That tooth finally fell out, woohoo!

We’re closing in on summer.  Griffin tested up to his camouflage belt which means he can take regular kid karate classes now.  He can’t wait to start sparring:

He’s also been doing soccer with his friend AJ:

And having play dates with family and friends:

Sarah and Rodolfo came through town today on a brief visit home in the middle of their world travels, it was wonderful to see them.

In other news, Griffin has his first loose tooth.  It’s been loose for a few days, and today he realized that the adult tooth is part way in behind it.  He was so excited he said “I’ll never forget this day!  Mom, will you ever forget this day?”  I think I won’t ever forget this day.

There are some things I don’t like about Griffin’s kindergarten.  But then something like this happens:

They sent him home with a bag full of coping skills!  This is awesome!  This is something we had no idea how to teach him!  For anyone who needs tips for their kids (or themselves) – you can:

• color your angry feelings
• do push-ups
• squish clay
• blow into a balloon
• sing a song
• cool down by counting to 10
• jumping jacks
• talk about your feelings
• run in place
• write down your feelings
• dance
• talk to a friend
• pound on a pillow
• shoot baskets
• Say “I will stay cool”
• listen to calm music
• think of something funny
• cool down by saying the alphabet
• play a game
• watch a funny show
• close your eyes and think of something happy
• make an art project
• jump rope
• clean your room

[ photo set ]

Some pics from a show I went to on Sunday, Ted Leo & the Pharmacists with Title Tracks at the High Noon Saloon.

Title Tracks were serviceable straight up, up tempo hard rock, but lacked distinguishing features.

Ted Leo didn’t disappoint as the headliner with their punkish indie rock that has a sense of melody delivered with good energy and character. Ted has a bit of Bruce Springsteen and maybe even the slightest hint of Mojo Nixon that kept the show engaging.

During the show, my memory card errored out, and the pics appeared lost to the ether. After numerous failed attempts at recovery, the card randomly worked again a few days later. Off-loaded the shots, then the card went right back to fail-mode. So 86 the Transcend 16GB class 6, and hello SanDisk 8GB class 10. Class 10 ups continuous shooting from 25 shots until pausing for buffering, to 100. I’ve recently settled on shooting JPG over RAW, so 8GB is aplenty (1k+ shots).

When evaluating what dSLR camera to get, I paid no attention to the continuous shooting speed, as I figured I’d never use it. As it turns out, I’ve taken more shots in continuous shooting mode than not, and it’s one of my favorite features of the camera. So much so that if I had it to do over, I’d seriously consider the Sony A550 (7fps) over the A500 (5fps).

In other news, I’m thinking of getting personalized plates for my Corolla:
RNDM XCL

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
• With a hidden room!
• 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
• Hurricane party
• 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: