Category Archives: Michael

Visiting the Palm Springs Air Museum

A couple of weeks ago, my family and I went out to Indio for a visit with my sisters. My older sister had been telling me for months she wanted to take the boys to the Palm Springs Air Museum, so we of course made our way there during this visit.

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I did not expect that reaction

I was so proud of myself. I had stumbled on the “Curious George” movie, voiced by Will Ferrell and Drew Barrymore, earlier today and recorded it, thinking my boys would love it — they love watching Curious George on my PBS app. And I gestured smugly toward Michael, who was riveted by the movie when he got back from daycare, with a “I told you so” look on my face for my husband.

At the movie’s climax — right where the Man in the Yellow Hat (named Ted in this movie) is letting George be taken away to be shipped back to Africa — I was dealing with Chris, who had a fever, and telling Mike to take his fingers out of his mouth.

And Mike burst into tears.

I was floored. I knew instantly what the problem was — he was so into the movie, and became distraught at the thought of George being put in a cage and taken away from his dad. Wow. Obviously, I was not paying attention at how Michael was growing by leaps and bounds and understanding more and more around him — of what he watched.

He spent the rest of the movie in my arms — in fact, I had Chris in one arm, in my lap, and Mike in the other arm, keeping his arms down.

I feel bad that both of them felt so bad, but at the same, it was so nice to have my big boys in my arms, without them struggling to extricate themselves.

Birthday at the Aquarium of the Pacific

For Mike’s 4th birthday, we decided to visit the Aquarium of the Pacific, where the boys both looked forward to seeing the sharks. I bought the tickets via Goldstar, but realized only the night before that the tickets only allowed us entry in the afternoon, to visit during the last three hours of the day. Bummer — the difference in discount versus the corporate sites I had access to was a measly 50 cents. We had a good time regardless, but I’d pay the extra 50 cents next time so that we could go when we want and stay as long as we want. Ah well, you live and you learn.

Mmm, crab. Pretty sure we saw this guy near the entrance.
We had been waiting for my brother, and my boys pretty much threw themselves at him when they saw he was here.
We made a beeline for the outdoor attractions because we’d gotten to the Aquarium late. Check out Mikey’s face.
Chris and that finger.
Penguins!
Chris, Mike and some strange man agog at the penguins swimming underwater.
Mike on my brother’s shoulders at the shark tank. It was annoying how all these gigantic adults were basically blocking all the kids from seeing the sharks when we got there.
Mike’s face here is priceless!
Sharks! They’d been looking forward to seeing sharks all week.
Mike hugging a ginormous penguin statue.
Chris being nice to the little penguin statue.
Jellyfish!
Nemo and Dory!
This kid has a million dollar smile.
Chris found Nemo!
A rare picture of me looking not horrible.
Colorful fish
Stingrays always look as if they have happy faces.
More crab.
That would be a rock fish. You can barely tell its a fish.
A type of seahorse that basically looks like seaweed.
Like I mentioned, we got to the Aquarium pretty late, so Chris had only had a short nap in the car, so he was understandably tired toward the end of our visit. Or was he? He “barnacled” himself to my brother’s girlfriend Kat as if he was soooo tired, but later gave us a smirk as if, “yeah, I got the girl!” What a sly fox…

This kid is quick

Mike has been cracking me up lately. From calling me “ridiculous” lately to arguing with me as to why he should still get ice cream after I told him neither brother could have any if one of them dropped food, utensils or bowls on the floor — I’m being kept on my toes when it comes to kid logic.

What has cracked me up the most was the wholehearted of adoption of Christmas. See, I didn’t grow up celebrating Christmas and the decor/ tree aspects weren’t a big deal to my husband, so we only got our first tree this year, now the boys are totally aware of the tradition.

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Despite all the talk about Santa in the cartoons and commercials and I’m sure the kids at daycare, Mike and Chris have not yet associated the jolly fat dude with the holiday. However, Mike has the association with the Christmas tree and presents down pat. In fact, when telling my older sister about our Christmas tree over one of their recent dinner FaceTime sessions, he told her the tree now needs presents. When my sister asked if the presents could be shoes or clothes or socks, he replied, “no, toys, Auntie.” So of course, my sister asked what kind of toys. “Toy Story toys,” as if, duh.

LOL, well, I guess in my family, there’s no such thing as Santa (yet), but there definitely is Auntie!