Spring Break??

Hi Sidra,

I'm on vacation this week and we're trying to enjoy 'spring break' as much as we can. We are slowed a little by having two of you now and mom only has a couple of days that she's not working. In Oregon spring break isn't always (or often!) fun in the warm sun. We did have a really nice day today and yesterday was pretty good, too. Since it was nice today we decided to take advantage of our Zoo membership. The only problem with that was that everyone else had the same idea and they had more urgency about it so by the time we got to the Zoo there was no parking anywhere and at least 150 other families hoping there would be a vacancy soon. We ended up going to a park we hadn't been to near troutdale.

It was an interesting time at the playground. Shortly after we arrived you ran into some school chums. Nate and Noah, twins who go to your school. It seemed like they recognized you right off but you weren't too sure about them at first. Then they nearly demanded that you tag along with them. They were competing for your attention but not in a divisive way. It was probably good that they were twins because as a 'not the oldest' sibling I know how the older kid can dominate the play. It happened to me and I'm sure you will do it to your little sister. It's just the way pecking orders work. But these two boys were really good at sharing the lead. Both were able to give in to the wishes of the other in almost equal measure. They were older and quicker than you and I think that's the reason you mostly allowed them to dictate the play. You chose your own distractions a few times and more so as time passed. I was able to catch the three of you in the picture frame just once with any quality and it's interesting that you are between them. I only could tell them apart by their different colored shirts as they even chose to wear their caps the same way, pulled down over the eyes.

We had some tough times the last couple of nights at bedtime. You are pretty adamant about not liking being alone at bedtime. This has become a more acute problem since your sister arrived but I think I have finally figured out how to deal with it. After I read you a few books I turn out the light and turn on your bedtime music. Then I read my book and wait for you to fall asleep. You'd gotten in the habit of crawling all over me and flipping and flopping and stalling and not lying still to go to sleep. Well, I made good on my promise of leaving if you didn't comply a couple of times. You didn't like it but I think we're making progress. I can just see how good of a negotiator and arguer you're going to be in about 10 years. I'm going to need to up my game.

We were lucky to catch you and Shira in almost the same pose being enchanted by the Pooh chair at different times.

We were at Kahneetah the last couple of days. Your swimming bravery and skill had been regressing. So we were worried that we would get all the way over there and you would not really enjoy it. The weather wasn't very good so that looked like it might put a damper on things. We were worried that you wouldn't want to go down the slide. Well the warm water pool apparently worked it's magic on you. On a cloudy 50 degree afternoon in a stiff breeze you walked right over to the slide and went in without even testing the water. So our fears were completely unfounded. You had your head under water as much as it was out and you began to understand how arm strokes and kicks can help propel you through the water.

The video is of our trip to a play place called Kids Club a few days ago. Your favorite thing was the small slide which I rode with you several times. But you only went down the yellow slide. OK, you went down the red once and the green once but the other 40 times you chose yellow even if you had to wait a significant time to get on it. I guess that's what I might have done when I was a kid. I would keep at something I knew and was comfortable with before branching out to something else, even if it were just a different color. A few times you hesitated at the top of the slide before going down. I worried at first that it might be because of who was there. There were some kids of color there and you're not used to seeing them. I wondered if that was it but realized it was something else when you would stall when there was no one there with you. It turns out that there was a ball transport system that was making noise right above the slide launch pad and you didn't like the noise. In any case you can tell from the video that you liked the slide.



love, aba