Scorched

On Friday night we had a family outing to the Phoenix Mercury game! This is the first time we've seen the women's team since June was still being hauled around in a baby carrier. 

Like last time, we got the chance to hang out down by the court for a little bit before the game started. 

We couldn't stay long. There was music, and these days June is a dancing fiend, so it was a struggle to keep her from bouncing off to center court.

June was a little disappointed to hear that the Suns Gorilla doesn't come to Mercury games, so we waited with baited breath to see her reaction to Scorch, the mascot of the Mercury.

He was a hit. She does this thing where she tilts her head back and scrunches up her face, showing us all her little teeth and her dimples, while she cackles like she's never seen something so funny. "Dat's silly!" she'll say.

S'matter of fact, she liked him a little TOO well. All throughout the game she wanted to know where Scorch was and got a little squirmy when he'd been gone for too long. When she started her head-back-cackle randomly while looking over my shoulder, I thought maybe Michael had returned. Nope! It was Scorch hanging out at the top of the aisle. June was grinning and waving a cackling so much that all the people behind us were turning around to see what she was looking at.

We hustled along our row so we could catch him on his way down to the court. Surprisingly June didn't freak out at the close proximity and instead waved at Scorch, and even gave him a high-five!

(Thanks to JP for taking this shot. Sorry we didn't take any with you in the photo!)

Scorch was all she talked about on the way home. That, and her new "Go Mercury!" that she finally mastered. But mostly Scorch. Always Scorch. Forever Scorch. 

The Dad Day of Summer

Hi! I hope you had a wonderful Father's Day! My own dad being out in Delaware, after a morning Skype session, I spent time with the other Top Dad in my life, Michael. June helped make breakfast with me while Michael got some extra sleep.

When he was up, it was Present Time. June was very generous and helped Dad open his presents without even needing to be asked!

  Look at this look! I die!

Then we all lotioned up with SPF Mayonaise and went to the pool at the Y, where we lazed about in the shallows.

Then lunch and naps all around, three cheers!

Michael got to watch some golf and we were able to Skype with Michael's parents and his sister while June danced around without pants on.

Michael is such a wonderful father, for lots of reasons. He makes up songs for every little thing he does with June. He has patience beyond measure. When he is with June, you can tell that she is the very center-point of his happiness, and it's such a beautiful thing to behold. Another perk is that he didn't mind having such a low-key Father's Day with his girls.

Sometimes I wonder if she knows how loved and how lucky she is.

I think she does.

The CMoP, Then and Now

When the days start getting hot again, those are the days when Michael and I sit on the couch for much longer than usual muttering, "Well what do YOU want to do?" I get antsy and feel guilty for keeping June locked inside expecting her to still get joy out of placing her Beanie Babies in a circle for the millionth time. 

Should we go bake in the sun at the park where June can't even go on most of the parts because the plastic is hot as the surface of the sun? Should we go walk around the outside malls, clinging to the misters and shade-hopping like the rest of the patrons?

This Saturday was the first time of the year that we broke out the ol' Children's Museum of Phoenix membership. (To be fair, I didn't even realize we still had the membership until a couple of months ago.) 

It was good to be back. It's so great to just watch all of these little humans running around, hearts just exploding from curiosity and freedom and gross motor skills. And all of us parents, just wanting to do the right thing and not step on any tiny feet. I taught June how to make her hands into a point to help her charge through the Noodle Forest and, with how proud I was, you'd think I'd taught her how to use the quadratic formula. 

It's been almost a full year since we first got the membership. It was crazy to compare what June could do/was interested in back then to what she can/is now. She used to spend hours in the baby room and now she is just like, "PSH, BABY ROOM, WHERE IS THE GROCERY STORE?"

Leeetle Junebug:

Monster Junebug:

Pickle car, then and now:

It's funny, we had previously discussed letting the membership expire this year. And then the summer came, and their air conditioning feels so good, and June can say "MooZeeUm!" so we got up to the counter to check in and renewed the thing.  So at least we'll have one extra option next time we're laying around, asking "What do YOU want to do?"

Spontaneous Aquarium

We spent Friday night hanging out with our friends Remi and Cole and their kids Smith and Captain. We were having such a great time, and the kids were so well-behaved, that we ended up staying until 10:30 (June's normal bedtime is 8:00). 

We hoped that this would mean June would sleep in on Sunday morning, yet 6:30 rolled around and we heard her singing Baa Baa Black Sheep through the monitor. Michael was a total dream and took June out for bagels and groceries while I slept until 9. 

Michael had to work a bit that day, so we did a Junebug handoff and I took off for an adventure. The plan was to go to Arizona Mills mall and walk off some energy in the air-conditioned loop while getting some Father's Day shopping in. Then I found out that the shops didn't open for another hour and a half. This was no less than the third time I've found myself at AZ Mills in this exact situation. 

Instead of wandering the darkened loop with only metal shop gates to look at, I took a spontaneous detour into the Sea Life Aquarium. I've passed this before and it always seemed like a ripoff. $18 per person, and inside a mall no less, how good could it be?? But I saw that kids under 3 were free, and suddenly it seemed like a better choice than the alternative.

One of the coolest parts was a circular room with the aquarium around the whole thing, with a school of fish swimming, swimming, swimming in circles around you. 

See that little dome in the bottom right corner? You could crawl under there and poke your head up into it to see the fish. June was a little scared to get all the way up in there, but was happy to sit and watch the fish swim above her.

See the shark in the background?

Overall impression from the Aquarium? It was better than I expected, considering it was in a mall and I felt like space would be limited. There were some really cool exhibits, though. The stingray room was awesome and June loved the jellyfish room. It worked out great for us, but I can't imagine a family of four paying over $60 to attend (and that's for young kids, anyone over 12 pays an adult admission).

Lady in Wading

The pendulum has swung in the fitness department for this family. We used to belong to an LA Fitness, where girls with full makeup and bros in muscle tees would eye each other across the workout equiptment. I'm pretty sure there was a rule about kids under 12 being expressly not allowed. 

We quit the gym and joined the YMCA! We've officially begun that phase of life. 

I've gone to my first few Zumba classes in a few years and was reassured that I still have the gift of my face turning tomato-red after only a half hour. 

The thing that I am most looking forward to, however, is the pool. We don't have one in our yard, so this will be our main place to stay cool this summer. June has some swim lessons coming up, but took her to the pool on Friday to see how she liked it. 

Long story short: she loved it. 

She loved wading into the slowly graded kids pool, and walked all the way up to her neck on her own before turning and wading back to the "little water" (shallows).

I think I know where we'll be every Friday evening going forward.

Love in SF

Last weekend we traveled to San Francisco to watch our dear friends Jacob and Allegra get married. We also planned a visit from Grammy around the same time, so while Michael and I jetted off to the city on the bay, June stayed home with Judy. 

Oh yes, parent weekend out! We may have turned our LA Fitness membership in for one to the local YMCA, but we are no domesticated household! No siree, we're wild! 

I'm sure that, upon the first ever full weekend away from your child, you're supposed to be sad and weepy and wait by your phone for pictures to be sent from Grammy. What you're not traditionally supposed to do is sprint out of the house yelling "WELP SEE YOU LOVE YOU BYE" and weep silently on the plane at how excited you are to be on a flight and be able to just re-read the Game of Thrones series and sip an iced coffee and dear Lord, but you're just so content right now. 

Doesn't mean I didn't get SO EXCITED to receive this from Judy as they headed to a pool party back home:

So we got to San Fran, met up with some friends and headed across the Golden Gate to a town called Tiburon. The Bay, some boats and some beverages. That was the order of the day.

Us with Carlo, who was one of Michael's groomsmen, his fiancee Katherine.

The wedding was gorgeous. With a shaded outside ceremony and reception in an old home-turned-tavern that was dripping in charm. The to-be-weds had sent out an invitation to guests to download an app to their iPhones to upload pictures of the wedding to one shared site. So I was buzzing around feeling like Ansel Adams with my silly blurry shots all afternoon.

These redwoods. I die.

Accidental bouffant alert in 3...2...1...

And this little boy. The INSTANT I saw him walk down the aisle I knew. It was a mini Michael. He looks exactly like Michael did as a kid. The resemblance was even more striking when he wasn't smiling.

After the wedding, we headed to a local brewery and hung out as one giant afterparty, where we finally got a picture with the Bride and Groom!

The next day we drove back into the city (by way of the Bay Bridge this time, had to make the rounds) and back onto a flight to come home. Where I was still in my Ansel Adams phase, apparently.

I resisted the urge to upload to the wedding website.

The Night is Dark and Full of Terrors

June had her first nightmare the other day.

I guess I can't say definitively if it was her first, but it was the first one we knew about. She woke up whimpering in her crib and it eventually turned into cries. Michael went into her room and I listened through the monitor.

"(Unintelligible mumble) punched me!" she said sadly.

Michael shushed her and told her it was just a dream, that it wasn't real, that she could go back to sleep and have good dreams. She did, and she didn't wake up again until morning.

When I went in to pick her up from her crib, I casually asked about her sleep and dreams like I always do. She paused just a moment and nearly shouted, "Little Farmer punched me!"

"Who?"

"Little Farmer punched me!"

I tried to discern who Little Farmer is. Was he from a book? No? Was he a person in her class? No. Was he an imaginary friend? (P.S. Horror movies have officially ruined me for imaginary friends. The first real imaginary friend to pop up and I will start wondering if it's a part of her [or my] psychosis.) So we're still not sure who "Little Farmer" is. But she did passionately tell us that "That's not very nice!" to punch and "Ouch! That hurts!" about punching in general.

She's been talking about it all week. After further questioning, June admitted to also punching Little Farmer. So... what am I supposed to do with this information?

Anyway, this whole story is just meant to illustrate what a kid my little girl is. This was the first time that we've needed to wake and reassure our Junegirl that their dreams cannot hurt them. One day, when she's just a little older, I can do for June what my mom did for me. She would sit on my bed and make reassuring sounds. She would tell me to think of 10 other things that I'd like to dream about. And by the time you get to 10, and often before, you're already falling back to sleep with the disturbing visions long behind you.

I still use that method, and I hope that June will find it just as useful.

Now I just need to find out who this Little Farmer is. AND DESTROY HIM.

** 20 Bonus  Kindred Spirit Points if you "got" the title of this blog post. 

My Two Favorite Ladies

During our weekend between weddings, our family went up to stay at my parents' home for a little staycation. First thing on the agenda was a belated Mother's Day celebration. Of course last year's Mother's Day gift took almost a full year to come to fruition, so this one only taking a few weeks of scheduling is a huge improvement.

I invited my mom to Afternoon Tea at the Phoenician! I had experienced this once before at Lyndsey's Bridal Tea and knew that it would be something that would be fun to do with my mom. We had an awesome table that faced out toward the grounds of the hotel and was right in front of the grand piano with live music!

We each got a pot of our own tea and three courses of food. Everything was delicious and it was so fun to spend some special time alone with my mom. 

While I got some tea time in, June got a lot of pool time in that weekend. All she wanted to do was put her feet in the water, which sometimes led to putting on her swimsuit and getting all the way in. 

Last Sunday morning, Michael, my mom and dad all went golfing. Michael is so cute and feels guilty when he gets to golf with my family. (We switch off who goes and who stays with June.) I always tell him not to be guilty but to be jealous because we had a totally awesome girls day out planned. First we went to the Fountain Hills park and fed the ducks.

We met our friends Nicola and baby Sophia at the splash pad (where I proceeded to get zero pictures).

And then we had a girl's lunch at my favorite hole-in-the-wall Chinese food place, George & Sons. Then June took a nap and I read! A book! A few hours set aside just to read and I was in heaven.

So as much as I love golfing, and I do, I really enjoyed getting to spend mine with my two girls.