Shannon Phillips

Today our Scout troop took a hike in Knowland Park, and Robin (and the other Otter Scouts) were totally thrilled to find a bunch of lizards basking on this rock.

Robin’s face just cracks me up. Click for bigger version! (Photo by Sam.)

Robin and Davy have a friend whose baby sister had the foresight and sagacity to be born exactly one year ago, with the result that this year we were invited to a combo egg-hunt/birthday party: it was great fun for the kids and it was no work at all for me. So that was lovely.

See how nicely that baby arranged everything? I should see if she’s available to plan my next party.

Robin’s expression in this photo cracks me up (click for bigger version):

And Sol’s birthday is tomorrow! He’s still super happy, super sweet, and super destructive. The Wreckin’ Ball turns two…

Davy is soldiering on, though he’s been having a little bit of a rough time lately. It turns out he has a hernia that will need surgical repair—he had one very painful episode that took him to the emergency room, but it subsided and he’s doing okay now. The surgery is scheduled for April 17th. Apparently hernias in children are actually relatively common; I had no idea. Until the surgery’s done he can’t run or jump around, so that’s putting a big crimp in his style. I’m nervous about it because he’s going to need general anesthesia, and there’s always risks associated with that, but I’m told that this is a very routine procedure and he should be able to come home right afterwards.

Bonus pic of Robin and Davy:

And another photo of two kids! (Ha ha hah.) This one’s a bit older, as you can tell because it was taken before Robin got a haircut; I took it when we last went to Nevada to visit Nonna and Pappy.

A couple weeks ago on Facebook I wrote: “Tonight I’m struck by the weird, irrational certainty that Sol has just transformed from a baby into a little boy. Like, today. He was a baby yesterday—a big one, but still a baby—and now he’s a little boy.” You can see that in this picture, I think. The last of my babies has vanished, and in his place is this little boy, rarin’ to go.

Yesterday our Scout group participated in an MLK Day of Service event organized by the East Bay Regional Park District—the 23rd Oaklanders, along with lots of other volunteers, helped spread mulch and pick up trash at the Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline Park here in Oakland. Here’s a pic I snapped of Robin and Davy attacking the mulch pile:

Two hours later we had that whole pile spread out, along with two others just like it, and the kids got to walk around a bit and enjoy the shoreline. Several of the Scouts were disappointed that there wasn’t enough trash for them to find!

Soooo…I didn’t get any good pictures from Hallowe’en. This led to a highly unfortunate state of affairs where some of the grandparents whose anonymity we shall here preserve (*cough* Nanita *cough*) were speaking with their friend Cricket, and Cricket had soooooo many adorable pictures of her grandchildren in costume, and Nanita our hypothetical grandparent didn’t have any pictures to show in return.

I have been informed that this situation is unacceptable, and I do humbly apologize to all those affected by the mis-steps of The Management. In partial recompense for your pain and suffering, here is a belated picture of Robin as “Godzilla,” Davy as “King Ghidorah” (a three-headed dragon and sometime frenemy to Godzilla), and Sol as “The Pirate of Monster Island.” (Big shout-out to Biz who actually sewed the pirate costume, complete with adorable stuffed parrot on the shoulder, for her son Silas—we were lucky enough to inherit it as a hand-me-down!)

You can click the picture for a bigger version:

And as a bonus I also give you this candid snap, titled “Mama, I Picked These For You.”

Photo by Betsy Phillips!

Oh my gosh, things have been busy since school started. It turns out that having two kids in two different schools, plus a baby at home, plus the time we put into our Scout troop, adds up to a very busy schedule? Who could have predicted!

Bullet points! I will give you bullet points.

• Robin is doing great in first grade. He has settled right in and comes home saying his days are “awesome.” Plus he’s burbling about volcanos and the Big Bang and hissing Madagascar cockroaches, so I think they’re even teaching him some stuff.
• Davy is one of the big kids at our co-op preschool now. I like my work days there: it’s such a happy, good place that even if I show up totally harried and stressed, I’ll end the day feeling serene.
• Sol the Wrecking Ball continues his rampage of terror. If he’s not transferring the dog’s kibble into her water dish by the fistful, then he’s in the bathroom, unspooling all the toilet paper. Or he’s climbing up the piano, or the bookshelves, or onto the dining room table. Or he’s digging around in the potted plants. The only reasonable thing to do with him is take him to a park, but working around his nap schedule AND the two daily school pick-ups is a challenge. He’s a challenge. I just keep telling myself it will get easier soon. Soon. Surely soon.
• Our Scout group is rocking along! We’ve had two meetings plus a group hike, and next Sunday we’re doing a “kid’s bike rodeo” as part of the Oaklavia Love Our Lake Day. Look at these cuties (click to embiggen):

And that is all the bullet points I have!

Look at that big kid!

We are just back from a long weekend at a beach house with Nanita, Markie, and Aunt Judy! The kids enjoyed hiking, tide-pool investigating, and a visit to historic Fort Ross. I enjoyed all those things as well, plus the luxury of having my extended family around to help out with the children. For once the adults actually had the kids outnumbered! There was always someone to rock a fussy baby to sleep, or read stories to the bigger kids, or just to keep a watchful eye out while they all ran around. I reflected (and not for the first time) that humans really aren’t meant to raise kids in these isolated nuclear-family units: my mother the anthropologist told me that in some societies the word for “mother” and “aunt” is the same, because traditionally all the women of the family would be living and raising their kids together. We love our home in Oakland, but the one enduring regret I have is that we weren’t able to arrange things so that we ended up living closer to our families.

It was a great vacation though. Robin befriended a seagull, who he named Dread Pirate Seagull. This is not the Dread Pirate Seagull, but sometimes he would come and perch on the carving:

The coast was rocky and the surf very cold, so there was no swimming, but the kids enjoyed the beach anyway:

And Sol took command of Fort Ross:

(Which is a very interesting place by the way, although its history is laced with pain. It was a Russian outpost until 1842, first as a base for sea otter hunting and fur trading, and then—after the otters had been hunted almost to extinction—as an agricultural base meant to supply the Russian colonies in Alaska. The Russians brought down Aleuts from Alaska to help with the otter hunting, and many of these ended up marrying Native Californian women: but the Indian laborers were cruelly exploited, a practice that continued even after the Russians sold the fort to John Sutter and the site was turned to a lumber operation.)

I took tons of pictures but most of them were of lichen or fenceposts or little wildflowers. Or all three:

Anyway, we had a great time and we’re glad to be home!