Happy Birthday, Zen and Zion!

We dragged the birthday celebrations out for at least a week this year, beginning with a fiesta for some of Zion's school friends with the theme "The Mission", a large-scale, scavenger hunt that took us around Evanston. The kids deciphered clues, performed tasks, and received gifts at all 9 stops, eventually ending up at a pizza place downtown. We had fantastic chaperone/helpers in the form of Ben Wickstrom (who was fantastic at keeping up with the quick-running 6th graders and keeping them away from traffic) and Rebecca Erikson, who helped me bring up the rear and who bonded quite nicely with the only girl Zion invited to the party (they're just friends). Rebecca also made an amazing cake--a 2 tiered delight with a "Halo" theme that awed all of us.
Zen kept reminding us "my birthday, too!" and he, of course, had a blast playing with all of Zion's big friends, who all wanted to push him in the stroller on our trek downtown. Enjoy the pictures!

Zen-isms

I would be a poor mommy if I didn't record some of the cute things Zen has come up with lately now that he is talking. Here are some samples:


Zen: "DAD! You come here RIGHT NOW!" Me: "Zen! You cannot talk to mommy and daddy like that!" Zen: "No, only Dad."


I think that one of the most accurate words to describe Zen is "fierce". He is very protective of all of us. If someone is picking on someone else, he will distract them, yell at them, command them to stop, or even pummel them. When Sam is picking on Zion, Zen will come into the room with a glare that could melt paint off the wall and command, "No! No hurt my brudder!"

Earlier today: "Zen, you need to help pick these legos up off the floor."
"Me tant."
"Why can't you help?
"toffin' (hack, hack)"

already using physical ailments to get out of work :-)


More Zen-isms: Teetumpin' (see something)
"ditamin" (get something)
"dootumpin" (do something)

"mutt" (milk)
"doot" (juice)

"bootchub" (book club...this one shocked us the first time we
heard it, as it sounds similar to a sexual act)

"Zen, what are you doing?" "Anyting!" (which is actually translated into, "nothing")


It is very fun to hear what he says, especially since he believes that repeating the same thing over and over again will get him what he wants eventually. How many times have I had to endure hearing "want doot! want doot!...." repeated 100 times in a row??? I love it!

Zion's Visit to Northwestern University

Zion's big brother, Ryan (from the Big Brothers, Big Sisters program) is a Ph.D student studying spinal cord regeneration at Northwestern. He invited Zion to their new, multi-million dollar biochemical engineering lab for a tour. Of course, scientist mommy wanted to tag along. Wow, what a fascinating place! Zion got to see and handle scientific tools and equipment. Ryan does surgeries on rats for some of his experiments, and it was amazing to see his tiny surgical kit and his sub-zero freezer full of tiny rat brains and spinal cords. We were able to see how cell samples were freeze dried, stained, sliced and stored and we got to look at them under a powerful electron microscope. The most interesting part of our tour was a visit to the animal lab, where we scrubbed and gowned up so that we wouldn't pass on any germs to the special, immune suppressed rats and mice. We also got to peek in at some of the other animals, including cats, chinchillas and monkeys. It was a little hard to see, but I kept reminding myself (and Zion) what these animals are sacrificing to make the world better for humans. (I will remember to say a little prayer of thanksgiving for the lab animals of the world, who are helping to keep us healthy) It was a very cool experience, and Zion asked some great questions. I was proud of him, my scientist boy. Ryan has been a great role model, and I am glad that Zion had the opportunity to see his important work.

Washington School Fall Festival 2010

Our family really took advantage of many of the fun (and sometimes free) events that Evanston offered for Halloween. On Friday night, I took Zen to the Fairy Tale Trail, a non-scary event for the preschool set. He was adorable in his costume and had fun playing in all of the different themed rooms on the "trail". Sam and I hitched up Zen and the dog on Saturday morning and hit our neighborhood farmer's market for a free pumpkin, books, crafts and a treat bag. We made a brief stop to get Zion from his play rehearsal and headed over to the Washington School Fall Festival, where the boys (Zen, Zion and Kyle) played games, did crafts, and won prizes. Zen had a successful pony ride this year (captured on film!)and Zion won a very food-color laden cake at the cake walk on his first try. We were wiped out after that, although we could have easily continued the fun with a trick or treat and fair offered by the local upscale senior center and topped it off with free ice skating in costume at the Evanston Ice Arena. Maybe next year we'll have more stamina???

Dream Halloween

9 years ago when Rebecca was in town for a fall weekend, Zion's daycare gave us free tickets to a Halloween party. We noticed that the price of the tickets was $100 each, so we decided it was worth checking out. We dressed Zion up in his Winnie the Pooh costume and made our way to the Windy City Field House. Little did we know that the tickets we had acquired were the entrance to the Dream Halloween Gala, a posh and elaborate event put on by the Children Affected by Aids Foundation. We stared in wonder as we walked into a beautiful grotto full of amazingly designed jack-o-lanterns, fantastic decorations, and costumed characters that looked like they had just walked off of a movie set. Jamie Lee Curtis was there; there were dancers and bands and trick or treating stations that were handing out treats that were more like Christmas presents than Halloween treats--Barbie dolls and race cars and lego sets--we ended up with a carload of abundance. There were tables piled with food and drinks donated by some of Chicago's favorite restaurants, and a raffle giving away a Lexus SUV to a lucky winner (we dared to hope). The whole evening was so cool and so unexpected. I remember walking out of the party with a dazed happiness that felt a little like a trip to Disney World.

I spent the next 9 years trying to cop some more of those free tickets, and this year...score! The gala did not disappoint. We had to make 4 trips to our car to carry out our bounty. Zion and Zen were so excited to go home and play with their newly acquired toys that we didn't even wait to enjoy the Trinity Irish Dancers or the hip hop group that performed. When we came home, it was like Christmas morning. Of course a large portion of this went into the basement to be donated to holiday charity and shared with cousins in the future. It was fun to share the experience with Zen, who has been dragging around a giant, remote-controlled motorcycle with him all this week, courtesy of the party.

Pumpkin Carving

I was so proud of Sam for undertaking this task this year! I had to go to a leadership team meeting after work--when I came home, there was a nice jack-o-lantern and pumpkin seeds fresh from the oven. We used the pumpkin the next night for our annual "haunted bath", a tradition that started with Zion at age 2 and has continued until this day. You fill the tub with water and some orange food coloring, light up all the halloween candles and the jack-o-lantern, garnish with some halloween bath toys, decorations, spooky music, orange shaving cream if desired...turn off the lights, and splash away! Zion still loves his haunted bath at age 11. Maybe he'll do it with his own kids someday.

Pony Ride!

If you were reading the blog a year ago, you probably remember how Zen was so terrified of the ponies at the fall festival that he crawled up my arm, shoulder and neck trying to get away from them (this happened AFTER we had already paid $5....no refunds!). He did much better this year. Made his mommy proud!

P.S. our pony's name was Lightning!