Being Two

Yes, that's my boy. The one in the t-shirt, diaper, and rain boots. The one ecstatic to be blowing bubbles outside on a random weekend evening when the skies happened to have decided not to open up and pour down on us for a brief few moments. The weatherman keeps saying that we'll eventually see 80's and sunny, but at this point I'll believe it when I see/feel it. As for Ash? No need to see or feel there - he seems to be mighty content playing in his yard, with his friends, among the bugs, regardless of rain or shine. Ah to be two...

Just Another Night

When Ash wants to ride his bike he lets nothing stand in his way!
Off he goes...

Balance bikes are the greatest, he's going to go directly from balance bike to a bike without training wheels because of this beautiful invention.

The two toddler swings that came with our play set aren't exactly getting much use. Nope, we're all about swinging at mach 3 and doing flips over the slide.



Not shown: A family of 3 lying knackered on the couch after the evenings activities watching Little Einsteins. 1 sippy cup of apple juice, 2 glasses of Sangiovese, 2 cats nestled in to various laps, and 3 gigantic smiles.

26 Months

If you split Ashton's current age of 26th months into 2 equal parts you get 2 sets of 13 months. The first 13 in Ethiopia, the next 13 in New York, which means we've officially arrived at the "you've been with us the longest" marker. I know I've mentioned before that this would be a bitter sweet moment for us, and now that it's here that's exactly how we feel. When he grows up I hope he remembers his first home as much as he remembers his second, and I hope he has memories of hanging out outside of his first home just as he'll have memories of the moments in the pictures below hanging out outside his current home. At 13 months there's a chance he'll have some recollection of brief glimpses in time that helped form who he is today and will continue to influence who he becomes later in life. A healthy, proud, confident, brilliant McGregor, African American, Ethiopian American, son, cousin, grandson, and as he'll gladly share with you today, "Ashton happy boy!" He couldn't be any of those things had it not been for the first 13 months of his life spent in Ethiopia, and we will be forever grateful to his first family and Ethiopia for blessing us with such an amazing child.

Morning Sing-A-Long

That Much Fun

I Have Sand In My Eyes

It's been raining since (what's felt like) 1952 in NY so one can only imagine what a massive sigh of relief 4 days of sun and sand and ocean has brought our itching-to-be-outside family. Ash has been to a few beaches before, but never for a full-on beach vacation. One where you wake up to, eat, drink, live, and go to bed with sand in your pants. I think he likes it, which I love because it confirms that majority votes for future beach vacations will swing in my favor. Take that daddy. Ok ok, we love the other stuff too, but eating pizza and living in a swimsuit for 4 days does kind of rock.

This morning there were 3 dolphins swimming near our beach - close enough where we were able to watch them flip their fins and jump around in the water without squinting our eyes. Close enough where I began to question what else was swimming nearby... but I got over that pretty quickly, well, with it being 85 and sunny and all.

We're bracing for the "no honey, no more horsies" conversation and hoping that transferring some love to the fishies will help. Fishies we can handle (anyone have a spare aquarium in need of some love?). I have a feeling he's still going to miss the horsies though.

New rule, no more sushi south of NY without an expressed reccommondation from a certified source. Ash's dinner, however, was the yummy yum yum in the tummy tum tum kind of delicious. It took him a while to eat it because he insisted on using chopsticks (mommy and daddy were eating sushi with chopsticks, so why shouldn't he eat his chicken with them too?) but he eventually figured it out. The boy rocks him some chicken with chopsticks.

Other than that we're just hanging out, enjoying our 1:30PM bottle of sauvignon blanc on the balcony while the center of the universe naps off his morning mischeif. The mischief that left me with sand in my eyes, seashells in daddy's pants, and a VW Bus without a surf board. (Details on that last one to come, but Owen - if you're out there - we have your VW Bus but the surfboard seems to have made it's way off the balcony. Operation surfboard recovery underway. As soon as the sauvignon blanc is gone...).

Happy 4th everyone!

Family Road Trip

Eventually I'll post details, but the important part is that we made it, we're here, and it's sunny!

Ash's First DC Trip

More to follow!

The Day The Horsies Moved Away

You would think that all of our reading and training on the topic of "loss" would have prepared us for a day like today. Nope. And what makes it even more difficult is that I know this is just a preview of what's to come when we really begin talking with Ash about his first loss. These are "just" horsies, she was his mom. Sammy and Dagie (the horsies), and Jigby and Rusty (the goats) were loaded into a trailer and moved to their new home today, a whole exit further north on the expressway - no longer part of the breakfast routine (we sing "Good Mooooorning Horsies!!!") and no longer part of the bedtime routine (I love you horsies, nye nye). I'm stuck in a hotel way too many miles away so daddy covered this one, and we think he understands that he'll still be able to visit his best friends in the entire universe from time to time, but my heart is absolutely breaking for him because I know he understands. He gets that they're not going to be there in the morning and that thought is absolutely crushing my heart. We'll miss you Sammy, Dagie, Rusty, and Jigby. We love you!

Cousins And Horsies And No Shortage Of Smiles

It's no hidden secret that Ash has a horsie fetish, so when we started telling him early last week that not only was he going to visit one of his favorite cousins but he was also going to ride a horsie, well, he was bonkers all week. We're the only two families in our immediate extended families who have ventured anywhere east of Chicago, and the day we figured out that we're really only about an hour and a half drive from each other we pretty much vowed to hang out as much as possible.

I can't tell you how cool it was to walk into a house and recognize the people in the pictures on the walls - my grandparents, MY DAD, usually I'm stuck staring at complete strangers (beautiful as they may be) when we get together with friends but not in this case. In this case we're family and its familiar and comfortable and relaxing and, well, like it is when we travel to...wait for it...family! This isn't to discount the bonds that are formed by friendships, as we certainly understand the depth that relationships can reach regardless of any sort of legally binding connection. And I'd even argue that in many of those cases I'd consider those friends as family and would be speaking (writing) about them the same way - as family.

So I guess the whole point is that we dig family. And we had a pretty fantabulous Saturday with family, and just in case you're more of a visual learner, here's some proof. No doubt here that Ash loves his cousin and Ash loves his horsies. Oh, and just in case you're wondering, he still loves chocolate too. Still waiting for those asparagus cravings to kick in...

Ash Moonwalks, ABC Style

Yup, we're one of those families who are taking a moment or two or three to celebrate the life of an iconic musician and entertainer. A father to three and a brother to many. A person who made substantial contributions to charities such as the American Cancer Society, Make-A-Wish Foundation, NAACP and many many others not to mention his creation of the Heal the World Foundation. Someone who changed the music industry forever and defined an era. RIP MJ.

A B C, It's easy as 1 2 3

35

Many have been commenting lately that Ash looks like he's grown so we stood him up to his growth chart and took a look. Indeed he has sprouted a full inch past his two year measurement of 34 inches and is now a solid 35! This is huge progress for one reason only: he is now just one tiny inch away from being able to ride the big boy rides at the amusement park! Not to be mistaken though, we fully intend to fluff the fro extra high at the parks this summer and take the suggestion of a friend and pack his sneakers with rice krispies treats to get that last inch. 36 wont be a problem at all, trust me. Ever since our day at Port Aventura in Spain last spring Ash has sought daredevil adventures, and it just so happens that this summer we're going to find ourselves nearby to several good 'ol fashioned amusement and water parks where we can now be certain he'll get his thrill fill. Hip hip hooray for growth spurts just in time - now this means he's going to start sleeping past 6AM too right? And craving asparagus?

Chocolate Milk Round Two

New rule: No more store bought chocolate milk. I'm beginning to think that all of the store bought (aka, loaded with sugar) chocolate milk Ash has been drinking lately might just be contributing to some of the less than ideal attitude he's been giving us glimpses of as well as the inching up of his wake up time. First 7:00, then 6:45, then 6:15 and 5:55, and then this mornings oh so lovely WIDE AWAKE at 5:30 moment which was just thrilling. Prior to about a week ago the only chocolate milk we were giving him was the homemade kind, mostly 2% milk with just a teaspoon or so of Hershey's sugar free chocolate syrup. But then we spent a long weekend at the Brooklyn apartment, followed by multiple evenings out this week all of which resulted in purchases of chocolate milk anytime we passed a Starbucks, sat down at a restaurant, well, you get the idea. Its just no coincidence that the behavior and sleep patterns started to change just about the time his daily sugar intake quadrupled.

So we're back to being the chocolate Gestapo which means back to the 1 teaspoon of sugar free Hershey's syrup in his evening milk and 60 calorie sugar free chocolate pudding for the after school snack. After a few short whimpers he got the picture today and seems to be on board with the new plan. I'm not planning on completely nixing chocolate, I mean come on, it's not BAD it's just not great in large doses and can even be completely ok when of the sugar free variety. So that's the new plan, sure to be replaced sometime relatively soon with an even newer surely better plan, and then eventually replaced with an entirely different plan when he decides he hates chocolate and wants to eat strawberry ice cream all day long. So tell me, at what point is he going to start craving asparagus? Maybe if I dip it in sugar free Hershey's chocolate syrup first...

A happy boy with his 60 calorie sugar free chocolate snack.
Mommy = 1, Chocolate = 0!

Chocolate Milk

That's the new obsession, chocolate milk. He used to run to the counters at coffee shops and grab a juice box of apple juice, orange juice, yellow juice (lemonade), but those days are so over. Now its directly to the $2.50 organic Horizon chocolate milk. Only tonight he got confused. We were on our way to the park to fly a kite (first day with no rain in a looooooong time) and stopped at the coffee shop for some beverages. I thought it a little odd when Ash selected the apple juice instead of the chocolate milk, but decided to run with it and made the purchase. About 50 feet from the coffee shop he promptly changed his mind and thus ensued a 2 hour crabby whine fest of "no want it apple juice, want it chocolate milk!" It was fun.

So much fun that we got to drag him from the park to the car (no kite flying for us today), from the car to the grocery store (where of course we ran in to more acquaintances than usual, God forbid we stay under the radar when the tot's pitching a fit...), and from the grocery store to home where we finally put him in bed, turned off the lights, and said night night. At 6:30. About 3-4 minutes later I opened his door and he (without prompting) hugged my legs and said "sorry mommy" in the worlds most perfectly adorable voice. And then he asked for chocolate milk. What's a mom to do? If I denied him his one earthly pleasure yet again there's no way he would understand WHY mommy was being a bitch mean person because we were definitely far enough removed from the original scenario for him to connect 2 hours earlier at the coffee shop with 2 hours later at home AFTER he had apologized and been all cute. Needless to say the boy got his milk. His chocolate milk, to be exact.

And then the rest of the evening happened. The part where daddy slathered spicy saucy BBQ sauce on the chicken on the grill. The part where the 3 of us sat on the swings on the playset and pointed to each of the farm animals across the street, calling them by name. The part where Ash drew me a picture of a motorcycle at his new art table and then kissed me goodnight on his way up to read stories with daddy. When that kind of an evening happens I'm left thinking to myself - why the hell didn't I just give the boy his chocolate milk? Oh yeah. Mommy power, must preserve the mommy power. Oh, and try to keep the boy from becoming a spoiled demanding peapod. Or something like that...

The boys in all their cuteness

Night Night

Two Boys And a Platza, Thai Style

Platza Oak Leaf Treatment:
Lie down while in the Russian Room and a platza specialist will scrub you (actually beat you) with a broom made of fresh oak leaves, sopping with olive oil soap. The oak leaves contain a natural astringent, which will open your pours, remove toxins, and actually take off layers of dead skin. Some described the platza as "Jewish acupuncture".

And where do you go to PAY for such treatment? None other than NYC's historic Russian & Turkish Bathhouse, which is where you would've found the daddies of the day this morning. Just a couple of scrawny 30'ish nearly-naked daddies strolling the therapeutic saunas, hot baths, cold plunges and enjoying the platza whipping session among their fellow bathhouse friends, well fed 70'ish all-naked NYC Russians. Follow this with lunch at the 2nd best Thai restaurant outside of Thailand (#1 is in Queens) and you have the makings for a pretty decent Sunday. Extra spicy, lotsa sauce, delicious everything, and martinis that make you wish it was 1:30PM on a Sunday every freaking second.

And the cherry on top? These two, (see pics below) the two reasons that the four of us lucky-as-hell parents get to spend days like this enjoying early morning platza sessions, long drawn out Sunday brunches and a 1:30 martini. Wrap the day with a late evening jam session complete with three guitars and a rousing rendition of Old McDonald and well, let's just say today didn't suck. Ash decided that his new Fathers Day tradition is going to be to give daddy a new bedtime book every year because one of his most favorite things to do is read stories with daddy in his jammies. This years select was Where the Wild Things Are, and just when I thought our jam session was the most perfect way to end an evening I was met with the sounds of daddy and Ash reading his new book over the video monitor - our jam session was quickly bumped to 2nd most perfect.