Quentin Turns One Too

Today Zola's friend Quentin turned one too! Quentin had a little party at playgroup this morning and shared his new little red wagon with Zola and Cooper.

Zola especially loved Quentin's carrot cake cupcakes. She ate every last crumb of her cupcake and then licked her plate clean of frosting. Zola definitely shares her mommy's sweet tooth.

We Love To Read

Lately Zola's been trying to read books, just like her big brothers.

One of her favorite things to do is crawl over to the bookshelves, pull all the books off the lower shelves, surround herself with oodles of books, and flip through them. What fun!

Chinese New Year

Today we capped off our week long visit with Gramma by celebrating the Chinese New Year at the Columbia Museum of Art. The museum was holding a Family Fun Day with many arts and crafts projects, face painting, Chinese food, and traditional lion and dragon dance performances, all centered around the Chinese New Year.

The boys especially were sad to see Gramma and Grandpa head back to New York. I'm sure if Zola could speak she would have protested the loss of all her extra hugs and kisses too.

Snow Day?

You know you live in the South when school is cancelled early in the evening before a day in which snow flurries might fall from the sky, possibly accumulating to one inch. Yeah, we live in the South. The public schools were closed here. Granted we did have snow flurries for most of the morning, with a light dusting on the cars. The streets, of course, were wet, not at all icy and sans snow. The boys, however, took delight in the flurries and threw a couple of wet snowballs at Daddy.

We took advantage of the snow day to watch the inauguration together at lunch time. Milo, Calder, and their friend Jack sat still for a while, with Milo lasting the longest, through most of Obama's speech. What a day!

Happy Birthday Zola!

Today Zola is one year old!

To celebrate we had a little party with many of our friends, as well as Gramma and Grandpa Bienkowski, and Grammy and Oom-Poppa Weinberg. Zola was a little tentative at the beginning of her bash, but warmed up quickly and was soon scarfing down chocolate cake and vanilla cupcakes, crawling around with her buddies, and smiling up a storm. Many thanks to all our friends who helped make Zola's day so very special!

We topped off the day with pizza for dinner--one of Zola's favorites--and more cupcakes, of course! Our little sweetheart loved it all. We cannot delight enough in the joy that her sweet smile and disposition brings to us. More pictures of the lovely day are here.

The Monetary Policy of a Five Year Old

On our way to school each morning, Milo and I regularly listen to the news. For the past several months, the lead story has often been about various problems with the economy. We don't usually talk about these news stories, but after one of them this morning, Milo said,

"Dad, I have an idea. I have a good idea about how to help with all of the money problems."

"Really? Let me hear it."

"We should take all of the pretend money for games and playing and let people use that as real money."

What followed was my convoluted attempt to explain inflation, largely in terms of Luke Skywalker action figures. In any event, it is nice to know my son is paying attention to the news, and actually gets some of it. Should I be impressed that his inflationary policies match up with the recommendations of a renowned Harvard economist?

Will Stand For Chocolate

This past weekend Zola had a trial run for her first birthday this coming Saturday: she tasted chocolate for the first time. In honor of my birthday, Justin baked a chocolate roll (for those of you not fortunate enough to have eaten this, it's fresh whipped cream rolled up in a layer of dark, moist chocolate cake, and sprinkled with cocoa powder). As I sat on the floor with my boys eating cake, Zola nearly attacked me to get at my cake. She rose to a standing position without leaning on anything and batted at my plate. Once I gave in and shared my sweet dessert, Zola didn't leave my side until my slice of cake was devoured. Afterwards she was pretty giddy and awfully giggly too. It's official. She's definitely our daughter.

The World According To Milo Or Boy Do We Have Much To Worry About In The Years To Come

This afternoon on the way home from school Milo and I had the following discussion, which made me both wince and smile, as well as worry about his forthcoming teenage years.

Milo: Ms. Smith (his teacher) told me today that there's a wishbone in a turkey and you can pull it apart and make a wish and it will come true. That's not right, is it?

Me: Well, it is a tradition that when you carve the turkey at Thanksgiving, you and a friend can pull apart the "wishbone," which is a bone in the turkey, and whoever pulls apart the longer piece gets to make a wish, which may or may not come true. Why were you discussing that?

Milo: We read a book about it and I asked her about the wishbone. Why don't we do that?

Me: If you'd like, we can do that the next time we have a turkey, maybe next Thanksgiving.

Milo: Okay. Why don't wishes come true?

Me: Well (trying to veer away from this topic), there are many reasons. Maybe you're wishing for something that's not at all possible. Sometimes they come true though.

Milo: Well, if I could make a wish I'd wish that you wouldn't tell me what to do, unless it was something really important.

Me: (silence and a giant smile)

Later in the day, as Milo and I shared some hot chocolate, which is when we also usually have a little afternoon chat, Milo said he had a second wish: "that he could eat hot chocolate all the time." Oh yes, I love him so, despite his fierce independence and willfulness. This second conversation reminded me of something my darling son said last week, as we shared some hot chocolate: "these are good pants for hot chocolate." Yes, those cozy gray sweatpants he was wearing are "hot chocolate pants." Good thing I have a pair too.

First Tooth

We spied Zola's first tooth today. Yes, a week shy of her first birthday, Zola finally cut her first tooth. In contrast, the boys each had a tooth by the time they were 4.5-5 months old and had almost all their baby teeth by the time they turned one. Zola's first little tooth was a long time in the making too. For about three weeks now our sweet-tempered solid sleeper has been waking up at night, drooling like a faucet, and the past few days has actually been cranky!

12 Hours

Yesterday we spent the day in Charleston, SC, for a change of pace before the boys return to school this week. In the span of twelve hours we drove to Charleston, visited the aquarium, ate lunch in Mt. Pleasant, toured the USS Yorktown, window shopped on King Street, had a delightful dinner at Manza, and drove back to Columbia.

Zola especially loved the South Carolina Aquarium. For the first time she was able to get up close to animals and fish in a way that she is not normally able to (like at the zoo, for example). She seemed to find this both fascinating and a little frightening at times. Speaking of up close and personal, Milo made friends with a boa constrictor. All the boys, Justin included, enjoyed the view outside the aquarium, which overlooks the harbor. They probably could have spent all day watching the Chinese ships carrying containers docking and unloading.

Our visit to Patriots Point and the USS Yorktown was the highlight of the boys' day, without a doubt. They loved all the weapons, boats, airplanes, and the submarine. With Zola in the sling we wound our way through the great aircraft carrier, up and down many flights of narrow stairs, up to the main deck and then further up to the captain's quarters and other command areas. The ship was so physically large that Calder had a hard time believing we were actually on a boat and not in some gigantic building. He repeatedly asked "when are we going to be on the boat?" Both Milo and Calder also really enjoyed sitting in the cockpit of a World War II era fighter jet.

After a little window shopping on King Street, the boys exerted some extra energy running around Marion Square Park, and Milo practiced his tree climbing skills.

More pictures of our twelve hours in Charleston are here.