June was quite an interesting month. It started out cool and rainy, and became quite hot and sunny by Oregon standards. We were quite busy and constantly on the move. But we'll get to that soon enough. First, we'll start with Ellen this month.
Ellen has been working more on sight words and a little bit of reading. She came up to me one morning (I think it was on June 11) with her big book of cats. She pointed to the front of the book, and said "C-A-T, cat." Needless to say, I was quite taken aback. I asked Jada if she had been prompting her on that book. She said that she hadn't. Then I happened to have a catalog at the table from one of the bike shops that sells Cat Eye lights, so I showed Ellen the logo and asked her what it said. She looked at it for a second and said, "cat". Her grandma Freeman tells us that she is reciting entire stories from memory now. The one that Ellen knows best is a variation on the Goldilocks story called Leola and the Honey Bears. She can do the first 4 pages, and they aren't short pages. I can just point to the words as she goes. She may not be reading them, but it's close. El is even able to relate one story to another. We were reading a book called "the Recess Queen" about a girl who is mean at the beginning of the story, but ends up being nice when someone is nice to her. Ellen said, it's like "3 Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig". The pig starts out mean, and gets nice. All without prompting. Brilliant. (Thank you!) (Sorry got carried into a little Jon Lovitz there.) On our trip she also acted as a mentor to one of my childhood friend's little daughters on the playground helping her go down the highest slide. She still has some pretty good tantrums, but the potty accidents are getting to be less frequent. She hasn't pooped in her panties in a long time. She still has to be told to go to the bathroom, but she's getting to where I thought she might never get at one point. Ellen's bicycle riding is getting closer too. We were in her favorite store (REI), and she rode a bike with training wheels around the bike section all by herself once after I showed her that she wouldn't fall over.
Phoebe has been growing like crazy as well. She climbs everything she can and into anything that looks like it may possibly accommodate her diaper. It took Phoebe all of a day to learn how to climb up on the kitchen chairs (6/3/04). Now you can't turn your back for a second or she's standing up on one. There are no longer any safe places in the house. I'm sure our bed is next. Phoebe understands the words "on your bottom" and "down", and she obeys...for about 2 seconds. She's climbing into the toy drawers in the play room now also. She pulls them open, pulls everything out, and climbs in. We've actually had to start putting her in her crib for a minute when she does it. She hasn't done it on the weekend yet since we've started doing that. Phoebe has a whole mouth full of teeth too. They just started erupting in her mouth this month. It's actually quite amazing. We were working on dropping the evening bottle and having milk in a sippy cup with dinner, then during our trip, we dropped the bottles all together. She's doing very well health and weight-wise now. She eats a lot...at least whatever she doesn't toss over the side (a note to those who may find themselves seated next to her...she likes throwing with her right arm). Phoeb's had her 15 month doctor visit this month too. Her current stats are: weight: 22 lb, 11oz; length: 31 1/3"; head circ: 17 3/4". She also had to get 2 shots in the same leg...and get this. She didn't cry. Not at all. Not the entire time we were there. Everyone was astounded. Jada held her in her arms for the shots this time. It may have helped, we're not sure. She was fussy later that day because of the pain in her leg, but she recovered well.
As I was saying earlier, it's been quite a month. The Beaverton farmers market opened, and you know what that means. That's right. Fresh Oregon strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, Marionberries, raspberries, and cookies. (He's being serious about the cookies part. They are baked in The Dalles or Hood River and still arrive all soft and yummy.)
Jada took Phoebe and Ellen down to the Woodburn Outlet Mall to get them some new warm weather clothes. Phoebe is just growing so fast, and Ellen doesn't have any light weight PJ's. Even though we get fresh shipments of clothes from the Casey's (for which we are eternally grateful), they just don't seem to last long enough with the way the kids are growing.
Another feature of June is Jada's return home from another year in the Beaverton School District. We've got a house full of boxes from her class room for the summer since they were renovating the school she was at, and she didn't want them to get lost somewhere. Plus she didn't have a lot of time for packing since we were heading back to Illinois only a couple days after she finished up.
The girls did a really good job on the plane. Ellen was very good, and Phoebe only cried in spurts, though we could tell the people behind her didn't have kids. Luckily the guys in front of her did. We sat all across a row of seats, but the plane had the row divided 2 on one side of the aisle and 3 on the other. The lady who sat between us (the girls had the window seats) was also a grandmother, so she was very patient with us as we continually passed things back and forth between us. We brought one of our extra car seats that was LATCH compatible, and our rental car (a Ford Focus with a surprisingly large trunk where were able to stow both our bags and our large stroller) was pretty new so it came standard with the LATCH hooks so getting everything set up was very quick...then as we were about to head off to the hotel, I realized that I had left the directions at home somewhere. The direction machine in the office was broken so they had to call and ask, so we lost 10 minutes, but we got off, and found the hotel very easily. It was only 6 miles from my brother and his wife's house and a straight shot at that, which was very convenient. The hotel room was a suite with a separate bedroom and a front room with couch with a hide-a-bed. Since the "master" bed room didn't have a direct door to the bathroom, Jada and I took the couch, and that put Ellen and Phoebe in the master bed room together. It was a pilot experiment to see how they could sleep together in the same room, in case we decided to do it later. Plus, it was how they were going to sleep at Nana and Bapa's anyway. They did very well. Maybe because they were tired, but it didn't matter as long as they slept and didn't bother each other.
Our first stop was in Elgin, one of the northwest suburbs of Chicago. The bonus is that it's also only 30 minutes from O'Hare International Airport. My brother, his wife, and their kids live there. We feasted that first night on pizza from Giordano's. (Finally, true pizza.) They were very accommodating the following day by hosting a BBQ and inviting the Rockford contingent (my dad's side) in for the afternoon so we could see everyone. I even got to see a couple of old college roommates whom I hadn't seen in person for several years. It was lots o' fun, and we had perfect weather for it. Ellen enjoyed playing in the sand box, and Phoebe got to take a couple of real naps finally.
The next morning we went over to IHOP for our Father's day breakfast before we all headed south. It was Sunday, so we had to have pancakes. Then we drove off for Tinley Park so we could see my best friend's mom since we missed her the last couple times out. We had lunch and played for a while, and then it was off again to Pekin. Phoebe and Ellen cried almost the entire time until we were within about 15 minutes of Nana and Bapa's house.
During our initial time in Pekin, we got in an hour at Mineral Springs Park's Kiddie Corral with one of my childhood friends and her daughters before the rains came. That actually worked out well, since it rained off and on the rest of the day. It provided a nice opportunity to nap all afternoon. We all needed it. After naps, we went to the Pekin Public Library where we picked up 11 books for Ellen and Phoebe for our drive the next morning to Collinsville.
Our trip to Collinsville was to see my mom's side of the family. We actually got a great turn out for such short notice and on a week day at that. It was a pretty typical family affair. Plenty of food and laughter to go around. We got to see my aunts and their sisters-in-law, and cousins. My brother's family even met up with us one last time down there on their way to another engagement. After pictures, it was over all too soon. The drive back to Pekin was long again. Phoebe slept for about an hour before we got stuck in traffic. She didn't like that at all. That's Illlinois. Land of perpetual construction.
For the rest of our time in Pekin, we got to play with Nana, Bapa, and Auntie Mandy who called in and got an extra couple days off of work. We went to the park every morning, and it didn't rain again. We got to go on the paddle boats. We went to Avanti's (the traditional visit), and we enjoyed some delicious soft serve at the Dairy Queen.
It was a sad day when we had to leave and come back again. Partially because we chose to drive 3 hours to O'Hare and follow that up with a 4 hour flight home. It was amazing how stacked up it was at O'Hare. The traffic on the taxi way was only rivaled by the Eden's Expressway. All things considered, we still were some how able to get into the air only 40 minutes after we pushed back from the gate. (As a side note, I know I've been completely acclimated to the Portland lifestyle. The people were much nicer at PDX when we checked in than at O'Hare. At PDX, they helped us get Ellen's car seat taped for checking through, we just got attitude and roll of tape at O'Hare.) Phoebe didn't do well on the flight back. She cried a lot. I finally got her to fall asleep, but she only slept for 25 minutes when she was woken up by another little 3 year old screaming to get her way (not Ellen for a change). But long flight short, we made it back home where I schooled Ellen in the finer points of how to pull luggage off the baggage return line. She spotted both of our bags, and then I let her pull off her seat on her own. I was so proud.
All I can say is I'm so glad we flew back on Friday so we could have the weekend to recoup. It gave us time to get to the farmers market and the grocery store plus catch up on some sleep before I had to return to work on Monday. Music class started up for the girls on Monday as well. Then, that night, I went to pick up Nana and Bapa from the airport. They flew in to continue their vacation from 2 years ago that was cut short for a family emergency. Two days later, Jada left for Washington D.C. to attend the NEA convention for 7 days. I tell you, I've been to the airport more in the last week than I had been for the last 2 years.
The week finished out pretty uneventfully. I went back to work, and my parents stayed home with the girls. I've been trying to leave work a little bit early so that I can get home to help with dinner and bed times.
Just a last thank you to the Illinois crew for making our trip so enjoyable, and for putting up with our nutty left coast schedule since we always keep the girls on PST to make the transition a little more comfortable for them (and the rest of us).
Journal entry: July 1, 2004