On Friday night I was running the dishwasher about the time Julian gets home from work. The dishwasher makes the well pump go off which sounds a lot like the garage door opening, so Griffin kept running to the door and announcing “Daddy!”. At one point he couldn’t get the door open himself so he started demanding “Open, open!”. I reminded him to ask politely, so he asked “Open, please?” and I opened the door for him. He looked for a minute at the empty stairwell and then something seemed to click and he looked up at me and asked “Daddy, please?”

Griffin got a helium balloon this weekend and was happily running around the house with it last night. I heard him run into another room and then I heard a loud pop. I expected him to start crying but when I went into the room I found him carefully gathering up the pieces of the balloon. Then he held them out to me and hopefully asked “Sticky tape?”

I wish for him that I could change the world so you could see anyone you’re missing just by asking “Please” and you could fix anything that’s broken with sticky tape.

I forgot to blog about this, Trader Joe’s opened in Madison on Friday. I stopped in on my way home from work and the scene was crazy. Julian joked that I was so excited I might camp out the night before, and hilariously, some people did. I was able to stock up on things I hadn’t even known I’d been missing, plus get non-dairy coconut sorbet for Griffin. Very happy to have them in town.

On Friday afternoon we were going stir crazy. Griffin had a cold and it had been gray, cold, and raining all week. Then I had an epiphany that if we waited for good weather before going outside we’d be stuck indoors for the next six months. We bundled up and went to the park and it was great. We were warm enough and Griffin had a blast running around. He invented a game where he’d ask me to go down the slide and then when I was half way down he’ll yell out “Mommy, stop!” Then he’d yell “Oh, no, Mommy stuck, I help you!”, and run up the ladder, come down the slide behind me, and push on my back to get me “unstuck”. We snap for the cats to get them to come, so now if he wants us to go somewhere he’ll make a snapping gesture with his hands while saying “C’mon!” We haven’t had the heart yet to tell him people don’t really like it when you snap at them.

Yesterday it was still cold and raining, but we decided to go trick or treating at the Henry Vilas Zoo anyway. As were driving to the zoo it started to really rain hard and we wondered about the wisdom of going trick or treating with a kid who’s allergic to most forms of candy. We got to the zoo and pulled a coat on Griffin and a lion suit on top of that. It was still raining hard so we decided to get him a tiny umbrella at the zoo’s gift shop which, hey, mechanical device! Before looking at any animals he spent at least 10 minutes just opening and closing the umbrella. They had trick-or-treat tents set up and we were happy to see that many of them were giving out things like fruit snacks or little kid-sized flashlights instead of candy. We spent most of our time just looking at the animals and the other dressed-up kids.

Last night when Griffin was chattering about the day in the bathtub it went something like this: “Otter. Trick-or-treat. Thank you! Seal. Umbrella. Monkey. Rain! Bird.” I think the rain was as much fun for him as anything else he saw yesterday.

This morning after breakfast Griffin ran to the door and announced “Halloween!” like it’s an activity you can go do any day. I can’t wait for Christmas.

Our bedtime routine is bath, pajamas, books, lullaby music, lights out, and then we both lie down with Griffin until he falls asleep. Lately after the lights are out we’re treated to a very long and hilariously random dialogue that goes something like this:

G: Mommy. Mommy! Mommy? Are you, Mommy? Mommy, are you?
Me: Griffin, I’m right here. I’m two inches away and you’re holding onto my elbow.
G: Mommy. Mommy?
Me: I’m still right here. I’m going to sleep, I’m going to be quiet now Griffin.
G: Mommy?
Me: …
G: Mommy.
Me: …
G: Sings a sort of punk rock rendition of “Twinkle, twinkle little star”.
Me: …
G: Pumpkin pie! (In a tone of voice that suggests, oh no, we can’t go to sleep, we forgot the pumpkin pie!)
Me: We don’t have any pumpkin pie, honey.
G, undeterred: Pumpkin pie!
Me: Tomorrow we can make a pumpkin pie. First we have to sleep, then we can make pumpkin pie.
G, silent for a moment and then: Mommy. Mommy? Mommy!
Me: Still right here.
G: Mommy, are you?
Me: I’m going to sleep now Griffin.
G: Ah-choo (fake sneeze). Bless you (to himself). Ah-ah-ah-choo. Bless you. Ah-chooo. Bless you. Many more repetitions of this…
Me: Let’s be quiet now Griffin.
G: Sings punk rock rendition of “Row, Row, Row your boat”.
Me: …
G, silent for another moment and then sits straight up in bed: Speed boat! Speed boat in bathroom!
Me: We don’t need the speed boat to sleep Griffin, that’s for the bathtub.
G: Speed boat!
Me: No, let’s go to sleep.
G, silent a little longer, then: Mommy! Mommy? Mommy, are you?

This can go on for half an hour or more, usually Julian and I both fall asleep before Griffin does. It’s exasperating and also really, really cute.

Some of the things Griffin’s been saying lately so I don’t forget:

One thing I find really endearing is that he says “No” a lot, like all two-year-olds. Except, he almost never says “No!”. He either says “Nope” or “Umm, no” in a very pleasant tone of voice. I must be a parent if I can be so charmed by the way he says “No”.

Another thing I find really charming is that when he’s asked a question he often says “Hmmm….” for a while as he considers his answer.

Finally, when he gets out of the bath these days he always say “Wrinkled like prune!” and then often adds “Wrapped up like bug!”.

All of you with talking kids will realize this is still not a lot of talking. Last month a five-year-old girl at a playground actually came over to me and asked “Doesn’t he talk?” More and more, he does, and we’ll take what we can get.

Ok, I’ve been putting this off since I haven’t had time to write enough to do the trip justice. It was a lot easier travelling with Griffin this year mainly because he can talk to us now. At one point I was trying to get him into the car and he announced “No, Mommy, too hot!” That’s so much nicer than the crying and confusion that would have happened last year in the same situation, we just put on the air conditioning and were on our way. Still not a lot of time to write, so I’ll just post pictures of the Southern California part of the trip and do another post for the Northern California part of the trip later.

We started off with a visit to our friends Scott, Maureen, and Sean:

Then a visit to Grandpa Geoff and Dawn:

And then north to Capitola for a night:

Many good things came together all at once. We celebrated our eighth anniversary, a friend gave us a gift certificate to L’Etoile for doing the photography for her commitment ceremony, and L’Etoile announced it would be featuring an event pairing vegetarian food with wines from the California central coast.

We’d never been to an “event” at L’Etoile before. We were seated at a communal table with six other people. The wine director announced each course and described each wine we were having in great detail. And the food! The man sitting next to us was not vegetarian and at first he wasn’t sure he’d enjoy the dinner. As course after wonderful course came out we were all alternating between giddy laughter and reverent silence. At one point the reluctant man sitting next to us said “I think this may be the best thing I’ve tasted in my entire life.”

Everything was so good that I hate to single anything out, but the smoked mushrooms on the salad were like nothing I’ve had before. After the meal the chef, Tory Miller, came out to answer questions. Apparently they have a forager that gathered the wild mushrooms, then they brined them, smoked them over apple-wood, and then cooked them in olive oil. I told Julian I need to get a smoker and he joked that I’m going to need a two-story kitchen soon for all the gadgets.

I’ll include last night’s menu for other food geeks like me:

THE CALIFORNIA CENTRAL COAST WINE DINNER
A VEGETARIAN EVENT!

Amuse Bouche

First Course
Roasted Garden to Be Kuri Squash Ravioli Sautéed in Brown Butter and Finished with Crème Fraîche and Toasted Pine Nuts

Second Course
Wilted Shooting Star Farm Frisée Salad with Applewood Smoked Wild Mushrooms, Sylvetta, Croutons, New Century Farm Poached Egg with Dijon Mustard and Red Wine Vinaigrette

Third Course
Roasted Blue Moon Farm Baby Beets with Fantôme Farm Chèvre Flan and Balsamic Reduction

Fourth Course
JenEhr Napa Cabbage Filled with Black Earth Valley Shiitake & Oyster Mushrooms and Braised Lentils, Topped with Crispy Blue Skies Shallot Rings and Finished with Zinfandel Jus

Fifth Course
Future Fruit Moonglow Pear Tart Tatin with Cinnamon Ice Cream

This evening will feature five wines from California’s luscious Central Coast, including Laetitia Spakling Wine; Renard Roussanne, Santa Ynez Valley, 2003; Jaffurs Viognier, Santa Barbara, 2005; Talley Pinot Noir, Arroyo Grande Valley, 2004; Tablas Creek, “Esprit de Beaucastel,” Paso Robles, 2003. L’Etoile’s Wine Director Michael Kwas will lend his knowledge of this quintessentially Californian terrain and its amazingly diverse wines, while Chef Tory Miller prepares five unique vegetarian courses to match.

We’ve been playing a game around here that goes like this:

Me: Griffin, what do you want to be for Halloween? Do you want to be a tiger?

Griffin (in his “you’re so silly” voice): Nooooo!

Me: We got a firefighter costume from your cousin, would you like to be a firefighter for Halloween?

Griffin (cracking up by now): Nooooooo!

Several more iterations of this and then finally:

Me: OK, I give up, what do you want to be for Halloween?

Griffin: Little boy!

Griffin and I went biking today to give Julian some time for the never-ending sand/stain/seal the windows project. Usually when we go biking Julian pulls Griffin in the bike trailer, so today was the first time I got to try it. I have to say, bike trailers are amazing! Except when I was going up rather steep hills I literally couldn’t feel the trailer. While I’m at it, newer bike helmets are amazing, too. My old helmet was something like 15 years old and it was never comfortable so I replaced it a few months ago. I can barely tell the new one is on, it’s so comfortable.

We biked along the Capitol City Trail stopping at a few different parks so Griffin could get out and play. At one of the parks Griffin played for maybe 15 mintues at the park and then spent 45 mintues trying to figure out how my bike works. I had to explain the front and back brakes to him and then hold the bike so he could spin the pedals backwards over and over again and watch the chain turning the gears. He wanted to know the names of everything: the spokes, the kickstand, the reflectors. He’s definitely a kid who wants to know how things work, sometimes I think he enjoys getting a screwdriver and changing the batteries on toys more than he enjoys actually playing with the toys.

Another cool thing that happened at the park were that some birds were singing and Griffin started dancing along. He really likes almost any kind of music, it’s funny to see him squint his eyes and move his head around like James Brown. We were at a restaurant not that long ago that had live music and Griffin jumped down out of the booth so he could dance. Our surfer-dude waiter stopped by and approvingly said “He’s in party mode!” Yeah, pretty much all the time.