Blue or Green March 11 - 20, 2006 New stuff for our home and me; Tom struggles with pre-school; finally a nice day out

	Beautifying our house in a job for the whole family -- some toil and others observe from a leisure position.

	Bookcases -- not that we would not have anything to put in them, but we did not have yet the time to sort out our piles of books and decide, which ones deserve residence in a new box.

I shall begin very self-servingly, i.e. with my birthday. You see, I have received one early present, which relates to my esteemed readership. For some time I have been noticing that before I bring myself to writing a new journal entry, three weeks or more would pass, making me then compile lengthy tractate from Mt. Shasta to San Jacinto -- and there's no room for lesser stories. It makes me feel bad -- after all, I forget quickly and some moments with kids are little treasures -- albeit petty. Perhaps my new, shorter, but more detailed, and more frequent journals will be better than novellas once a month.

To my birthday, I received a notebook -- making me computationally mobile: I can follow children around the house and back yard, and in times when they play quietly, I can write something. Only time will tell how efficient this system is going to be.

I know that everybody has been pretty much complaining about the weather these days (especially in Europe), but even California has brought us some ugly winter. We had our surrounding hills and mountains turned white again, all playgrounds offer puddles of mud and water -- and our kids are tired of never-ending changing clothes; I detest at strongest that I've been forced to wear socks at all times. Sierra has been impassable unlike many years into the past, and there are no places left to go for a trip -- every Friday I listen to weather forecasts on the radio, where they remind parents to take some long movie along for the children -- a four hour ride turns into a whole-day journey. So we sit around at home -- and try to use unfavorable weather to improve the house. We went as far as to daring a weekend visit to Ikea. Strangely, it was not full of people like it used to be and thus we avoided mass hysteria -- and managed to drive away, having purchased a TV cabinet and two bookcases.

Our TV set had so far lived atop a rickety system of tipsy tables -- which, besides a certain instability, offered our kids relatively unrestricted access to all cables and wires. While assembling the new TV cabinet, Sid grumbled something about it being a horrible "box". Tom looked the system of interconnected boards over, and then said, "dog, dog..." We sometimes read him a book about a puppy -- which begins with a little boy building a box for the dog to sleep in, and then going to select a puppy who will be his new friend. Well, we had to explain to Tom that this box was for our TV, and Sid had to stop using the word box.

	Surf is biting into a rocky edge of Point Lobos.

	Lisa upgraded to a back seat.

Sid slightly sorted through his permanently swelling collection of sci-fi, and we have distributed our old bookcases around the house; we may thus manage to cope for a while with the overflow of books. Unluckily, we both have a book deviation and so we accumulate more and more prints. Tommy's collection has also recently spilled out of his allotted box -- simply said, I'm glad that our rack space has increased.

We made no great progress with Tom's pre-school. Tom cries there, we keep explaining ad nauseam that mama is going to come for him. I try to be there with him and point out in very upbeat voice how many beautiful things can be done at the school, but I am not sure about the result. In spite of Tom's boycott of collectivistic activities, I see great leaps forward. Tommy began to be really interested in riding a tricycle, he started to build "towers" out of blocks, and generally initiate games he had not played much before. He also shifted towards using English more -- we certainly did not teach him words like monkey. The other day I overheard him discussing snails with our neighbor; Tom seriously listened to his explanations and then very clearly, with perfect intonation exclaimed, "oh, dear!" We have a feeling that he also said a few times, "oh, sh*t!" -- but it was not so clear and we surely don't want to point out such an expression, and thus we remain uncertain. The school hence has its advantages, and we don't want to give up so easy.

Now I can declare definitely that I am through with breast feeding. Again, it happened with much relief and satisfaction of both participating parties (although some militant members of La Leche League might want to stone me for saying so). Lisa has subsequently extended her average night to six, perhaps six thirty a.m., which is much more bearable than the nursing four/five a.m. She also appears to develop signs of day-sleeping regime, and sometimes falls asleep for longer periods (e.g. 40 minutes). I have not experienced euphoric states like when I weaned Tom, but the idea of a human-sized brassiere and clothes in general, after two and half years of nursing and pregnancies, get pretty close to the aforementioned euphoria.

	It's darn cold at the ocean in March -- one should rather keep a jacket on.

	Hidden Beach is surrounded by cliffs, which had inspired R.L.Stevensen to his book Treasure Island.

Alas, end of nursing has not reflected in the size of my bust. Although I dropped from category F down to D or DD, my front side is still too robust for my taste. Manufacturers of women's underwear don't make my situation any easier. First I tried to buy bras in the old style -- I rush with both kids into the store, I grab the first D-size, and accompanied by impatient squeals, I hurry towards the checkout. I try the bra at home -- and at the next opportunity return it to the store, for either a) the bra is too small, or b) manufacturer did not bother to take female anatomy into account, and did not know that breasts don't grow from armpits, or c) it pushes my breasts up under my chin and I have trouble breathing. Once I tried a bra on at the store, in the presence of only one child; it resulted in Tommy's escape from the fitting room in a moment I was half naked. Thus, on Saturday, Sid had to baby-sit both kids, while I devoted my time to shopping. After fitting for a half hour, I had found a brassiere which had no wires (I must be an anatomical anomaly, but wires puncture me between my ribs with vehemence that I'm not willing to endure), it did not look in it like a nightmare about my grandmother's corset, it was not padded (who needs to pad D-E size breasts?), and I did not feel in it like a nuclear missile battleship (another designer's perversity: to squeeze breasts into long tubes ended with sharp tips -- it reminds one of a costume for a Valkyrie). Dizzy with success, I re-stacked half of the merchandise, only to realize that this was the only piece they had. After another half hour of more fitting and cursing, I discovered another acceptable model, actually two identical items. By that time Sid was already urging me to go to a lunch (I promised him to pick him up at the playground on my way from the store), but even so the unbelievable became true and I became a proud owner of three new bras, which don't automatically unfasten their treacherous hooks and clasps with every abrupt motion. All there is left to decide is whether I shall cowardly throw away my old underwear, or whether I shall ceremoniously burn it.

Having completed most of our difficult tasks (underwear purchase and furniture assembly), on Sunday we drove out to Point Lobos. After a long time we finally had a passable weekend weather -- it'd be a sin to waste it. I had written about the place many times, but on this trip we went to the southernmost tip of the reservation where I had not been before. A family council has decreed Lisa to be too long for the classical baby carrier, and so we sat her in the backpack carrier. This, however, caused a great trauma with Tom -- after all it has been HIS backpack and HE WANTS TO BE CARRIED, TOO. Through a series of threats and appeals, we made him to march -- perhaps the breaking point was my argument that only nice boys who walk on their own feet may receive a nice present. Well, my own fault. Tom merrily trotted down the path, bravely climbed and descended a multitude of steps, walked barefoot with me across a sandy beach (although the water temperature drastically cooled his excitement regarding running into the waves) -- to arrive back at the car and demand his present. One would think that he must have forgotten it, under the barrage of inputs, but he did not. I actually took a small inflatable ball along, which I had bought at a dollar store and intended to give to our children anyway. Thus my ability to stand by my word was saved -- but it was a lesson for next time.

	Point Lobos offers views to (relaxed) wild animals, winding paths and steps over the cliffs.

	Tommy shouted: "blu! blu!" and then he stopped and gazed and said: "glin".

Sunday's beautiful weather was only a taste of spring -- with nightfall it began to rain again, and on Monday I faced another task, how to survive a rainstorm with my kids, without letting them get all soaking wet or allowing their mother to descend into lunacy. Fortunately, boys don't present much of a problem regarding their rainy day program -- after I managed (within a mere two hours) to get us ready to go out, we went to the "station". It's really a streetcar and bus stop. Tom first panicked as he saw the train pull out before we could properly park and leave our car, but then he let me convince him that another train should come by shortly. Meanwhile, a friendly (and possibly bored) bus driver approached us. I asked him about stroller rules (they can ride for free, but the baby must be taken out and held on parent's lap), and he suddenly reacted when I said something in Czech to Tom. His sister-in-law is a Czech, he said, and called Lenka on the phone to hook us up. Now I wonder if this mysterious Lenka will ever call again -- it would be another Czech soul into my collection. Then Joe invited us to ride with him on his bus, but Tommy insisted on a train. Joe took the defeat of his vehicle quite bravely and even gave us a free all-day pass.

With a ticket in my pocket we rushed into the train (in the end I rejected the idea of a stroller, and stuffed Lisa into a carrier), and while Tom directed (he instructed the train when to ring the bell, and demanded timely departure), we rode all the two stops to the other terminal, which offers connection to another line. I intended to get out, study the schedules, and then ride on somewhere farther, but Tommy could not stand the idea that OUR TRAIN might leave without us -- so we rode it back again. By then the driver noticed us and he, too, responded to our spoken Czech. His grand-parents used to speak like that. His name was Kolar (Kolář) and he was born in Prague, Oklahoma. His grandmother and grandfather arrived in America when they were children, grew together in Nebraska and then met again in Oklahoma, where they married each other. Mr. Kolar said that descendants of the strong Czech community still own farms around Prague, and every first week in October they hold a Czech festival. We rode together back to the transfer station and then there we followed his advice and waited for a train to Santa Teresa. It rides in a corridor in the freeway median and develops a breathtaking speed of 55 mph, going through a tunnel at the end of the line. Tom was all besides himself with joy. Once again we rode up and down the whole line. Thus a depressive rainy day transformed itself into a very interesting morning. The only person not really enjoying it was Lisa -- she has become more attracted to crawling and discovering the rug rat world, instead of sitting in a cozy wrap by mama. Second born children have it always more difficult, as they have to adapt more.

Copyright © 2006 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.