ceci n’est pas un blog post

This is several blog posts, and none. A summary. A smorgasbord.

I love Magritte. So I reference him. C’est tout.

Where have I been? Why the blog silence?

Even I don’t have a coherent answer and I’m the only one who should know.

There’s some perfectionism involved. First thing that happened, I was having blog envy after reading another writer’s work and feeling like my posts should be more coherent individual STORIES. And then I wrote no stories at all. So that was useful not.

Then we were in L.A. for almost a week. There’s a part of me that worries about blogging when I’m on vacation because I think someone will come rob my house while I’m gone. Inconvenient since my blog-worthy life experiences don’t stop while I’m gone. I had to break the rule for the f-word post. Wouldn’t you?

And this L.A. trip was about possible futures, new job opportunities for Scott, which would mean relocation for us. I was feeling a lot of different things about that, not all of them pretty. It’s still not a done deal either way, so for this moment, that’s as far as I’m going to discuss it. But, there are several of you, dear blog readers and blogging friends, whom I will be hitting up for advice and coffee dates, should the possibility become something more solid…

While in Los Angeles, of the many activities we enjoyed: toy shopping, clothes shopping, the park, dining out, learning the ins and outs of refined curse words; perhaps the most unusual was The Farm in Tarzana.

A funky old petting zoo, not for the germophobic, The Farm features goats, sheep, emu (is that plural also or is it emus?), llamas, some sad looking ponies for riding (we didn’t), a cow, geese, ducks, chickens, rabbits, a few dilapidated antique tractors. And it’s for sale, if anyone’s in the mood for a unique business opportunity. I’d seen the sign for it when we’d been in L.A. last, as it’s in the neighborhood of the rest home where my 98-year-old grandmother lives.

We did not take her with us to pet the animals. And we didn’t take a picture of her this time. She’s currently wearing these silk babushka scarves that make her seem even older and I’m in denial about it. I think the scarf intimidated Jonah too because he didn’t really interact with her this visit. Here’s a few pictures from our previous trip, back in April.

Jonah and Great-Grandma play peek-a-boo:

And here’s two pics of The Farm. My dad was in charge of the food cup, which made him popular, and I think the emu appreciated how well she matched his shirt:

Jonah enjoyed all of it, especially the tractor:

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Jonah’s been talking up a storm as usual. I could kick myself for all the recording of it that I haven’t done, audio, blogging, all of the above. Now it really is happening so fast. Just like everyone said it would.

His latest games: Asks questions he already knows the answers to. For instance, with our cat, Bambino. He’ll say, “Is he black?” and then he’ll answer himself, “Bambino IS black.” — Which is funny, because that’s basically what we’ve been doing with him all this time, pointing to things we know the name of and getting him to name them.

Similarly, he’s onto my singing game. Whereas up to now I’ve gotten him to join in on songs by pausing mid-lyric and then he’ll fill in the next word or words. Now when I pause, he makes me fill in. For example, in Old MacDonald Had a Farm, I sing “And on his farm he had a _____” pausing, and Jonah says, “What did he have?”

When he does feel like filling in, lately it’s moved beyond farm animals to favorite musical instruments, or anything in the room he feels like naming. A table, a drumstick, a bus.

And due to my recent upping of the lullaby ante with everything in my arsenal including the alphabet, Jonah now sings the entire ABC song (including Now-aye-no-mai-A-B-seez-Nex-taim-wontyu-sing-withhhh-me.”

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We’ve had some awesome play dates lately. Studio Grow, the Zoo… On Friday we went to the Bay Area Discovery Museum with Laura and Flann, though the peak experience for both boys seemed to be the museum shop, where each picked the toy school bus and we moms obligingly purchased. Then we went on a long walk to the beach at nearby Tennessee Valley Road, and both boys brought their buses along.

Yesterday we spent time with three different sets of friends, old and new. A morning coffee and scones gathering of families with 0-5 year olds in our neighborhood (which made us NOT want to leave this town), a brunch play date with a couple of my friends from high school and our families and an outdoor blow-up pool, followed by a lovely afternoon with Laszlo and Elina and Paul that included homemade chicken pot pie, BART trainspotting, and banjo playing.

Today we mostly hung around the house and rested.

There, now we’re caught up.

Phew.