There’s something about having one child that seems to invite comment. When I tell people Griffin’s my only I often get responses like “You might change your mind!” or “You might be surprised!”.

I hate it when people ascribe character traits to Griffin based on this. When he was only a year old I had someone tell me some behavior of his was because he’s an only child. How many first born kids have siblings when they’re a year old?

I’m thinking about this because we recently had a problem with two kids at school pushing Griffin at recess. When I talked to his teacher about it she immediately said “He doesn’t know how to stand up for himself because he’s an only child.” Seriously, that’s her first thought? Would it be ok for me to say those other kids are bullies because they have siblings and their parents don’t have enough time for them?

I guess I get it. More kids are supposed to always be a blessing. If having more kids were in the cards we would have figured it out, but for us this is the perfect family.

Alice over at finslippy wrote a great post about this a few months ago.

I’ve been thinking a lot about life and happiness and goals.  My main goal right now is to do the best job I can raising Griffin.   But also, the world is full of amazing things and I decided to write down some of the ones I’d like to experience:

• Drink a Guiness in front of a peat fire in Ireland
• Take aerial dance lessons
• Start my own company
• Ankgor Wat
• Do more photography
• Learn to poach an egg
• The Taj Mahal in the moonlight
• Learn to predict what wine I’m going to like
• Petra
• Skeet shooting
• Build a timber-frame house
• Bali
• Learn to juggle
• The Seychelles
• Get a tattoo
• Machu Picchu
• Snowboard
• Make meal plans based on whole foods
• Take Griffin snorkeling on Kauai
• Morocco
• Ride in a hot air balloon
• Storm watching in British Colombia
• Swim in bio-luminescent water
• Sail more
• Take a yoga class with Mark Morford
• Write a facebook app
• Do a pull-up
• Live in a downtown condo
• Zip-line through the redwoods
• Meditate
• Stay at a Ryokan on Mt. Fuji

And because I’m grateful,  here are some of the best things so far:

• Marry an incredible man
• Eat at the French Laundry
• See the Aurora Borealis
• Go to Burning Man
• Have a baby
• Get to know Griffin as a person
• Fly in a sea plane
• And a helicopter
• Guanajuato
• Plant a garden
• Road trip south along the Mississippi
• Walk through the old city in Jerusalem
• Cream tea in Devonshire
• Live at Blackburn
• A beach to ourselves in the jungle in Costa Rica
• Berry Creek Falls
• 20/20 vision (LASIK surgery)
• Drive up Hwy 1 at night with the convertible top down
• The alps in Switzerland
• Build a tree house
• Norway
• Hiking at Joshua Tree National Park
• Lots of fun cooking
• Ride a motorcycle to Squamish
• China
• Cinque Terre

Went on a photo-walk downtown with a friend on Wednesday (click for set):

[ photo set]

Deer (and squirrel) out back this morning:

There was a kindergarten sing-along last night. Griffin began lobbying against it yesterday morning. “It’s going to be boring. My teacher said it’s going to be boring! She said we just have to stand there and not talk to our friends!”

He had a piano lesson yesterday afternoon and spent the first five minutes of the lesson explaining to his piano teacher why the sing-along was a bad idea. Then at the last minute he said he was sick but I was not having it.

So, we went to the kindergarten sing-along, and OMG. I’m pretty sure being a parent does something to your brain because 80 kindergarteners singing together was the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.

Afterwards I talked to Griffin about it and told him “See? That wasn’t so bad. You looked like you were having a good time!” Griffin looked at me patiently and explained “Mom. They make us smile. So we will look cute.”

I don’t write here as much as I’d like, but a lot of fun things happen that I want to remember.  So, rather than try to format this into a coherent post, here are some anecdotes:

Griffin’s favorite words recently are  ”awesome” and “awful”.

He’s very interested in learning to read, he spends a lot of time sounding things out and trying to spell things.  He’s very happy he figured out how to spell “Ohio”.

He just learned to eat with chopsticks, he still loves Chinese food.  And burritos.  He only weighs 48 pounds and somehow he can eat a whole Qdoba burrito.

Soon after the “crazy hair” pictures he cut some chunks out of his hair and was really happy to have a bald spot just like Grandpa Claire.

He thinks recumbent bicycles are for handicapped people and refuses to believe me that anyone can ride them.

A while ago we were making lemonade and Griffin wanted to juice two lemons.  I told him we only needed one and I didn’t want to waste the other lemon.  He announced that after he has enough money to get a Star Wars toy he’s going to save his allowance to buy lemons.   I thought he’d forgotten this but yesterday he told me after he buys lemons he’s going to give them to all his friends.  When people come over for a play date when they go home he’s going to give them a lemon.

He’s not satisfied with the rate of his allowance, so he’s trying to hatch plans to start a business.  First he decided to sell lemons (see above) but Julian told him the profit margins probably wouldn’t be very good.  Now he’s wondering about selling pancakes.

We went ice skating for the first time yesterday.  As we were driving to the rink Griffin became worried he didn’t have his snow pants.  I explained that the rink was indoors, that they cover the floor of an indoor rink with ice.  He looked at me dubiously and said “That sounds dangerous.”

From last weekend…

There’s always wildlife out back, and pretty much any given day we can find a herd of deer peering at us.

[ photo set ]

A few sunset pics added to the Cabin set:

[ photo set ]