Fishes and aeroplanes September 23 - October 5, 2006 About the Aquarium, Air Show, and a bipedal.

	Our favorite hill

	At the Aquarium Another stereotype - Lisa throws smiles to the photographer; Tom is seriously captivated by a scientific experiment.

On 23rd of September, we had our sixth wedding anniversary. This means I have been enduring Sid for a sixth of my life already. I just don't know how he managed to endure me. I am more and more confused. The other day I accepted a parcel, containing a phone that we had ordered. I recall this very clearly -- but I have no clue, where I put the box down; we have never found the phone. It must have apparently vanished in a space/time hole. I have been forgetful a lot lately, but at least this year I remembered the anniversary -- and that counts for something, right?

A few days have passed without granny and so far we managed quite well. Strangely enough, Tommy eased a bit on his rebellions and anger, often is willing to listen to my reasoning, why this or that is not possible. He fixated himself a lot on Lisa lately, and she's delighted. They play primitive games -- riding around with toy trucks, chasing each other, mock-fighting and sharing toys. Sometimes they actually share willingly! They both pay attention to what's going on: when I begin to dress Lisa up, Tom rushes to get his clothes and starts to get ready to go out. Similarly with Lisa, as soon as she notices any Tom's preparations, she positions herself near our door to the garage. When Lisa, dressed up, ran into the depths of the house for some toys, I threatened her with leaving her behind at home unless she shows up to get her shoes -- Tommy was the one mostly stressed out! He called after her to come for the shoes quickly, and made sure she comes with us. When Lisa buckled and did not want to eat dinner, Tom offered to feed her -- and she immediately changed her mind and accepted her meal from him.

	This fish is prettiest!

	Tom and a moray

Tom now absorbs everything and subsequently uses it when least expected. I scolded him when he had crushed some dropped food with his truck -- he went and all by himself swept it all onto a dustpan. I did not even think that he knew how to use a broom and a pan -- and I expected much less from a male to take an initiative to clean up. It also seems that he remembers much more than we would have considered possible. The other day he was looking at January pictures from Fremont Peak and mentioned a "fallen umbrella" being there -- no such thing was shown on the pictures. Eventually we cracked the mystery -- after a winter storm, one of the six foot parabolic antennas had fallen off of a telecom tower. Tom almost did not speak then, but now he recalled a memory in useful words. Of course he remembers best the things we would like him to forget. When Sid dropped a casserole lid in the kitchen, Tom commented with feeling, "Sh*t!"

	Classic Monterey - kids' picture through an aquarium

	One is not supposed to use flash near jellyfish

On weekends, we keep wandering somewhere with the children. One of the trips took us all up Borel Hill. I wrote many times here that I have a weakness for this particular hill, but we had not been there perhaps for a year. For most of the way, Tommy demanded to climb on rocks and jump down; Lisa had to ape him, of course. She trotted for a while hand in hand, which solidified my conviction that her not walking has only been a matter of a strong will (Lisa's, that is). Led by someone, she handles even complicated terrain, and I don't know what stops her from walking -- besides her own decision not to. At the same time when in a stroller or carrier, she moans and rages, she does not like to sit, but she still considers making a few unattended steps, a grievous injustice.

	Jellyfish

	The Air Show in Salinas has started

We also fail to explain to her that getting up at seven a.m. is not humane. It's only advantage is that we manage to get to our favorite attractions before the other crowds. For example, by ten thirty in the morning on Sundays, Monterey Aquarium is practically empty. Lisa bounced joyfully before fishes, both kids splashed themselves wet a bit in the toddler section, and we have seen penguin feeding, tropical fish and a coastal aviary, before pressure built up at the displays. Like by a wave of a magic wand, half past eleven tripled the crowds -- and we fled. So while all the others compressed at the aquarium, we had a great lunch in an empty restaurant. The timing made us ecstatic -- kids visited the aquarium at ease and without the danger of being trampled or getting lost, we fit in a meal, and made it home soon enough to let Tom have his afternoon nap, while we all rested.

It has been getting colder for some time now -- tell me about global warming -- two years ago on could swim in our pool by mid October; this year we did not got in for all of September. On the first of October we decided to drive out to Salinas to an Air Show. Cloudy weather suited us better than last year's heat wave, but we really did not expect the rain. But all in good time.

	Training planes - before and today

	Aerobats.

From the early morning, Tom was feeling all excited and kept wanting to dress so we could go, but the program was supposed to begin by eleven. We mentally prepared ourselves for chaos, but both our arrival there and parking proceeded smoothly. We could see some planes from our car and the kids were jumping. In contrast, later on the grounds Tommy was taken aback, perhaps he minded the roar and crowds and confusion. He needs everything carefully explained lately, and then he ponders it, and a colorful show saturated him. Not so Lisa. She was completely comfortable and enjoying herself, she kept on yelping her "hooo-tadlo" (= "oor'lane"), demanded to see and try everything. She played with the police car and seriously contemplated a career with the peacekeeping force, but the cops don't have as great and mighty cars as the Army does -- they captivated her completely; I could not tear her away from a steering wheel.

	Landing on a camper

	Our family at the Air Show Notice Tom's new fighter plane

Tom was giving us hard time, and so we all tried to eat something in hope it could get better. It did not. We did not feel like chickening out and going home, when the show was getting into the more interesting part; I certainly wanted to wait for fighter jets. In the end, a purchase of a F-14 model helped. Such a beautiful plane, with variable geometry wings that can move! Tommy then "flew" around and landed and exercised the wings and was suddenly happy. He even interacted with some stranger boy, interchanging opinions about their model aircraft (the other boy held a helicopter). Perhaps we helped it, too, by moving between the grand stands and out of the main stream of people and confusion.

	F-16A Fighting Falcon

	Like every year - Heritage Flight

Naturally the fighter plane program started exactly in the moment I had gone to the bathroom. It is really a INTENSE experience when you sit in a port-a-potty during a F-18 fly-over. Were it to happen unexpected, I would most likely use the facility intensely as well. Instead I rushed to re-unite with my family -- I did not want to miss the show, and I also counted on kids being hysterical. But Tom had already accepted the fact that the great beautiful planes make heavy noise, and commented that his model had same engines like the one in the air, which means he quieted down. Still he remained for most of the time on my lap; I held one of his ears covered and the other buried in my belly (of course so that he could SEE the aircraft). Lisa came to hide by me a few times, but the noise bothered her much less than it did Tommy.

Thus we lasted through some more aerobatic numbers with an F-16, but then it became clear that the children had had enough. Consequently we missed the fighter plane group performance like the year before, but what can you do. Even so, the kids suffered four hours of the Air Show with us, which I consider a great success.

	Lisa was deciding at length. In the end, she won't become policewoman; she'll join the Army.

	It was a challenge to take a picture of permanently oscillating Tom and an uncooperative Lisa, but I got them both -- and with a seasonal pumpkin!

On one unexpectedly beautiful morning I managed to take the kids to buy us some pumpkins. We went to our favorite farm in Mountain View. They don't charge admission, offer free rides on a children's train, have a few runs with chicks, geese and turkeys; two donkeys and a calf; a hay castle and a corn maze. Tommy liked it a lot, he ran from one attraction to another, but this time, Lisa boycotted the action. I reckoned that her moodiness was rooted in her indecision. I spotted her a few times, as she made a few steps here and there while trying to keep up with Tom. Here at the farm, she stood up and again made some steps, but soon she realized that this would go against her resolution to let mother carry her around until puberty, and it caused her mental anguish. Hence she whimpered and sulked. I think that a fight is taking place inside her mind, between the urge to gain the freedom of bipedal propulsion, and the inborn caution. Since our rain season has just began and crawling on all four outdoors has become even less practical than ever before, I hope that the desire for new skills takes over and Lizzy will finally join us, walkers.

The historical moment came on October 5 -- Lisa started to walk. Not only walk -- in the morning she marched between me and our neighbor -- an by the evening she ran with Tom all over the house. My suspicion got confirmed. She long knew how to walk, she only had to decide that she WISHED to walk.

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