Last year, my wife introduced Joshua (and Lily via the trickle-down effect) to yoga for kids. Before I had even tried yoga myself, she bought this yoga-for-kids DVD set, featuring yoga instructor Marsha Wenig.  Joshua enjoys it a lot, and has his own yoga mat to along with my wife’s. Lily likes to participate too, but she’s basically hanging around.

Turns out that more parents are trying out yoga for the kids. According to CNN’s article, “Yoga helps even little ones channel energy, emotion“, hundreds of studios across country teach yoga to children. Wow, I had no idea.

It’s like a dream come true. Joshua is, I think, officially a Star Wars fan. He’s only 4.5 years old, but I think I can get continue my corruption, er, I mean, nurture his budding love for geekiness.  We’ve been watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars (I did say that it’s been pretty cool.) As I understand it, it’s the highest-rated show on Cartoon Network right now, and for good reason. The latest episode, Landing at Point Rain, was a phenomenal, engaging, action-packed war episode. I mean, it was really good.

We’ve also watched Star Wars Episode IV (A New Hope) and Episode V (The Empire Strikes Back) which are slightly over his head, but he asked a lot of questions.  He obviously didn’t get it all, and I did some minor fast-fowarding, but I kept him engaged in the main storyline.  I also made sure he thought Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Chewbacca are all pretty cool.  I think he just likes R2-D2 a lot. He’s already asking when are we going to find out what happens next in Episode VI (Return of the Jedi.) I was happy that at a birthday party a week ago where they had a Prince & Princess theme, he was amenable to the idea his sword was a lightsaber. 

This year, I’ve been embracing my inner geek. All these years, I’ve been too self-conscious to admit to it, but it obviously often showed.  Now, I feel secure enough to let myself…. um, be myself, I guess. I’m a geek.  Nothing wrong with that.  Why be a half-ass geek?  Go whole-ass, I say. Be the techno geek.  The sci-fi geek.  Why not, after all?  There are others out there like me.  As a matter of fact, Wired.com has a Geek Dad column, written by someone just like me. Enjoy it. Love it. Live it!

If I can make my kids enjoy sci-fi too, hey that’s great.  Their journey towards the Dark side will be complete.  I just hope they can get still dates in 10-15 years.

Josh & I visit the American Museum of Natural History

I finally scheduled a day off, and take Joshua to the city.  I had been promising to take him to the city for the entire spring and summer, but the schedules finally worked.  At the moment, I’m leading an audit, but am between the planning and fieldwork phases.  Now seemed like a good time to take a day off, recharge, and have a nice day out with my boy.

After running through various itineraries that became incrementally more complex (and likely less enjoyable for a 4-year old), I chanted the mantra “Less is more.” Why try to fit in observation decks, ferry rides, numerous subway rides all within one trip?  Too much for him. 

I decided on a train ride into the city (his first time on a train), subway uptown (first time on the subway) to the American Museum of Natural History and the Rose Center For Earth and Space for a planetarium show. Lots of new experiences there. My wife would drop us off and pick us up.

I’ll skip the additional bad decisions, delays, and other logistical problems that occurred that morning, and hurry to the important details.  We had 14 mins to make it to the train station and purchase tickets before the 9:04am train arrived. If we missed it, we would have to 30 mins more for a local train — doable, but not the best option when we were so close to making it! With some mad dashing, and bagels and water in hand, we arrived at the train station at 9:03am. I grabbed the bag with our breakfast in my left hand, Josh in my right arm, and ran to the platform.  As we were in line at 9:03am, the train arrived. As I paid for the ticket with a credit card at 9:04am, the last passengers and conductors boarded the train. I carried Josh and breakfast, ran out the door, and made a flying LEAP onto the train as the buzzer buzzed. I landed in the train vestibule, the doors closed, passengers looked at me, and I smiled and sighed with relief.

“Sweet.”

I don’t think my life would be as interesting if it wasn’t for all the bad decisions and melodrama. We ate our breakfast on the train, and I pointed out the various stops and towns we passed.  We arrived at NY Penn a little after 10am, took the #1 train to 79th St, and hoofed it to the museum.

I won’t give a blow-by-blow account of our trip through the museum.  There’s certainly too much to visit in one day. However:

• We did visit the entire lower level
• We explored the entire 1st floor, including the Northwest Native American exhibit, the Hall of Biodiversity, the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life, Gems and Minerals, The Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites, The Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, etc.
• We visited the Mammals of North America, and yeah, the entire 1st floor
• We watched the Journey to the Stars planetarium show, a 30-min show on stars narrated by Whoopi Goldberg.
• Joshua wasn’t hungry yet by 1:30pm, so visited the Discovery Room for kids so he could play and learn.

At a little after 2pm, we had lunch at the museum cafeteria.  Worst lunch I’ve had in a long while.  $7 chicken nuggets that tasted like cardboard. $7 chicken wings as dry as can be. $2.80 for a bottle of soda.  Over $20 for a meal that should not have cost me more than $8. Total ripoff.

At the dinosaur exhibits

In the late afternoon, we hit the 4th floor for all the dinosaur exhibits. We had made some progress into the extinct mammal halls, but Josh was too tired to walk anymore.  We wrapped up our tour of the museum around 4:30pm, hit the museum shop, and then went downstairs to catch the C train back down to Penn Station. 

Funny enough, on the ride home, we coincidentally sat in front of one of my coworkers from my previous job. Weird coincidence? You betcha. We chatted on the train ride, and caught up on old times and news until we reached our stop, and departed the train.

Good trip overall, and Josh had a great time. I’m glad I decided not to overload the trip with too much extra. I forget that he’s only 4-years old. Photos are already posted in the September 2009 gallery.

That was a fun-filled and busy Labor Day weekend. To summarize:

1. My wife took the kids for lunch with her parents Saturday afternoon at some new Indian restaurant, where there was a special Onam (South India / Kerala state Thanksgiving, if you must.)
2. BBQ at my friend Doug’s house Saturday afternoon up in Orange county. I brought the kids.
3. Two of my Michigan friends, Paul and Sean, were in town for the weekend for separate events.  We partied it up with my friend Doug Saturday night….. in Lodi, NJ!
4. Paul stayed over our house Saturday night.
5. Lily wouldn’t sleep Saturday night, and she was up with us (my wife had the 10pm-3:30am shift, and I ended up taking the 3:30am - 5am shift (or whenever she fell asleep on me on the couch, and I fell asleep too.) All I know is that I woke up with Lily sleeping on me at 7:41am. She was up soon after.
6. I took the kids to the pool late Sunday afternoon.  It got too cold after a while, so we went home 30 mins later.
7. I had dinner with the kids and my in-laws at the fancy-shmancy Red Lobster. 
8. Josh requested an imprompto sleepover at their house, and we obliged. I just had to get his pajamas and other stuff from home, and take them all over.  Lily stayed with me.
9. Monday was wholesale club and other shopping in the afternoon.
10. Monday night was a BBQ at my sister’s place.  We got home around 11pm.

Sometimes it was more “filled” than “fun”, but it was still an overall decent weekend.

Lily's Three Days @ My Office

At the end of August, and the beginning of September, our daycare provider closes down for “in-service days”, which must mean something, but I have no idea.  Maybe it’s to get ready for the new school year.  Maybe it’s to retrain the teachers. All I know is that I gotta find backup childcare for the kids for three days straight.

Last year, I tried to use a backup childcare center that we have access to through my employer, but it turned out that August and September are months where they receive a high number of requests.  Maybe the other daycare providers shut down too?  Is there an association where they all agree on this stuff?  I tried last year, but there was a long waiting list, so it never worked out.

This year, I was smart.  I made sure all the paperwork was updated and ready, including medical forms. I found out that I can only make requests for backup childcare within 30 days or less. Beginning July 31st, I called each consecutive day.  There was no way I was going to get screwed two years in a row.

Starting Monday, Josh and Lily were up and ready each morning, and we did the drive to my office. Josh liked it, but Lily apparently didn’t, as she did a lot of crying whenever I dropped her off.  I don’t understand why — it’s an excellent facilty, and really nice. Professional staff, lots of toys and activities, and they are fully-stocked with all the fun stuff (even computers!) They even take photos of the activities your child did each day, and attach them to the status summary sheet you get at the end of the day. Well, Lily has always been a little high maintenance.

On Monday, I let the kids eat lunch at the facility in their own classrooms, then take their naps.  On Tues, we ate lunch in the cafeteria with two of my friends/coworkers.  Today, we and a friend/coworker of mine ate at Burger King for lunch. Overall, it was nice change of pace, and I hope the kids didn’t hate it too much.  Josh liked it a lot, and the folks at the facility stated that Lily was basically fine the rest of the days.  She just didn’t want me to leave her in the mornings or after lunch.  Josh and Lily certainly had full days, as they usually slept on the commute home.

One sick little girl

What a week.  The kids have been sick all week long, and taking turns going from good to bad to worse.  We have made so many trips to drop them off late, pick them up early this week. 

1. On Sunday, Lily got sick first, and starting looking very clingy and not happy. 
2. On Monday, one of us had to pick her from the daycare in the afternoon.
3. On Tuesday, Lily went to the doctor, and then stayed with one of grandparents Tuesday.  Turns out she had an ear infection.  After I picked her up from the grandparents, and on the way to the daycare to pick up Joshua, I got a call that he was now sick.
4. On Wed, I kept Josh with me, and Lily looked recovered, so we took her to daycare.  I took Josh to the doctor, but he appeared to just have a regular viral infection.  I took him around with me as we ran errands that morning, and then we took my parents to Newark airport for their trip. As I was just arriving to pick up Lily, I came to see her screaming and vomiting orange in her classroom.  Uh oh.
5. On Thursday, they both looked okay, so they both went back to school.
6. On Friday, they both had to go to school.  In the afternoon, we got the call that Lily had a 104-degree temperature.  I picked her as she was screaming her head off.

Concerned about this high temperature, and one bout of vomiting, and not thinking this was an ear infection, we took her to the doctor.  An hour later, all tests were inconclusive.

What a week. Sick children are no fun at all.

I think this fits the definition of irony.  I had intended/scheduled Thursday the 9th and Friday the 10th as vacation days, as I hoped we could  take a 4-day weekend trip via train to Boston.  The schedule/logistics/cost didn’t quite work, so we cancelled the trip, but I decided in the end to keep the vacation days for myself.  Hey, everyone loves a 4-day weekend.

On Monday, I decided to cancel the Thursday vacation day, as I thought I might as well try to catch up on some work. Vacations are nice, but if you feel like you’re behind, how can you relax?

Tuesday, I got the call to pick up my daughter, as she was running a fever.  My wife stayed home to take care of her Wednesday.  Josh has been complaining of a sore throat for a while now, and not much of an appetite, so we decided that I should stay home today using a sick day, and take them both to the doctor.

So, that original vacation day traveling to Boston in the end turned into a sick day tending a sick child.  What do you think? Irony?

Edit: Added two pics of lunch with the munchkins.  We were waiting for Lily’s prescription of antibiotics to be filled, so we had lunch at Taco Bell. That’s right, I spared no expense.

Josh enjoying his Fruitista Pina Colada

Lily likes the soft tacos, but just the ground beef