Barp

On a recent family vacation to Portland, Oregon we enjoyed: food trucks, a trip to Astoria, ice cream in Seaside, a trek with cousins and 2 six year olds to the top of Multnomah falls (that covered an 620' climb in elevation) and dinners with 4 generations of the Hank and Leona DuPertuis family.


Jameson had Sydney and I cracking up on our third night with one that went a little like this:


At the end of a long day, in which we had spent over 4 hours in the car for our round trip to Astoria, Jameson lay on his bed with his new journal from his Auntie Bree open in his hands.  He asked Sydney and I "what should I write about?" to which Sydney replied "right about your favorite part of today" so he grabbed his pencil and began to write.  As he was writing I laid down next to him and after a minute or so looked over at his progress to see one "word" spelled out "BARP".  Because at this age his spelling is often phonetic I didn't comment on it, but kept an eye on him to try and figure out where he may have been going with this beginning.  But after another minute or so he turned to me and said "I think I spelled Barp" (exactly how you would imagine that this word would be pronounced).  To that I replied, "Yes you did.  What were you trying to spell?"  He looked at me and said, "Baump".  I thought and said, "Baump?".  He said, "yeah, baump.  Like, (to the tune of Eye of the Tiger) Baump..... Baump, Baump, Baump!"  It turns out that he was trying to write out that his favorite part of the day was listening to "The Eye of the Tiger" on our road trip.


This past Saturday he lost his first tooth. 


For his birthday we had an ice skating party at the Toyota Sports Center where he skated with a (boys only) group of friends from school and kids of friends of ours.  He had a blast showing off the skills that he has gained from his recent 4 week Hockey Basics Course where he practiced ice skating.


The weekend before last we did a 3 night camping trip at Kirk Creek campground in Big Sur California.  Fun was had by all, but the highlight of the trip for me was being out in the ocean with a friend and having a humpback whale surprise us by popping up 25 feet away from us, blowing out a breath of air so loud and surprising that it knocked my buddy off of his paddle board!  The whale proceeded to swim right in front of us taking about 3 more breaths before disappearing just as quickly has he had appeared.  Such a cool encounter!  Not as close as the great white shark sighting off of El Porto beach, but even more exciting! 

The Intense Joys of Being 4

We just got back from a whirlwind tour of Northern California (with an adults only diversion in Las Vegas).  The itinerary included lunch in Morro Bay, traveling up the coast via Highway 1, a night in Monterey at the Plaza with a view of the bay, time in Oakland with family and friends, a day trip to San Francisco (with lunch at our traditional Ciopino's), a drive along the Delta to Elk Grove for more family time, the afore  mentioned Vegas and Jameson's first ski trip.  It was equally long and short at the same time.  A wonderful trip.

I was reminded on this trip of the intense joys that Jameson gets from the smallest simple things.  I wish that I could fully capture the smile that I see on his face when chasing a frisbee that he has just thrown while he is walking around playing disc golf with his papa and I.  The smile engulfs his entire body.  As adults often we have been trained or trained ourselves that showing this type of emotion is not cool/proper/advisable, but as a child there is no training that tells them this type of look directly inside of them is bad.  To come up to Jameson after he has just skied down the bottom of the bunny slope at Sierra at Tahoe and stand over him after he's used the only means of braking that I have taught him, "Fall Down Jameson!", and see the look of joy on his face sums up the greatest joys of being a dad.  For him to then have a discussion with me that talks about how fast he just went that leads me to ask, "Do you think you went as fast as the Flash?" and him to say, "I'm not sure.  I'd like to ski next to him so that I could see!" is just the icing on the cake!

The team sports era has begun (kind of)

This past weekend Jameson had his first experience with organized sports, in the form of the AYSO U5 (under 5) Jamboree.  The AYSO kicked off with an opening night party at the fields at "Campus El Segundo".  The party was a gathering open to all age groups that he was very excited about in theory, but in practice he was a bit intimidated and shy by all of the goings on.  I tried to encourage him to participate in games, but in truth the kids playing were much older than he and I can understand why he was a bit nervous about the whole thing.

The next day, Saturday, was the true start to the season.  The format for his age group is called a Jamboree, which means that there are no teams and no practices.  Saturdays start with a 10 minute warm up, 20 minutes of drills (that are more like mini games) led by 2 coaches from the UK that are here on a coaching exchange program and then 30 minutes of playing on randomly broken up teams of 4 or 5 coached by dads.

Jameson did great on his first day!  He did very well listening to his coaches, was not overly intimidated or shy and seemed to love running around.  I the game he was able to put his first ball in the net...unfortunately it was into the wrong net.  Other than the own goal he had one other chance but the other team was playing a goalie (which I don't think they were supposed to be doing with the small nets and 5 on 5 games, but that's OK) and the "goalie" stopped the ball.  Most importantly he really seemed to enjoy it and was not intimidated.  He is probably the youngest kid out there since the cutoff for participation was turning age 4 after July 1, so I was a little nervous that the other kids being bigger would discourage him, but he wasn't discouraged at all and seemed to keep up just fine.  I have a feeling that was our first of many Saturdays on the sports field!

Our Shy Boy

Jameson is very cautious  about most anything new.  He is shy around new kids, reluctant to try new foods and needs much encouragement to do new things.  As a person who has lived a life with similar feelings I woder how to show him all the things that he'll miss out on if he continues on this course.  Logically I believe that in time he will outgrow most of these fears but as a parent I can't help but to want to help him see how much more life can offer him if he opens himself up to all of the new things that life has to offer.  I'm trying now to boost his self confidence.  We'll see how that works.  I have also been trying lately to help him focus his feelings on all of the positive things happenning from day to day.  Wouldn't it be great to help my son become someone who naturally tends to see the positivity and beauty in his life!

Some quick memories

While driving home from one of our holidays up north as we passed Magic Mountain Jameson was quite excited to look at the roller coasters. As he was looking a truck pulled up beside us to compromise his view.  With little delay this prompted him to shout "hey truck! Move!".....

One day a couple months back we introduced Jameson to the game "hide and seek".  He, as you would expect, loved it!  On one of our rounds it was my turn to hide.  He giggled and scurried around the house looking for me as I hid in the entry closet.  As I heard him approach I threw open the door and yelled "BOO!"  he jumped and shrieked with a combination of fear and glee.  Then after a couple seconds of laughter he looked at Sydney and confessed, "I peed myself a little"...

On 12/2/12 I took Jameson Ice Skating for the 1st time.  We went to the Culver Ice Arena, where I've been playing hockey.  After first getting the skates on and walking around on the rubber floor he began to get a bit of false confidence, I imagine thinking that getting around on skates was not difficult, but then of course as the skates first hit the ice his legs shot out in either direction as I held his hands.  The brief cocky was quickly humbled.  I held him between my legs and sometimes held his hands and skated backward as we inched our way around the ice.  After a couple of laps we got a cup of hot chocolate and sat up in the stands to drink it....

Jameson really seemed to enjoy all of the time that we spent together as a family over the holidays.  Even though after Christmas we tore apart our kitchen and sanded/painted all of our cabinets.  At one point out of the blue he looked over at us and said "I love mommy and I love daddy."  So cute...

For my birthday Sydney wok Jameson up while I was showering for work.  The set up a happy birthday banner in the breakfast nook and brought out a little cake for us to share.  Jameson was very excited by the whole thing (especially the cake).  Sydney told me later that Jameson was very nervous leading up to the whole thing that he was going to forget the words to Happy Birthday.  As far as I could remember he was able to recall them fine.  Sydney got me a really nice SF Giants pullover...

5/30/13
After work today Jameson and I went down to Dockweiller beach.  We played soccer on the sand.  I would go down into a pushup position and tell him that my arms were the goal and he would kick the ball through.   I would dropkick the ball and he would chase with glee (he still loves running around as much as possible).  Then we went down to the water and had a great time splashing in the water (kicking it at each other) and digging up sand crabs.  We really had a great time.  The we went to the Lifestyle Cafe and he had a Peanut Butter, Banana and Honey sandwich.  He was surprised by how much he liked it, but I was not (he is still very hesitant to try any new food).  It was a great night together after we had not been able to spend any time together in the past two nights (I went to Kings-Sharks game 7 and then had a hockey game of my own at Culver City).

Recently we got a treat of some gellato on the 3rd street promenade in Santa Monica.  While eating I warned Jameson that if he ate too much his belly would hurt.  Now whenever we eat anything; crackers, oranges, berries, etc. he says to me, half question/half statement, "If I eat too many of these my tummies going to hurt".  To which I re-assure him that those foods should be OK.

Jameson has a hilarious misunderstanding of how to respond when someone asks him whether he knows something.  The conversations (and there have been literally hundreds of them) all go something like this:

Me or Sydney: Jameson.
Jameson: Yeah?
Me or Sydney: Do you know where we're going tomorrow?
Jameson: Yeah! (With a confidence that always seems to convince us that he does)
Me or Sydney: Where?
Jameson: Where?
Me or Sydney: Where are we going tomorrow Jameson?
Jameson: I don't know.  Where are we going?

I've tried many times to explain to him that when we ask him if he knows and he says yes that it is supposed to mean that he knows the answer to the question, but it continues to go over his head.

This weekend his aunt and cousin are in town.  Tomorrow we are going to play T-ball with Coach Derek in his sports class and then heading down to Lego Land!  Good times ahead...