At the Aquarium

Just like every year, this winter seems too long to us, and unnecessary cold and rainy as well. Our trip plans continue to be thwarted by various kids' illnesses, or weather. We wanted to go see Pája in Southern California, but the idea of an indoor visit, in a house with four small children, with all of us watching it rain outside, has not been too enticing so far. Thus we stumble around our house and try to come up with alternative programs.

We went skating again, and though Tom this time again complained at first that the ice was too slippery, within a few minutes he found courage to skate on his own. So much that he was content with waving at us occasionally while passing by. Living by examples, Lisa has finally let go of her parent's hand. She keeps more marching than skating on ice, but it looks promising.

As soon as is stops raining, we get out on a hike.

In moment when the weather reaches a favorable twist, we go out biking. First we tried a combined expedition to Santa Cruz. A biking trail winds along the coast there, where on this unusually beautiful day, an incredible large number of people, dogs, bikes and strollers, has naturally assembled. Despite this crowd all participants of this (heavy) traffic kept their good spirits, and so we rather easily rode along stormy cliffs to the light house. A high tide was currently happening, and from the light house we observed fruitless attempts of some surfer, worrying whenever he disappeared below the surface for too long. On our way back, Hippo and Tom went ahead, with the plan that past our parked car they'd continue along the trail to its other end to make the most of the ride; Lisa and I were following at a much easier pace. Lisa has still been using training wheels and her bike must be at least as heavy as herself.

Our dragging behind proved to be a curse. I don't know how exactly it happened, but suddenly I glimpsed in my peripheral vision a huge wave rolling over the top of the cliff towards us. I did not manage to do anything, not even yell at Lisa; in one moment we were dry and in the next we were soaked, mostly from our left side. Lisa got more scared than anything else. I immediately demonstrated a lack of rational judgement, since after checking us out for major damage and wiping water off of Lisa's face, I sat back on my bike seat — which, being made of foam, had soaked up a lot of salt water. I was able to take off my wet sweat shirt and my nylon t-shirt dried quickly, but the wet seat of my pants was really uncomfortable.

Grass has grown taller than our children.

Naturally, I did not carry my car keys, and we were thus bound to wait a bit for my Hippo. When he unlocked, I found another glitch — a bag with spare clothing that I had systematically packed in the morning, was safely awaiting its purpose on top of our kitchen table. I found a replacement jacket for Lisa, but I had to make do with the contents of my trip bag. My climbing trousers were dirty and overall threadbare, yet DRY. When a completed my outfit with Hippo's fleece, they did not notice anything weird about us in our favorite restaurant; by the end of the lunch even Lisa found the whole story amusing. We continued with an afternoon running at a beach, making the whole trip quite a success.

On the next weekend we planned something similar in Monterey. We spent a while looking for a suitable starting spot — the bike trail winds among sand dunes along the ocean's edge and can be occasionally seen from the freeway, yet without an obvious turn-off. We did not want to ride in Monterey down town; dunes are nicer than tourists. Eventually we found the right spot and rode out northwards. Hippo and Tom soon separated and went ahead; the open road beckoned me to pedal faster than Lisa's "duchess" style. I attempted to explain to Lisa that daddy and Tom were riding to the north, the two of us were returning to the car (south), and that she was supposed to go to the car, while I will circle around. Lisa nodded her head to everything and I started downhill as fast as I could. On the way there two female bikers passed me, I went up the opposite hill and turned to get back to Lisa. However, she was not at the half way where I expected her. Lisa could not be seen at all, for she did not understand my instructions and instead followed Hippo and Tom. The bikers who passed me caught up with a furiously pedaling Lisa, and later reached Hippo and Tom, quickly berated Hippo for leaving a poor child (Lisa) behind, for they weren't expecting me to belong to Lisa as I headed the other way. Then I gave up the idea of any more sorties; it seems that Lisa simply cannot process certain things. So we moved at an easy pace to the last rest place before our parking lot, where I let her sit and relax (she was rumbling that her legs were aching), and I ascended the hill around the parking lot twice while practically never letting Lisa out of my sight.

Poison oak sprouts new leaves in the spring.

We took a fast lunch at Sea Harvest. This fish store is regularly full, but by eleven thirty we might have been first customers that day. Juniors then begged for the Aquarium. We have a membership, so it's no extra cost, but I have to say that after many visits there Hippo and I are by far not as thrilled as our kids. Well, life is a compromise; we lasted about hour and half, and then we ordered the kids home.

On our way back from Monterey, Lisa fell asleep for a moment. Turnoff from the freeway near our house woke her up, which apparently did not put her in the best of moods. Tom tried to communicate with her, and she kept snapping back at him, rumbled and was incredibly nasty. Tommy tried to urge her to drink some coffee with milk. We wondered for a while why should Lisa drink coffee and why would Tom pester her with it (Lisa's mood was such that she answered "NO, and leave me alone!" to just about anything). Then we realized — I implore our children every day that they must let me drink my coffee, lest there'd be no rational talking with me. Tom reckoned that Lisa found herself in the same state of mind like I am every morning.

Kids get more interested in mud than beautiful overlooks.

This weekend we got befallen by a huge crisis. On Friday ten p.m., internet stopped working. We went to bed relatively unmoved, hoping that "things get worked out" overnight. Well, they did not; we spent many hours on the phone which nobody would pick up. Bob, as we know our senior support person who serves night shifts, eventually came to work, but even he kept shrugging, as he admitted not knowing why our connections was down. By Monday afternoon (about five minutes after I lost my patience and took the kids out on a walk) a technician arrived and found our roof-mounted radio to have lost its mind. He adjusted something there at length, and then discussed something complicated and technical with Hippo; since then we're back on line.

It made me think a bit about how much I am dependent on the internet. Besides my personal addictions in the sense that my computer is on all day and I keep checking it, there are lots of practical things that we solve using the internet. News, for example — we don't subscribe to a TV content provider or old-fashion newspaper. We can read all that online. Weather forecast and tide tables are posted on the 'net. I search for cooking recipes there, use e-mail to communicate with my family and to organize my climbing sessions. Even my Czech friends here are mostly "virtual". I let internet face the cases of children's rashes and proper baby food; e-mail is the most flexible way to communicate with Tom's teacher, and with his pediatrician. When I need to drive somewhere, I download a map. Without this invention, our whole family would be kind of disabled — we wanted to go to Santa Cruz and could not figure out when a tide would come. And what the weather was and who opened when and so forth.

Returning home (Silicon Valley houses can be seen over the hill)

Tom's school was handing out report cards. The teacher gave me his and told me why Tom got his marks. There was no surprise. Academically he's coping quite well. He continues to behave out of norm, but still I think the last three months were hard on him. Two deaths in the family, daddy abroad. Then illnesses and bad weather.

Still it would seem that Tom musters homework without paying much attention to it, usually on his own while I prepare dinner. I supervise sometimes, but other times I don't have the time and then I don't know whether to laugh or groan, when he smuggles in his own inventions. The other day he was supposed to write down words that rhyme, and illustrate. He wrote HAT and BAT and then he wrote GET. I was curious how he'd graphically represent GET — he drew a hand reaching for a toy train (GET TRAIN), and then he spent half an hour detailing the engine and cars. Fortunately it seems that his teacher tolerates his creativity quite well, and we must hope that in the next year he shall encounter such an understanding educator.

Tom has now become a quite pleasant child. He tries to help and resolve things on his own. True, sometimes his helping misfires, like when he broke off our lamp switch, but often he surprises with something nice — especially if he helps out without asking and without talking back. Putting garbage bins back in their place, sweeping the floor, even (and this would be perhaps the first male I ever saw doing such a thing) replenishing a roll of kitchen wipes.

One more stop towards the end of our hike.

With the first day of spring approaching, we finally got some spring weather, and yard work piled up. Tommy has been fascinated by it, and together with Lisa they managed to weed out the whole lot (as a reward no less!) — I hope these genes come from our grandmother and that it would last; I am certainly not the gardening type.

Enticed by the sunshine outdoors, we set out to a hike in Quicksilver. I was not sure at all how much I was oppressing my children by ordering them into long trouser, while myself wearing only shorts; soon I discovered I envied them a lot. Spring wind was rather cold, although the sun was roasting us. Hippo (also in shorts) naturally obtained a poison oak rash. Still the hike was fun, for the kids mustered five miles (8 km) with gusto. Last year Lisa faded by the end of this strenuous hike; this year she fared much better. We all felt great being outside in the sun and seeing all the green grass and flowers   somehow this winter was extra depressing. The only surprise was Hippo's and my tiredness — then again, we did not hike anywhere throughout the winter.

My birthday falls on the first day of spring; this year especially remarkable — I can't believe I'm forty. I considered not celebrating it at all. When Radim's mail came that he would come on a business visit from Munich, it was decided. With even Radim showing up, we could put together some party and cover both events in one sitting. Guests were forbidden to bring presents, but I managed to convince Bára Vana to bring her guitar and song books. Then I was praying for better weather so that we could spend it at least partially outdoors in our back yard.

A reservoir comes into view, with our parked car on left.

We succeeded; it got too cold after sunset, but we managed to grill some meat and eat at the yard table, and what's more important, both ours and Breh's kids got a chance to run thoroughly. The evening culminated in our kitchen, with kids watching a movie in the family room. Tom was always attracted to adults, volunteering for the job of refuse collector, taking empty bottles to the recycling bin and urging guests to drink faster. He was incredible fascinated by the guitar and our cacophonic singing. I have to admit that besides Martin and Bára, nobody else can sing, but that never stopped anyone from participating with all their might (Martin would sometimes wear a martyr's face, but it's his own fault, being gifted with a musical ear).

By ten Bára Břehovská (Břehule) decided to drive home. We tried to convince here that it was quite OK to stay overnight, for we could put all children to beds and continue partying, but to no avail. She promised next time — and I hope she was serious. While Brehs' kids were up, there was no way to get ours to sleep. A system with all children, for example by nine, go to bed, would possibly be better than Tom and Lisa going to sleep by eleven and waking up useless the next day.

We adults went to bed sometime after midnight; only Radim stayed in our house. Too bad Gabka could not come with him — the group would be more complete. For two years Gabka claimed that Radim only tries to play guitar and that it's horrible; she lied.

A crab

On Sunday after the party, we were feeling rather heavy in the morning, but eventually managed to set out to Santa Cruz — we made it barely there for lunch. Then we wanted to stroll along the beach, but our kids, who on other occasions run up and down and enjoy playing there, slowly dragged along and Lisa whined that she was tired and wanted to go home. Tom did not whimper, but showed no burst of energy as usual. After getting home I went and lied down for a bit; after all at my age this nightly drinking takes its toll. I still had a ladies only night at Irena ahead of me, making this the second birthday party in one weekend. Actually, neither getting together was an actual birthday celebration, but I simply cannot imagine a better way than meeting with people I like.

Hippo gave me some (paper) books and a netbook as a surprise. My old laptop died more than a year ago, hence we were not computationally mobile and were bound to bring Hippos's work laptop along on trips, which is far from ideal (especially if it should fall from some higher place or get stolen). And on Monday my kids recalled that I actually had had no birthday cake, and insisted on making one. I talked them into "diamonds" and even convinced Tom that I would not need forty candles, not even a "4" and a "0". Diamonds turned out (surprisingly) well and I had to bake a second round. Thus I had with my birthday even my favorite pastry, which was such a pleasant dot after the whole affair.