Mr. Hulk's Residence

"The Hulk House." The red is a secret note for Spiderman to keep out. The green thing on the left is a portrait of the Hulk. The black is his hair & the pointy things are his teeth.

Dash is deeply entrenched in the "why?" phase right now. He is asking about stuff that happened months ago and about books we read weeks ago. While we were driving into Malibu over the weekend he started asking about Spiderman's relationship with the Incredible Hulk.

You see, a few weeks ago we bought a kid-centric comic book where Spiderman accidentally stumbled into the Hulk's cave and the Hulk got PISSED. "Why aren't Spiderman & the Hulk friends, Mommy?" "Isn't the Hulk a good guy?" "Why was he so mad, Mommy?"

Well. As you may have gathered by now, I am neither mentally nor emotionally equipped to provide insight into the psyches of superheroes. But I did my best. I told him it was because Spiderman went into the Hulk's home without an invitation or permission. I explained that he didn't do it on purpose, it was just that the Hulk didn't have a sign on his cave door telling people that he lived there. So, unlike our house, where it is obvious that people live there and strangers wouldn't just wander in, it's possible to mistake the Hulk's house for an ordinary cave and take cover there for a night or two.

So what do you think he did? He made a sign for Hulk to hang in front of his door. So people wouldn't just intrude.

He was a little nervous that the Hulk would break our house if we left it inside for him, so we hung it on the front door. Hulk will swing by later, under the cover of night, to pick it up. I think he'll probably leave a thank you note for Dash's thoughtfulness.

Awaiting the Hulk.

Triathlete

Well, he did it! My awesome husband woke up at 4am to compete in the bike portion of the Nautica Malibu Triathalon to benefit the Pediatric Cancer Research Program at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

So, Honey, how'd you do in your first ever bike race?

That's eighteen miles in one hour, 3 minutes for an average of 3.5 minutes per mile--beating his personal record of 4 minutes, 8 seconds. Congratulations, honey, you're a star.

Dash & I left the house at 8am in order to try and catch the end of the race, but Josh was finished before we got there. So we headed over to Paradise Cove to wait. Here was the view from our table:

Well, ok, I'll look out at that while I wait. If you insist.

In order to celebrate his father's achievement, Dash thought that attempting to eat a piece of chocolate cake the size of his torso would be fitting.

How'd you do trying to eat your body weight in cake and ice cream, Dash?

Awesome. (I swear he doesn't eat like this in real life. Just in every single picture on this blog. I'll take a picture of him eating salmon and brown rice tonight.)

Oh, wait. Here's a picture of him eating the celery out of my Bloody Mary. What? I wiped it.

So, Daddy, you've been training pretty hard these last few months. Whatchoo packing these days?

Nice. Two tickets to the gun show, please.

Aw, Summer, We Hardly Knew Ye

Josh is riding in the bike portion of a relay triathlon to raise money for Children's Hospital Los Angeles in Malibu next weekend (yeah, that's right: saint). He's been training around our neighborhood, but he wanted to peep the race course before hitting it for real. So we packed up the towels and snacks and made a beach day of it.

It's wasn't crowded and we bought a beach umbrella for $10 from a vendor on the sand, and it wasn't too hot but the water was warm. No one got sunburned and we ate sandwiches (appropriately named because they were mostly sand). There was a lot of digging and building and jumping and falling and it was an amazing, beautiful day at the beach.

Yeah, I'm wearing that dress again. What?

His favorite part was when he got to stomp the shit out of those castles.

After the beach we had a second lunch at Marmalade (what? the beach makes you hungry. it's scientifically proven). The last time I was at Malibu Marmalade was with Pat Benatar & her husband, Spider (I used to work in music p.r.), and it was literally everything I could do to not just start crying about the fact that I was sitting there with Pat Fucking Benatar. (Here is my favorite Pat Benatar story: Rolling Stone wanted to include an interview with Pat in their Women of Rock issue--a really, really big deal because it was 1997 and no one had really spent a lot of time thinking about Pat Benatar for about 10 years and it was a huge coup for her and, frankly, for me. When I called her to conference in the reporter for the interview, she said to us both, "You know what? I'm making chicken cutlets right now. Can I call you back?" at the time I tried to murder her over the phone with sheer will. But now that I'm a working wife and mother, I totally get it. The woman had her priorities perfectly in order). Anyway, at Marmalade the boys went to the bathroom for, like, 20 hours, so I took a number of pictures of Batman.

After his plain noodles with butter ($7--is it gauche that I keep noting the prices of things here? It's not that I'm cheap. I just cannot believe the nerve sometimes) Dash got a giant slice of double fudge bundt cake ($9). How's the cake, Dutch?

Cool.

Farewell, Summer 2009. You were the best yet and I'm a little sad to see you go.

Darth

More often than not, he's in costume during our errands. This was our most recent trip to Target. There is no easier way to make a mid-to-late-30s-year-old man grin.

Movie Night

Sometimes, when I start planning parties, I get so excited that there's no way I won't end up disappointed. Did not happen at backyard movie night. It was absolutely more fun that I anticipated. A perfect summer evening, great friends--old & new, lots of kids running around and terrible, terrible food (in the best way possible).

[I'm going to go into a wee bit of detail about the how-tos of movie night, because when we started planning we had a really hard time figuring out how to pull it off. Hopefully people thinking about planning their own backyard movie night will find some of this stuff useful.]

We covered the lawn in quilts and pillows, but designated a couple of chairs for the preggos in the audience because when I was pregnant, if someone had proposed that I sprawl my ass on a picnic blanket I would have killed them with my mind.

I made signs because apparently I don't have enough to do with my time.

I put up the tent and stocked it with art supplies & flashlights. I didn't know how the kids would do with the movie (Princess Bride), so I wanted them to have options. Those people are the lovely Kinkaid family. Steve is my oldest friend in the world. We can go five years without seeing each other, but pick up right where we left off. We last saw them at their wedding. Now they have TWO KIDS! It just blows my mind that we're all becoming grown-ups with kids and mortgages and blood pressure medication. Blows. My. Mind.

Isn't that nice? Toddler drive-by.

Uncle Bobby as wax figure.

My friends are gorgeous. And smart. And funny. Don't you wish they were your friends, too?

All babies hate me, except for this one. That's why he's my favorite.

Here's the food set-up. I hung the pirate flag in homage to the Dread Pirate Roberts.

I got these food containers from a restaurant supply store. I thought they'd be easier to manage than regular plates since we'd be eating on picnic blankets.

The menu was Dodger Dogs (did you know you could buy these to make at home? we normally eat nitrate-free, uncured turkey dogs, but sometimes you just need to eat the grossest, most delicious dog ever, and a Dodger Dog fits the bill), popcorn (cutest bags in the universe from here) with seasoning mixes I made up with Martha's guidance...

...tortilla chips with pickled jalapenos & that disgusting, delicious, crack-like nacho cheese in a can. I kept it warm in a fondue pot because I am klassy. Plus assorted candy in the form of Red Vines, Skittles, fun-sized chocolates...

...and cupcakes. Always cupcakes.

I designed Princess Bride-related cupcake picks. Because I don't know when enough is enough. This one is my favorite.

Although this one is pretty cute.

I feel pretty clever about this one.

This one was a hit with the kids. Because cleverness is wasted on them.

(If you want to throw a Princess Bride-themed movie night your own self, you can download the cupcake pick images here. Just print onto an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of cardstock, cut out & tape onto toothpicks.)

We were planning on renting a projector, but it would've ended up costing us about $175 plus shipping. So we scoured Ebay & found a used school projector for $200. In addition to a projector, you'll need a dvd player (we had an extra one in the garage) and a pair of speakers (again, sometimes it pays to marry someone who refuses to Freecycle old electronic equipment).

The screen was two vinyl shower curtain liners that Josh tacked up on nails. In this pic it's just halfway up so people can still get in & out that door. Once the movie started we corraled people through another entrance to the house.

We were all having too much fun to take any pictures during the eating & movie parts. But here's the warning we got from the cops when they came at 9:30 pm. On a Saturday. You could tell that they were embarrassed by the whole thing.

And then...

He went to the dentist! Like a person! I don't think I can take any more.

Pencil (Head) Case

Today was Dash's first day of pre-K and I am absolutely wrung out by it. Even though it's at the same school he's attended for a year. Even though it's with a teacher he's had before and absolutely adores. Even though he'll be with his best friends. Even though he's only 3 1/2 and will have to repeat the entire class before it's time for kindergarten. Despite everything, I'm sitting here weepy and a mess. And I know why. It's the pencil case.

They sent a note home from school asking parents to assemble a personalized pencil case for new pre-Kers. They want to teach the kids to be responsible for their own tools; to take ownership of something and be held to account for it. And I am in full support. I love the idea that he will finally start to learn that he, and he alone, must manage his most important belongings. That it's not Mama's job to remember every detail of his life and anticipate his every whim. Honestly (I tell myself), it'll be a giant relief.

Except. Except it's another small step away from us. Another assertion of independence. Another thing to learn that will make us slightly less necessary.

I embrace it, of course. I am thankful to be able to give him these small gifts of liberation that will add up eventually (more quickly than I'll be ready, I am guessing) to self-reliance. I want nothing more than for him to grow into the kind of kid, teenager and adult that can manage his life and its contents. I want him to be able to trust himself to take care of business.

But still. My heart is a little broken today. Another little piece of my baby is gone, replaced by a boy. A boy with a pencil case.