Felix's First Walk To School

Natalie gave Felix one of her old back packs; a stuffed Pikachu. He has been trying it on lately and is quite adorable. While I was working on the front porch today, Felix was inside putting the backpack on, he opened the front door, walked past me and announced matter-of-factly, "I'm ready for school." With that he stepped off the porch, walked out of the yard, got to the street corner and then turned to walk out of my sight. He looked back only once and not in that 'I'm two years old and daring you to chase me' way but instead in that, 'see you after school gets out, mom' way. I ran into the house to tell dad that his son had just left for school and was currently in front of the neighbor's house out of sight! Dad caught up with him and confirmed that Felix was indeed, "going to school". 99% adorable 1% scary.


What dad doesn't know is that he pulled a similar stunt with my purse this week only that time he was, "going to work".

Me Against Steve Pool

Every Friday morning I turn to the back page of the Seattle section of our local newspaper to check Steve Pool's weekend weather forecast, and every Friday morning I look at his ridiculous mug, with that stupid, smug smile, laughing at me because he knows that his prediction is nothing more than a coin flip. But I am a trusting man, and when I read this last Friday's forecast, a forecast Mr. Pool described as "spectacular" with highs in the mid-70s, sunny and clear, I thought, "yes, finally Summer is here", and I dressed myself and Felix in shorts. So, as Felix Truman and I went about our Friday routine, which begins with a trip to Trader Joe's, we were met with gray skies. It is not unusual for a "spectacular" Seattle day to start off a bit overcast and burn off mid-morning. But, knowing Steve's track record I thought, "don't let me down, Steve". After shopping, dropping the groceries off, and getting ready for our bike ride to the park, it was now well after mid-morning and Steve's crap shoot forecast had failed again. But this time I wasn't going to let Steve beat me; as you can see in the pictures above and below, despite the 60 degree weather, we still wore shorts. By the way, it rained that afternoon. What a charlatan.

The other day Rooney came over for a visit. Felix Truman and Rooney have a somewhat strained relationship. I don't quite understand it, they get along for the most part, but at some point they will usually take a swing at the other. But this time they didn't. They played together, took a bike ride together, and as you can see here, they even shared. I knew they could put aside their differences. Perhaps the Israelis and Palestinians could take a lesson.


You may have noticed that I've been referring to Felix Truman as Felix Truman. There is a reason; the other day, Renae, was lamenting that "Felix" does not readily lend itself to nicknames. Truman does however, my favorite nickname being Trubaka (thank you, Annie), it rhymes with the wookie, Chewbaka (or however he/she spells his/her name). If anyone has any ideas, we'd love to hear them. Also, please feel free to leave comments, sometimes I feel like I'm writing only for myself.
Here are a few more pictures of Felix Truman, helping out by watering the plants. What a good little guy.

Toot Toot Tooing

As many of you may know, I am a bit of a pacifist. I didn't want Felix to have anything to do with guns. I had forbidden the girls from showing him anything related to a gun, including violent video games, tv/movies. Perhaps it is innate, because for the past few weeks he has been carrying around a Mr. Potato Head arm, one with a little sign of a clown on it, and has pretended it to be a too-tooer (that is his sound effect he makes when he "shoots" it). Well, yesterday we celebrated Father's Day and we watched whatever movie Dad wanted. It happened to have a few fighting scenes full of Matrix-esque moves and lots of gunfire. This morning, Felix grabbed his favorite potato head arm and started, "Toot toot tooting" the dogs, a fly, and then Mommy! How am I to respond?

The Well Rounded Felix

Felix is back and bigger than ever! The "terrible twos" are upon us now, and Felix is a handful. I don't know if it's because he's a boy, or maybe he just happens to be particularly rambunctious, but Natalie and Megan were not this ornery. I'm not complaining, I love it. Renae gets frustrated by it, but she is so patient with him and turns that clamorous energy into favorable construction. Felix keep digging up the dirt around some flowers we had planted in the front yard, so Renae pulled up the grass in a section of our backyard so Felix could use his Earth moving toys - his backhoe, dump truck, and bulldozer - as much as he can dig. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of it. But Renae got a picture of Felix "operating" a backhoe:
Felix loves mowing the lawn with pops. He will go through all the motions of operating a lawn mower: he checks the gas, he pulls the chord, and he engages the self-propulsion. Once we have our machines going, he will walk beside me as I go back and forth, for almost the entire yard. He even comes over and helps when I mow the neighbor's lawn (the poor man is unable to do it himself).

And it's not only lawn mowers that have captured his fancy, he also likes weed whackers. He doesn't have a toy weed whacker but he found this long piece of plastic that was a part of mobile that resembles a weed whacker.
Just recently, we took Felix to a little soccer camp or class or whatever it is they call it. Susan takes Rooney there, and so we were checking it out. The lighting was somewhat muted and the kids were so active, we never managed to get a picture of Felix and Rooney together.
This is the best picture we got. You may wondering what happened to Felix's left arm. I assure you, it is still there. Also, not that it's related, but I'll throw in a picture of Felix in his Spiderman jammies. Notice the webbing between the arms and the torso. Just adorable!
Lastly, I have been meaning to blog about our trip to Chicago. I haven't posted in so long because I wanted to make sure I put together a worthy post but I haven't had the time to do so. Anyway, I hope to do it soon, but until then- here is a picture of Uncle Pat and Felix.

Is Pat getting stiff-armed?