Author: sajbat

Garden, July

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Holy Moly!

We go away for a week, and things go from this:

to THIS

How big are those corn and tomato plants?

That BIG!

Harvest time! Those bean-y looking things are radish pods, which you get by letting a few radishes go to seed.  I wondered, what does one do with a radish pod.  So I googled it.  Apparently it’s a very common vegetable in Indian cooking and that’s mostly what came up.  Huh. I was getting back to my roots and didn’t even know it.  Get it? Get it? Also, those jalapenos are actually SPICY, which is a nice change from peppers in previous years that were somewhat cardboard flavored. Was it the alpaca poop? Was it the blistering heat? I’m not sure.

Baby watermelons–I hope the squirrels don’t figure these out.

And last but not least, the bean trellis growing nicely.  Soon our porch will be nice and shady.

Other than the poop, the biggest change I made this year is in how much I’ve watered.  Last year I followed all the gardening suggestions that tell you to water deeply 3 times a week. I think this may be a lovely idea when it’s not 100 degrees outside and dry as a bone.  I’ve been setting my drip system to water for 20 minutes every night and 15 minutes in the morning 3 times a week.  Even then some of the leaves got a bit crispy. Overall it’s worked out well and things are really, really growing this year.

San Francisco

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We all just got back from a great trip to the San Francisco Bay Area, where I grew up and where my parents still live.  The kids had a great time with Aaji and Aba, ate tons of delicious home cooked food, and loved both the Exploratorium and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, places that I have such strong wonderful memories of I was incredibly excited to take the kids to both of them. In fact, when we went to the Aquarium, we took a picture of the boy standing in the same spot I stood in nearly 30 years ago, wearing the Aquarium shirt I bought on that trip. That one is still on my Dad’s camera, so I need to have him send it to me. I’m loving all the trips we’re doing this year and hope to keep taking the kids to more places–in some way, this is my gift to them. Some parents teach their kids music, or sports, or wilderness and nature skills.  I have none of these talents. What I DO have is a love of traveling and seeing the world and the luck of having a job that lets me take a lot of trips, and a desire for my kids to know the world outside of their own, something that I think comes directly from my Dad.

I’ve said it before but it bears repeating-I’m really so impressed with the two of them, especially considering that they’re only 4 and 6, and still soldier through these trips, largely uncomplaining. These are not easy trips-the kids are responsible for their carting own luggage through the airport (Skip Hop rolling luggage, by the way, hold enough for a 1 week of kids’ clothes and are easy for them to manage) and have to walk on their own everywhere since I don’t want to deal with a stroller. (Eric might disagree with me on that last one since the girl got her fair share of being carried, but I’d say it was 75% her own feet.) I don’t expect them to remember everything about these trips, of course, but my hope is that once you learn these skills it becomes easier to do more challenging trips in the future and more importantly, they love going places as much as I do.

A few pictures from the trip (click to enlarge)

Cold beach day

Climbing from Fort Point to the base of the Golden Gate Bridge all by myself!

Chilly girl with a funny funny turban hiking through the Marina

Pole position at the Musee Mecanique-I remember begging my parents for more quarters to play this when we’d go to Round Table Pizza

Hanging on to the Powell-Mason Cable Car

Becoming one with the puffin exhibit at the Aquarium

Spooky jellies

Stared down by the giant octopus

Getting Down the Stairs

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Fast….and slow.

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New York, end

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The next day we went up and went to 4 and 20 blackbirds to have pie for breakfast, which is hands down my all time favorite breakfast.

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There is nothing better than apple pie for breakfast. I dare you to disagree.

The girl, of course, had to be contrary and get a cinnamon roll instead.

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Then it was off to Central Park to spend a day with Rebecca and her two kids.

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ImageWhy I thought it would be a good idea to have the girl wear white pants is beyond me. We first went to Belevedere Castle, but it was sadly closed for maintenance.  I told the girl that we couldn’t go inside because the princesses were sleeping (I know, I know) which was apparently an acceptable reason and we wandered off through the ramble, pictured above.

I can’t believe that in the picture above we’re in the middle of New York City.  It felt like  a lost forest. All 6 of us (Rebecca + 2 kids, Me + 1 kid, Sapana) imposed upon an unfortunate but muscle-thighed pedicab driver to take us to the carousel, which was such a hit we went around twice!

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Wave everybody!

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Outside was a juggler (NOT a juggalo, that would be terrifying) who put on a near private show for us.  As we all sat down to watch, many others hurried by.  It’s too bad because he was pretty funny.

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All the kids got to try out balancing a spinning ball.  The girl was VERY serious about this.

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Then there was time for a bit more rock climbing.

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It’s tough to tell from the picture, but that was a BIG, BIG rock and the kids ran all over it, completely undaunted by the height. I love that my little girl is so fearless and unafraid to get dirty.  Though I should note that Rebecca’s daughter ran exactly where my girl did and yet managed to stay pristine, so maybe there’s a skill there my little one is missing.

Then it was time to say goodbye to Rebecca and friends and board the train for a trip to…LONG ISLAND! Woo-hoo!

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Just kidding! We were on our way to meet Sapana’s boyfriend’s family, who were so sweet and nice to us. They handed the girl a doll when she got there and she was in heaven the rest of the evening.  His mom’s cooking was so delicious, too-it was so nice to have a traditional Marathi dinner that it made me resolve to cook it more for my kids so they grow up with the same love of those dishes that I do.

The next day was the last one for me with the girl in the city.  Her grandparents came to whisk her away to Allentown for the weekend. I looked at her before we left the house and said, “I’m going to miss you so much when you’re gone, little one.” She looked at me, reached out and touched my chin, and said, “Don’t be sad, Mommy.  I’ll be back soon.” So much for parental attachment.

That morning we had fun at the Park Slope playground

This piece of playground equipment took no less than 4 adults to figure out.  After we did, it wasn’t all that fun anyway.  It was too much like exercise trying to be disguised as fun.

The climbing structure, on the other hand, proved irresistible to grownups as well as kids.

After that, it was time to say goodbye to the girl. Sapana and I wandered around New York for the next two days rather aimlessly.  It was so fun to spend time with her, though I did feel a bit too aimless at the end of it. That evening we had delicious sushi and went to see “Battle Royale” at the IFC film center, which was…an experience.  The best part was the previews, which featured this GEM of a short from the New York Times op-video.  Please spend 2 minutes of your life watching it (link below).  If you do not guffaw at least once, email me privately and I will send you a $5 Starbucks gift card.

Mitt Likes Music

Sunday morning, Sapana had a race.  In kindness to her I will not post pictures of her running, because with the exception of that one genetic freak, all pictures of us running are horrible. It was the Portugal day race, and can I say that people in New York were all about Portugal, except for the race announcer who only knew a few fun facts and kept repeating them in an elated tone. “Did you know that Portugal is where Port comes from? I didn’t know that! Buy some!”

After that was more aimlessness and then the plane home, back to Denver, to a joyful reunion with brother and Daddy.

Oh, right…brother and Daddy.  Where were THEY during this week? Off mountain biking and fishing! Next post all about the boys.

And as a final note, it was so great to travel with the girl.  I’m already looking forward to next year’s trip with the boy, and wondering if we should go to New York again (which you could visit every year and have a different adventure) or think about branching out somewhere more adventurous, requiring a passport stamp, for example.

New York 2012, continued

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We had a BIG NIGHT planned tonight and after the lesson of the previous day, scrapped plans to go to the Statue of Liberty (which is closed anyway) and instead visit the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.

We walked there from my sister’s apartment, which she insisted was not far. Of course, she was thinking in adult terms of not far and not 4-year old legs, so it got to be a bit long getting there. As soon as we got inside the gardens, though, the girl ran about merrily and the second we hit pavement after leaving, she began to complain about walking.

In Brooklyn, the size of kids that are in strollers is truly, truly astonishing. I know there’s already a tumblr on the topic, but I couldn’t help but stare at these very large children in tiny strollers. I guess for Brooklyn, this is the equivalent of a car and you simply need to get from Home to School and then Work in a short amount of time and can’t be leisurely strolling. Some of these kids were 7 or 8, though, easily and could have been on a scooter next to the parent, if they were in a hurry. I’ll keep this in mind the next time I strap my kids into the minivan to go less than a mile away, which I do frequently. Back to our previously scheduled programming…

After what need up being a one and a half mile walk, we got to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. So, so pretty! We took some time to smell the roses, literally.


There’s a lovely discovery garden with some nice little tree-y nooks

And a compost bin where the girl got to do one of her favorite activities: digging for worms.


Then, we went back to Sapana’s place for a well deserved nap!

And in the evening, Times Square! On the way to the subway, the girl swung her arms side to side and sang as loud as she could, “I Loooovvveee Meeee! I love me! I so fancy! I so fancy!” Ah, if only she can keep up that self-confidence her whole life.

Soooooo BIG!

And someone was VERY excited for the Ferris Wheel inside the Toys R Us building

After that, we went to watch

The girl has never seen Mary Poppins, so before the show we had a little conversation that went like this:

Girl: “Mom, what this show about?”

Me: “Well…it’s about two kids and their nanny.”

Girl: “And then the kids die?”

Me: “No! They don’t die!”

Sapana: “Well, that would be more interesting then your boring description!”

The show was surprisingly delightful, albeit with some tongue-in-cheek drug references, like, did they really need to keep taking spoonfuls of “medicine”?And while you could take alcoholic beverages into the theatre, they were served in…sippy cups. What cracked me up was the number of groups of adults without children that came to the show and merrily sang along with Mary.

Late, late taxi ride home with a sleepy little girl, to get ready for the next day of adventure.

New York 2012

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As you may know, every year I do a trip to New York with one kid and alternate kids every year. This year it was the girl’s turn to come to New York with me.  She was so, so excited to go, as was I.

With this trip, I let go another one of my parenting tenets that was established before having children, which was “Children do not need to watch screens while on the plane.” Idiotic, really. Had I been wise, I would have plugged my kids in much sooner.  To this day I have NO idea how my parents managed to travel with small children to India without any assistive devices. I was incredibly happy to get out “How to Train Your Dragon” and plug both of our headsets in. You know, that is a very good movie, even if I did have to fast forward through a few scary parts and constantly shush the girl as she yelled out “TOOTHLESS!!” in joy, unable to hear how loud she was.

First stop once arriving in Brooklyn was getting froyo at Culture. I’m not sure that I’ll be able to eat froyo again, anywhere.  It’s that delicious. Bad foodie that I am, I did not take a picture.  I’m wondering if it actually happened.

The next day it was a bit rainy so we briefly braved the Brooklyn streets,

had a first (remembered) encounter with a subway train

And then went to the Transit Museum. SO COOL. All about how the subway system was created and how it runs, though the girl mostly loved driving the buses.

My favorite part was the vintage subway trains they had downstairs, starting with above ground Brooklyn trollies from the late 1800s. The girl decided to use this time to pick her butt.

The trains are decked out with vintage ads and admonitions as well

Still good advice, if you ask me.

We then hopped the subway to the Natural History Museum.  By this time the girl was an old hand at the trains and kept warning us to “Stay away from the yellow lines or you get squished!” Always the safety officer, that one.

I love seeing the dino skeletons.  It’s astonishing to me how incredibly huge they really are.  It steels my resolve not to go back too far should I ever happen upon a time machine without first going to the future and picking up a jet pack so I can escape quickly. Or an invisibility cloak.  That would work.  But they might have a good sense of smell, so the jet pack is still the better idea.

Rawr!

You know, one thing I forget about New York museums is that they are NOT friendly to little children.  I feel like the Denver museums make a real effort to have things be open to all kids and accessible, whereas the ones in New York seem to make a point of being more for adults, really–crowded halls, tiny dense print and few interactive features.

After that, we went to get Thai food and the girl had a huge meltdown, which should have been entirely expected given that we’d been traipsing around 2 boroughs for the entire day. Poor thing.  She recovered to her usual self and we headed back home and had an early bedtime, with plans to fit in a lot less the next day.

Future Life Plans

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I took the kids to the park the other day.  The Girl was in the baby swing (which she is far too big for, really) and another mom comes up and starts pushing her 2 year old in the swing next to ours.

The Girl looks at the mom and promptly introduces herself and our family. She then announces proudly, “I four years old.  I big kid so I wipe my own butt!” The other mom is gracious in her reply and doesn’t giggle too much, when the Girl goes on, “That you baby? Where her big brother?” The mom replies that the little girl is her only baby and she doesn’t have any brothers or sisters yet.

“Oh,” says the Girl. “When you have ‘nother baby in you belly?” The mom smiles and says something like, maybe soon but not yet.

“Oh,” says the Girl. “I have baby in my belly!” Now, she has been saying this for over a year with various amounts of time that the baby will gestate and come out.  At first it was going to be born in 5 minutes.  5 minutes! If only all healthy pregnancies could last so long! The baby gets there, incidentally, because she eats a lot of food.  All you foodies out there, watch out.  Practice safe eating.

Anyhow, this time I ask her, “When is your baby going to be born?”

“When I grow up,” she replies, “baby come out of my butt. Then I marry Sam.  Our wedding be in Minneapolis!”

Whew! Thank goodness that that’s already been decided. Now I can reserve that hard to get wedding spot years in advance! Next post will give details about the registry, which will, like so many modern families, include both wedding presents and baby presents.

Garden, early June

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I tried to save some money by doing the irrigation myself in the front garden. I did hire someone to close the sprinkler heads and put in a single 1/2″ polypipe that I, in theory, would install the system from.  I put in drip line, soaker hose, and then, feeling very proud of myself, ran to the garage to turn on the system and see how it looked. When ran back out front, here’s what I saw:

Not sure how well you can see that, but instead of being a nice steady drip what I had was flailing plastic snakes, doing a very effective job of watering the sidewalk and me. I’m not sure exactly why, but my guess is that the system isn’t pressure controlled the way it should be.  I ran out and bought pressure controlling drip heads, and while it was a bit better, now the lines at the top of the system got no water coming out.  I then went and got a control switch to regulate how much water was coming out, which didn’t make much difference.

Right about now I was thinking that I should have just paid for the pros to do it since I’d likely spent a hell of a lot more time than I needed to. After about two days of various configurations, I think I’ve finally gotten it to work, though I may just end up getting it redone later this season.

The squash and flowers planted in those boxes are beginning to sprout, and the top garden is looking good, too:

Beans/peas/carrots/chard and accidentally planted beets.  I figure, if it’s growing there, let it grow.

Radishes

Corn

and tomatoes

I’ve always wondered if the walls o water really make any difference, and this year I had a tomato and pepper that were planted without them and the difference is pretty remarkable!

Scrawny non-walls plant:

Healthy, bushy looking tomato plant:

Of course, I wonder if it will make any difference in terms of eventual yield.  My 80 year old neighbor teases me about them, but so far I’m impressed.

Garden Update-May

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After the alpaca adventure last month, there’s been a lot of work done!

All the plants are now in, and I’ve redone the irrigation system to fit the new layout.

The herbs (upper left) have essentially become huge perennial shrubs. I really need to start picking and drying them throughout the season.

I’m waiting for all the sprouts to come up before I mulch with straw and newspaper like last year. The tomatoes and peppers are happy in the walls o water and there are even a few little tomato fruits! Now, I’ve been told that at this point I’m supposed to pick off the flowers and early fruit to encourage growth, is this true?

One of the things I’m bummed about this year is that I usually get all of my starts from a neighborhood woman who grows them in the back of her house and has a lot of great varieties. She (and others) sell at the Cherry Creek Farmer’s Market.  This year, my work schedule wouldn’t have allowed me to get to that market until late June so I just bought them at the local nursery.  I didn’t get the exact varieties I was hoping for, but I’m sure what I have will be just fine.

Trying beets again this year with a bit more success so far:

And first year of onions, grown from sets, looking happy:

With all the garden planning, the peas went in late this year, so we’ll see how they do.  I planted bean seeds last week and they’re already coming up! I can’t wait to see how this trellis works out. My only concern is that these plants are close to the house and don’t get as much sun as the stuff even a few feet further out front.

And in the front, Eric built little boxes-still waiting for these to sprout. The little walkway in between is lined with yarrow, creeping thyme, and a few echinacea seeds. The boxes are a little too close to the street and people can’t open their car doors…sorry neighbors. They’re not permanent and we’ll move them next year.

I’d like to try and post every few weeks during the summer- any suggestions/advice welcome!

Worm Garden

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I love my kids’ school.

The boy went to the school library and found a book about worms.  Apparently they have a whole shelf of worm books.

I note that the series title is “Keeping Minibeasts.” I wonder what else the series holds? Ladybugs? Praying Mantis?

Anyway-inside that book he saw this picture:

He ran back to his classroom after library time, book clutched in hand, and told his teacher excitedly, “I HAVE to talk to Mr. Adam about this!” A meeting with Mr. Adam (school handyman of sorts) was arranged, and they discussed dimensions and materials.  The boy told Mr. Adam, “Don’t worry about the soil and the worms.  We’ve got that covered.”

And then Mr. Adam returned a short while later with this:

And now all the kids have an earthworm garden to enjoy! Way to go, little guy! And big thanks to the school for supporting and encouraging curiosity and exploration like this.