Joshua Zamrycki’s Weblog

Halloween. Christmas. New Year’s Eve. All great holidays. But if you asked me which holiday was my favorite, I’d answer: Passover.

Hey, what are you doing writing about Passover now? Wasn’t it at the beginning of April?! Yes. Better late than never. I haven’t written about our Easter yet, either!

Passover was especially special this year thanks to my mom who came to visit, stayed with us for 10 days, got to meet our sweet little Sebastian, played and played and played with Emily, helped out endlessly around the house, and prepared our home’s very first seder.

The reason I like Passover so much is not so much because of the songs or customs or food (though they’re all great!) – it’s because of the fond memories I have of growing up and celebrating with my family. We would always go to Aunt Ruthie’s house and all of the cousins would be there. Uncle Artie would lead the seder and we’d smile through the tale of oppression in the desert, laugh through the fir kashes and the seder meal, and finally lose it while seeing who could sing their verse of Echad Mi Yodea the most out of tune. All those glasses of wine helped, too.

So it was important to invite the right group of friends to our home’s very first seder. We invited a lovely group of very dear friends with whom we wanted to share this very special occasion. When they said they couldn’t make it, we invited Bob and AmJan. Ha! I kid. It wasn’t our goal to only invite the goyim – it just turned out that way.

I am happy to declare that our first seder was a resounding success. Emily had fun helping nana make the matzah “ballies”; everyone took turns reading of our escape from bondage in the haggadah (almost everyone, right Marga?); I got to lead the seder and thoroughly enjoyed doing so; the brisket, kugel, and all the other special holiday food was delicious (thanks mom!); and the afikoman was stolen, hidden, ransomed, and recovered in one piece and I didn’t have to shell out a dime for it’s safe return (maybe they’ll learn for next year).

Sebastian received his first passport in the mail today, officially making him a British citizen. Just in time for our trip to England in three weeks! His American passport should come soon thereafter, allowing for smooth sailing through US Customs when we travel to New York at the end of August.

Sebastian celebrated by rolling over for the first time! He had been threatening to do so all week. We congratulated him by graduating him from the pram to the pushchair. We didn’t have much choice since he was actually getting too big to fit in the pram. He much prefers sitting up anyway.

In other news, Emily is aggressively lobbying to knock her midday nap on the head. This would be absolutely fine if it wasn’t for the fact that she really needs a nap everyday. There have been no naps taken on four different days this week. And on each napless day, our sweet little angel transforms into an irrational raving typhoon somewhere around 7pm. Dinner isn’t as much fun when you’re too tired to hold a fork.

Emily also wants you to know that she jumped off the wall into the the public kiddie pool all by herself yesterday morning and ran into the sea and jumped over the waves all by herself yesterday afternoon. Theme for this month: all by herself.

I’m really trying my best to clear out the ton of old media and stories I’ve got backed up from the past two months. Here are some photos and a video that have been just sitting here for a whole month, waiting to be posted. If you’ve been sneaking peaks at my Flickr and YouTube accounts, you may have seen them already. I’ll try and write those two pressing stories later this week (from Passover and Easter!).

Pussy Cat Pal

Sleepy Mummy Snuggle

Yes, That’s A Bathtub

Butterfly Face

I’ve been taking Emily to the swimming pool for as long as she can remember. But it was just last week that she finally got up to courage to trust her life to a small foam tube and venture off without daddy holding her hand. Not only did she swim on her own, but she swam an entire length!

When we got home and Emily – beaming with pride – told Jan the news, mummy couldn’t believe it. She had to see it for herself. So the very next day, we all marched down to the gym with swim trunks in hand to see our little girl prepare for what is destined to be nothing less than a stellar Olympic career. Sebastian came, too! It was his very first swim session and Emily was thrilled to demonstrate for him how one day he too will be able to swim all by himself. We thought he would only last five minutes in the not-so-warm pool but he had a great time! Smiling and flapping, he played in the pool for about 20 minutes!

After the pool, Sebastian went with mommy to the ladies locker room and Emily went with me. The post-pool shower is a ritual that we both really enjoy – even though I’m pretty sure I get cheated out of my fair share of under-the-water time. Standing there, watching this smiling little creature trying to keep the water out of her face by spinning in circles, I got sad. They grow up so damn fast. We’ve only got a finite number of showers left together and this fact become painfully apparent at that moment. But I couldn’t wax sentimental for too long – we had to dry our hair under the hot air blower, hide inside the lockers in the dressing room, and gallop home like horsies.

Sebastian went to the pediatrician for his four month check up yesterday. They laughed at him. They laughed because he is so big. He’s not freakishly big or anything, but he’s solid.

How big is he? His growth chart says that he’s 63 cm (25 in) tall (long?) and weighs 7.5 kg (16.5 lb). Absolutely average height (length?) and his weight is about halfway between average and morbidly obese.

One thing that hasn’t changed is Sebastian’s placid disposition. I think we sometimes forget how lucky we are to have such a laid back and sunny tempered gentle giant. Especially given Emily’s rambunctious and frenetic pace, getting stuck with a fussy baby or a crying baby or a sicky baby would have buried us long ago. He just likes to sit there and watch the world go by and, every once in a while, he’ll give you a big ole gummy grin and a high-pitched giggle. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Emily (2 years 9 months), with her delicate touch, shows mummy, daddy, and Sebastian (3 months) how to make banana cake muffins.

Emily and I were walking home from school today when we came upon an elderly white-haired woman painfully making her way along the sidewalk ever so slowly with her cane just barely keeping her from falling over. We would have simply passed her and made our way home but Emily turned to watch her for a while. The woman looked at Emily, smiled sadly, and said, “Yo tengo cinco nietos exactamente como tú,” [I have five grandchildren exactly like you] and she opened her hand towards Emily to allow her to count all five of them. Emily saw the five fingers and earnestly corrected the woman, “No, I’m two!” and adamantly held up two fingers. The old woman, not understanding a word of Emily’s perfect English, corrected her, “No, es que tengo CINCO nietos,” [No, I have FIVE grandchildren] and again held up five fingers. Emily got very upset and shouted at the lady, “No! I’m two!!!” and once again held up two fingers to prove it. This was the part of the conversation where the old woman started crying, explaining how she rarely gets to see her grandchildren, that her daughter had died, and how she would soon be with her in heaven. In an attempt to cheer her up, I marveled at how lucky she was to have five wonderful grandchildren. The woman smiled and agreed. Emily hadn’t made eye contact with her since their little shouting match. We agreed that Emily must be tired and ready for her nap so I scooped her up, said goodbye, threw the little girl on my shoulders and legged it home. That was awkward.

We jump off of steps and the couch. We climb up benches and pillow forts. But on rainy days we jump and climb in the soft playpark.

All of our practice jumps on the bed are put to the test in the bouncy castle. Great heights are achieved but the dismount is what steals the show.

Then we fly through the rat maze. “Little kids” aren’t supposed to venture into the “big kids” area, but there aren’t many people there on a Sunday afternoon and the monitors oblige by turning a blind eye.

The obstacle course is also in the “big kids” zone, and for good reason. The little ones may very well get knocked over by swing bridges or zip lines or tumble to their doom from dizzying heights. This picture is actually taken two stories up:

Here we can see Emily looking down, contemplating the spikes a boiling oil below.

I’m in the bathroom with Emily this morning. She’s sitting on the toilet and, in a moment of reflection, says:

Emily: I have hair on my legs.
Me: Yes, you do.
Emily: I need to shave it off.

She’s two and a half years old.

Everyday, we put Emily to bed at 2pm for her afternoon nap. We usually tuck her in and give her a reassuring kiss atop her head and quietly leave the room. Today, Jan told Emily it was time for a nap so our little girl picked up her Teddy and went to her room. Jan followed but, when she got to Emily’s room, was met by a door in the face. Through the door:

Jan: Can I come in?
Emily: No!
Jan: But it’s time for your nap.
Emily: I can do it by myself!

And she did. She’s two and a half years old.

This evening, Jan prepared both kids for a bath – first Sebastian, then Emily. When Sebastian was finished with his bath, Jan brought him into the bedroom to dry off. Emily quickly dragged a step stool into the bathroom and shouted, “I can take a bath by myself!”. She proceeded to climb into the bath on her own, wash herself, climb out, grab a towel, and dry herself off. Jan stuck her head in a couple of times to make sure there was no drowning going on but didn’t attempt to intervene. This little girl is two and a half years old going on 10.

You know how, when you start exercising for the first time, you should start slow? You gotta build up strength and endurance? How you can’t just run a marathon the first time out? I don’t know what I was thinking…

I played beach volleyball yesterday for the first time in almost three years. True, I have been playing volleyball occasionally at work. But not on the beach. Not hard-hitting two-on-two. Not in the merciless Spanish summer sun. Not for four hours straight!!!

I remember a point, about three hours into it, where my body just wouldn’t do what my mind was asking it to do. It couldn’t. And then soon after, my mind stopped working altogether. I was swinging into the bottom of the net and sending serves clear down the beach. I felt like a rag doll. But that was mostly on the inside. I kept up a strong enough front to go 7-3 and be crowned King of the Beach at the end of the day. It was fantastic.

I somehow made it home on the fumes of the adrenaline that I had been burning and, after a quick shower, dinner, and putting Emily to bed, I lied down on the floor in the living room. And then it all gets blurry. I remember telling Jan that I was going to go to bed early, totally in denial of the complete and utter exhaustion that had consumed me. I think I woke up about an hour later, still on the floor, and saw Jan turning on the TV above me. I couldn’t speak. And then I passed out again. I woke up a couple of hours later to see Jan turning off the TV (after having watched three episodes of Scrubs, none of which do I remember) and going to bed. I tried to get up and go to bed but my body was apparently on strike. So I gave up and went back to sleep on the floor. I think I woke up at around 3am and dragged my sorry butt to bed.

All in all, I had a great time. It was so nice to be back on the beach where I had spent so much of the first half of my Barcelona life. I even bumped into three different friends whom I hadn’t seen in three years! I wish I could get down there more often, but my weekends are mostly Emily-laden these days. So, if anyone would like to come down to the beach and make sand castles with Emily for a few hours on the weekend, please let me know!!!