Rant Recant: Park success, Tugboats, and number 2

So if you were brave enough to endure the cavalcade of complaints in my last entry, you should now reward the other side of your brain with a nice, shiny happy new entry that will give you that mop-n-fresh glow that only Oregon rain can bring to the surface of your scalp. We found a park in Oregon City that appears to be the budgetary black hole that has sucked the life out of the other parks in favor of play structures that anyone would be proud of. Hillendale park has three child- and weather-friendly play structures, a baseball field, bird houses over a body of water (and a bridge), basketball courts, and a fair number of kids for Jonah to play with, none of whom seemed to mention incendiary devices or rabid elbow drops. So for now, looks like we aren't moving back in the coming week or two. For now.
We spent the weekend visiting my family up in Seattle as part getaway and part trip to Ikea. My uncle and aunt live north of Seattle with 3 children, two boys and a girl. One of the great things about visiting them is that the boys have been trained very well to play with younger kids, so when Jonah is around, the boys take him under their wing and they are off, adventuring and playing wherever they are. In this case it was at the Tomco boat yard that my uncle runs with the two boys, Jonah, and my sister's son Ruben. The boats are luxury tugboats that sell for $600k, and they do a good business. It was an open house so we decided to swing up to La Conner to check out the boats and the fields of daffodils. Unfortunately it was raining pretty heavily, so no photos of the daffodils, but it is a pretty incredible sight to see such a saturation of color covering acre after acre of land. I thought it was ironic that this was the uncle that I had most of my young adventures with (including swimming across an inlet that was inhabited by crocodiles - I kid you not), and here we are, talking about whether or not the tulips are in season for the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival and techniques for newborn sleep management. We are both thoroughly domesticated at this point, and that doesn't seem to be a problem for either of us.
After a successful trip to Ikea (successful meaning we were able to manage both children in a public place for several hours without a major meltdown or emotional catastrophe), we came back home loaded down with new mugs for Jonah's school, curtains, chairs, candles, napkins, and everything in between. We also rediscovered "the ball" - when Jonah was a baby he loved to be held while we bounced on an exercise ball. We took that thing everywhere. And Rima is no different - she Loves the ball. I'm not sure what it is about the ball that is so soothing to them, but whatever works is our mantra these days. And its working.

For the childhood official record of events, two things happened in the last 24 hours that should be duly noted. First, Rima smiled yesterday - not a "gassy" smile, but an actual reaction to April. Very very exciting. The second news (this just in): Jonah has finally gone number two on the toilet. It took a lot of work but he did it this morning for the first time. This may sound like a little too much information, or maybe not that big of a deal, but when you have been working on this for weeks to no avail and cleaning up after this sort of mess everywhere, day after day after day, little events like this are important to your sanity. Very, very good news for our nuclear unit.

Rima turned 1 month old a few days ago and she looks vastly different already. She is getting little rolls everywhere and we think she is about 9 lbs or so. She is also awake and alert a lot more, and is starting to focus more intently on here surroundings including her big brother, who loves to entertain her. That, and he also loves to wake her up just when we've gotten her to sleep... But if that is our biggest complaint, life is not so bad. As for Jonah, he is also growing rapidly - he's outgrown his pants and shoes and is now a 3T and size 8 shoes. He is also refining his articulation and can say words like, "Japanese". Although it can be challenging to manage a 2-year old's emotional swings, we are really enjoying him. School has helped him quite a bit to settle down with other kids and with us, and he is able to comprehend delayed rewards so we can reason with him a little more to coax good behavior. One kind of cool thing: When his little cousin Ruben wanted the toys that Jonah was playing with, when Ruben would start to cry, several times this weekend Jonah would come up to him, offer him either the toy he wanted or another similar, and tell him, "Its ok. Here ya go." and then give him a hug or a kiss on the cheek. He learned that at school, and it is definitely a refreshing change from some of his more struggling days.

And now, some more of the good stuff: baby photos. My, how fast they grow.

Spring is here, Curry is here - here here

I am ready for spring. Its been a long time in coming, as it always is in the Northwest, and we are anxiously anticipating its arrival. Since moving in to this place a month and a half ago we have spent a fair amount of time investigating the flora of our property - everything from the japanese maple to the bulbs that are emerging, and as it gets a little warmer and sunnier, the spring blooms are really starting to take off. We've discovered that although there were quite a few lifestyle differences between us and the previous tenants, there are things that were planted last year that we are very excited to see. Of course, we have discovered a few other things that were less than disclosed, but other than some fish guts caked on the shelves of the greenhouse and the discovery that we have to break the handle off of the shed door to get in it, we are getting a lot of really great spring surprises.

I have never been particularly interested in bulbs per se, but the bulbs that are emerging here are quite spectacular, and I find myself going back to take photos again and again. The tulips and daffodils are springing up everywhere bringing life to their surroundings. We also have a small variety of mature fruit trees all around the yard, including cherry, plum, and apple trees, and they are all starting to gather steam to hopefully produce later in the year.
As we have spent time outside, Jonah has also found his favorite spots which are generally near places he can take his dump truck. He loves to poke around under the large cedar trees that line the property on two sides, and we know its only a matter of time before climbing them becomes his avocation.

He has also discovered a small pile of colored stones out near the driveway that came presumably from an old fish tank or spilled treasure chest ("arrrrrghhh, soccer!"), but he has spent many hours looking for just the right colored rocks to put in his dumptruck (which acts as a tumbler when he drives the druck back to the house). He is particularly fond of the yellow ones. Jonah has also discovered that he is not afraid of grubs, worms, ants, or bees (for better or worse), and is fascinated by them. He loves to make little beds for them, particularly the worms, and tell them, "its ok. time for ni-night." Its about the cutest thing there is. Although the grubs are still pretty gross. He decided he wanted to keep one in his pocket. I think that must be something he got from his mom's side of the family, because I don't think that is in my DNA. I have no means of shifting from spring flowers to dinner, so I'll just say this: Indian food is comfort for us. Some of the best meals of my life have been curry-based, and it is one cuisine that I can never seem to get enough of. We rarely eat chinese food these days generally because it seems to be pretty difficult to find "real" chinese food (as opposed to the Panda Expresses of the world), and after you eat chinese mall food a couple of times it tends to make you want to shy away from what is commonly available. But a good yellow curry or masala is hard to beat in any season. So when we moved to Portland, one of my priorities food-wise was to find a good Indian restaurant that we could default to when cooking at home was the second choice for the evening meal. On my first attempt I was fairly dismayed - the closest Indian food I could find to us was nearly a half hour away, in SE, and although the food was not bad, it wasn't really what we were looking for. Not to mention even after spending an hour driving, they got the order wrong. The overall experience added to my sense of, "What are we doing here? Are we out of our minds?" - it seems that having access to Indian food has become one of my higher life priorities. I didn't even know that until it was scarce.

Enter the dragon...Royal Indian Cuisine in Milwaukee, otherwise known as "Got Curry?". We ordered out, and were thoroughly pleased with the food. My staple choice at Indian restaurants the first time is either chicken or lamb tikka masala, and it is my general gauge for whether the restaurant is what it says it is. In Got Curry's case, it definitely fit the bill. They were also generous with the portions, which is important because we often order an extra dish to stretch the experience out over several meals, so when the portions are larger, it really does increase the value for us. As it is, with ordering an extra order of garlic naan, raita, and korma, we are now looking at a total of 3 full meals from one order, which makes for a lot of culinary satisfaction over a weekend. Got Curry also has a great outdoor seating area that we can't wait to take advantage of later in the year.