Summer in the City

It’s August. Summer is in full swing. That means the kids spend ~½ their time in just underwear. This cuts back on how many pictures I can share here. :) This segues perfectly into a Moriarty quote, “I’m eating a burrito with no pants on.” We have a strong no bare butts on the furniture rule, and pants required if a non-family visitor is around. Otherwise, it’s a free-for-all.

A big event recently was a weekend trip to Portland. For months I’ve enticed the kids to read with reading journey charts that earn them books with reading progress. I wanted to bring them to book Mecca so we decided to do a weekend trip centered on Powell’s. We did all public transit (and Amtrak) so the kids got to walk to the bus stop, ride the bus, light rail, Amtrak, then walk to the hotel. It was a lesson in packing light. The kids pushed back, but didn’t complain after we were on our way. This trip really showed me what kind children we’re raising. On multiple occasions Moriarty stopped to open/hold a door for someone in a wheelchair or using crutches. Lorelei said hi and waved to many people on the street, some homeless. She also told the cleaner on our floor thanks. They have struggles that we deal with daily so it’s nice to be out of our usual routine and see these amazing qualities.

In May, Lorelei turned 7. She wanted a birthday at the roller rink. It was classic and so fun. I don’t have the ankles for skating, but I can make a mean chocolate cake. She decided she wanted a turtle design. We baked and decorated the cake together. Then Lorelei got ahold of the glitter and added more improvements. The icing for the turtle had 6 distinct colors. Glitter makes it all basically the same: shiny and delicious. We went to Denny’s for lunch because it’s her favorite restaurant. While we were eating she offered me some bacon. We do a lot of food trades so I assumed it was a trade. She corrected me. She just gave me bacon because I like bacon. OMG

For a couple years Lorelei was doing a lot of hip hop dance classes. Several of her friends from school took gymnastics and she wanted to try it. She’s taken to it very well. Here are links to her doing bar and vault practice. In ~6 months she’s leveled up twice and has one big skill yet to level up again. We have a lot of climbing and jumping equipment around the yard so we get to see a lot of her new skills all the time. ALL the time. ALL THE TIME. She writes tickets to her shows and lines us all up to watch her. Her body is clearly changing. We recreated a photo of her at the Farmer’s market. The original was when she was 8 days old. Her brain is definitely changing too. Her favorite TV show to watch with me is Dr. Pimple Popper, a dermatologist who does procedures on camera. We’ve been watching for years and today she asked, Do you think she only videotapes the successful ones? Pip and I were blown away. We talk about the lying in advertising and that might have led to her questioning the way the show portrays the outcomes. 

Moriarty is increasing in independence. It can be tricky because his emotional resilience is still coming along. Sometimes we give him a long leash and he handles it quite well. Other times something as small as transitioning from a video game to going to taekwondo can leave him in tears for hours. We’re trying to help him with organization and reminder tools, coupled with the emotional resilience practice. My own emotional resilience isn’t where I’d like it to be so in some ways we’re learning together. Even though he’s growing up, and starting middle school (6th grade) in a month, but he’s still got little boy vibes some days. He’ll tell me he wants to live with us forever, but finally acknowledged that he will want to move out someday for independence, but he wants to come back a lot to hang out with us. He’s discovered a new toy called Beyblades. They’re tops made of metal with different shapes to optimize stability, destruction, etc. He built a double launcher so he could stage fights alone, though he plays a lot with friends. Evidently there’s also a TV show. Pip used the 3D printer to build an arena and launchers.

We have alternating game and movie nights. As Lorelei gets better at games we are routinely adding new games to the mix. This month they learned Yahtzee. I tried to get into trick-based card games but it wasn’t clicking. We rotate who picks the movies and I try to choose my childhood classics. My most recent pick was The Muppet Movie. This is a huge classic for me. I sang along, paused to explain context, and laughed my butt off. About halfway through I noticed Moriarty had fallen asleep. Dead out. Pip ended up having to carry him to his bed. I was…disappointed but I plan to convert him to the movie’s greatness someday. Maybe he needs to try Hare Krisha.

Another first for the kids was going to buy and blow up “real” fireworks. All fireworks are illegal in Lake Forest Park so we had to drive 30+ min to another county, bought some classic things like roman candles and snakes! The firework “town” had a blast site so we got to see other people’s fireworks too. Moriarty was particularly into this. I have a few memories of blowing things up in parking lots in Tennessee and thought my kids needed this.

Another summer surprise was the neighborhood bobcat ridded us of all but one of our chickens. Snowgli (Snowflake Elsa Glitter Lafleur) is the last bird standing. She’s gotten very lonely without a flock so she stays close to us. She comes in the house if we’re not careful to shut the doors. She’ll follow us to our cars and we need another person to distract the bird. This large loss inspired us to build a much stronger fence. We put 4x4 posts into concrete for the posts and are covering the whole structure with metal mesh. Once it’s done we can get baby chickens.

Latest Pics are here, “mal” is the password

Just Grab the Vegetable Peeler

Life got very complicated for me and I just realized it’s been 6 months since I wrote a blog post. Sheesh! A ton of stuff happened. Last fall the family flew to New Mexico and met Grandpa Phil. We saw that bats in Carlsbad caverns (but not as batty as we had hoped), we enjoyed the caves, we hunted for rocks, and at lots and lots of delicious food.

The kids’ school does a lot of extracurricular activities, and many types of fundraisers to pay for them. They host Market Day, well 2 types of Market Day. There’s the one that’s a fundraiser where people pay to host a booth, then sell their wares. I laser cut keyrings with the school name and mascot, Moriarty 3D printed a bunch of fidgets, and Lorelei sold random stuff from her room. Every dollar the kids made they spent on other 3D printed stuff like dragons and tiny animals. The other type of Market Day is the fake money kind where the kids set up stalls and sell to each other. They came home with more 3D printed stuff after that too.

Lorelei announced to us the other day that she and her friend Mirav got hug married at school. Not kiss married, that’s gross. Pip and I tried not to howl in laughter. The kids are both very tender. They want snuggles every morning, several hugs before they leave for school, more hugs throughout the day. They just really love us. Moriarty missed me especially a day I had to go into the office for a long day. At bedtime he needed 3 rounds of hugs. I asked, did you miss me? He replied, yeah and I told him I missed you too. I’m very proud to be growing a tender and compassionate young man. He’s not just compassionate, he’s 100% a maker kid like his parents. He was making a cheese sandwich and realized both cheese slicers were in the running dishwasher. So he dug through some drawers and pulled out the vegetable peeler. It worked great! Another day he noticed one of the lights on a plastic sword had broken. He came to me to help and I said I was busy, but pointed out the screws he’d have to remove to check it out. A few min later I found him on the floor, with the electronics exposed, and he’d found the broken wire. I was pretty proud of that too. He’s funny too. He’s been doing a D&D Larping afterschool club and the first character he created was a rogue named Ninja. A rogue is basically a ninja so it’s like a cat named Cat. He’s curious and logical. He started a conversation out of the blue asking about the ecosystem shock when Noah's Ark returned. M:how are they going to deal with the bunnies? The bunnies are going to have a ton of babies in the time it takes to grow a single kangaroo. That made me laugh out loud.

Lorelei is in a swirl of singing rainbow sunshine. She announced the other day, I’m in a phase where I only draw rainbows. She wears a dress, jewelry, and hair clips most days. Sometimes she does her make-up, which can be alarming. She passes out tickets to her dancing shows and then Pip, Moriarty, and I sit in a row and watch her freestyle. She isn’t good at learning choreography, but she has so much passion it doesn’t matter. She has regularly been asking me about the meaning of songs, meaning of the imagery, inspiration, etc. She’s so curious. She has paused dance class and started gymnastics. She’s doing extremely well. After her first session she leveled up to the next class. I love watching her improve at skills and have so much fun doing it. A couple weeks ago she started “baby crossfit” which is actually called Kid Strong. It’s another very physical, demanding, fun activity. They both just blow me away.

Because I was so behind on the blog, I made 2 sets of new pictures. Aug-Dec 2025 and Jan - Mar 2026. Passwords are always “mal”.

Fun quote:

Lisa: Can we have not talking time?

Lorelei: I don’t know how to stop talking

The Birds, the Bees, and Sonic

Lorelei is turning out to be quite analytical. Last week she asked how much she weighed and needed to weigh for the booster seat. I told her she weighs about 37 lb and the booster seat has a minimum of 40 lb. She said, oh, and without a beat, so I need to gain 3 pounds. ... She did the math in her head! I was kinda blow away. She hasn’t been particularly precocious in math so this was really cool. Example two was this morning. We have a family with 2 kids who live nearby and wanted a playdate. The girls wanted to play at the friend’s house, and the boys wanted to play at our house. Sanda doesn’t drive the van so she was stressing about moving the kids around with the sedan booster seats chaos. Lorelei suggested that Sanda drive just Lorelei there, drop her off, then bring the big brother friend back in Moriarty’s booster. Pip and I also came up with that solution, but Lorelei did independently. Once again I was blown away. 

Now, this is where analytical goes into the well here we go phase. At some point in (hopefully) every parent’s life they get to give “the sex talk” to their kids. I’ve been expecting Moriarty to have questions for a while now, but no, it was Lorelei. I grounded everything in the evolutionary drive to pass along our genes and make babies so that’s why adults want to have sex. But my baby, who already knew that it takes sperm from a man and eggs from a woman to make a baby, asked deep questions into the mechanics and purpose of sex. This included such gems as “why do people have sex?”, evolution makes us want to, just like we want to eat food and it tastes good. It’s all about continuing the species. “How does the penis know when to get hard?”, um… when the man and woman decide to have sex his brain makes it hard. “How do men and women decide to have sex?”. Well, they often talk about it. And then Pip interjected with “is now the time to take off my pants?” which is a quote we both love from a comedy TED talk about a mom having the talk with her kid. So of course I said “yes”. By this point Lorelei had covered all the mechanics she was interested in, then proceeded to tell us she definitely doesn’t want to have a baby so she’ll have to marry a man who doesn’t want a baby either. Or better yet, she should marry a woman because two women can’t have a baby. She was quite self-satisfied and went off to play so we left it there. 

The kids have both been having a fun summer of camps and friends. Moriarty did a week of Ranger Skills camp, then Survival Skills. He learned how to stalk through the woods undetected, use a fixed knife to whittle, and other miscellaneous woodland activities. He had a blast and is whittling many sticks around the yard. Lorelei did a week of circus class (tightrope, stilts, fabric arts, etc). She loved it. This week she’s doing a Disney-themed dance class. The rest of the time children were coming and going and Lorelei went to the big trampoline park 3-4x/week. We’ve been playing lots of board/card games on the porch and of course the kids make up games. We got a potholder making set and the kids have gone nuts making potholders. I’ve bought a couple other weaving types and they can’t get enough. I’m a sucker for buying art supplies. It’s the maker activity for kids. They use crayons, we use power drills!

Moriarty is getting more responsible. It’s really cool. For a long time he had the chore of cleaning the bathrooms, but for the summer we wanted to add more so he took over the dishes. The first couple weeks he whined about “not knowing how to do it”, or he’d start too late in the evening then panic, but he’s got a good rhythm now. No complaining. Clean dishes. It’s SO COOL. Getting Lorelei to be consistent is harder. I don’t really remember what Moriarty could do at 6 so I feel like I’m relearning what is “normal” for a 6 year old. She’s also the baby which makes it mentally tricker, but I generally expect them to help however they can. Her weekly chore is gathering all the trashes and putting in new bags. She can’t physically open the plastic bags so I do that part for her, but she’s getting pretty consistent and minimally whiney. Somehow she “forgets” how to sweep every week so she might have serious memory issues.

We invented a new term. Sonic it. It means to rip off really fast. Lorelei likes Sonic the Hedgehog and would ask us to pull off her bandaids “fast like Sonic”, which has devolved into Sonic this. The children are losing teeth left and right. I’ve offered to Sonic their teeth but they continue to decline. Lorelei is currently missing both her front teeth and Moriarty lost one a couple days ago. His mouth has grown…oddly. His lower jaw is shaped like a U, but his upper jaw is more of a V. He started wearing a palate expander to reshape his upper jaw and it’s creating space for his teeth! That’s allowing some to reorient, and others to fall out. No Sonics involved.

Lorelei and I took a trip to Minneapolis to visit Lisa Francine, the aunt for whom I am named. We hung out, ate some food, visited the cool children’s bookstore and art studio. We did a night of improvised dance with Lisa’s friends. It was a great visit, and clearly, the purpose was to hug Lisa. Loli and I had a fun easy flight. She has escalator fear but was very brave most of the time. During the flight, we chatted a lot about the plane, and the trip, and she asked a million logistical questions about the order of how we park, walk to the terminal to get the tickets, then TSA, etc. She’s very interested in understanding every detail about how things will happen but I like teaching her things and enjoy her curiosity. That said, after the flight the woman (mid 30s) next to us said, "watching you two was the first time I thought having kids might be fun". I think it’s the greatest compliment I’ve ever gotten.

Today Lorelei put a large purse on her shoulder and did a sauntery walk telling Pip she’s a cool person but enunciating it as purse on. I take 100% credit for that wit. My last magical Lorelei moment was on the way back from Minneapolis. I was really overwhelmed from the travel, noise, people, so I asked, “can we have not talking time?”...and she kindly replied, “I don't know how to stop talking”. I hope this is a skill she can learn someday. She also got her first pair of glasses. She has weak distance vision so they’ll mostly be used at school but she feels SO grown up. Maybe the days of learning to not talk are on the horizon.

We’ve had some downs too. One of our chickens, Catchphrase, showed signs of illness. I thought she was eggbound (an egg stuck inside her) so Moriarty and I nursed her for a while but didn’t see any improvement. We decided to take her to a chicken vet who diagnosed her with either heart or liver failure. We opted to put her down and it was a very emotional day. Hugs, tears, and talking about our memories of her. We buried her in our woods. Moriarty has big feelings about the chickens and is lobbying for a special headstone.

Next week we all go to New Mexico to see the bats (w/ Phil). Moriarty is super into the bats near our house. He’s been spending time at night looking up hoping to see them. We’re discussing getting a bat box. As soon as we’re back from NM, school starts.

New Photos, password mal

Videos

Lorelei with giant feet

Moriarty and cousin Noah playing basketball on the trampoline

Lorelei learning cartwheels

Lorelei’s dance recital

School's Out For Summer

I know it’s only been 3 weeks but I am just so proud of the kids I can’t wait longer for a post. Today I bring you the cliche, children are like a garden that you have to tend so they can flourish. As stupid as that sounds sometimes, it’s so true. (Warning: this is the part where I talk about how great I am). Pip and I have been in the dirt of modeling kindness and regular tooth brushing, adding the manure of emotional regulation and weeding out entitlement until I get overwhelmed then set up the auto watering system so I can ignore them and get a break, then it’s back out there with my watering can that teaches responsibility. And now I see my little flowers just flourishing. As Willy Wonka coined, they’re scrumbdidlyumptious!!! 

For years we’ve struggled with purging old stuff. I know it’s hard for everyone, but Moriarty has a bigger emotional reaction than some kids so he’s having a harder time. After many rounds of fights with the kids about purging I had a brilliant idea. I incentivized them to purge by offering money at the arcade in exchange for volumes of stuff. You could say I used a carrot rather than a stick, to continue my gardening metaphor. :-) It worked GREAT. They both purged several large storage bins and had ~$30 each at the arcade. My favorite game was all 4 of us playing hungry hippos where we sat on big plastic hippos and used the grabber bar with our hands to collect the balls. Lorelei beat me at both ski ball and bowling. Moriarty had tremendous luck at 2 of the strength games where you have to dial in the right amount of pushing/whacking to get the big prize. He got it on both. OMG. He had enough tickets to get an Icee maker, kinda like an ice cream maker where you freeze the outer cup and then the drink inside freezes against the interface. Now Icees are a thing in my house and all the neighborhood kids are thrilled. 

The other huge parenting win for me is around chores. The kids have always been expected to help with house chores, at their capability level. Lorelei collects trashes on trash day, Moriarty does his own laundry and cleans bathrooms, and they both help with general decluttering. But since it’s summer they needed more chores. I added doing the dishes for Moriarty and he didn’t complain. At all. He just jumped in and started learning. The first night he thought he was done then looked at the table and realized there were more there. Oops. He was annoyed but it was more a learning moment and he did better the next day. There are certainly days when they whine about chores, but I’m really happy with where we are and how things are building up. The more they do, the more other weird random cleaning I can do and the happier I am.

It’s summer now and school is out. That means a lot of days with kids around or my kids missing for hours. Things are more relaxed, like some days I come out and they’ve painted their faces, or each other’s faces, usually with sharpies. There were many moans about boredom but we basically tell them to figure it out. Moriarty is digging through old art kids and made an incredible origami bug. Lorelei put on an acrobatics show and made us all tickets. Moriarty is getting into fire and is enamored with lighters. For those of you who don’t know, I may or may not have burned my room down when I was 10 so we do keep an eye on him. 

Moriarty started his orthodontic journey. His upper teeth are much narrow than his lower teeth so he has a palate expander now that we turn once a day. It doesn’t hurt but makes him lisp a little bit and is annoying with certain foods. But, he’s not complaining. Lorelei lost one of her front teeth and the other is wiggly. It’s a big month for teeth. But not fingernails. Lorelei got her pinkie nail crushed a couple months ago and it fell off recently. We’re curious if it’ll grow back. All in all, life is incredible here in Lake Forest Park.

Recent Pics Here, password “mal”

Cute Stuff, Quotes, and Videos

At dinner we usually talk about our days and I ask the kids what the best and worst parts were. The last week of school Lorelei said that he worst thing that day was not getting to play with Moriarty at 2nd recess that day (he was out for a med thing). I had no idea they played at recess together. It made my heart melt.

They had STEAM night at their school. It’s STEM + art so the school had different rooms with exhibitions and interactive stuff. Lorelei misheard me when I said STEAM, she thought I said stamina. 

(L) stamina?

(M) not stamina that's how far you can run

(L) so is stamina night when you get to run into all the classrooms?

I must use the word “literally” a lot because she’s saying it…a lot, literally.

(L) I literally fell over... literally

Moriarty getting lip kisses from Amber

Moriarty and I doing axe throwing at the Fremont Solstice Festival

Moriarty riding a park toy

Lorelei jumping rope on the trampoline

Lorelei reading a book from school

Hi Ho Hi Ho, It's to the Woods We Go

May is over and that means my tiny baby daughter is 6. Biologic age doesn’t really line up with capability so if we’re calling 6 the next milestone, she hit it a couple months ago. When Moriarty was born I read tons about newborn learning and there is a theory that kids go through major brain changes and are cranky and extra difficult, then a new skill appears. That seems to hold for 6 year olds too. All of a sudden Lorelei’s language changed. She asked longer, more complicated questions, gave more descriptive answers, and started trying to use vocabulary she’d heard from us. She doesn’t always get the meaning of the words right, but I’m so impressed with how she tries and continues to ask what words mean. For years we’ve been working with her on eating over her plate and using napkins, and that finally seems to have clicked. She’s bragging about it and showing us so we’ll compliment her. It’s cute. She’s also picking up our values. We went out for a fancy pancake brunch for her birthday and had so much fun. When we got home she handed me 4 wrapped pads of butter she had brought home so they wouldn’t go to waste. OMG. The Spirit of Mary has passed to the next generation. (context for non-Lafleur/Langes, my mother Mary was very frugal so when one of us makes an extremely frugal choice others might think ridiculous, it’s brought on by the Spirit of Mary)

Lorelei’s birthday party was at the same park/beach/playground as the last few years. It’s a great space and the weather was perfect this year. She had many friends come celebrate and invited the babies (my friends’ toddlers) and of course her cousins. My favorite picture from the day is Sofia Roberts with her legs covered in sand and her and Lorelei grinning ear-to-ear. For her cake we designed a dolphin extravaganza. I took her to the cake decorating store for a shopping spree and came home with 2 large candles, 6 bags of sprinkles, a crown (for the dolphin), and plastic princess rings to give to her friends. She helped me bake the cake and I made the dolphin out of choco-krispy treats and fondant. Then she put every single type of sprinkle ALL over the cake. It was so festive.

Spring is the time for new growth, and around here that’s chickens and plants. We got four baby chicks to fill out our flock. They’re Snowflake Elsa Glitter (nicknamed Sno-gli), Bellatrix, AKA Trixie, Amber Spud the second, and Penguin. Amber is a replacement for Moriarty’s favorite chicken, Amber, who went to the roosting bar in the sky. We’ve tried much harder to socialize this batch of chickens. We hold them most days and give them lots of attention. It seems to be helping and they let us pet them instead of running away. The garden is more slow growing. The slugs are out and they like to eat new plants. But the kids helped us plant, and they help water, and hopefully something will grow this year. 

Another new spring feature is Spring Camp. The kids new school puts on a 3 day, 2 night, camping adventure. Many parents and all the staff put on classes for things like drawing plants on a hike, playing with giant bubbles, an outdoor pillow fight, learning about animal communication, shooting water balloons from a trebuchet, and D&D. Pip and I both attended and stayed in cabins with the kids. He helped with groups of kids and I worked in the kitchen. Heading into this trip Lorelei was very nervous about food. She’s been in a very picky phase and she was anxious there wouldn’t be any food she could eat. But we encouraged her to be brave (and brought a case of granola bars just in case). But she was brave. She tried many new foods and (re)discovered cantaloupe and loves it now. Moriarty had a blast. He ran around, ate everything, and was his normal charming self. What surprised me, but shouldn’t, several parents and teachers came up to me to tell me how much they like my kids. They appreciated Lorelei’s energy and friendliness, Moriarty’s engagement with the course material, and their overall great attitudes. I wish Pip and I could take ALL the credit for this, but sometimes it feels more like they’re balls in a pinball machine chaotically learning from friends, school, TV, us, and mostly my job is to smash the flipper at the right time so the ball doesn’t go in the drain. It was enlightening to be in a cabin with 5 other sets of parent and 6 year old. We expect a lot from the kids. We expect them to listen when we tell them to do something, or stop doing something, and we expect them to be respectful of other people. That was not the case for all the other sets of parents and their 6 year old. Particularly the boy who was turning the lights on/off repeatedly, interrupting people, and making fun of the kids using pull-ups. That would not fly in our home, but that kid didn’t get corrected by his mom. He did get corrected by me. I couldn’t take it. 

Seeing other families at camp really helped me appreciate the children I got, the husband who helps raise them with me, and the community of people here and in the ether who support us. Thanks.

New Photos, password mal

New Videos

Moriarty doesn’t like whiskey. This is a throwback to a video he made with Moriarty tasting beer when he was 2 and I was out of town.

Lorelei talking to a beetle she found

Lorelei’s dance recital (from a class that’s more fun than serious dancing)

Little Lafleurs vs Blue Tape

Kiddos playing together on the couch (they timed their jumps so neither kid got hurt!)

Double Digits

It’s March. The snow seems gone for good. The crocuses have bloomed, the daffodils are on their way, and the kids are playing in the yard again! It doesn’t get that cold in Seattle, but trampolines, swings, and climbing domes are less fun when they make your butt wet. The rain hasn’t stopped the kids from going through the forest path to visit their friends. Last summer the kids would ask us to text other parents and see if their friends were available, and I find that tedious and irritating. Now I just tell them to go knock on their door and ask, and they do!

The last months have involved a lot of making things (edible and tactile). We baked cookies for the teachers at their old school and walked around handing them out. This was important to me because the kids didn’t have time to say goodbye when they switched at winter break. It felt like closure, and there were cookies. Lorelei and I also made chocolate covered cake donuts, and of course I made Moriarty’s Minecraft birthday cake for his laser tag party. Oh yeah. He’s 10. TEN. That really moves us into a new parenting class. Like wrestling weight classes. We were in the Squishy age class, and now we’ve moved into the Sassy class. We’re not all the way to Snarky yet. No eye rolling, but he has started doing things like saying “yes ma’am” ironically or saluting the au pair. Not sure where that one came from. But he’s still an incredibly sweet and sensitive boy. He still wants mommy snuggles every morning and smiles at me with this sincerity that melts my heart.

At school, Moriarty learned some hand sewing techniques and inspired us to make mini stuffies. The whole family went to the fabric store and picked out some lovely fleece and batting filling. Pip did a project I had shelved for a long time. When I was in high school, my mom bought a microwaveable neck heater (full of chia seeds). I used it until the fabric ripped apart a couple years ago, but I saved the chia. While the kids and I were making stuffies, Pip remade the neck heater. Moriarty wanted to do many projects, but he started with a red heart. Lorelei asked for a dolphin. You can see pics of them in the recent photos. It was very fun and we’ll be doing more of this.

Moriarty has been using his Army surplus gear to cart his Nerf weapons around and to play with his friends. This is adorable, but he’s leveling up. Rebecca bought him a functional bow-and-arrow a couple years ago and he loves it but has terrible aim (so do I, for the record). So I signed him up for archery lessons. Now he’s going once a week and learning proper form and improving rapidly. I’d love to take classes too, in the future when I have more time. He doesn’t know the rules to baseball, soccer, football, or polo, but he can break boards with his feet and shoot a milk jug at 10 yards. I think he’ll be more prepared in the zombie apocalypse.

Other Media:

Latest photos, password “mal”

Videos:

dancing to weird cat music they like

Pip and Moriarty playing ping pong

Lorelei sharpening a pencil

The Days are Long, but the Years are ... also Kinda Long

2024 is over. 2025 is here. OMG. The kids are too young to do big NYE stuff, and I’m too much of a morning person to even try. During school vacation Moriarty has been up until midnight a few times. Some nights he gets this wave of energy around 9:30 at night and basically runs around the kitchen talking a mile a minute.

The last 2 months have had some very large changes in Lafleurland. Firstly, we changed au pairs. We had loved hosting Paula but her term ended and the State Dept rules forced her to go home. She and Lorelei were bonded very tightly and it’s been really hard. They’ve done several Zoom calls since Paula left and that’s helping. We also have an incredible new au pair, Sanda, from South Africa. The cultural differences are more extreme than our South American au pairs so it’s been a really fun time of showing off American staples like a classic diner, tons of ethnic food, Costco, and mail boxes. She and Lorelei are getting along great and I’m sure we’ll have a wonderful year. 

Huge change #2 is school. We are lucky enough to live in a wealthy area with very nice public schools. We’ve had a great experience at our local elementary school but I found out about another option that sounded more interesting. There’s a “community school” that’s part of our district, but requires applications and lottery/wait list. It’s a tiny K-8 school with 200 kids and ~130 families. The classes are mixed age (K/1, 2/3, 4/5,6/7/8). There are two classes of each age group. They do some mixed class work and some single grade work. The school is STEAM focused so everyone studies robotics and art. They have a machine shop full of toys I want to play with! They take the kids for outdoor, overnight, trips at all grade levels. And families are required to participate in some aspect of the school. This is really good for me. I love volunteering with the kids’ classes but struggle to “justify” taking the time off. Which is stupid. Being forced to take more time off to create these memories is good for the over achiever set. This school sounds incredible to us so we applied in mid Nov thinking we’d be lucky to get a spot next year for one kid even. Then the day before the end of 1st semester I got a call that they can take both kids, immediately. They had 1 day to say goodbye to their teachers and friends then left for break. They’ll go to the new school after break. I’m not worried about either kid making friends. They both extremely social. Last year Moriarty was selected for the award of Life Skill of Responsibility. This semester Lorelei was selected for Life Skill of Friendship. No surprises. We will still see their friends from the old school too because they live nearby and we’ve developed relationships with the parents.

I do want to focus on academics for one minute. Lorelei’s class has been using a curriculum where they focus on just one letter at a time, and build up a set of letters to start making words from. It felt like Lorelei struggled to remember the names or shapes of letters, got a little better, then started blending words and reading. It just happened SO fast. There’s a long way to go, but soon that kid will be reading books by herself. I have a sight words game I got for Moriarty during Covid lockdown. I wanted to pull out all the words that use the letters she’s confident with so we could play word search with a much smaller set. So I took out words, one-by-one, facing them toward me while Lorelei was sitting across from me. I intended her to move and look at the words right side up, but she said she preferred upside down and went on decoding word after word upside down. There’s a family story about me reading a book to my Kindergarten class, upside down the way the teacher did. Maybe it’s genetic.

Huge change #3 is pets. Between Pip, myself, and the kids we have good allergy coverage preventing dogs and cats from being a good fit. Dogs and cats can also put their agenda and expectations on people. I don’t want that. I have 2 small humans who put their agenda and expectations on me all the time! Instead, we decided to adopt bunnies. We did some research then picked a group of 3 girls, a mom and her 2 daughters. They’re black with some Lionsmane genes, but not a ton. They’re big. Very big. And they look almost identical. The shelter said they’d lived there most of their lives. People don’t tend to adopt black bunnies and rarely want 3. We’re really happy with our new fat pets, but it takes bunnies months (6+) to get comfortable in a new living situation. They’re prey animals. They constantly think everything is going to eat them. But we will win them over. After 6 weeks they’re already much more comfortable. Last night 2 of them hopped onto a cardboard box which was acting like a house/shelter. But they are so heavy the box buckled and they fell inside then hopped around and played with it. At night the three of them lay around with their heads together and hold the Bunny Council. They groom each other and snuggle. Lorelei and I already do nose snuggies, butterfly kisses (eyelashes), and now just rub our faces on each other for bunny snuggles. The kids don’t have much responsibility for the bunnies yet, but it will come with time. They helped paint the multi-story Bunny Labyrinth I built.

This post is already really long so I’ll be brief about holiday celebrations. We went to the Christmas Market for the first time and had a short meet-up with chosen cousin Cedar (my close friend’s 1.5 year old). The market is a Bavarian themed holiday venue with food, artisans, and a carousel. Pam and the Roberts came for Thanksgiving. Pip made Swedish meatballs and lefsa. Moriarty had an assignment to give a presentation on a family tradition and he picked meatballs and lefsa. So I helped him print out some pictures of Kent, Pip, and him making these. He brought a tupperware full of meatballs to school, microwaved them, and let his classmates try them. Christmas was low key with just the family and Sanda. Moriarty came away with a Leatherman Skeletool, some books, and of course, nerf guns. We gave him a gift certificate to the Army Navy surplus store and he found a vest and belt to hold all the bullets and snacks every Nerf warrior needs. Lorelei’s presents were full of unicorns and sequins. She’s pretty easy to please. We celebrated solstice with a dance party on the bridge. The end of the year was pretty great.

Other Media

Loli doing karaoke, more karaoke. She doesn’t know many of the words and none of the right pitches!

Lorelei at her hip hop dance recital. She is very serious and focused when she dances.

Moriarty battling with his friends in the driveway

Lorelei basting the cheddar biscuits

Moriarty trying Thai iced tea. He’s an adventurous eater!

New Photos password “mal”

The Cucumbers Have Overgrown the Garden Bed

Before having kids I had heard the wisdom that to create teenagers who clean and are helpful you have to start when they’re toddlers. This made sense to me and I went all in. If you’ve ever tried to do a basic task like sweep a floor or fold laundry with a small child you know it takes 3x as long and 5x the effort. It takes an inordinate amount of energy to both teach the skills themselves, as well as creating the attitude that chores/tasks are just things that have to be done with a good attitude. I remember times when they were young enough to take naps and I’d “secretly” do chores while they were asleep so I could avoid having/letting them help. Well, I’m reaping a whole garden of vegetables of my labor. The kid’s school gives out “promise awards” when any adult other than their teacher sees them behaving especially responsibly or kind. They are part of a raffle for toys but the act of receiving an award is a big compliment. Lorelei got one this week for picking up the coats of other children left on the playground and putting them in lost-and-found. Moriarty has been doing his own laundry for about 6 months and, like me, often forgets to move it from the washer to the dryer. Well Pip heard him up at 11 pm the other night and went to check on him. Moriarty had woken up, realized he’d forgotten about the laundry, went downstairs to move it, then went back to bed. OMG OMG OMG. I wouldn’t even do that. That’s not to say they don’t still have challenges. Moriarty spent 30 min this morning being overwhelmed by 5 min of cleaning he had to do. It’s a process.

Moriarty is still way into Minecraft. It’s one of the best videogames for his age IMO since it mostly focuses on design and building instead of murdering people. So we encourage him playing and Pip has spent a lot of work to set up a server his friends can join. He’s working with their parents, doing network troubleshooting, etc. He also just set up a discord server so they can talk over mics while they play. I prefer it to him playing with strangers and he’s still getting a big social boost. Moriarty gets so excited showing me what he’s built.

The last big first this month was going to see a movie in a theater. There’s a very famous anime production house called Studio Ghibli that is working with Regal to show one movie every month all year. We met up with Moriarty’s friend Miranda and all went to see Kiki’s Delivery Service. It’s about a 13 year old which who has to leave home to finish her “witch in training” service in another city. It’s adorable and we had a lot of fun. I was shocked Lorelei made it with minimal questions and rounds on my lap. Because of Covid we just didn’t consider things like a movie for a long time, but this was a great first experience.

Our other huge first was Lorelei losing her first tooth. Not much more to say but boy was everyone excited.

Quotes and Videos

“What’s that stick in his mouth? What is he doing with it? It’s smells so bad” - Lorelei upon seeing someone smoke a cigarette for the first time

Racing mamma across stones

Wiggles and giggles 

Latest Images (password “mal”)

Senior Moment

Now that I’m almost 44 (T-3 days) I’m officially entering middle age so I get to use senior moments as an excuse! I left out a couple things in the post over the weekend and I am going to catch up now.

We flew 2750 miles to Baltimore to hang out with the East Coast Lafleurs. We did a pro photoshoot, went to the aquarium, watched jousting at Medieval Times, and did a lot of talking. It was wonderful to spend so much time with Grandpa Phil who is doing much better after his heart attack. We also stayed at Jonathon’s house (foster brother) and had some great late night chats about self awareness and existential stuff. It’s a lot to get the kids out there, but it’s worth it to spend time with family.

Today is Lorelei’s first full day of elementary school. The kindergartners start a week after the older kids so it’s Moriarty’s second week. He was so excited telling me about what days he’ll have library, PE, and music. He loves recess the most, but is pretty enthusiastic about learning in general. He’s still reading like crazy. Tonight I’m excited to hear all about Lorelei’s first day. When we had our teacher conference she told the teacher she was “excited!!! and a little nervous”. The teacher seemed enchanted and said she wasn’t worried at all that Lorelei would do well.

Lorelei chose the lower level ballet class (ages 3-5) but after 2 classes the teacher encouraged us to graduate her to the next class. Turns out she’s already pretty good at basics like plies and arabesques. She’s so proud of herself. I’m always proud, even if she couldn’t do arabesques. We start the new class this weekend.

Updated Photos: password “mal”

Into the Woods

No, I’m not going to start singing Broadway show tunes, I’m going to describe how my magical fairyland property has gotten even better this summer. When we moved in we didn’t find any other kids in the neighborhood. We knew the kids would meet friends at school, and they did, but I am very lazy, or more accurately, I always hope the kids can utilize their independence so I don’t have to do things for them. Like drive. Well the parenting gods have smiled upon us. A family moved in next door with a 12ish year old girl, 10 year old boy, and 3 year old girl. Their youngest is too immature to play with Lorelei in the ways she wants, but the boys formed a fast friendship. Yay! They can just go to each other’s houses without me doing anything other than send a text to their parents. But then it got even better. Our property is very rectangular with our house on ⅓ and the other ⅔ forest. If you hike through the forest and across a publicly owned plot you’ll come to the house of Moriarty’s good friend from school. And there are a few other kids on that block that are friends. Now we live in Grand Central Kid Station. Children just show up and introduce themselves and ask if Moriarty can come and play. They often include Lorelei too. Pure magic. After informing Lorelei she wasn’t allowed to marry her brother she formed a crush on the neighbor kid. He has shoulder-length blond hair. Her crush is very cute but requires open reminders about consent (for hugging others) and giving people (him) space when they ask for it. 

Some parents are anti TV and while we are modest-to-moderate users, without Netflix cartoons I wouldn’t have had this incredible exchange with my daughter. At dinner recently Lorelei was telling us about her day and said “I’m learning about non-Newtonian fluids! It's called oobleck.” As most of you know I have a PhD in bioengineering which focused on diagnosing infectious diseases with microfluidics. So, I’ve studied fluid movement, a lot, for a long time. To say I was shocked is an understatement. I was bursting with pride at my precocious baby. 

Lorelei has been doing hip-hop dance classes for the last 9 months and did a Frozen-themed ballet camp over the summer. She’s had a few recitals now and It’s hard for her to keep up with all the moves but when she’s in the zone she looks really focused. It’s so cute. She’s made a good friend there who is almost 9. They have so much fun together and we’ve been invited to her birthday. Another time she helped an older girl who was shy about joining in with the dancing. She took her hand and said she’d go with her and it will be fun. She’s just so sweet. She just started a weekly ballet.

Moriarty is starting to take more initiative to keep things clean (OMG OMG OMG YAY), but on his terms. This is pretty new and amazing. He’ll spontaneously clean their room and gets exasperated when Lorelei destroys it. His technical cleaning skills are great like cleaning floors and bathrooms, but the innate urge to make a space clean is new. I’m looking for ways to create his own space separate from Lorelei so he has more control over how it’s organized. As long as we have an au pair they’ll share a room, but I want to foster his interest so it doesn’t get extinguished through frustrating experiences. He’s really showing maturity but is exasperated that Lorelei doesn’t clean as much or as effectively as him…I mean, she’s 5. What does he expect? Turns out he expects her to be as effective and capable as him. shrug

To keep this from being crazy long, here’s a brief summary of spring/summer activities:

• The Kramers came for a visit and we all went for sushi. M tried sashimi for the first time

• We planted a garden and Lorelei often helps me water it in the morning

• We got 4 new baby chicks and built the birds a new big coop. One of the babies just started laying eggs (they’re green and tiny for now)

• Lorelei and Pip went to Disneyland to meet the princesses

• Lorelei turned 5. There were unicorn horns, lots of cake, and dancing at the park with streamers

• Moriarty did a parkour camp and practices at home

Pip keeps a slack channel of all the amazing and ridiculous things the kids say. Lorelei has had a busy few months but here are a few highlights. 

• Lorelei: To me beans (snap peas) are like chocolate. I love them as much as I love chocolate….But to me the skins are like blood in my mouth.

• Lorelei: Come to papa, Mr. Lightening

• Lorelei: I never knew my arms and legs were so yummy

Lisa: I always knew

Lorelei: No, for real. I never knew my arms and legs were so yummy to mosquitos.

I  started this post in June and am finally publishing it in September. I need to lower my quality bar for blog posts and get them out faster. Thanks for being my audience in the void.

Well, Actually...

I’m living in the convergence zone of a high pressure and low pressure weather system. I have a husband who seeks edge cases and smiles while playfully arguing the most inane technical distinctions on things I didn’t want to talk about in the first place. Like father, like son, Moriarty is doing this more and more. But he’s also in the 9-year old phase of hyper logic and lawyering excuses to get out of trouble. So a low pressure system here, a high pressure system there, and suddenly Logical Hurricane Moriarty has entered the building. I can’t even give an example because my brain just shuts down the minute it starts and I drift off to my happy place. My happy place includes dreams of pancakes, folk music, and no discussion topics beyond which dessert I should bake next.

Moriarty has turned 9. This came with a small increase in allowance, some increase in chores, and about 10,000 Pokemon cards. Last year we paid for a party at a big trampoline place. This year I had the idea that we could go to Legoland with my dad as his big present, instead of paying for 10+ kids at a party center. During Covid lockdown, Moriarty and Phil used to have hours long zoom calls while they built Lego. Dad sent him tons of sets and it was a real bonding point for them. Since my dad is having more health problems it felt urgent to get them together and let Moriarty experience the magic of Legoland. However, Lorelei has no interest in Lego. She wants to meet Elsa and Minnie Mouse. So I had the somewhat hairbrained and somewhat brilliant idea of doing separate kid vacations for their birthdays. I took Moriarty to Legoland, and Pip is taking Lorelei to Disneyland, but just for one day to meet the princesses. That trip will be in April. Legoland was a blast. There are tons of pictures to look at from our adventure. He had a great attitude and came home with several swords and shields (and the myriad of Lego-branded stuff my dad bought him). Aside from the trip, we held a big party at our house. It was loud, but very fun.

Every blog post I write about how much Lorelei has changed, but OMG she just keeps getting cooler. Lately there’s been more creative play where we make up rules as we go. Games like Sleepover where we have a sleepover where we make play food then lay down telling spooky stories, or Family Dance Party Ballerina where we dance throwing scarves in the air and sometimes it involves cars driving around, or the Barbie weddings where the Barbie’s always marry each other. She’s also developed a more complicated understanding of logic and sequencing. Pip has been using the power washer to get the moss off our roof. Last Saturday he planned to make a fire in the small fireplace in the back yard, near the house, and then power wash. Lorelei suggested he power wash the area near the fireplace first, then make the fire so the water won’t put it out. Pip and I were quite impressed at her new higher level understanding. I’m getting the sense that I will be amazed by the new skills the kids develop forever, until I just stand awestruck at the people I helped create.

Updated Pictures, password mal

Lorelei video: That is my Soup

This is Your Child on Drugs

Do you remember those commercials with the egg sizzlings in a frying pan with the tagline, “this is your brain on drugs”. Well, the world may think I’m a great parent but the truth is I addicted my child to the drug called electronic stimulation. The main school-of-thought for regulating children’s screen usage is based on time. That’s how we’ve kept (a semblance of) balance. But over time Moriarty has found more useful things to do with his phone, it’s harder to monitor, and it’s become an issue. It used to just be a conduit for audiobooks and timers. Then I let him put some word and puzzle games on it. Over time it’s gotten to be a big point of contention. Last night things came to a head. After we put Lorelei to bed Pip and I were going to watch a grown-up TV show. Moriarty was bored and didn’t have access to his phone like most evenings. And he melted down. He cried for hours. It felt like when we were helping them learn the very challenging skill of falling asleep by themselves. The crying was always heartbreaking, but learning new skills is hard. I was very clear with Moriarty that I wasn’t ignoring or punishing him, but I was setting the boundary that he needs to learn the skill of entertaining himself without any electronics. He sobbed for hours until I finally helped him find a book to read in bed to help his brain calm down so he could sleep. Withdrawal from the drug of electronic stimulation. There’s another school-of-thought around screen time that gives the child more autonomy. They have the expectation to do X activities before they can have screens, but there’s no limit after that. The list includes things like homework, chores, read something for X min, go outside for Y min, do something creative, etc. It should take a lot of time, but it should also be things that align with our values and help teach him more management and self-regulation skills. Pip and I are talking about how to implement this with him soon. This whole conscientious parenting thing is a giant pain in the butt! Can’t I just scroll Reddit while the kids raise themselves? :-) He is showing new signs of maturity. We were playing Mastermind the other night and out of the blue he said, “I cheated once”. I was really impressed. All kids lie; it’s normal development, but he used to just deny even obvious lying. The fact that he had no external pressure, and just admitted to me, was new. 

I’ve been working longer hours than usual in preparation for an upcoming FDA submission so I’ve seen little of the kids in the evenings. To help make up for that Pip and I have been doing some 1:1 activities w/ the kids. I took Lorelei out for pancakes one day and Pip took out Moriarty for the best chicken in Seattle (shoutout Ezell’s). Then the next weekend we switched. It’s nice to get to talk to just one kid at a time. That quality time goes a long way toward their overall behavior and my degree of enjoyment of them.

Lorelei’s update this month is just funny stuff she’s said. She hasn’t hit anything noticeably new, she’s just this tornado of swirling blond giggles wearing one or more princess crowns at a time.

L: Is there a number bigger than 100?

Pip: Yep! Lots

L: two hundreds together makes one really big hundred.

I was explaining to Lorelei (and Lisandro really) about seeing a tornado with my own eyes when I lived in TN. Lorelei asked to see the video and I said, we didn't have phones back then. There is no video. She asked to see the pics and I reiterated. Then she exclaimed, "there were grown-ups with no phones??" 

L to Pip: Your eyebrows are very long.

They're, like, longer than pickles!

(Contemplating)

Actually, pickles are longer.

New photos, password “mal”

Life Skill of Responsibility

I like to do research. That shouldn’t be surprising given my educational and professional choices. As I was becoming a mother I did a LOT of research so I could feel more informed. One thing I remember learning is that teaching young kids academic topics like letters and counting isn’t nearly as valuable as teaching them social skills, naming emotions, following directions, etc. A kindergarten teacher can easily teach kids letters, but teaching them to stay in their seat to LEARN about those letters is really a core skill they need to actually get to the letter learning part. I’ve really taken this to heart. We work a lot on these social-emotional skills. And, well, it seems to be paying off. Every quarter Moriarty’s school has an award ceremony where the teachers nominate their students for awards like the Life Skills of Leadership or Flexibility, etc. Moriarty has won a few awards before, but this was the first time Pip and I knew in advance. Of the 5 kids in my son’s class that won awards, Moriarty won the Life Skill of Responsibility. He really demonstrates this at home too. A couple nights ago Lorelei woke up vomiting and Moriarty jumped up, without being asked got her water and woke me up to help. Part of me wants to be falsely modest but no, I paved the way for him to excel at this. I read the damn books. I taught Pip what I’d learned. We parented as a team and focused on these core skills. We expect them to do chores and clean as part of the family, not for money. I did this. And while we’re bragging about these skills, Lorelei knocked one out of the park too. Moriarty was upset that I was unavailable and he wanted me, M: “I want mama!!!”. L: “I want mama too, but I can wait”. Yep. She’s 4.5. I will accept my Fruits of my Labor award now. :-)

This is the holiday season and we have holidayed. We typically do halloween with Pip’s sister’s family, but they had Covid in the house so we went with one of Moriarty’s school friends instead. Moriarty is currently obsessed with Zelda so he went as Link (the main character, Zelda is the princess). Lorelei was a rainbow butterfly, which was honestly not that different from her regular clothes. They got absurd amounts of candy and got bored with it quickly. I have helped them eat their candy. Lisandro helped the kids carve pumpkins and do decorations all over the house.

Then we had Thanksgiving! Lorelei and Sofia put on a dress-up fashion show using materials from my mother’s old performance trunk. She used those props when singing storybook songs with kids at concerts. I lugged a trunk of those props all over Paris. We have quite a connection so watching my baby and her cousin giggle as pirates or a princess with her royal guard. But since we all know Thanksgiving is really about food, Lorelei helped me make pie, mostly by watching for when the whipped cream formed stiff peaks, and licking all the bowls/spatulas. It was very fun. Not too overwhelming. We played a lot of cards with Pam, a staple of a Johnson visit. We hoped Lisandro would join for his first Thanksgiving but he slept all day. Oh well. Cultural exchange fail. He is now seeing his first live Christmas tree, currently wrapped in the living room but we’ll decorate it tonight. In Argentina they all use plastic trees.

Another big theme right now is art, primarily for Moriarty. I often walk in to find cut up cardboard, or paper, or wads of tape, and he happily making a sword, or fake rupees, or drawing a Pikachu. If he finds something rigid, with the help of blue tape he will make it into a weapon. And if he finds something flat, it becomes a shield. We are 100% ready for the blue tape zombie apocalypse. (him repurposing an anti-fatigue mat as a truck ramp)

Quick updates. We lost 2 more chickens to a bobcat attack. It ripped open the metal chicken wire. We have 2 left and will get some babies in the spring. It was sad, but we’re getting used to this circle of life stuff. And Lorelei went to her first birthday party that she was directly invited to. Until now it’s been family or Moriarty’s friends’ parties. But now, she is in school and her friends are inviting her personally.

Recent pictures are here, pass mal

Note: I finished writing this post about 1.5 weeks ago so it’s missing the recent Xmas stuff. That’ll come soon.

Quotes:

Lorelei to Lisa: "Doctor Mommy. You're a doctor, but not a proper doctor"

Lorelei was admiring my dangly pink sparkly earrings and asked if she can have them when I'm dead. Now, for context, we had been talking about Papa Kent’s possessions and who inherited what.

L: [Scratching scab on her face] "It's like it's been here forever."

Pip: "It hasn't been that long only about 3 days."

L: "Three days is a really long time."

– This one really gets me because Pip and I often talk about how a month or year to a young kid is an enormous fraction of their lives. It seemed here that Lorelei gets that.

Videos:

Lorelei playing in a giant pile of scarves

Moriarty doing a taekwondo routine (poomse) - he’s center in the mask

Lorelei chose granulated white sugar as her treat

I Did Not Like That Wet Kersplat!

I often call the kids my greatest DIY project. They’re little non-deterministic balls of noise and cuteness. I love hearing things Pip or I say come out of their mouths. Phrases with our intonation, vocab, etc. But then there are days it’s on a whole new level. There are children’s books Pip and I quote often, and now the kids do too. Like “Do you like my hat?” from Go Dog Go (typically while putting a random object on our head) or “Who needs 16?” from Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, Day (typically when Lorelei is counting and skips one or more numbers).  At one point we all memorized Chicken Soup with Rice (a rhyming book of months by Maurice Sendak).  But we have easily 100 children’s books and only quote from our favorites. So, back to my point. This morning I was getting a dish from the clean dishwasher when a lunch box shifted and lots of water spilled/splashed out, on Lorelei and the floor. She went and got a rag to clean it up and said, “I did not like that wet kersplat”, which is a direct quote from one of our books. I laughed, a lot, and was blown away. She also told her first joke: “I don't know how monkeys kick because they don't go to taekwondo”. Not quite a knee slapper, but word play and humor make the world fun. Both kids are turning into little people I really like and enjoy hanging out with.

We have a new au pair. His name is Lisandro and he’s from Argentina. We are the first family he’s lived with in the US so his English is less advanced, but he’s very nice and good at art and reading to the kids. He doesn’t like being in the rain. I questioned why he came here, because I was very clear it rains most of the year. Well, he “likes” rain, but through a window? We’re working on getting him into the yard more with the kids when it’s wet. We chose a male au pair this time to give Moriarty a big brother type figure. One evening I heard Moriarty cackling from the other room and peeked in to see Moriarty crouched, holding a cardboard shield over his head, and Lisandro was throwing paper airplanes at him. We brought Lisandro to the WA State Fair and met up with Pip’s sister and her family. The Lafleur kids had never been to a fair either. Moriarty rode tons of rollercoasters, and Lorelei and I rode the sky tram (her top choice) and played some games. We played a dart-the-balloon game and both kids got every shot. Not so much on other games, but they’re dart-throwing prodigies.

The kids are back in school. Lorelei is in a preschool class at the Montessori school Moriarty used to attend. She LOVES school. She made friends the first day and is always happy to go and to tell us about it at night. Moriarty is in 3rd grade now. His teacher is Ms. Collins and she’s very nice. He only has optional homework this year. Optional homework!! Mostly it’s math practice. I asked him one day if he wanted to practice with me and I started quizzing the types of problems and he instantly knew the answers. So, yeah, he doesn’t need to practice. He’s also dropping fun vocab on us, the latest being “neophyte”. Evidently he learned it from a Minecraft novelization, but it still shocks me every time, and he’s not just repeating it in the original context, he’s using it in a new way and can define it if asked. His favorite part of the day is recess where he and his friends have developed an elaborate game with dragons and bases and who knows what else. They get chastised by teachers for playing rough but they wait until the teacher isn’t looking and go back to their game.

They’re growing up. I’ve doing this blog for 8 years. OMG! And I’m so glad because I have this record of their highlights (and some low points). Thanks for reading.

New Photos, password mal

Videos:

Moriarty jumping over a bar at taekwondo

Lorelei doing a firefighter obstacle course

Moriarty drawing power bracelets on Lorelei in marker

Lorelei being lassoed by the rodeo clown at the fair

Moriarty letting Lorelei ride him, and patiently giving her instructions on how to hold on

Lorelei scootering in the driveway

Family Adventure in the Redwood Forest

For years I’ve wanted to go see the Redwood forest in CA. I didn’t have an opportunity in grad school and then I thought, hey, I’ll wait until I have kids and take them. Perfect family vacation. I have now fulfilled my goal of taking my family to the Redwoods, though “perfect vacation” is not a thing when kids are involved. The trip was 12 days. We spent 2-3 days in 5 towns so we had time to enjoy the local attractions but also break up the drive into smaller pieces. We found a fish-n-chips restaurant called Mo’s, and Moriarty bought a tie dye hoodie with the branded name. We visited a mermaid museum and saw the plaque of the siren, Lorelei. We played on many beaches and sand dunes. The Redwoods were amazing. They were everything I hoped they’d be. We did one long hike to the Boyscout Tree. It was 5.3 mi total. Lorelei walked almost the whole time. I think she fared better than Chiara. We drove through a tree! I think the hollowed out tree was created before giant trucks because the driver before us spent ~10 min trying to squeeze through. Our minivan was tight but much smoother. We found a small zoo where goats, sheep, elk, and friends will eat out of your hand while you pet them. We also got to hold some animals and see others up close. Pip’s birthday happened over the trip and we went to an arcade that day to play skee ball. The kids brought along their allowance money and spent it throughout the trip. We bought them some souvenirs, but expected them to make choices about some with their own money. It was another good opportunity to practice with money on a small scale.

A close second for update highlights is that Lorelei is now 4. It feels like she’s been socially 4 for a long time, but now it’s also true chronologically. We had a party at a park/beach she likes. A couple friends from her play dates with Chiara and other au pairs came, as well as her cousins. I made a rainbow cake and the fondant colors faded in the sun! She’s thrilled about starting school in a few weeks though there’s upcoming tumult as Chiara leave and the new au pair, Lisandro, arrives (that change happens this weekend). Lorelei and Chiara are very close so I’m nervous about how she’ll react to the change. But, she’s 4 now and all grown up! Her vocabulary is staggering, but not surprising given she lives with Pip and me. She still can’t say Moriarty’s name, so this is my transliterated recollection. She recently came to me and said, “M'atty [an]tagonized me again”.

Other exciting news was a visit from Lisa Francine. She reads to Lorelei over zoom so they’re quite close, and she talks to me regularly too. It was wonderful to see her. There were many books and trips to the park. It was short and low key, but good for my soul.

Now it’s my moment to stand on the podium and brag about my parenting skills. I’ve been thinking about metaphors for the challenges of parenting. One that seems to fit is committing, with a blood oath, to running a hundred marathons, but making this agreement when you’re planning to start running but have no experience yet. Some parenting marathons are simple but mind-numbingly redundant. Like the “eat over your plate” marathon. And the “can you ask me with a please” (which is actually an ultramarathon). Then as they get older they get more nuanced. Well, I just placed the top time in the race to teach siblings to cooperate in choosing an activity together. This is a skill Moriarty and Lorelei had both been working on in PT/OT, and we’ve been working with them at home. Moriarty has had some issues with this skill with his friends and we tried to give him language to try and encouraged him to practice with Lorelei (that’s grad level parental manipulation there). So there we were, on vacation in a rental, when we overheard the kids talking to each other in calm voices.

Lorelei: "I don't want the game to be like this anymore

Moriarty: "ok, what do you want the game to be like?

I about doubled over in joy. I’ve honestly never felt prouder as a parent. They’re really good kids.

Funny things the kids said:

Lorelei after a dinner where she refused all food: Why can Moriarty have a treat

Lisa: because Moriarty ate his dinner at the restaurant and didn't yell about how he hated cheese.

Pip: What are you eating

Moriarty and Lisa together: a granola bar

Pip: did you get that out of my purse?

M: no...

Pip: Where did you get it from then?

M: you don't know about my backpack stash.

Pip: How many granola bars do you have in your bag

M: An amount (guilty giggles)

The amount was at least 10. I was kinda proud he was making sure his hunger needs were met.

Latest Photos, password mal

Mamma, Can I Snuggle With You?

Lorelei has come in to wake me up in the morning for a long long time. For a few months I tried setting an alarm and getting up early, but lately, not so much. For about a month now when she comes in she asks, “momma, can I come snuggle with you?”. And then my heart explodes, and I pull off the covers to let her come snuggle. It’s 100% the best part of my day. I’m glad she’s growing up, but when this ends I’ll miss it forever.

She is growing up. Last post I talked about this huge brain leap she had. She started asking questions about why things were happening, not just if they were. This week she said a couple other things that really highlight the newer, more mature, Lorelei. I take a few medicines and fill up a week holder at once. Lorelei LOVES to help with this process. Because reasons I had Pip do it one time. When she noticed she collapsed crying, because it’s devastating. Once she composed herself she told Pip in a calm voice, “I got upset when you helped mamma fill her pills”. She was articulate, expressed her feelings but wasn’t whiney or manipulative. OMG. Yesterday I was helping her get ready and doing other things at the same time. She told me, “Mommy, you distracted me from putting on my pants”. She also encourages me sometimes in my daily life and tells me, “you’re doing a good job”. It’s just fun!

My last Lorelei anecdotes are tales of curiosity, independence, and linguistic confusion. She saw a bumblebee on the grass and decided to poke it with her finger. Not surprisingly, it stung her. She cried but she’s very hardy and rallied quickly. Later she told Pip, "I tried to make it dead". She failed. The kids are taking swimming lessons right now. During a recent class the teacher passed out life preservers and said they could put them on or wait for help. Five little preschoolers sat there waiting, and Lorelei stood up to try to do it herself. That’s my daughter! Lastly, she goes to community centers with Chiara, our au pair. They’re like indoor playgrounds. Indoor is good since all our outdoor playgrounds are wet 9 months of the year. There’s one she visits in the town of Ballard, and she can’t pronounce community. So one day she told me, “Today we went to the ballerina commoodidy center! *pause* [disappointed and shaking her head] but there were no ballerinas”. I hugged her while laughing hysterically on the inside. Ballerina was clearly a mondegreen for Ballard. A mondegreen is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning. The most common examples are misheard lyrics. I often mishear the people around me and love the justaposition of what I heard vs what they said. Lorelei now has the vocabulary that this happens in funnier ways now and I delight every time.

Moriarty is also growing up. He spends more time on his own, entertaining himself. He’s also become a kinder big brother. He’s made a new maturity leap! He plays more games with her, usually ones he makes up, but sometimes he lets her win. He’s also become more polite with me. He just started saying thank you for basic stuff I’ve always done for him. He’s focusing better at taekwondo and earned his 2nd level yellow belt and breaking a board. He’s doing better in school. At the beginning of the year he was having a harder time and not meeting grade expectations. Now he’s well into the average range for his class! His reading skills taking off are probably a big part of that. He reads street and business signs when we’re out of the house. He’s reading books at home and just changing. We read to him too. Pip read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to Moriarty and me. I’m going to read Westing Game to him next. My mom loved that book so much. It’s a kid murder mystery!

He has also graduated from Minecraft to Zelda. He’s obsessed. He starts sentences with “To get to the blah blah you have to get the blah and go to blah”. As you can see, I have no idea what he’s talking about, ever. It’s one thing to have a conversation about Zelda, but he just starts, out of the blue, talking about some arcane detail. It’s both amusing and crazy making. We have a No Zelda rule at the table now. I couldn’t handle it. He has other growing interests too. He’s been doing more art, mostly marker drawings. I got him a blank notebook and he’s filling it up with art. Some Zelda-related, of course, some Pokemon, some nature, and some just ideas in his head. He’s in a very literal phase and asks edge-case seeking questions until I crack. He’s Pip, but shorter. Luckily I like Pip! Watching Moriarty grow up is incredible and it highlights that these preschool years are nearly over and we’re entering a new phase of parent life.

New photos are here, password mal

Vid of the kids playing

Moriarty laughing so hard he couldn’t walk

Lorelei doing a gunny sack race, of sorts

P&B a current favorite food combo

Charming, with a side salad

Out of the blue one day Moriarty announced he likes salad. He gave me a recipe for his salad (in pics). I make epic salads every day, usually 2 for myself, and he asked me to make him one for his lunch and one for dinner. It’s wild. He’s always liked solo veg but hated lettuce. But, he has officially grown up culinarily. Lorelei has found a taste for snap peas and English shelling peas. I’m  thrilled that they love vegetables so much. I really want to instill a love of fresh whole foods.

The kiddos are finally taking swimming lessons. I had wanted to start Moriarty years ago but Covid just screwed everything up. But they’re learning now. Moriarty is having a hard time practicing where he can’t put his feet down, but we’ve found a way for his teacher to put him on  the far side and accommodate his fears. It’s slow progress, but they’re both starting to learn. 

Moriarty turned 8. I guess that’s exciting. :-) We had a party at a trampoline park. Every kid he invited came, which suggests he’s very popular. He’s very creative and quite a leader among his friends. I took him out for pancakes for a special mom/son breakfast and Pip and I took him to teppanyaki for an exciting dinner. He was struggling academically at the start of the year. He was performing right at the cusp of expectations for his grade. We know he struggles with focus and didn’t have much interest in reading paper books (he listens to audiobooks all the time). We didn’t want to push, assuming it would click at some point. And it has. He’s started reading paper books, especially graphic novels. We’re reading with him most nights and are currently moving through Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He had another assessment in January and has made substantial progress in all aspects of his reading. I’m so proud. He’s taking action that’s improving his academic performance. He’s also writing more signs (some in pics) and practicing drawing. 

Lorelei’s brain is also changing. Babies often go through really fussy periods then come back to normal with some new skill. Turns out 3 year olds still do that. Lorelei went through a few weeks where she fought us on everything. Night time was awful every night. Tantrums. Drama. And we were keeping our fingers crossed she’d come out with a new change. And she did. She just asks questions that show she’s much more insightful and curious. She started asking me why things happen, and the relationships between things happening. She just surprises us daily with the things she says and questions she asks. A few Lorelei highlights:

I was making up a rhyming song in the car and when I hit my final rhyme she said “that was a good one, Mom”.

The towel bar fell down in the bathroom and Lorelei saw it and said, “Woah, what have you done with this place?”

Lorelei confidently reciting the nursery rhyme, despite repeated correction. “Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. The king and the horses and all the kinds men. Put Humpty together again.”

Eating Cool Ranch Doritos, “those ones taste like carpet with sparkles on it.”

All in all, we’re having a great spring and loving watching the yard come to life.

Photos: http://www.forloveandscience.com/2023-adventures pass: mal

Videos, Lorelei heavy this time

L reading Go Dog Go

L  showing Pip how she runs

L lapping up milk bubbles

L splashing in the creek

No Idea. We Weren't Here

Blog update…no idea. We weren’t here.

That’s not entirely true, but we have been gone for nearly 3 weeks. While we were gone the kiddos spent time with Andrea, Debbie, and Grammy Pammy. There was a huge snowstorm the night after we left. The power went out and the kids ended up spitting up and going to other houses that still had power. Lorelei went off with Debbie and got to meet her dog Delilah. Lorelei is allergic to Delilah, but didn’t want to accept that reality. The rest of the time we were gone was more uneventful, but we were able to send short videos to each other while Pip and I were on the boat. Oh, BTWs, Pip and I went to Antarctica. I guess we buried the lede. There was very little internet access so we couldn’t zoom or anything. The kids were troopers and we got tons of hugs when we got home. Sadly, we were recovering from Covid so the hugs were through masks and face shields, but we’re healthy now and the snuggles come with kisses. Kissing my daughter is one of the greatest feelings in the world.

Late October was harvest season. We went to a pumpkin patch and corn maze. Andrea came and we wandered, happily, in the corn for quite a while. They also had an apple launcher that was really REALLY loud, but we tried to hit targets, and mostly missed. We also harvested our first watermelon from our garden. It did have some red fruit, but it was quite small. We’ve tried to grow watermelon for years and this was our best result yet. Progress not perfection.

The kids got to go trick-or-treating again. Covid kept us home for 2 years so this was Lorelei’s first time out. She was a skeleton that glowed in the dark. Andrea, a talented artist, did her face like Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas. She looked incredible. Moriarty chose to be a pirate and looked very swashbuckly. We went out with the Roberts cousins and had a blast. We also got to have the cousins, and Grammy Pammy, over for Thanksgiving. It’s been great to get to spend so much time with them.

When we got back from Antarctica Lorelei had gotten more mature in her speech patterns. Her answers were longer and more complex. It blows my mind that she can change so much in just a few weeks. As she progresses she plays more with herself, and the kids are able to play more complicated games together. A current favorite is Lorelei being Moriarty’s pet dog.

Photos from this month

Photos from the professional shoot before Lorelei’s haircut are a new gallery, same password “mal”

Extra Video

Lorelei does taekwondo

Lorelei slow-mo fairy jump

Short Like Mommy

For about a  month Lorelei has been asking to get her hair cut. It’s annoying at this length because she always needs clips or the hair is in her eyes or her mouth. She repeatedly said she wants it ‘short like mommy’. Her hair was SO beautiful I got really emotional about cutting it all off. But she was insistent. Pip suggested we do a professional photo shoot to commemorate the before hair. We did that last weekend and this weekend we got her hair cut. She still looks beautiful, but this is far more practical. 

The other big highlight since my last post was a visit from Uncle Becca. When Moriarty was 3ish he got aunts and uncles mixed up and called her Uncle Becca. She LOVED it so that’s her name permanently. She and I spent a few days away from the kids so I could recharge, but we also spent lots of time with the kids. We went up the Space Needle, which none of us had ever done. A trip highlight also involved eating many cookies, many biscuits and there were a lot of hugs.

Moriarty has had a big couple months. He started 2nd Grade. His teacher is really great. She uses colored cards for the kids to show their emotional state without words. They just put the card on their desk and if the kid is having a harder time she goes and touches base. They’re allowed to stand or wiggle while they’re doing work. All of this is really helpful for him. He is riding the bus again and insists recess is still his favorite class. But his reading is improving it and he’s sharing it with Lorelei.

We’re trying to tame the chaotic fighter he pretends to be a lot. He started tae kwan do lessons. He’s been interested in ninjas and Minecraft weapons for a long time. We have had at least 20 cardboard and tape swords made and destroyed. So Pip and I thought real martial arts lessons would teach him some self control and respect, in addition to hitting and kicking things. The dojo we picked also has a parent class (at a different time) so Pip already started and I’ll be starting in another couple weeks. 

Pip and I are also sharing more fun things with him. Moriarty and I have done several baking classes but nothing since Covid. He and I did a cake pop making class which was so much fun. We also showed him Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back for the first time. I think the only take-away was light sabers are cool. 

Their brains are changing and they’re trying to integrate more of their world together. Pip and I were watching a comedy Youtube video with Moriarty where a guy opens his coat and is hawking more coats (a la rolex street hawkers). Moriarty made a drawing of a Pokemon, taped it inside his shirt, then offered it to Pip just like in the Youtube video. We DIED laughing. Lorelei often gets snacks to bring to nap/bed because she’s ALWAYS hungry after we put her down. For a while the snacks got scattered around from her being 3 and I chastised her saying we could get mice this way. We need to throw the food away. Well, for weeks after the snacks got scattered and we stayed frustrated. Last night Pip asked her, ‘do you want mice in here?’. And she sheepishly looked back and said ‘yes’. To her the mice are exciting fun friends like in her books. OMG. They fit what they see/hear into their worldview even when it leads to hysterically unexpected results.

Photos are here, password ‘mal’

Extra videos:

Lorelei dancing around the kitchen

Playing together on the trampoline

But I NEED to fly!

We’re having a heat wave, like the rest of the world? Here that means temps in the 80s or rarely 90F. But it’s been a chance for the kids to get all the outdoor water toys out. Sometimes we put the sprinkler under the trampoline and they jump splashily. . Our neighbors also gave us an inflatable waterslide. Their kids had outgrown it and my kids are obsessed with it. I’m thrilled they’re outside getting out energy and wiggles. They’ve spent a lot of time in the creek lately, and of course general backyard silliness.

Moriarty has discovered Choose Your Own Adventure books. He’s been devouring audiobooks for a couple months, but I got him a few CYOA books from the library. They’re about one step beyond his reading level so we read as a team. He reads the first few sentences, then I finish the page. Rinse. Repeat. His favorite is called My Parents are Werewolves. When Lorelei listens in she gets upset that she doesn’t get to pick which path the story takes, but she’s the observer and this is something he and I are doing to practice reading, and have quality time. He’s in that extremely literal phase where everything has to be black-and-white and fit in a bin. One day he asked when some activity was happening, and I replied, “it will happen in a week and a half”. He contemplated for a minute and said in a philosophical voice, “what is half a week? There are seven days in a week, and seven is odd…” and he trailed off and walked away. 

In the ever-extending era of Covid we’re still doing all we can to keep the family safe, within reason. This month Lorelei was FINALLY eligible for the vaccine. She got her first and second shots. The first one she didn’t cry, but did the second time. She thought that meant she wasn’t brave, but I assured her she is very brave for coming to get the shot and being still and calm when the nurse did it. Crying doesn’t mean she isn’t brave, it means she’s human and hurting. She’s got one more in a couple months. 

We are going on adventures out in the world sometimes. One of Moriarty’s friend’s family had tickets to the Frog and Toad musical at a children’s theater and we came along. Lorelei is obsessed with Frog and Toad and picks those stories most nights for months. She thought it was so cool to see them acted out as stories. A little social goes a long way with Moriarty so he’s in good spirits. He is still struggling with explosive outbursts when he gets flooded. The most recent incidents include damaging the hinges on his door and ripping a small hole in the drywall. He was in counseling for a while and that helped (the counselor had to take a leave of absence) and he’s been on the waiting list of physical and occupational therapy since early Covid. He FINALLY got his first appointment. It’s a similar focus on his feelings, self-awareness, and tools for changing behaviors, but it’s in person and very physical. The classroom has hooks all around the ceiling and the counselor connects different climbing/hitting/etc elements into the work. We’ll be included in sessions to help the larger family context. I’m really hopeful this helps him change these patterns. I know he hates getting so overwhelmed. He has consequences, he feels hurt and embarrassed, and he feels bad he’s hurting the rest of us. But he can’t break the pattern despite our substantial efforts. So, we’ll keep helping him with our new support team. Teaching the kids emotional regulation and self-awareness is very high on my list of parenting responsibilities, and sometimes we need external expertise.

On a lighter note, flying has been a big theme for Lorelei lately. She asserted one night, “now that you're a grown up, you can't fly”. I said, “how do you know? Maybe I fly when you're asleep”. She thought then asked, “how do you get into the air?” Another day she asked, “can you buy me wings to fly?”. I said, “I'm sorry baby girl, that doesn't exist”, and she got frustrated and said “but I need to fly!”.

Every night as part of her bedtime routine Lorelei yells to the chickens (who are up in  their run) “Goodnight chickens, we love you”. As part of our morning routine, Lorelei and I usually let out the chickens before breakfast, but that day we were hungry so I said, "we'll let them out after breakfast". Lorelei said, "ok, l tell them (opens back door and shouts) bwaaak bwaaak we'll get you out later bwaaak". Moriarty also emulates the chickens. Now that I think about it, she sees the chickens fly around the yard and that might be why she’s so obsessed with flying. Or, just because it would be AWESOME!

New Pictures are HERE, the password is “mal”, same for all the galleries.

REMINDER: we password protect to keep robots and search engines from putting the kids’ pictures on a public website. We are thrilled if you want to share photos w/ friends/family via email, but please don’t put them up on social media or public websites. We don’t think the kids are old enough to decide they want their pictures public, FOREVER.