Time-sense

I remember when I was a little girl how time went by...so slowly. A lunch hour at school seemed to stretch on for a long time, a six hour car trip was pure agony, and a weekend could last forever. Now as I am older, time ticks by so much faster. My lunchtime is done before I start eating, and a weekend flies by so fast I am left at the end of it wondering where it went.

Lately I have had some insight into Ethan's perception of time--it is equally slowed. Every once in awhile before he goes for a nap, he demands pajamas and a bath, and other days when he wakes up from his nap he demands breakfast. To him, I think, each of our days is like 2 days. Which would explain why it seems to him that this last three day weekend was never ending, while I cannot believe it is over! It also makes me wonder if he thinks that when he goes to school he spends two days there while we are at work.

We have tried to help him understand that the afternoon is not a new day, by teaching him the phrases "it's morning time, and the sun is rising" or "good afternoon". He will repeat them happily, but they seems to still be just phrases, and he doesn't really concretely understand "a day" in the same way we do.

Its funny to think of how one's sense of time changes as we age, and also how as we get busier and busier, time seems to go by faster and faster. Too bad we don't appreciate it when we are young!

California

Well, our state has some benefits....today is Jan 8 and we spent the day at the beach! Stinson beach, to be exact. It is about a 30 min drive from where we live. Ethan had a blast jumping in the sand.

By lunch time, it was even warm enough to take our jackets off (low 60s).

We took a picinic and ate on the sand. What a lovely way to spend a Sunday!

Christmastime

Ethan and I just got back from Christmas in Chicago. We were lucky to have good weather (although somewhat disappointed there was not a white Christmas) and smooth flights. Dad stayed in San Francisco, stuck working :(

While in Chicago, we celebrated with grandma and grandpa, as well as Uncle Jeff and his fiancee Janice. We also had the chance to visit great-grandma in Milwaukee.

Also visited with some of Mom's friends, Janet and Matt (and their 3 kids) as well as Meredith, Valerie and Karen (college friends). Ethan especially loved playing with Meredith's twin boys, Andrew and Nicholas. They hit it off immediately and had so much fun together.

One day we checked out the Christmas train exhibit at the Botanical Gardens. They build replicas of Chicago's famous landmarks out of plant material (branches, leaves, etc) and have trains running through them. Ethan enjoyed it!

Favorite Christmas presents included a tool workbench and tools from Uncle Jeff and a bike from Grandma and Grandpa. Ethan is getting really good at the bike (video coming soon!)

Another favorite was a pair of drinking straw glasses:

Also, grandpa bought Ethan a new winter jacket--which matches his! How cute are they!

Now that we live north of the city, the weather is colder, so he'll get good use out of it! Overall, a very Merry Christmas.

Happy Hanukkah

Whew, December has been busy. Last Saturday we went to Grandma and Grandpa Greenberg's for an early Hannukah celebration with Ethan. Ethan's favorite part was Grandma's Hanukkah cookies! He also got to light the candles (with Dad's help) and he did enjoy opening up some presents too.

The coolest gift was a new bookshelf for his room from grandma and grandpa.
He cracked us up when he unwrapped hannukah gelt (gold chocolate coins) and announced that he had gotten "gold doubloons" and he was going to put them in a treasure chest. I seriously had to wikipedia "gold dobloons"--he apparently picked up this phrase from his favorite cartoon, "Jake and the Neverland Pirates". So at least he has learned something from TV!

Grandma's Birthday and a Visit to Santa

Last weekend was another busy holiday weekend. We had several holiday parties, and on Sunday night we went downtown to celebrate Grandma Greenberg's 65th birthday!!

Doesn't she look great for 65??

We enjoyed her favorite meal --Chinese food in Chinatown, and Brandon flew up for the dinner so that was a lot of fun.

Also last weekend, Ethan met Santa. He was pretty excited, especially when Santa gave him a candy cane.

Now when I ask him what he wants from Santa for Christmas, he responds "CANDY!!" Well, at least hes not asking for anything too expensive!!!

Christmas=Downsized

We are minimalists this Christmas....having just signed all the papers for our new house, we are feeling pretty financially overwhelmed.
Plus in our 700 sq. foot apartment we dont really have room for a tree. And all of our Christmas decorations are in storage.
So we got a mini-tree this year.
The cool thing about it is that it is plantable! So after the holidays, we plan to plan it in our new yard. And maybe in 10 years it will be a regular sized Christmas tree and we can use it again!

Hppy Birthday Daddy!

Dear Daddy,
Happy birthday. Thanks for taking such good care of me and especially for sharing your birthday cake with me, it was VERY GOOD.
I think that ice cream cakes are my favorite now too!

Love, Ethan