic tables and fields. Stacy, Ishmael and Ibrahim told us about it and met us there. We spent the day playing, exploring, and snacking. We got to go for a walk through the woods following a couple of little black dogs.

Strong Mama

Cutie Ibrahim in the swing

Ishmael "stuck" in the woods...having fun.

Johari driving the boat

A dog that visited with Stacy, Ishmael, and Ibrahim

towers, friends, and rug store

The other morning while Johari was still asleep, I heard her laugh in her sleep. It was so sweet. I was glad to know that some fun things were going on in her dreamworld.
She has been into building towers lately. Not all the time or anything but focused on working on it when she is.
Stacy, Ishmael, and Ibrahim came to hang out at our house the other day. It was nice to just hang and chill together. Everyone could take naps when they needed and play when needed.
Yesterday, Johari and I went to Grandpa's rug store. We hadn't been there. Johari warmed up to the place and then wanted to run and crawl on the rug piles. She enjoyed it. Rug stores are a good indoor playground...nothing is breakable.
We were at the bookstore the other night. I overheard the woman that works there talking to some kid customers about a bookmark they were looking for. Then I happened to be sitting next to the product later while Johari was playing with the train set. It is a bookmark with a timer on the top of it. Immediately, I was very disappointed by this. Is this what we use to create a love of reading??? Timing the children's reading. I know what it comes from because when I was babysitting for a 2nd grader who was going to a gifted school, I remember that she was supposed to read 20 minutes a night. I just know that something like this timing of reading must be so counterproductive to creating a true love for reading. And that bookmark became a symbol of all that to me.
Here are some pictures from Saturday, the beautifully warm day that we spent with Lua.

toes in the mucky pond by our house

a petite lick of the brownie mix (I took care of most of the licking of the bowl before she got to it)

a video clip at the park

Can you imagine...

Can you imagine...I got to go running under the shining sun this morning while Johari finished getting her beauty rest and her grandma waited to welcome her in her arrival to consciousness. And it all worked out well. I ran up to the house and they were looking out the window waving at me. I didn't do so badly on the run either. I can't say I dig the uphill much in my lack of conditioning but the rest of it felt good. I kept saying to myself, I wish I could do this every day or every other day.
Yesterday, we spent part of the day across the street playing with our friends there, Julia, Emma, Joey, Twitney, and Huong. Johari loves to say "EmmaEmmaEmmaEmma". Julia and her play together very sweetly.

Julia

Then we went to the beach in the afternoon. The tide was very low. We got to take off our shoes and wander in the sand and along the water's edge. Johari had a blast. It was such peaceful play. Then we made it back there this evening with Lua. We collected seaweed and filled the bucket with sand. Johari painted my arms with wet sand.

Baby sunbathing

I want to see it

We have had a lovely week so far. We have gotten to hang out with friends throughout the week. Carmel came over a couple of evenings to play. We took her to the mall playground on Monday and Johari wanted to hug her and hold on to her much of the time they were there. We also got to check out a very kid-friendly cafe. Basically this idea that I thought up about a year ago already exists in Seattle. A cafe where half of it is a play area full of toys and books and couches and a kids' menu. We hung out there with Stacy, Ishmael, and Ibrahim. It was a nice time. We also got to play with Cheryl and Jordan one evening this week!! It had been a while since we had really hung out. We made it back to Carkeek Park today with Stacy and the boys. We had a picnic. With a blanket and everything. A little chilly but we just kept layering on. We were waiting for the sun to shine on us. And it finally came out later in the afternoon.
Here is Johari's art project the other day. One green marker can decorate a lot.

Mama becomes the palette

I thought we were both making this face but apparently not on camera.

I got my taxes done in time. It is always good to get these types of annoyances out of the way. To drop it in the mail and no longer procrastinate on getting it done even though it is pretty basic.
Johari's favorite phrase in the last couple days is, "I want to see it."
She likes to sing songs. She tells me which one we are going to sing. Her current top 3 list is a raindrop song. Row, row, row your boat with Wiggleworm variations. She likes to sing only 2 verses of Wheels on the Bus song-- "the babies on the bus go Wah Wah Wah..." and "the mama's on the bus go Shhh Shhh Shhh". And then you can't switch between these 2 verses fast enough. When you are on one, she already jumping into the other verse. Sometimes Twinkle Little Star makes the charts.
This evening, Johari and Grandma were reading this book called Clap Your Hands together and doing all of the things it tells you to do. It was the first time I had seen her really into acting out each line herself. It was very cool and fun to watch!
People tell me that she is communicating more and more when they haven't seen her in a few weeks. I notice but I don't always realize how much changes over just a few weeks because I am just observing the daily learnings.
Johari likes to say 'Hi' and talk to people on the phone. Well, let me amend that statement...she only likes it if it is speaker phone. Well, maybe she still likes it if it is not speaker phone but is not as likely to hold up her end of the conversation if it is not on speaker phone.
She has also been working on walking down and up the stairs without holding on to anything. She is not complete in the process yet, but practicing it more and more. I realized how hard it is really to step up our size steps just using their small legs and leg power. That is not easy! A friend of mine compared it to us trying to step up onto a step that was as tall as our thigh or so. That takes some serious strength to do without holding onto something to help us pull up.
I was thinking the other day about how attached we (in general as people, maybe particularly in our society) are so attached to judging every aspect of everything and especially with children but definitely not limited to those scenarios at all. Everything has to be evaluated to be pretty, nice, delicious, disgusting, not pleasant, boring, ugly, bad, good, and on and on and on. I started to think about when I was having a little mental talk about people always telling Johari that she looks nice or she is pretty or she has on a good outfit. But then my mind wheels started spinning about this. Especially in connection to this whole concept of getting rid of praise. I tried to notice how many statements seemed to be a judgment that came out of my mouth as well as the statements floating out of others' mouths. I started to think about how attached we are to needing to put our judgment into the world and using the negative ones to be the victim of something. I am not in any way suggesting that we should get rid of evaluation and judgment. We all have our opinions and our tastes and so on. I want to be more conscious about which ones really have some benefit in communication and which ones are just trying to impose our views onto others. There is sharing and then there is the other side of putting it out there with an expectation of others or a story that we hold on to with the judgment. I don't think this will be easy for me, but I want to be more aware about it.
Today while we were at the park, I overheard a mother telling her child, "Don't fall." I thought to myself, this seems like a normal thing for a parent to say to a kid, but then what the heck does this mean. What is she really saying, "Be careful." "That looks dangerous." "I am nervous about you walking on that." "It makes me feel uncomfortable to see you in such a vulnerable position." But she said, "Don't fall." What if the kid falls... would she say, "I told you not to fall! And you just went ahead and fell."

parks, great people and the pool

On Wednesday, we met some new friends, Stacy (the mama), Ishmael and baby Ibrahim at Carkeek Park in Seattle. It is an awesome park because you drive a few minutes down a windy road out of a Seattle neighborhood and you are suddenly in the wilderness, but still in Seattle! The park is full of trails through the woods. Hills. Fields. A great playground. A bridge to the beach over the train tracks. A nice stretch of beach. A park that I think we could spend our whole days at if we brought enough food and if napping wasn't necessary. We both had a wonderful time hanging out with our new friends. They are great! I feel so completely fortunate to be meeting such awesome people. People that I feel like are on the same page as me in so many ways. What a treasure find! It was a wonderful day. And the sun shone on us! My face was a bit sunburnt. I forgot to watch out for that. But the sun did feel delicious. Johari seemed to be into eating the sticks and bark of the park. She made some bark soup and spooned it up. She also wanted to eat the bubbles from the bubble stick. When asked if these things are delicious, she would reply with a smile, "yeah!"

Ishmael and Johari on the playground

Johari and Ibrahim chillin' in the grass

The next day, we went the playground at Greenlake. Then, Grandma came and met us for some lunch then we got back to the playground for a bit. Johari really likes the sand. We met a nice mama and baby in the cafe, Erin and Eden. Johari loves to check out the babies. We are lucky that we can find so many around us to fill her appetite for the baby love. Hopefully, we will purposefully run into them in the future.

Serving me pretend cooked apples from behind bars

Last night, Johari got interested in doing her puzzles for the first time while she was playing with her Grandma. She has mingled with the puzzles a little bit in the past but last night she was really putting the pieces in. And she got them out to work on them again this afternoon. Just a spontaneous sort of thing. It goes to show that it is really not necessary to "teach puzzles" or be concerned with her learning how to do puzzles. These things will all come in their own time or not and of her own accord. It sounds kind of funny when I read over those lines. Like a bit ridiculous, nonetheless something that I was thinking about while she was doing them.
Johari has been climbing up into her car seat on her own. I notice little bits of independence pop up every day. It is so awesome to watch.
Last night, we had another late night outing to the bookstore. A nice hang out. There is a train table in the kids section that she has really taken to playing with. A book I have been wanting for her was on the bargain rack!!! At almost a third of its cover price. How lucky!
One night for dessert, ice cream and olives. A bite of one and then the other! Maybe it is actually a delectable treat that we haven't discovered yet. Feel free to try it out, yourself.
Today we went to the indoor pool since it was a rainy day. We had to wait to get in because of all the spring break children. We had a good time. There is something that is a mystery to me though. Whenever I go to a swimming pool, I come away from it ravenous!!!! Like I can really eat something up. And seeing as I was only hanging out in the kiddie section with Johari. We weren't running around or anything, I can't attribute it to exertion. What is it about a swimming pool that can make me feel so hungry afterwards? Does anyone else have that experience?

A poem with shoes on

So this poem has come up a few times in my life recently from different places and people. And I think about it often. So I would like to share it here and share in the thinking about it as we parent and relate to children and learn about ourselves and the children in the world.

It is from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your
dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that
His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
-Khalil Gibran

(A couple years ago, a different Khalil Gibran poem about marriage popped up from different places. I don't mind if his words keep finding there way into my life and thoughts. I like them and can relate to them.)
Johari has put on her own shoes a couple of times now. Both times the left was on the right and the right on the left. We just rolled with it that way. Who is really to decide which shoe should go on which foot? As long as she is comfortable and able to accomplish it of her own accord!! It looks funny to my mind's eye to see the feet looking like they are going to head off in different directions, but developing independence is a beautiful thing.
Yesterday night she wanted to get out of the house late at night and go for a walk with her stuffed animal dog and her baby doll. As we were passing by our car, she decided she wanted to roll out. So I started driving not sure where we should head to, when everything is closed or closing at 9 o'clock at night. But we ended up passing by Barnes and Noble and she said that she wanted to go in. We looked at books and played around with things in the children's section. We are getting to know the woman that works that section some nights.

Miss McGillicutty and a fun day

We really packed in the activities today. We kicked it off with Johari's first dentist visit. I was not looking forward to it. Luckily, it was short. Mainly, just a quick scan of her teeth. The teeth checked out fine. A lovely set of pearly whites!

The sticker from the dentist well-placed!

Then we tried out another new park for us. It had a bit of wooded area and grassy fields and a nice playground.

Johari had a midday nap and then we headed to the zoo. We checked out more animals this time. First, we had to check in with the baby gorilla and she and her mama were as cute as ever. Then, we tried the carousel. She rode a horse that happened to be named Miss McGillicutty. Funny because there are times when I use that as a random term of endearment for Johari. Then we checked out bears, orangutans, monkeys and pythons!

Johari and Miss McGillicutty (her horse)

On the carousel with the joy of black raspberries on her face

After the zoo, we headed to the beach close to where we live, Picnic Point. It was windy and cool but full of sunshine! Played in the sand. Threw rocks in the water and ate snacks.
This evening the FedEx guy delivered a horse for Johari from her Grandpa in Montana. Very cool. She rode around on her horse tonight. She has been a naked bundle of fun this evening.

Bedhead that lasted all day. And I kind of like what the bed did this time.

Do olives have any nutritional value? Johari loves them. She can feast on some Kalmata olives. I didn't start liking olives until I was about 30! I guess I was just in time to love olives along with Johari. The other afternoon, she only wanted to snack on olives and popcorn!