The eense and the fider

Yesterday we celebrated our second Halloween in Portland and despite the gloomy, rainy weather - it was a good one.

Of course our Halloween adventures really started back in September when one day I realized, "Oh cr*p, Halloween is coming up!" which means that in order to remain on the list of good mothers, I knew I'd better locate and purchase a costume. And then I proceeded to do what I do with everything in my life - think about it for a few weeks before actually taking any action.

Finally, I decided that he should be a dinosaur because, well, he's kind of into dinosaurs right now. Great, dinosaur it is! So I spent exactly one whole afternoon researching dinosaur costumes online. At which point I realized that the rest of the moms in America were also apparently interested in remaining on the good mother list because most of the dino costumes (that were cute, anyway) were already sold out. Dammit. Time to move along to Plan B - as soon as I figured out exactly what "Plan B" was. Thinking, thinking, thinking - I've got it! He's really into the Itsy Bitsy Spider (or is it the Eensy Weensy Spider?) and we seem to sing that tune a lot around this house, SOOOO, I'll just acquire a spider costume and we'll spin it (again, it's the whole PR thing) as the Itsy/Eensy Bitsy/Weensy Spider - or as Ian says, the "Eense and the Fider." And that's exactly what we did.

It didn't take too much searching before I found a cute little spider costume at, where else, Pottery Barn Kids or again, in Ian language, "Potty Barn". (Yes, we drove into the mall parking lot one day and he said, "Mommy, we going to Potty Barn?" Like I go there all the time or something. Paaleese.) My thought was that at least something related to the potty is sticking right now. But, I digress. So yes, the perfect costume was located at PB Kids and while I won't go into the gory details - ha!, gory, get it?? - let's just say I got a good deal. Because that's what happens when you wait to purchase your kid's Halloween costume - you get it on sale, which was exactly my intention from the start. I of course wanted to purchase the "treats bag" to match it, but I decided that instead of paying some ridiculous amount for it, that I would take a gamble and wait until the last possible minute when everything was on super saver sale with the hope it would still be available. (And just so I don't keep you in suspense, I gambled and I won. Yes sirree, I got the last one the other day for a total of $3, thank you very much.)

Spider in hand, I made the introduction to Ian, which went something like this, "Look Ian! You're going to be the Eensy Weensy Spider for Halloween this year!! How great is that??? This will be so fun!!!...and all of your friends will be dressed up at school, too!!!" Just like that with lots of exclamation points and question marks. "Do you want to try it on and check it out?" At which point I got a resounding, "No!" followed by running out of the room. Hmmm, okay, well I wasn't going to panic yet. We'll just try again a little later. Next day - "Ian, check out your Halloween costume here. It's the Eensy Weensy Spider!!! Do you want to try it on?" Again, "No!" followed by running out of the room. Hmmm, okay, well, still no need to panic - we still had a week to go. But by then I was getting the distinct feeling that maybe he just likes to sing it, not wear it. Food for thought.

Moving right along, we went through about five more rounds of that before I brought in the big guns: Teacher Liz and Teacher Stella. This past Monday I said, "You know, if you have the chance, you might want to talk up the whole costume wearing thing for Friday because so far, he's not really going for it." Well, once I said something, they were on it like a cherry on a sundae and by the time Thursday rolled around, Ian was happily modeling the Eense and the Fider in anticipation of the big day on Friday.

Okay, so finally we get to Halloween morning. (Sorry, but I never said I was succinct in my storytelling.) I flip on the light and well, the very first thing I hear is, "Oh mommy, it's so bright!," which is the same thing I hear every morning now. But the second thing is, "Mommy, today Halloween?" Yes, today is Halloween!!! "And I wear the eense and the fider?" Absolutely, today you are going to wear your Eensy Weensy Spider costume! (Whew. All appeared to be a go at this point with crisis clearly averted.) So we go through breakfast, teeth brushing, etc. etc.. As we near departure time for school, I asked if he wanted to put on his costume then or wait until we got to school. "I put it on now!," he said eagerly. Okie dokie. So not only did we put it on prior to leaving, but he even smiled for the camera (this appears to be an exciting new trend) AND as an extra special bonus - kneeled down like he was actually a spider. I don't know where he pulled that one from but when things are going your way - it's best not to ask questions.

Of course the school scene was adorable with lots of ghouls, goblins, DINOSAURS, and Sarah Palins running around. (Just kidding - I think that last costume was saved for the adult Halloween parties.) When I picked him up, Liz and Stella said he had a fabulous time and they practically had to tear the costume off of him for lunch time. They did a parade around the school, a special Halloween "treat" which I assume meant candy and did some Halloween version of the Hokey Pokey. Does it get better than the Halloween version of the Hokey Pokey? I think not.

And the day got even better because around 2pm I put him in his room and immediately - SILENCE - which was the first nap he'd taken since I started this blog a little more than a week ago. Three hours later Jeff and I went in to wake him up for a snack and trick or treating. I'm pretty confident that even though he had not a clue what trick or treating was, he couldn't wait to participate. We had that costume back on, complete with the clearly uncomfortable hat to match, before you could say - "Boo!". Before venturing out, of course we took a few pictures to commemorate the festivities, but we also practiced the all-important trick or treating "script", if you will. I even attempted some role playing. "Okay, Ian, so I'm you and you're me. You hold the candy bowl and I'll knock on the door and you open it, okay?" So I knock on the wall. Ian looks at me and proceeds to knock on the wall. "No, I knock on the wall and then you pretend like you are opening the door, okay? "Okay," he says. So I knock on the wall. He knocks on the wall. Oh geez, just forget it. "Here's the deal, when we go up to the door, they open it and you say 'trick or treat', open your bag and then when they give you the candy you say 'thank you'." Got it? "Yes," he said. Alrighty then, here we go.

First stop was our friendly neighbors Mike and Connie who have a little granddaughter about Ian's age. Surely this will be an easy one, we thought. Door opens and it's Mike. "Oh, look at how cute! Who are you?" Ian says nothing, just staring like he's forgotten his lines - which he has. "Ian, do you remember what we practiced?," I said. Nothing. Okay, well clearly this is a learning process. But despite the slow start, I'm happy to say that by the third house - we were saying "trick or treat" AND "thank you" on cue. What can I say - he's a fast learner. We hit a few more houses - just about enough to acquire approximately three Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, two Snickers and one Twix bar (which Jeff later ate unauthorized) - before heading back home to order pizza and hand out candy to other kids in the neighborhood.

While we had quite a number of kids who came around last year, I have to say that this year was a bit of a bust on that front. We only had about five groups come around, but Ian really liked helping me hand out candy. In true form, I think he actually may have enjoyed that more than collecting the candy himself. The highlight of the candy distribution though was when some teenagers came to the door - of course all with really scary costumes on and one with a weird voice under a mask so you couldn't see his face. Ian wasn't quite sure what to make of him, but I don't think he cared for his costume. He stood there frozen with eyes as big as saucers until I took the candy out of his hands and put it in the kids' bags. When they left and we closed the door he said, "Mommy, those were scary big kids." Yes, that's right. Unfortunately you'll probably run into a lot of those, until you of course become one yourself someday, I thought. One last highlight was that after dinner Ian has his first taste of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup after dinner. Now, again, this is a kid who doesn't normally like sweets, but we'll just say this one went over well.

I hope your Halloween was as spook-tacular (for full disclosure, I heard that word from someone else) as ours was. For a complete chronicle in pictures - from the patch to the treats - you can visit the photo album in Kodak Gallery:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=13mm790j.5ufy5wjn&Uy=ron72a&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&localeid=en_US

(With apologies that the album isn't exactly in chronological order this time.)

Until I write again.

The Great Pumpkin patch outing

Shame on me. It's the evening before Halloween and I have yet to report on the annual Sauvie Island pumpkin patch outing at Kruger's Farm, which happened last Saturday. Now, "annual" outing might be stretching things a a little given that this is only the second time we've done this, but this is also only the second Halloween we've celebrated in Portland and I sense a family tradition coming on - so there you go.

Of course I can't talk about this year's outing without first saying a word about last year's inaugural outing. Last October, Point B decided that it would be nice to add more family outings to the mix of social events - so they organized a group outing to the pumpkin patch so that families (and anyone else who wanted to contend with the under five crowd) could meet there, do some tailgating with the Westies (a couple of Point B associates have Westfalia VW vans), enjoy a hay ride or two, perhaps a couple of carmel apples and some catered barbecue. Great idea except that the day of last year's event happened to be one of the wettest, coldest days on record in the history of the Pacific Northwest (perhaps matched only by almost exactly a year before when we were moving to Portland - hmmm...come to think of it, perhaps there is a trend here?). I'm talking complete with a hail storm that had us all huddled under the little tent where they sell all those cute little gourds that decorate your table through November until you pitch them in the trash can come December 1 when the Santas come out. Hail storms aside, the cool thing about last year though was that we pretty much had the entire place to ourselves.

But apparently Point B was not deterred by the weather "issues" because they decided to plan it again for this year. This year's outing was last Saturday and I'm happy to report that it was a beautiful day. And while we're at it, I'm happy to report that October overall has been a beautiful month with little rain to date. Of course we won't talk about how as of today, rain is in the forecast for the next seven or so days (read: as many days out as they can fit on the TV screen) - but then again - we are entering November now and well, you don't have to live here all that long to start knowing the drill. We're sure to see the sun again by at least next June, so we really can't complain. But Portland meteorology class aside, Saturday was a glorious day to head to the pumpkin patch with most of Portland there to prove it.

Once we got ourselves parked in the North Forty and hiked into the patch, we met up with the Point B posse and planned our route. First stop: The Pumpkin Launch. This isn't really so much for the kids as it is for the adults who want to act like kids. Naturally, several folks in our group participated in this activity, including Jeff. Just like it sounds, this is where you take a poor, innocent little pumpkin who was hoping to find a home with some little child who would cut it open and sit it out on their cold porch and launch it from a net with the goal being to hurl it through the mouth of the Great Pumpkin target some several yards out from the launch pad. But what you really get are a lot of pumpkin guts smeared all over the grass. Yucky.

The next stop was the corn maze where we had to answer questions from either the Bible or "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" in order to find our way out. Let's just say that I feel lucky to be here blogging with you today. Enough said about that event. Then it was on to the main event: the pumpkin patch, which is really more of a field than a patch, but whatever. I'm in PR so I can appreciate the importance of spin. We grabbed a trolley cart and tromped around in the fields - I mean patch - a bit until we decided that really, this whole u-pick thing was kind of for the birds and that the better pumpkins were all the ones near the registers that had already been picked. So back we headed, but not before we took a few requisite pumpkin patch photos, of course.
The deal was that each of us got to pick our own pumpkin. Though, Ian got his little one as a gift from a friend who won it from his Pumpkin Launch efforts. And then Jeff picked one out that I didn't care for, so I put it back and picked another I thought was better. (I asked first and he said he didn't care...) And then I picked one out for me, so really just one of us got to pick our own pumpkin but I think that worked out fine. For me, anyway.

Next was the really good part: the eating! We had super tasty barbecued ribs, pulled pork and hamburgers (well, we each chose one - we didn't eat all of them), enjoyed some good company and then before we knew it, the sun was starting to set and we were all freezing our tooshies off. (If only that were more than just a saying...) So, it was time to depart - but not before I got my caramel apple for the road. Sure, Ian was being a little "challenging" by that point and I had to corral him like a horse to get him to stand in the apple line while Jeff hiked out to the car with the pumpkins, but I wasn't leaving Sauvie Island without my caramel apple - dammit!

Sunday, we carved the goods. Or, shall I say that Jeff and I carved the goods while Ian watched. Now they are on our porch waiting for the big day tomorrow. I'm sure they'll be more reporting on the big day tomorrow - well, tomorrow (or sometime soon).

Until I write again.

Long live Grandma Leeth (and her restaurant)!

Tonight we discovered another reason why we like living in Portland - and her name is Grandma Leeth. I'm not actually sure who Grandma Leeth is and we certainly haven't met her (yet, anyway) but she owns one of our new favorite restaurants. Or, at least we assume she does.

We came upon Grandma Leeth and her restaurant when one of Jeff's coworkers organized a happy hour this evening for the Point B parental types, defined more specifically as those employees and their spouses/partners with one or more kiddos. It was announced that the meeting place would be "Grandma Leeth's" family restaurant in the Cedar Hills shopping center, aka strip mall. Which was all great on one hand because it's really close to our house, but on the other hand - I'm already not feeling like we're in for a fine dining/drinking experience given the description. But the catch was that apparently this place comes equipped with childcare. Really? Now we're talking.

So Jeff, Ian and I show up at Grandma Leeth's at approximately 5:08 this evening - according to the time stamp sticker on Ian's back - where we are greeted by friendly staff who, after requiring us to sign some sort of waiver (I wonder what that was all about?), whisk our son away to a fully staffed room that resembles something out of Candyland. Okay, not really but it was this whole enclosed area with windows that had more toys in it than Richie Rich could ever dream of. And, super clean, too. Then, we are directed to the upstairs area of the restaurant which we learn has been reserved for the Point B parental-type happy hour. Excellent. My migraine, which is in about its 10th straight day now, is starting to feel better already. Now all I need is a glass of red wine - because that's the way to really cure a bad headache, as we all know.

Once upstairs, a lovely table of appetizers awaits and all the parental types begin actually socializing freely while gazing down in amazement at the little kiddos like they are goldfish we've just brought home to a new aquarium. And the kids don't even know (or care) where we are because they are too busy drawing, cooking up something in the "kitchen", playing with Thomas Train on the train table, being read to and generally having a great time.

With beverages in hand, it's time to order dinner. And just when all us parental types are thinking the party's over - we learn that no sirree, they don't need to come up and join us for dinner - we just order for them and they will bring their meals into the playroom downstairs and sit them down at the little table and make sure they have a nice, nutritious meal while we enjoy our meals upstairs. Does this place get any better?? Suddenly I find myself wondering how many times a week it would be "acceptable" to have dinner here. Four nights? Five nights? Certainly every Friday and Saturday wouldn't be too much to ask, would it? Do they take standing reservations? Inquiring minds want to know.

Before we knew it, we had downed appetizers, drinks, dinner AND dessert before Ian showed up upstairs, accompanied by one of the playroom staff members who said, "He says he has to go to the bathroom." Which was interesting given he's never said that to us in his life and isn't even close to being potty trained but hey, maybe tonight was a new beginning. But it was nearing his bedtime, so maybe that was more his way of saying he was tired and ready to go home. Fine, good enough. We won't push it on Night One.

Now, it is here that I feel compelled to mention that Grandma Leeth's doesn't exactly have the best food in town, but really, that's a small price to pay for the opportunity to eat your meal in peace and in tonight's case, enjoy some real adult conversation to boot! (Though, I'm not going to tell you what we mostly talked about...)

In the end, it's safe to say that a good time was had by all at Grandma Leeth's and this may be joining the Point B roster of family/social events as we are already talking about the next one. Of course the Burpos will be regulars by that point. Oh, and this is one of two or three of these type of places that exist in Portland, so we'll likely be hitting the others at some point soon. I'm thinking maybe tomorrow night?

Until I write again.

Sports Class!

One of the great things about living in Portland is the great quality of the parks and recreation programs in the region - which is not surprising given that Portland ranks pretty high on the family friendly scale. (Dare I say that's one of the reasons why we are here since we decided it wasn't right to make Ian take a full time gig on the Hill by the time he turned five.) Since we live approximately three seconds over the Portland city line in an unincorporated area of the jogging suit mom-wearing city of Beaverton (and home of Nike, so it's kind of like the required city uniform, right?), we are actually part of the Tualatin Hills Parks and Recreation District, which is equally as nice, if not even nicer than the Portland city facilities. Trust me, this is all leading somewhere, and here it is:

So this summer with my re-newfound full-time momhood (which is when I really started to wear my jogging suits all the time, per the unofficial city uniform requirement discussed above) I decided to start taking advantage of the facilities and signed Ian up for a couple of classes. One was swim lessons at one of the many local rec centers where they have this fabulous indoor pool, complete with separate toddler pool with fountains and a water slide. Suffice it to say the swim class was a big hit. (I'm sure there's another one in our future so more on that when the time comes.)

The second class was a dance/music class because he seemed to like jumping around to music at home and I thought, "Hey, what two year old boy wouldn't want to participate in a dance class?" Exactly. Well, imagine my surprise when we showed up the first day and he was the only boy in the class surrounded by a bunch of little girls in tutus. This did not deter me, however. Until about the fifth or sixth week when I realized that every week we'd attend class and every week Mommy left exhausted from jumping around doing the bunny hop while Ian sat on the sidelines motionless. I mean, if I'm going to make a fool of myself on the dance floor, it's not going to be in a roomful of two year olds - that's for sure. So, that was the end of "dance class." (If you sense my heart was breaking at the realization that maybe my son isn't bound for Broadway, that's because it was. I'm happy to say I'm over it now, though. At least I think I am.)

Enter the fall season. I thought we'd try again with perhaps something more his speed. And since the kid who we can't seem to pay to watch cartoons on TV does appear to go nuts when sports are on - swimming, golf, gymnastics, figure skating, basketball, baseball, curling, you name it - I thought we might give the "Little Tots Sports Class" a try this time. All I can say is - ding, ding, ding - ladies and gentleman, we have a winner!

Sports class, which we attend every Tuesday morning, is a big hit. And quite popular on the parent sign-up list I might add because the first day there were like 300 million kids there. And half of them just so happen to be named Ian, which makes things more interesting. Though, today was the fifth or sixth class and we are down to about six or seven kids - with all three Ians still present and accounted for. It's starting to make me self conscious that maybe we unknowingly picked one of those trendy names, complete with visions of him getting to his first day of kindergarten and when his name gets called - every boy in class raises their hand. But oh well. Anyhooskie - like I said, there are three Ians in this class and it gets confusing. That does not stop Ian Burpo from having fun, fun, fun each week, though.

Each week is a different sport. First it was soccer (which Ian is showing some potentially decent talent for), then basketball (also not bad at throwing the mini baskets, I must say), then hockey (a little more iffy), then baseball (which he sucked at - well, he can throw pretty well but is horrible at even attempting to swing a bat. I think he's better at hitting things along the ground...), then one doing scooters across the floor thing which was maybe luge? (not bad at that one either) and then today was also kind of random but fun because it involved balancing tennis balls in a little paddle with a net and then trying to keep balloons in the air. Big fun with the balloons and he even got to bring it home, which was all fun and games until it popped and had to go in the trash.

The two "coaches" are very energetic with the kids. I started out doing everything side-by-side with Ian (it's a parent participation class so I really wasn't being one of those parents) but as we get more into it, I'm backing off and having fun watching him do things on his own. And, I actually think he does an even better job at participating and following the teacher instructions when I keep a distance versus when I'm close by. (I see this with preschool as well when he's very reserved and quiet when I'm trying to make the drop-off transition but I know as soon as I leave he livens right up and becomes engaged - hmmm....)

Oh, and to get back to the title of this post - so every Tuesday morning when we get up I ask Ian, "Do you know what we are going to do today?" And it usually goes something like this: "Um, go to grocery store?" Noooo....guess again. "Um, go to Cosco?" Noooo....guess again. Um...go to Target?" Noooo...we're going to Sports Class! "Oh, yay, Sports Class!!!! We're going to Sports Class!!!! Mommy, we going to Sports Class?" Yes, Ian, we're going to Sports Class. So if it's ever 9:45 am (Pacific time, of course) on a Tuesday and you're sitting around wondering - as I'm sure you often do - hmmm...what are Ian and Melinda doing right now? Well, we are at Sports Class!!!! (At least until the end of November.)

Until I write again.

Now touring: The Stumptown Burpies

There's big news to report in the Burpo household - which combined with the other big news of starting this blog - equates to a whole lot of big news going on around here lately. But the very latest and greatest big news is that we've started a band!

Now, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, "Melinda, please don't quit your day job - you have zero musical talent!!!" To that I say: A) In case you haven't noticed, I don't currently have a day job; and B) What about those flute lessons in grammar school? Surely that counts for something.

But here's the real story: We are the proud (Jeff being especially proud) new owners of Rock Band 2, the brand new sequel to the much-coveted original Rock Band. For any of you reading this who may have been living under a rock - Rock Band is a video game where you form your own band and play actual songs with "real" instruments. The better you are as a band at playing your instruments, the more points you earn.

Though we had heard a lot about it, we actually only had the chance to play it for the first time at the Point B weekend getaway on the coast last month when it was the big hit for Saturday eve's "game night". This game is for every man, woman and child out there who ever dreamed of being a rock star. And given that accounts for probably a large number of people on the planet shows why the game is pretty popular.

About two seconds after we walked in the door from the getaway, Jeff pre-ordered the soon-to-be-released-with-a-better-songlist Rock Band 2 on Amazon. And last week, IT finally arrived. Upon arriving home from work, Jeff had that puppy out of the box and set up in our downstairs TV room sooner than I can down a pint of Ben & Jerry's Coffee Heath Toffee Crunch. Now if only that happened when I announced it was time for someone to clean the cat boxes...

So, after some fine tuning of the instruments last Thursday eve and a few practice songs - Friday night was our big debut. Ian and Jeff started out with a little warm-up action while I was out in the late afternoon (see photo for evidence). But it wasn't until after dinnertime when Ian was snuggled all warm in his bed (actually, scratch that - he's still in a crib with no blanket which is a story for another post) that the real action began.

Beverages in hand, Jeff and I set out to become rock stars. First we had to choose a band name. No brainer. The Stumptown Burpies!! Stumptown is one of the nicknames for Portland (another perhaps better known one being "The Rose City" but we weren't about to call ourselves The Rose City Burpies). Stumptown just has a better ring to it - more hip and edgy, like our band. And then Burpies because well, I guess it sounds more interesting that Burpo? Plus, we needed something plural. Really though, it's better to ask Jeff about all this because the real truth is that we stole the name from his fantasy baseball team this year. That's what he called them so there you have it.

Then we had the daunting task of each creating our own band character. We got to choose a name, hometown AND cute outfits and hairstyles for them to wear. I'm Taedora and Jeff is Blue. I'm from San Francisco and he's from Austin, but our band is based out of Seattle (at least that's the official word on the street according to Rock Band, but we know better...). Once that was all settled, we were ready to rack up some points by playing gigs around town. From there, we just cranked out hit after hit for the rest of the night to big hits like those 80s song we all know and love - Eye of the Tiger or We Got the Beat, stopping only to head to the clothing store to buy some new grubbs with our hard earned money. So far Eye of the Tiger is probably my favorite song we've played (the better you get the more songs that become available) because you can really rock out to that tune! So far I've only played the guitar/bass and Jeff plays a lot of the drums, but there's a microphone so we can sing too karaoke style. I plan to do a lot more of that in the future since I have such a great voice and all.

Friday night I lost steam and had to depart the band for bed (I won't say what time because I don't want to make the band look bad) just when we had earned enough points for our own wheels to head out to another city for new gigs. Jeff spent the weekend earning us more points so who knows where we are now. Maybe our own plane by now! I know we're going to be big though. Watch for us on tour soon in a town near you.

Until I write again.