It finally happened. My streak of 28 consecutive months of faithful updates to this site was broken. Yup, I skipped my monthly update. Ironically, I didn’t skip it because I was overworked, but because we took a vacation right in the middle of what would have been my normal update time. Oh well, this month, I’m back with a two month bonanza. Among the highlights are:
- We take a family vacation to beautiful Lake Tahoe — I’ve created a separate site to document the trip here
- Kids go to Ava’s 3-year birthday party
- Lilah performs at New West Symphony concert
- Lukey shows a little interest in the piano
- Lilah takes her yearly portrait pictures
Luke
Luke spent part of his summer attending a week-long sports camp, two weeks at the YMCA, and going to swimming lessons. Although he is still shy when you first meet him, once he warms up there is no stopping him. This was evident when I watched him during his end-of-camp basketball game. There he was running back on defense and yelling out “come on guys” trying to make sure the rest of his team members were ready to defend, block and do what it took to keep the other team from scoring. It’s interesting, because on the offensive side he was a little gun shy as no sooner would someone pass him the ball then he would pass it right back to somebody else. He just didn’t feel comfortable scoring, but when it came to defense he was the loudest guy on the team by far.
Luke hasn’t quite learned to swim yet, but at least his comfort level in the water is good. He now gladly dunks his head in the water and holds his breath, something he was reluctant to do before because it bugged his eyes.
On our pit stop in Folsom, Luke practiced some more of his negotiation skills with my friend’s son Nathan. The two got along so well that Nathan offered to give Luke a toy. But rather than be a thankful gift recipient, Luke asked Nathan what else he had and began negotiating to receive a different gift instead. Both Cathy and I had to sit down with Luke and give him the old you need to be thankful for what you get speech but you take your eye off him and there he is again negotiating for more toys.
Anyway, I think he is definitely ready for pre-school. Last year, Luke went to school twice a week, but this year we’re boosting him up to 5 days a week — it’s only mornings, after all, and he definitely seems ready for it and is looking forward to going to his new school.
We may also put him in piano soon as he’s begun to take an interest, occasionally going over to crank out a few notes on his own which is exactly how Lilah started. But then again, maybe we’ll just wait until he turns five so that he can have some balance.
Lilah
Like Luke, Lilah also participated in camps and swimming lessons over the break. One of those camps was a YMCA week-long camp which consisted of going on various field trips, including a trip to the beach, the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles, and going to an LA Sparks women’s basketball game at the Staples Center. Keep in mind that we didn’t go with Lilah to these events. She went on her own on a bus — obviously with chaperones, but still interesting to reflect on the fact that she did this while being all of 7 years old. Definitely not something my parents would have let me done at that age.
The other camp she attended through the YMCA was splash camp but she got sick half way through it so she was forced to bail out on the last two days. The good news is that Lilah now definitely knows how to swim so we don’t have to worry about her as much when it comes to going to the pool.
Thanks to her brother, Lilah also lost the tooth we kept hoping she’d lose before resorting to getting it pulled out by the dentist. She’d been bugging us for what seemed like all summer about about how it was loose but not loose enough to pull out. We kept telling her to play with it because it needed to come out, etc. Then one day, Lilah and Luke decided to play Pokeman. Apparently, this involved practicing karate on each other. And, it was during one of these exchanges, that Luke accidentally hit Lilah in the mouth and knocked the troublesome tooth out.
The cool part was that rather than crying about it, Lilah was all happy because she said she didn’t really feel the hit and now that the tooth was finally out she would get a visit from the tooth fairy. Too funny.
Lilah is now officially a second grader as school resumed again last week. More on that next month. Just amazing how fast time flies now. Until next month!