Tom and Filip on a big train.

A sure program for an uncertain season is a children's train ride in Vasona Park.

Returning from our big trip meant for me mostly mountains of laundry. Again it seemed that a UFO fighter wing takes advantage of our washing cycle, since four people could never own so many clothes and, most of all, make it all dirty at once. Nevertheless we somehow managed space aliens along with our stuff. Sid cleaned up and vacuumed the bus this time. He earned my nod of approval. If there's anything I hate even more than piles of laundry, then it is cleaning up all the morsels and candy wrappers mixed with layers of mud into a sticky goo on the car's floor.

The kids returned normally into their preschool and we gradually began to thaw. Weather jumped from a frosty fog to a summer sunshine. On the weekend following the trip, we got together with Tezaurs, the Czech family that we had met in Zion. First we had a lunch in our favorite Thai restaurant Shana, then fathers took our juniors on a train to Santa Clara, and we, mothers, bumbled behind them in our support vehicles. A model train museum was a success. Tom was ecstatic to be able to show it to his new friends, and much running ensued along the abandoned rail near the museum loading ramp, which later degraded into rock throwing. While we adults were leisurely joking about where the nearest hospital could be and what has been our experience with head wound stitches, a poorly aimed rock hit Hippo painfully in his elbow. It was time to disperse such entertainment.

This is how we picture January: Tom on a beach looks like a marooned sailor.

Lisa, Filip, Tom: finally, the wave has arrived.

We made another plan with the kids for Point Lobos. Tezaurs asked to go to a beach; we were expecting the children to play there for about twenty minutes, and then we would go on a hike, for our kids usually don't last so long in one spot. We were wearing long trousers and long sleeves on account of poison oak, and that may have been a mistake. Temperatures reached more than a summer average, and the kids refused to leave the beach. Even Lisa, who had entered the little strip of sand by sneaking nearest the cliffs in a safe (i.e., about hundred feet) distance from the waves, ended up running half-naked into the surf. The boys dared quite more (and subsequently got more wet). Besides chasing waves and playing with bulldozers and trucks, they also attempted to pour the Pacific Ocean into a hole in the beach, using kiddie buckets (just for the record, this project did not succeed). Hippo and I had enjoyed about four hours of wallowing in the sand -- an experience quite unexpected and very welcome.

Daytime temperatures went over eighty degrees, and thus I decided to do a little pool maintenance. It took me three afternoons just to clean the pool cover. Juniors were monkeying around the back yard, and eventually dropped their clothes and got into the pool. In fact, they had just dipped in their feet and then they ran away with much wailing (our pool keeps steady fifty degrees these days), but what could I do with them? They would not believe me that the water was truly icy.

Let's hope the monster has abandoned this configuration of the room.

A typical winter view from Fremont Peak.

On the other hand, our little ones can be incredibly logical. Tom came with a question, what is "indabarlee" We eventually discovered a sing song containing a reference to geese who got into a barley field. Having been explained that barley was a kind of cultivated grass that grows in a field, Tom was satisfied and stated that the geese must get out so that a harvester won't run over them.

Sometimes in the middle of January, we had a great furniture rearranging moment -- moving Tom's bed (still within the same room). It would seem that some nondescript monster had moved in the corner where Tom's bed used to be. Tommy got into a habit of sleeping on the very edge of his bed, falling off occasionally, just to be far from the ghost. One night, he came shaken to tell me that the inflatable mat, which we use to insulate kids from the wall, had spoken to him. Thus we moved his bed into the opposite corner and it would appear that the incriminated sleeping utensil has ceased to verbally assault our son, while the monster had either moved on to some more hospitable regions, or it's been sulking in the dresser for now. While moving the furniture, I discovered that the rubber coating under our kids' area rug had mysteriously disintegrated, shedding tiny plastic particles (it was quite OK just before Christmas). So we were bound to get another rug and move everything else as well.

Lisa began to enjoy hikes with a backpack and a picnic.

Tom, on the other hand, often makes faces during picture taking.

Another important event was Tom's signing up for school. The very act was preceded by a informational meeting, which took place at a very impractical hour. I was deciding whether to miss it or whether to attend with two very tired and hungry children instead of their dinner. My neighbor Karen came to our rescue, for she agreed to be our spy and let me know if there are any surprising information passed on at the meeting, something I could not get from the school's internet page. I was grateful -- after all, I've got no experience with American school system and I would not want to miss something important.

When Karen assured me that all stands what's on internet pages, I printed the appropriate forms, filled them out, grabbed Tom's birthday certificate, our house property deed (school location is strictly by residence address), some utility bills, and took Lisa to the school. Tom went to his pre-school with Hippo (the very child being signed up is not needed here). Everything went as expected at the school, leaving open rubber stamps from our pediatric and dental doctors (which can wait till summer, thus making them valid for next year), filling out a questionnaire about Tom's skills, and that's about it. Well, it would be, had I not gotten a call from the school administrator at two in the afternoon, saying that I had signed up Thomas, but brought Elizabeth's birth certificate. As one can see, my motherly dementia is still going strong!

For my excuse I can perhaps mention the fact that I was ill at the time. Some very nasty sickness felled me (most likely a form of common cold). Fortunately, it has chosen Sunday for its first attack, and I could pack Sid out with the kids and crawl back into my bed, where I spent the day like a dead body. It helped a little, and I got up and functioned on Monday as usual, since I had no other choice, and thus I could only hope the kids would not catch it, too.