Joshua Zamrycki's Weblog

Sebastian is two and a half! Eight more of these and he’ll have graduated from college.

Purple in the Park

I look at photos of Sebastian from six months ago – heck, even a year ago – and he doesn’t look all that different from the fresh-faced cheeky young go-getter he is today. But that’s just on the outside. Everything under the hood has been upgraded.

Independence Cupcakes

Here’s a short(!) set of two-and-a-half-year-old bullet points to give you a glimpse into some of the things our little boy has been up to these days:

• When it comes to gymnastics and yoga, Sebastian is a natural. He has very good balance and coordination. I guess having Emily around helps a lot. If they can manage to take turns in an orderly fashion, they love doing gymnastics or daredevil stunts together. And they’re a good match physically. But his forward rolls, triple jumps, arabesques, splits, headstands on the couch, and one-legged downward dog are amazing. And he loves it. He’s all about the death-defying jumps, too. Off the arm of the couch, down flights of stairs, off walls. Real kamikaze stuff. He hasn’t attempted cartwheels yet. I think his arms aren’t long enough. But if he has both hands on the floor and one leg up in the air, and he tries to take a hand off the floor, he knows instinctively which hand to raise. Awesome.
• The tiger is out of his cage. About four months ago, we took the bars off of Sebastian’s crib and he’s now sleeping in a Big Boy Bed. He shifted very gracefully with no trouble at all. He fell out for a while but he doesn’t do that so much anymore. We were afraid he’d refuse to go to sleep if we removed the bars, running free around the house at all hours of the night. But after we laid him down at night, he didn’t move a muscle, safely enclosed by his Pavlovian bars. And this lasted for an entire month! Yes, things are a bit different now. We were particularly excited to remove the bars because we thought that, instead of screaming, “Mummy!” every morning until we went in and got him, he could now just climb into our bed and hopefully fall back to sleep for just 20 more minutes. That’s all we wanted. 20 more minutes. Please! But no dice. We’re still woken with morning screaming and we have to go fetch him. Drats. Emily hasn’t mentioned bunk beds in a while, but that’ll probably be the next step.
• Sebastian’s talking has improved by leaps and bounds since we went to England last month. Instead of “No” he says, “No, not right now.” He copies everything he hears (especially from Emily). And though still quite slurry, his pronunciation is absolutely almost understandable now. And he can almost pronounce words that start with “s”! It’s not uncommon for us to find him chuntering away to himself, repeating names, counting, singing, etc. This may be why he’s finding it difficult getting to sleep at night; his brain is whirring at a million miles an hour.

• “Mine!” “My do it!!” “No want to!!!” Houston, we have temper tantrums. But I’m talking about violent temper tantrums. This just started a couple of weeks ago. He had never done anything remotely like this before. It all started with the scream. That gnarly high-pitched shriek of displeasure. But that has developed into this. I had to actually put him in a cold shower the other day to hose him down. He was swinging, he was shrieking, he was kicking, he was sweating. It could be the smallest thing that sets him off, like not wanting to brush his teeth, and you’re in for a violent and noisy half-hour battle of the wills. And I’m damn stubborn. Thank god it doesn’t happen very often. No, it could definitely be worse. He’s certainly not one of those kids who makes us afraid to bring him out in public. I guess this is The terrible twos.
• Sebastian is obsessed with the movie Cars, or as he calls it, Lightning McQueen. He was somewhat obsessed with Little Einsteins in the past, but this is his first film obsession. The marketing all around us doesn’t help. When we see a bottle of detergent in the supermarket, that damn car is on it. And now, of course, he has the toy car. And the underpants! And it’s nice that Emily is into it now, as well. I love how he laughs at certain things every time, and he turns to Emily so that they can laugh together. I think his favorite bit is when the Pixar lamp hops across the screen before the film even starts and he laughs, “He squashed the 1!”
• Sebastian is not wearing diapers anymore! It’s been two weeks now and he’s doing very well (all things considered). Sure, the occasional wee slips out, but he’s quick to point it out and make it to the toilet for the remainder. The problem is the poo. But it’s already getting better! Last week, he was pooing all over the place. On the balcony. In the living room. He pooed three times in one day the other day. Three times. He never pooed three times in one day when he was wearing diapers. He was apparently saving it up. And he never told us when he’d done it. We had to discover it. And if we asked him about it, he lied. “Did you make a caca?” “Nooooo” (accompanied by shifty eyes). But he’s starting to get the hang of it now. Oh, and the potty only lasted a couple of days. We’re all about the toilet now, which is perfectly fine with me. One less thing to clean. Now I can’t wait until I don’t have to scrape out his Lightning McQueens anymore.
• Sebastian is an instigator. He can really be a jerk. He sizes people up and then goes for the jugular, knowing exactly which buttons to push. Especially with Emily. They have a wonderful yet tumultuous relationship. But she is still his big sister and he follows her around, he copies her, and he gives her hugs. And then he hits her. They’ll have a great time just lying in bed together, rearranging stuffed animals and making blanket forts. And then Emily will want him out of her bed but he won’t go because he knows it will piss her off. And it does. He will sit at the top of the slide in the playground and if someone wants to go down behind him he doesn’t move. He just sits there. Similarly, he’ll stand at the bottom of the slide and not let anyone go down. He’ll stand in front of another child on a scooter or bike and not let them pass because he knows it will get a rise out of them. Jerk. He loves trashing Emily’s creations. He’ll scribble on her drawings or just stand on them. He stands on lots of things. But he’s got a winning smile. A devil’s smile. He looks like Jan’s dad but acts like my dad (I love you, dad!).

• Sebastian’s counting skills are hot diggety damn now. Especially now that he’s got seven. He used to go …4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 20, 13, 20, 13, 20… Now he’s a counting master. At least up to 15. Except when there’s a lot of something, there’s 5! When he’s thirsty, he wants 5 milks! That’s as much milk as he can fathom. Sometimes he starts counting faster than his fingers can move and he has to stop and go back a number. Very cute.
• I sometimes hide outside the bedroom when Jan puts Sebastian to bed and sings to him because he loves to join in. Sebastian loves to sing. He’s just not very good at it. First of all, he doesn’t know that many songs. The Rainbow Song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Que Será Será, Doe A Deer, Wind The Bobbin Up, the theme song from Little Einsteins, and that’s about it. Completely out of tune but with gusto. Hasn’t got a great memory for lyrics. It’s more about the action, not the singing. He just wants to go ballistic with the choreography. Emily was more into the lyrics, Sebastian is all about the actions.
• His likes: TV, Cars, Little Einstein, books, horchata, ice cream, his stuffed cat, his blanket, trains, swimming, playing in/with water, football, riding in cars, airplanes, airports, cats and dogs (he’s much better with them now), roughhousing, Blue-Tack, getting messy, baths, showers, bubbles, leaves and flowers, building, drawing, hitting his head on things, jumping on the bed, spinning, his tongue, licking things, holding hands, fruit (especially melon), juice, follow the leader
• His dislikes: avocados, rice, beans, when I wet his hair, diapers, eating when he’s not 100% ready, letting others choose the TV program

Crystal Blue Tamariu

The future? Well, the school year starts here in just two weeks and Sebastian, for the first time, will count himself as one of the enrolled. He’ll be attending the same nursery school that Emily went to when she was two. He’ll be there everyday from 9 to 1:30. We’re very excited. And, as always, we’ll be jetting around the world a bit. We’re off to Mallorca tomorrow(!) for a repeat of last year’s wondrous all-inclusive island holiday. And then we’ll definitely be doing the Florida/England thing this December. And then, one day before my next birthday, Sebastian will turn three.

Joan Blanques Fairyland

And finally, here’s a video of Sebastian attempting to warn us of the impending attack of The Monster. Hide!

They say you’re not supposed to compare your kids. This is why:

Emily, 2 years 4 months

Sebastian, 2 years 4 months

Ouch.

Any questions?

As promised, here is the video of Emily and Sebastian testing out the new water slide in Grandma’s backyard. Their bottoms were bright red after 20 minutes of this.

Jan thought it would be a good idea to put the slide in Grandma’s backyard next to the paddling pool.

She was right.

Video to follow.

Just got back from a lovely weekend with Jan. We left the kids with Grandma and Grandad up in Cambridgeshire and legged it down to West London to attend the wedding ceremony of one of her friends from university whom she saw just a few months ago but hadn’t seen for YEARS before that.

Jan was excited because she was to be reunited with some very good friends whom she hadn’t seen for… a long time! One person estimated it had been 20 years but everyone promptly beat them to a pulp upon mentioning such an outlandish and offensive number. I was excited because I had never attended a gay wedding before.

Not so exciting was the three hour drive down to West London. Three hours in and of itself isn’t so bad but I have been doing nothing but driving since we got here. Hurray for the Mercedes Benz rental car! And not having the trusty rusty GPS in my phone for fear of outlandish and offensive roaming charges only added to the stress. Hurray for pre-cached Google maps!

We arrived safely at our surprisingly modern hotel in Teddington and, after a short walk around town, put on our glad rags and made our way up to the famous Turk’s Head Pub in Twickenham. Jan immediately crashed face-first into a blast from the past as she gleefully reminisced with four friends she hadn’t seen since they were at school together. I just sat back and enjoyed hearing them wax poetic about where life had lead each of them, roasting absent friends, and laughing about theatre productions of days gone by.

The high point of the evening for me was listening to the sterling lineup of speeches offered by a handful of the boys’ very close friends. I was impressed with each speaker’s well-written words and dry delivery. Each speech was better than the last and I was tearing with laughter by the end. The second the speeches ended, the DJ kicked the night into high gear, offering the most fabulous and camp playlist. Jan boogied to about 50% of the songs on offer, taking advantage of the rest of the time to catch up with her school friends. I danced to a measly 10%, choosing instead to engage in witty banter with some of the fascinating and increasingly drunk guests. I cut myself off after four glasses of cava as I was the night’s designated driver.

When the night came to a close, I stuffed as many drunken Englishmen into the back of the Benz as I could and followed their indecipherable directions all around West London. The drop offs went surprisingly well and it was only when Jan and I were finally on our way back to our hotel that we got really lost. And the night-roaming locals in some of these dodgy little towns were not helping matters. But we finally made it home. And we slept. And no kids woke us up all night long.

Before heading back home today, Jan took me on a little tour of her old stomping grounds. We visited what used to be her university campus (before it was sold off and transformed into a series of upper-class townhouses), her old dorms, her off-campus apartment, and a few pubs she used to frequent when she was supposed to be learning. There are some beautiful gardens along the Thames that make the neighborhood seem like a very nice place to pass one’s formative years. It was truly lovely strolling down memory lane with my 22 year-old wife.