Spring Spring Spring

Notes from Kent :-)

I think I speak for Kristen too, when I say that we're both just a little bit wackadoo this week. With our typical busy schedules, I don't think we'll really believe we're going to Germany (just 1.5 more days!) until we're on the plane and in the air. Then it'll be for real. We both have our mental to-dos that need to get done before we leave, and we're in varying states of getting those all knocked out.

Little synopsis of our family life....

Kristen, Emmo, and Fia have busy busy schedules, with play dates, out 'n abouts (Target, Sunflower Foods, etc etc), etc etc going on all of the time. Super Kristen balances it out getting in good exercise, yoga, going to 24 Hour Fitness, taking XLN classes at DU, knitting/crafting, keeping our schedule in check, and the occasional freelance xln job. whew. That is all on top of full time Mom'dom.

As you can see from Kristen's great posts + pics, Fia has been one busy kiddo the past months. Fia *always* has her opinion of how everything should be. She's growing up from a toddler into a beautiful, sweet little girl before our eyes - it's going fast. One of my favorite things about her is how, when she's happy, she flits about, walking on her toes, singing her made up songs, just lost in her world, in whatever she's doing at the time, and in her happiness in the moment.

Side story to the "happy Fia tip-toe walk". Kristen and I took a parenting seminar from a local Waldorf teacher; I was a little skeptical of the instructor, until she said "children in 3-4 year old range, if they're happy and have had their sense of imagination and fantasy nourished, will walk around like this".... And before my eyes, this 40-50ish woman transformed herself into the *exact* way that Sofia walks around. My ears opened a little bit more after that demonstration and amazingly keen insight.

So that's our Fia. She's a challenge, and she's a love, and she's the smartest, sweetest, most determined, dramatic, most naturally compassionate and caring little girl around. She's a Tinkerbell/Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty vision of happy childhood, telling us her stories and dreams and thoughts. Oh by the way: Man, can she ride her balance bike that was her big family BDay gift from last year. Amazing to see her coast for 20-30 feet, down a slight incline, on that bike, and wonderful to see her enjoy it sooo much.

Now Emerson... This kid is something else. He'll see a person across a room, make eye contact, and just flash that natural smile and all of a sudden he's got a connection, and he's playing, smiling, and flirting with somebody. In the past 2-3 weeks, his level of physical activity has just skyrocketed. Kristen and I tonight were discussing how he's creating games to practice pulling himself up to standing, sitting himself down, repeat repeat repeat. If I could somehow construct a little obstacle course / jungle gym for him, he'd love it. Non-stop energy, strong, good sense of balance, doesn't cry too much when he falls over. He's like a little non-stop motion koala bear.

Me? Work is busy and is good. If I'm getting honest feedback, I'm doing really good work. I definitely feel very lucky to be supporting 2 (imho *very cool*) growth businesses within this large company, not to mention its core operations. There's a project that will hit a new phase the week after we return from Germany that I'm pretty excited about, and that's one of about 9 projects in which I'm heavily involved. During interviews, the job spec sheet said that this position is about "Changing the game for how we do operations", and the job feels like that, which is exciting. It's very nice to not be on-call, by the way...

I'm excited for this trip. Fia will be old enough to remember it a bit perhaps, she and Emmo will hear the German language, which if you read about early childhood brain development, helps create those neural network maps. Fia and Emmo will get to meet and play with Nik for the 1st time, we'll get to see lots of good friends, and always when you take a trip, you create those memories that enrich life, and you have some time to reflect on things. Hope this soo verbose note finds anyone reading this well, lots of love to our friends and family.

cheers cheers, xoxoxo, kent

emerson's signs and eating

Emerson is really catching on to signs right now. He looks at my hands a lot! He has seven consistent signs now, and more that I suspect are signs. He recognizes several as well. Here are his seven:

dog
cat
more
eat
all done
light
fan


Emerson loves tortellini, pizza, bell pepper, apple, banana.

fia's birthday celebration at school

This was Sofia's birthday celebration at school. We did it last week, since we'll be just arriving back from Germany on the 26th, just 2 days before her actual birthday, which also happens to be the last day of school, so I didn't want to commit to doing it then. Ms. Jen is the teacher with Sofia in the middle of the circle. Ms. Rachael is sitting with some students in the back. The Montessori birthday celebration is really neat. They light a candle in the center of the circle, representing the sun. Then the birthday child carries a globe (the earth) and walks around the sun. The spokes you can see around the candle are the months. Ms. Jen shows the children a picture of Sofia as a baby, and Sofia walks around the sun as the children chant the months, from June through May. When she gets to May, Ms. Jen says "now Sofia is 1 year old," and asks us questions about what Sofia liked to do when she was one. Sofia walks again around the sun as the children chant the months. When she gets to May again, Ms. Jen says "now how old is Sofia?" The children answer, "Two." Ms. Jen asks again, "What does she like to do at 2?" Then the process begins again until she reaches 4. It was fun to see, and Sofia was such a star, so composed. Ms. Jen asked her what she likes to do now, and Sofia answered, "Well, I like to play with Emerson."