Two knights and a queen this Halloween

Introducing Sir Dance-alot and his family!

There was swashbuckling, capture, enslavement, and escape in the Randall clan this Halloween! We took the drama to our downtown parade, and acted out the fight that freed the queen and enslaved the bad Viking-knight. Soren, of course, was the hero!

The sword and helmet were a birthday gift from Grandpa Jim and Grandma Gloria. There was a scabbard on a sash, but it restricted his movement and wasn't worn long. Someone commented that Soren looked like a chess piece -- hee hee!

Soren chose his own costume this year and he wanted to be a knight, but one inspired by his current favorite movie, How to Train Your Dragon. If you've seen it, you'll notice that Jeff resembles Hiccup's dad...which translated to "Viking knight." He took along his boffer sword.

It was an unseasonably warm October 31st, with warm sunshine and no breeze blowing off the bay.

Soren peeks in his friend Tayla-cat's candy bag to see what's inside. He called the few pieces of candy we allowed into his possession "trick-or-treats." He graciously shared what he had with us. Such a chivalrous action!

We wrapped up the evening with a lighted jack-o-lantern walk in a friend's woodlot. Very magical for a boy who is developing his first traditions around this rather bizarre holiday. Well, see ya stormin' the castle!

Announcing Sustainable Together blog

What's new in the world? I'll tell you about what's happening in my corner: I have signed on to the sustainability movement in my hometown and started blogging (publicly) about "ways we share the journey toward a more sustainable life" at SustainableTogether.com.

I launched my new blog in mid-September, and its inspiration is a long story, but you can read the synopsis in this early post -- and follow the link to the newspaper article, too.

http://sustainabletogether.com/2011/09/14/blog-born-of-purpose/

Soren starting preschool in September made me think about re-energizing my communications career track and my professional image in the community. I'm now a member of our local Chamber of Commerce, and I'll be presenting an overview of Jefferson County's sustainability initiatives at the Chamber's lunch meeting on Monday, Nov. 14, noon-1 p.m. Let me know if you can come; the talk is free and open to the public.

I'll continue to update this private family blog ocassionally, but you may wish to subscribe to email updates from Sustainable Together, where I am writing at least once a week. Just enter your email address in the box in the upper right-hand sidebar, click "subscribe," and look for the welcome email -- you have to click on the link to confirm your subscription. Or click here to go to the Subscribe page.

Looking for a quick Soren fix? Click on the words "my son" in the alphabetical tag cloud (also in the right-hand sidebar) and you'll get a list of all the posts about him. Here, I've done it for you:

http://sustainabletogether.com/tag/my-son/

I look forward to sharing this new journey with you!

Happy fall(ing leaves)!

Can you spot our Sir Soren in the leaves? We had a grand time last week frolicking in the courthouse park, and one of his favorite games was to be buried and pop up.

Watch out, he might throw a handful at you. Duck!

So Happy Halloween! It's today, and Soren's costume is a knight. Sir Dance-alot, we call him. Mom will be a queen, Dad will be another knight -- although the helmet he whipped up this morning with tin foil and duct tape has Viking horns on it(??!). I'll post pictures from our downtown costume parade soon.

Thanks to our friend Ron for taking these pictures in the park.

We apologize for not blogging in two months... I (Shelly) launched a professional blog in mid-September called Sustainable Together, and it and my new career focus have been taking up most of my free time.

While this private family blog will continue to be updated ocassionally, all you Randall Roost readers might want to subscribe to Sustainable Together as well. I am trying to post at least once a week, on how my neighbors and I are building community through trying to live more sustainably. Read how to subscribe in this related post.

Then click on the words "my son" in the tag cloud (in the righthand sidebar) and you'll be directed to all the posts about Soren. Yeah, this little cutie. Gotta love him.

Third birthday party at the park

Chetzemoka Park was, for the third year in a row, the setting for Soren's third birthday this past Saturday (Aug. 27). Only this time around, it was not a joint party with two of his best friends and close age-mates -- the scheduling just didn't work out. Instead, we invited the other kids who will be in Soren's two-morning-a-week preschool class (ack, which starts next month!). Five of the seven other families were able to attend and it was a great bonding time.
Here are the six kiddos, sweet as can be. One of the missing students is another girl, but there will be six boys and two girls, due to the odd boy-bump in this town. Hmmm, Soren's prospects for girlfriends at age 16 are looking slim...
We plopped the two younger siblings into this photo.
This little girl LOVES birthdays, and so Soren was her hero for the day. She wanted to sit next to him for the potluck lunch, and they cutely fed each other carrot sticks.
As you may have heard, we've had an unusually cold and cloudy summer, so it was a relief to have typical August weather. The shade felt nice.
Soren's new trick on the park's huge tire swing is standing up, which none of the other kids wanted to try...
Our special birthday treat was hand-cranked vanilla ice cream. Most of the kids took a turn at the crank. Papaw Bill supervised. It was great to have him and Nannie Annie over for the weekend. (A week before, Soren had seen his other grandparents at the Centralia Old-time Music Campout--third year in a row for us to attend, their first. Alas, each of us forgot to bring a camera, so no pix!)
I dished out the finished product to some eager ice-cream eaters.
Soren roars his approval! That's chocolate zucchini cake also in the bowl.
The perfect birthday ended on North Beach at sunset, with two very proud (and tired) parents. Thanks to all who called, sent cards, or judicious presents. Here's to the start of Soren's fourth year on this earth!

Regaling our relations

We have been delighting our relations (as well as the other way 'round) with many visits this summer. Above, that's Soren and Jill in Portland in June. Here are some recent snaps of Soren with other relatives:

Canoeing on Heart Lake with Papaw Bill, in an aluminum Grumman. We've taken the canoe out twice this summer.

Sharing chocolate milkshakes with Daddy, Grandpa Jim & Grandma Gloria in the Steamboat Rock Cafe and chatting with the proprietor, who attended Soren's baby shower (!).

I would've photographed Soren at the Banks Lake beach, where he clamored to spend most of our visit, but I dropped my point-and-shoot camera on a visit to a friend's farm and broke the LCD screen. Jim set me up with a spare camera of his right as we were leaving, after the beach action. (Thanks, Jim -- my documentary work can continue!)

Soren was not the youngest at a Garrison/Rees family reunion at the Vashon beach property. One generation was represented by my mom and her brother, cousin, and cousin-in-law. The cousin-in-law's son (my age) attended with his partner and two-year-old. The elders were Soren's Great-Grandpa Gerry and his first wife's sister.

Here's Soren with the sister, Margie. The closest we'll come to knowing what his late great-grandmother (who died before I was born) would have looked like at 90. (Pretty good, I'd say -- Margie went for a paddle in the sea kayaks after enjoying ice cream!)

And the hand-cranked ice cream master passing on his wisdom of this time-honored family tradition to the youngest generation... A Vashon picnic wouldn't be the same without it.

Soren spent his first night in a tent after this reunion picnic, as he and I camped out on the beach afterward, accompanied by Ann & Bill. He slept like a log in the tent we shared, and was brimming with excitement over the activity every moment he was awake. Will have to do that again!

In two days, we're taking the train to Portland for another visit to Jill. It's a bit of a trek to take public transport, which starts with a bus ride (or in this case, a carpool) from PT to the Bainbridge ferry, a 30-minute ferry ride across Puget Sound, a 20-minute walk thru Seattle's Pioneer Square to the King Street Station, and a 3-1/2-hour Amtrak ride. We're riding south with another family with a 3-year-old, but coming north it will be just the two of us. Wish me luck!

Beach & more: What we've been up to this summer

This summer has felt too busy already! Suffice to say this blog has suffered. Sorry to all our loyal readers, but who wants to sit indoors at a computer during the only two warm-weather months of the year??

That said, it has been unseasonably cold and even rainy. Our June-bearing strawberries didn't merit a first harvest until July, and who knows if our tomatoes will ripen?

But we've gotten to the beach on many, many lovely days. It's such a joy to be past the sand-eating, sand-throwing stage Soren was in last year. He even willingly wears his sunglasses now.


And we occasionally use the rubber raft we acquired at a garage sale. It's just big enough for me and Soren. He's not quite adept enough to row yet, but just wait!

One new commitment I made this summer was to run a toddler story hour at our Maritime Center -- every Thursday in July and August. Well, the first three Thursdays of "Sea Squirts Storytime" were cold and rainy, which no doubt helped boost attendance. We've had a fun time of it, with our first session focused on the cruising pet "Salty Dog" (a book series by Ted & Gloria Rand), the next on lighthouses ("The Lighthouse Cat" and "Comet's Nine Lives"), the next on fishing (Robert McCloskey's "Burt Dow, Deepwater Man"), and the most recent on competitive rowing ("My Mommy Rows"). Here's a photo of Soren and friend from the fishing Thursday, when the kids tried on foul weather gear sized adult XS!

For a silly publicity photo of me, see the poster created to promote "Sea Squirts."

Now kids come up to me saying "Ahoy, Shipshape Shelly!" Volunteering to do this kids' program has awakened the teacher in me. And reminded me to practice my sailor's instruments: the pennywhistle and the bones. Both have made appearances at story hour. I even sang "The Eddystone Light" -- the non-racy version, of course, where the lighthouse keeper marries the mermaid.

Soren and I have been biking all over town with our handy-dandy bike trailer, and trying to attend every Free Friday Concert at Fort Worden associated with Centrum's summer festivals. One time Soren fell asleep on the way home, so I unhitched the trailer, propped it back against our driveway retaining wall, and let him sleep.
I'll close with a pic of Jeff and Soren. They really are two peas in a pod, my goofy boys. Look how long Soren is growing! Jeff estimates he'll match my height by age 9. Probably.

Graduating to the Big-Boy Bed

Drum roll please... Introducing our BIG BOY!

(And doesn't he look it, in his new shades?)

The breaking news is that Soren slept in his big-boy bed last night for the first time -- with no diaper on and the potty chair standing by, but he didn't get up to use it, and the bed was dry in the a.m.!!!

He is really proud of himself. We'll see how Night #2 goes... :-)

Moving the toddler bed up from basement storage was an impromptu decision made late last night when Soren refused to put a diaper on when getting dressed in his jammies. "I'm a big boy; I don't wear diapers anymore," he argued, quite rationally. (He's been fully day-potty-trained since early March.) When I asked (rhetorically) what he intended to do if he had to pee in the middle of the night, he hesitated only a second before replying, "I would call: 'Mo-o-o-ommy, Da-a-a-addy'" (his usual wake-up call from the confines of his crib).

"Um, that doesn't work for me," I told him. "You can't wake us up if you have to pee."

Which logically led to trying out the bed, something Jeff and I had been putting off as long as we could. Except for the nighttime pottying issue, it's so CONVENIENT that he can't climb out of his crib. It has a crib tent over the top and we still use it occasionally for out-of-control time outs. That option is probably defunct now...

Since we haven't disassembled the crib yet, the cute white frame toddler bed is sitting next to it right now, making for a tight squeeze in the L-shaped loft. The hastily made-up rules are:
1) Soren can't climb out of the bed once we say "good night" until morning (we're trying to enforce that this means 7 a.m.);
2) he doesn't have to empty the potty pot if he goes in it;
3) releatedly, he shouldn't climb down the loft ladder in the middle of the night (too dangerous).

When he woke up this morning, he proudly told us, "I followed the rules!"

I fully expected to be awakened by him either needing assistance to use the potty chair, or crying in a wet bed, but he didn't make a peep all night long, and slept 11 hours to boot -- 8 p.m. to 7 a.m.

This SORT OF makes up for all the sleep interruptions of the previous 2-3/4 years (!).

OK, since I haven't posted in so long, here are a few cute pix from the month of May:

Soren and friend Django enjoying popsicles today during a rare sunbreak. Note how refreshed Soren looks from his first night's sleep in the big-boy bed!

Father and son, the likeness becoming more and more apparent.

And he may be our big boy, but he's not too big for a bath in the laundry sink yet!