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Another weekend in Fair Play. This was the first weekend in many months that the four of us went alone. It was nice – the kids were great, and we enjoyed the quiet time with them. The highlight for us and the kids had to be the trip to neighbor Rosie’s incredible garden. It is producing a ton of fruit and vegetables right now, and the kids got to walk around and pick and eat whatever they wanted. They got to try all sorts of raspberries, strawberries, grean beens, tomatoes, peppers, and perhaps best of all, Rosie sent us home with (along with bunch of stuff) an amazing watermelon! Watermelon happens to be Evan’s favorite right now, so it was perfect timing.

This weekend also marked a huge point in our lives. Our very first grapes eaten off of our own vines. It’s not quite a vineyard yet, but the grandparents gave us 2 grape vines when we announced baby #3. One Cabernet, and one Thompson seedless.  The Thompson does not have any grapes on it this year, but the Cab has about 20 or so and the first two were ready to eat. So I gave one to Evan, and one to Sophie. Evan spit his out – so much for our amazing soil and sun in Fair Play!

Life continues to pass at a dizzying speed! Nana and Papi moved into thier new condo. Merrit, Eric and Tess are here visiting for 2 weeks. Preperations for the new baby continue to ramp up.  We think that we are at 27 weeks right now.  Sophie was born at 32 weeks – that is 5 weeks away. We are hoping of course that we get to at least 35 weeks.  We still don’t know baby gender, we are hoping that Angela will be able to come up this week for a visit to John and UltraSound, etc.  We have pretty much decided that we need an au pair. It seems to be the thing that works best with our life. We know that even with help from family, there are still going to be times that we need an extra adult around.

Kids continue to do really well. Evan is really into story telling. He has a few favorites like the carousel (“…up, down, up down….), the fire alarm (….beep, beep, beep….). He launches into these long strories of which we don’t understand too much, but there are certain parts he always does that we do understand. Sophie has been quite attached and perhaps a little under the weather. She had MMR shots at her doctors appointment  and it seems to have affected her more then we remember with Evan. Sophie is also physically changing a lot, which prompted the title to this entry and the picture selection.

Time has flown by over the last couple of weeks. Nana and Papi stayed with us in our house while waiting to get their new house in SF.  We all enjoyed having them stay with us. For Daddie’s, it certainly made things easier! For Evan and Sophie, it was great to see them all the time.  Nana and Papi moved into their new house on Wednesday.  In between postings to the blog, there was a trip to Fair Play, and lots of changes to Evan and Sophie!

Evan’s new favorite phrase is “me like more (fill in blank)”, he also has started to develop his negotiating skills. They sound something like this. “Evan, its time for bed”  to witch he responds. “no, not yet. More Calliou please, ok? allright. yeah”

Sophie is beginning to stand her ground and get a little more assertive about things she wants. She no longer (always) just sits downs and cry’s when Evan comes and tried to take something out of her  hands! Her language is coming along, though still mostly sticking to the basics. (more, dada, nana, hot, kitty)

A bunch of pictures below from the last few weeks.

Today Evan had his first real poop in the potty. He has tried to do it a couple of times before, but this was his first complete poop. He sat down, pooped, and was done within 2 minutes! We don’t think he is ready to be completely potty trained, but it was a great move in the right direction.

The video here is not of Evan  pooping, but of him counting out banana pieces. His counting has progressed to the point that he is counting things, and not just saying the numbers.

Banana Counting from David Bowik on Vimeo.

Seventy Six Trombones… from David Bowik on Vimeo.

We spent 4th of July weekend in Fair Play with the Cleary family,  Lola and Lolo. We had a great time swimming in the river, eating out, wine tasting, and bbq’ing. Evan and Sophie loved having thier cousins there to play with.

It took us a few weeks, but we finally got Evan a real toddler bed. We were debating about exactly what to do for a few reasons. Many books say toddler beds are a waste, and you should just go from crib to real bed. Many cribs convert to a toddler bed, but the ones we have in SF do not. We didn’t want to have something we were only going to use for a  short time, and we weren’t sure exactly where to put it, given we are saving Evan’s crib for baby #3. When we saw the “boat” bed though, we knew we had to get it for him. We brought it home the other night, and Evan loved it immediately.  So now there are two cribs, and one toddler bed in the small bedroom that has become our nursery – we’ll make decisions about who goes where when we have to!

June means gay pride in San Franisco! Last year we avoided the parade, but did spend a little time with friends in the childrens playground. This year the weather was absolutely beautiful so we got a little more adventurous.

Saturday morning there was a “gay dad’s meet up” party at Dennis and Doug’s house. It turned out to be a great party with a lot of gay dads and a lot of kids! We walked over the hill to Noe Valley at about 9:30 in the morning, and stayed until about 1:00PM. The dad’s got to enjoy a few “gay pride mimosas”, and Evan and Sophie got to play with kids ranging from 8 weeks to 8  years!

On Sunday, it was another beautiful day in SF, so we decided early to try the whole parade and festival thing. We walked downtown and found some seats in the grandstand so the kids could get a good look. The parade was really long, and the kids were ready to move on after about 45 minutes. We spent the rest of the morning with friends in the kids playground and walked home around 2 PM.

Fathers Day weekend ended up being very full, and very fullfillng. It wasn’t really that different from a normal weekend we would like to spend. We made it up to Fair Play for Friday night pizza, spent a great Saturday in FP,and got back to SF for a full Sunday including picnic lunch in backyard and dinner with full Asperin/Cleary gang.  We haven’t quite figured out what “father’s day” means. In all honesty, when there are two dad’s in the family, pretty much every day is father’s day – and we wouldn’t have it any other way. At times it is challenging, but at the end of the day we have so many wonderful memories, we know that there isn’t any other way we would rather spend our day. So a full weekend and we got some good pictures throughout, so here they are!

So we drove up on Friday evening and there was a young male dear laying by the back door! Well, sure enough, Saturday after lunch he was there again. This time I was more prepared with the camera, and got these  pictures. He seems to like to lay next to our back door!??? As soon as we drive up he gets up and runs behind the garage. I got these pictures as he watched us drive up, and then as he ran away.