Watch this space as new tour dates are added. The Zamrycki family just might be coming to your town!

The fun begins the minute Emily’s school goes on summer holiday. Already on the hit list are the stunning beaches of the beautiful island paradise of Menorca, the razzle-dazzle of the city that never sleeps – New York, and Outwell, England (they have creeks!). Here’s how it’s gonna go down:

July 17 – last day of summer school
July 18-25 – England
August ? (TBA) – Menorca
August 27 – September 10 – New York
September 14 – first day of school

Negotiations are currently underway to tack Germany onto the end of this list but talks are still in the early stages.

Would you like to spend some time with your favorite Zamrycki while they’re in your town? Get in touch now and make your reservation!

A Tibetan monk walks into a sandwich shop and says to the guy behind the counter, “Make me one with everything”. The guy makes the sandwich, hands it to the monk, and says, “That’ll be $4”. The monk hands the guy a 20 dollar bill, the guy put it in the cash register and just sits there. After a while, the monks stares at the guy and says, “And my change?”. The guy looks the monk in the eyes and replies, “Change comes from within”.

That joke was the basic premise of a short film that I shot today. A friend of mine, Peter, contacted me last night and asked if I’d be interested in acting in this short film competition that he had entered. They had 72 hours to script, storyboard, scout a location, cast, costume, design light and sound, shoot, and edit a 3-minute short based on the theme of “change”. It sounded like a hoot so I agreed. There were only two actors in the piece and I was the one wearing the Tibetan robes. I even buzzed my head a bit closer than usual for the part. I enjoyed being at one with the universe as I totally zenned out during the breakneck four-hour shoot. I even got to walk around the city barefoot for a while. I look forward to seeing the finished product. If they let me, I’ll post (or link) a copy of the video.

Emily woke up last night at 3am and decided to attempt to break the world record for the most times a person could throw up in 12 hours. After numerous emergency wake-ups, a stinky basket full of stained sheets, shirts, socks, and shoes, about a dozen unfulfilling catnaps on the couch, and mopping the same part of the floor over and over again, we are sorry to say that she fell short of her goal but we are very proud of her for giving it her all. Bonus points were scored for making the record attempt immediately after the cleaning lady had left for the week. Nice one.

So Emily stayed home from school today, took a very early and much needed nap, and felt much better this afternoon. Good enough, in fact, to accompany us to Nick and Sally’s joint birthday party. Kids got to play, the food was scrummy, drink was plentiful, and we stayed out much later than responsible parents with a daughter on the mend should stay out. But the feature event of the evening was Sebastian giggling for the first time ever, which he decided to do four or five times over the course of the night. Such a lovely sight! And it was particularly nice to be holding him when he did giggle, feeling his little chest bounce as he laughed.

Everyone’s asleep right now. I think I’ll do the same.

Emily experienced a bit of a mind explosion today. In retrospect, it’s probably been building up for a while now. She’s been swinging between moments of developmental brilliance and frustrating regression. But today, Jan picked Emily up from school and was told by her teacher that, after spending the first eight months of daycare speaking to everyone in nothing but rapid-fire English, Emily decided to start speaking in Catalan. And not just a few random words. Complete sentences!

We’ve seen this before with her songs. She hears a song a bunch of times but never shows any interest in attempting to sing it. Then she’ll turn around one day and just sing the entire thing. She must be practicing in her bedroom at night when no one’s listening.

Here are a few pictures from a recent trip to the park:

Stepping Stones

Emily and Cata: Da Gals

Tom and Emily On A Bench

Now that April is over and I haven’t uploaded a single photo from this entire month (and I have plenty), I thought it was a good time to get the last few snapshots I took in March up on the interwebs. I can’t even think about April until I do. Must be chronological. That’s just how I roll.

We spent a wonderful day with Sophie. First, we met in a little park downtown for some sunny slide action.

Marina showed up in her ballerina outfit. She and Emily played very well together.

Then we headed back to meet George at Sophie’s house where we were joined by Amber and Andreu and their new son Mateu (who is just a few weeks older than Sebastian) and our friend Emma who offered to cook us a few of the new recipes she had recently discovered in Morocco. Again, Emily followed Marina around and learned a few big-girl games like makeup.

And then, on another occasion, we met up with Ed and Basia in a nearby garden just after a healthy rainstorm.

It gave Emily and Natalie a chance to go jumping in muddy puddles.

And I captured one of my favorite pictures taken with my new camera.

So there you go. That was the rest of March. Not all of it, mind you. I only upload about 1% of the picture I take, and not all of those make it to this blog. You can check out the rest of the photos (as always) by visiting my Flickr account.

Look out, April. Here I come…

Emily came home from school last Wednesday and told us that there had been a man on the patio during recess who was jumping. And she didn’t like him.

She was very matter-of-fact about her description of the event, which included her being very sad and crying and that she was very scared. We asked if her teachers knew about the man jumping on the patio and she said yes, they knew.

The next morning I dropped her off at school and casually asked one of her teachers who this man was. Turns out there is a young Italian street performer who lives upstairs from the school and he decided to perform an impromptu clown show through his window for the kids in the patio below during recess. Pantomime, disappearing and reappearing, face paint, and a big red nose. The whole shabang. Most of the kids thought it was rather entertaining. Some weren’t sure. Fewer still were scared of the man jumping on the patio. Emily was terrified. Violently and physically petrified.

Emily had to spend the rest of the recess in her teachers arms with constant reassurances that the jumping man would not hurt her and that everything was OK.

I have no idea where this coulrophobia had come from. We never had an issue with clowns before. But just the mere mention of that red nose sent Emily into a fit of, “I don’t like him!”.

Her teacher assured me that, if the man appeared again, she would talk to him and ask him not to perform for the children as some of them were afraid (none more than Emily). Emily and I were OK with that and I said goodbye.

Upon picking her up later that next day, it was obvious that the jumping man had come back. The teacher told me that Emily, shaking with fear, would not relax until brought back inside from recess. It was agreed that I should probably have a heart-to-heart with Emily once back in the comfort of our home. We tried talking about it and Emily agreed that some of her friends thought he was funny and she even admitted that he was “just” a clown, but logic and reasoning seemed to end there. She wasn’t happy. She didn’t want to sleep that night and she definitely didn’t want to go to school the next day.

She went to school the next day. I don’t know how I managed to convince her, but she went. She later refused to even set foot on the patio during recess. The teacher, after managing to communicate with the upstairs jumping man in spite of his pigeon Spanish, was able to borrow his red clown nose with the idea that it would be healthy for Emily to take it home for the weekend. That nose was krypotonite. She recognized that it was a ball and that it was red, but would not admit that it was a nose. It could not be a nose. I feel we made some progress.

After a long weekend of the nose haunting us from a shelf in the living room, I had her carry it to school this morning, which she was not very happy about. She handed the nose to her teacher as if it meant nothing and went on her merry way. We exchanged knowing glances and I bid them farewell. She apparently did much better at school today, though the jumping man was nowhere to be seen. There has been no mention of him this afternoon. So things are fine for now. I dread the jumping man’s next performance.

Jan was taking the dinner out of the oven this evening when Emily walked into the kitchen:

Emily: What’s that mummy? [doesn’t wait for an answer] I know, it’s a pizza!
Jan: No, it’s a quiche, which is quite similar to a pizza.
Emily: Maybe it’s French then.

Emily just gathered a bunch of her dolls and toys in a big blanket and deposited them all on the couch. She was talking to them and feeding them, so I went to work on the computer. A few minutes later, she comes into the office and says:

Emily: Daddy! I’m having a picnic!
Me: Very good. Where?
Emily: On the couch. We’re eating.
Me: Can I have a picnic with you?
Emily: I don’t think so. Maybe next year.

And she runs out of the office.

Happy two month birthday, Sebastian!

What a delight this little boy is. Really. I know I haven’t kept you up to date on his developments over his first couple of months, so allow me to change that.

• He’s a big boy. I don’t want to get into the bad habit of comparing our kids, but Sebastian was born weighing in at 3.29 kg while Emily weighed 3.5 kg at birth. No huge difference here. But while it took Emily one month to add 1 kg onto her weight, our new little milk-guzzler accomplished this in just 16 days. Today, Emily is two and a half years old and wears a size 4 diaper (only when she sleeps!). Sebastian is two months old and is wearing size 3.
• Sebastian’s favorite pastime is lying on his back and having a good old-fashioned kick-around. He’ll happily lie there for 10-15 minutes just flailing his arms, swinging his feet, and rocking his head. Having a kick-around on his changing table has the added bonus of placing him right beneath his most favorite object in the entire world: a small wicker boat with yarn boatmen that our friend Sarah brought us from Peru, which we currently have suspended from our bedroom ceiling light. He loves that thing!
• He seems to appreciate good music. But where Emily enjoys living room ballet sessions or learning the choreography from select YouTube pop videos, Sebastian is generally more interested in swing and calypso.

• Babies are normally able to hold their heads up when placed in a sitting position at around 4 months. Buster was dong this at just after a month. He also did a splendid job of focusing his eyesight a lot earlier than expected. He’s very advanced!
• Oh yeah, we sometimes call him Buster.
• So far (knock on wood), we are happy to say that Sebastian, like Emily before him, is a very tranquil baby. He’s not a crying baby. Not a sicky baby. Not one of those babies that never eats or never sleeps. He’s absolutely holding up his end of the Good Baby Bargain. For now.

• As laid back as he is, Sebastian is still a boy who knows what he wants. And sometimes he just wants to be held. And walked around the house. In a very specific manner. You see, I am only allowed to hold him horizontally and Jan is only allowed to hold him vertically. No substitutions or variations accepted.
• Emily goo’d and gaa’d like most babies, but Sebastian’s vocabulary is comprised almost entirely of dolphin noises. I’ve never seen anything like it. He’s doing it less and less the older he gets, but just stand by while he’s in the middle of one of his kick-arounds and you’re sure to hear the distinctive clicks and squeaks. Sounds like a dolphin. I swear. Always good for a smile.
• And speaking of smiles, the Smile Fairy finally arrived just a couple of weeks ago! It’s such a warm and wonderful feeling to look into his eyes, have him recognize me, and then receive a face full of sunshine. It’s so much nicer being greeted by a big gummy smile than a blank bug-eyed stare.

• Emily looked like me. Sebastian looks like Jan. Or so the general consensus would have us believe. I could hold a baby photo of Emily up beside one of my own and you would not be able to disagree. I felt this when she was born. It was like looking into a mirror. After he was born, I held Sebastian in my arms and I did not recognize the child before me. It was not me. That was a very strange feeling. But when he sleeps, he looks just like Emily. And his eyes are shaped like mine. And he’s changing every day. Genetics is a funny thing.
• Is Emily jealous of Sebastian? This is the most oft asked question. The answer was no. And then it was yes. Now it is no. Emily loves her new little brother to bits and is always eager to show her affection. Sometimes too eager. When Emily climbs up on the bed to give Sebastian a snuggle and a kiss and a hug, we must quickly change into smother-prevention mode. Why does she always have to get right in his face and cover his mouth? She’s adapting very well to the shared spotlight, but it was a harrowing experience during weeks 2-6. So many changes. So many questions. We really are very lucky.

What would you do if you lost your wallet? How lost would you be? How helpless?

I had an audition for a new cartoon series yesterday. Jan was across town in a park on a see-saw with “the kids” (that’s still strange to say) and I was at home, quietly “working from home” and passing the morning. The time came for me to get my act together and head out to this audition so, before walking out the door, I performed the usual inventory check:

phone: check
keys: check
Palm Pilot: check
headphones: check
wallet: …

Uh oh. After a quick flashback in my mind to the day before when we had gone to Parc de la Ciutadella for a birthday party, I remembered that I had left my wallet in Jan’s handbag. You know, for safekeeping. A quick call to the Mrs. confirmed my fears.

The audition was in 25 minutes. I was at home with no money, no train ticket, no Bicing card, no credit card, no ATM card, and no ID. I had to get to Poble Nou (a 20 minute train ride, or a 45 minute walk). I rooted around the house to see if I could find a secret stash of cash anywhere. Nothing. Not even any change in the couch (Emily!!!). So that meant no metro, no bike, no cab, and no time to walk.

In a fit of desperation, I grabbed my passport and ran out the door with the intention of begging the teller at the bank to let me take out some money with a form of ID other than the one I used to open the account. As I flew out the front door of the building, Mario, our doorman, said, “See you later!”. I stopped in my tracks. Gears turned in my head. I turned on my heels. And I hit Mario up for a 20 euro loan, to be paid back with interest, I promised.

A cab brought me downtown to Poble Nou where I arrived just a couple of minutes after the scheduled audition time. The cartoon centered around some vegetables in a fridge. I did a hyper-nervous Piglet-like voice for an insecure radish and an over-the-top Mexican accent for a cocky chili pepper. The clients were in stitches, I thanked them for their time, and I was back out on the street just 30 minutes later.

I have since hidden emergency funds in an uber-secret location in case I ever find myself in a similar situation. Mario has been paid back (with a bottle of cava as interest) and I’m waiting to hear if the cartoon is picked up.