The day began with checking out a couple buses, and then getting in line for the Blackpool “boat” tram. The boys and I went on this one ourselves as MJ had to run off for an errand nearby. Aaron also had his Studio Ghibli Catbus with us all day, while I had my MUNI Catbus t-shirt, so we made quite the pair throughout the day.

It’s number 233, and painted with green livery (as opposed to the red) and came to San Francisco in 2013. I’m glad we managed to get on this one, as it’s the one that the boys have a poster of hanging in their room and have never been on before. In preparation for the day, I listened to the Ahoy! episode of MUNI’s “Taken with Transportation” podcast to get a refresher on these trams, and it made the adventure that much more fun as we sailed past Ferry Building on our journey down the Embarcadero.

At Fisherman’s Wharf we got off and got some great pictures while the operators took a break. To get back to Ferry Building we took one of the regular service F-Line vintage streetcars to mix things up a bit. Plus, it got us back faster, which was important because the boys were hungry. We met back up with MJ and had lunch at a nearby hamburger joint.

From there it was time to visit some vintage buses! I think the boys like buses more than trains, so this was probably their favorite part. We started off with a ride on the MUNI AM General 4154 from 1975. It took a loop through SOMA, making its only stop at the Caltrain Depot, which was a very specific stop for the day because Caltrain was also having a celebration: for full electrification of their San Francisco to San Jose route. As you’d expect, there was overlap in folks enjoying festivities for both transit agencies. Once that loop was done, we visited the booths in the plaza for a little bit to geek out with fellow transit fans.

Our final ride of the day was upon Adam’s request, the 2230 Mack Diesel Coach from 1956, with the very distinctive Pepsi bottle cap decoration on front. All the buses take the same loop, so the scenery was the same, but we all enjoyed it just the same.

Our final stop was the museum and gift shop, where Adam bought a boat tram post card with some coins from his wallet (and a little help from my Member discount). In all, a very satisfying day! And I was so happy to share it with the whole family.

We went on a lot of adventures. Possibly too many. The first day they were here we spent a lot of time on public transit making our way around San Francisco. We took BART up in the late morning and then immediately took a historic street car over to Fisherman’s Wharf where we finally got to ride the SkyStar Wheel (Ferris wheel). From there they did a little tourist shopping before we headed up to Ghirardelli Square.

Someone remind me never to go to Ghirardelli Square for ice cream on a summer weekend again. It was never a calm experience, but now it’s pure chaos. It’s loud, you hover over a table to find seating, and it’s quite the opposite of relaxing. We did eventually find a table to enjoy our ice cream, but I think Aaron was a little tired at this point so I had to sit with him for a while to calm down after he had a huge tantrum over not getting to finish the brownie on the sundae (it was offered to him multiple times!). Honestly, next time I might just take visiting friends and family to the Factory Store in San Leandro, it has a lovely little ice cream cafe that is enjoyable to eat in.

Once Aaron had calmed down and everyone used the restrooms the next thing on our agenda was riding on a cable car. We hopped on a bus and made our way down Van Ness to pick up the California Street cable car at the end. Unfortunately that’s when we learned that the cable cars had shut down for the day due to the Vice President visiting for a campaign fundraiser that happened to be taking place at a hotel located on the cable car lines. Thanks, Secret Service. Taking a peek at the time, we made a diversion to a nearby Grubstake Diner that MJ had heard good things about. It didn’t disappoint! The bus ride to Civic Center there did disappoint though. It’s not the best part of town, the bus was late, and I think that particular adventure was a lot for my sheltered Maine relatives, hah! Still, it got us safely to BART and all three of the kids fell asleep on the train ride home.

Sunday I wanted to be a bit more chill since everyone was tired, so we had a quiet morning at home together, and then decided to head up to Joaquin Miller Park in Oakland to finally visit the Chabot Space & Science Center. It was amazing!

The gems of the center are definitely the telescopes, and we’ll be back for some of their telescope events in the near future. It was fun checking out the exhibits, and there was a lot of interactive and play stuff there too, which will be nice to take more time with when we go there with just the boys.

They also have a planetarium that does shows all day, and I love planetariums. It’s also a gentle introduction to a theater environment for our rambunctious kiddos, and just like our planetarium experiment in Philadelphia back in July, this one went pretty well.

On Monday I worked from the San Francisco office and then Gaby was kind enough to shepherd everyone from Castro Valley into San Francisco on BART before concluding her day with the boys and heading home. This was when we fixed our missed cable car opportunity! We waited at the Powell Street turnaround for a while, and then caught a cable car back down to Fisherman’s Wharf. We had a nice walk and discovered the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park Visitor Center that has a surprisingly extensive exhibit about the history of the area, and everyone really seemed to enjoy it. From there my sister picked up some more tourist goodies and then we got on a street car to head home. Mission accomplished!

On Tuesday afternoon once Adam finished school I packed up my work laptop and we made our way over to the Oakland Zoo. I settled in near the bison paddock for a couple hours to finish work while Gaby and Annette took the boys around the zoo. I met up with them around closing to go on some rides in the area just outside the zoo.

We let everyone have a chill, local Wednesday and Thursday while I worked from my home office, and then took Friday off for some final adventures! In the course of the week, I discovered that going swimming was on their California list, but the beaches are far and not really swim-friendly, so I asked a local friend what she recommended and that’s how we ended up spending the afternoon at the Don Castro Swim Lagoon. It was perfect! I can’t believe we hadn’t been before! Admission for the six of us was a total of $15 and they have life guards and a very clean facility. It’s still beach-like, but it’s all man-made and effectively a big pool, which you notice when you swim out to the deeper parts since you can touch the concrete bottom of the “pool” out there. We had snacks at the beach and wrapped up around 4PM to clean up and eventually meet MJ for dinner. MJ was picking up the family car in Dublin, so we all hopped on BART and then caught a bus to meet him at Lazy Dog right on time to eat.

Our final adventure was on Saturday, to a railway museum that I’ll write about soon. They headed out on an overnight flight back to Maine on Saturday night. It was nice having them visit and seeing the boys bond over adventures, video games, and even chill TV time. I also enjoyed having some quiet time with my sister to catch up on family stuff and how she’s doing in general. We live such different lives so far apart, it can be tricky to stay connected, but these visits every year or so certainly help.

The reason this is notable, aside from a very sweet gesture from my husband, is that while we were browsing, Adam showed an interest in build a Lego set with me for the first time. I have at least half dozen Lego sets in my closet that haven’t gotten to assemble because I don’t have a lot of time to myself for hobbies now, and I’ve basically been waiting patiently for our kids to be old enough to do them with me. The time has come! But I didn’t want to get too excited, he’s only 5 and his attention span is all over the map. We started with a tiny R2-D2 that I had in my closet, and then worked on the little freebie Lego they were giving away for May the 4th. Hooray!

It took us almost 3 weeks over evenings and weekends when Adam and I were in the mood, and Aaron was satisfied free-forming it with Duplo next to us, but we set up a big table downstairs with some little plastic bins for sorting tiny Lego bricks. It was a lot of fun. There’s a lot more Lego building in our future!

Unfortunately this was a little too exciting for me. I should be satisfied making my way through the backlog in my closet, but two new Lego kits have entered my collection since early May because I’m so excited that we can build them together now.

Speaking of hobbies that we can do together now, the boys have been fascinated with typewriters since I began bringing them home. Several weekends ago, we stumbled upon a local 1963 Montgomery Ward Signature 500 and we decided to come home with it for $30. It’s an incredibly basic typewriter, and it’s missing the cover for the ribbon, but it had the case and was otherwise in usable condition and we wouldn’t be heartbroken if it didn’t survive abuse from kids. We ordered a new ribbon and Adam has been having fun with “his” typewriter. I even added it to the typewriter database, though I did pause before adding it to my profile (maybe Adam wants his own? Maybe some day). Upon adding it, I was amused to discover that the only other one of this model in the database also has the latch broken on the case just like mine (it’s functional, just ugly).

For the weekend that included Mother’s Day we had a couple whole family adventures. First, we decided to make the drive up to Brentwood, California where there are a bunch of cherry tree orchards. We did it last year too and it was a lot of fun, but this time we agreed not to come home with over 4 pounds of cherries. Going early was key, since it ended up being a hot day, and so we had a delightful morning in the orchards. Then settled in for lunch at a place we discovered downtown last year.

Adam insisted we all wear red, because cherries are red

On Mother’s Day itself we did something I’ve been wanting to do for years: Taking Amtrak up to Sacramento to visit the California State Railroad Museum. Plus, in spite of being something I’ve wanted to do long before having kids, it’s something that the kids would enjoy too! We caught a train up around 9AM and enjoyed 3.5 hours there in Old Sacramento, enjoying a quick lunch before exploring the train museum and stopping for some doughnuts. I would have liked a longer trip, but honestly the train schedules and kid schedules simply didn’t align. Plus, it was hot. It was absolutely worth doing, but given the cost and timing, I think the next time we make the trek to Old Sacramento we’ll just plan on picking a low traffic weekend and driving.

Compared to all this excitement, the following weekend was a bit chill. On Saturday we took two cars over to Ikea for a very exciting milestone: Aaron’s first big kid bed!

Our plan had always been for the boys to share a room once Aaron turned one, but a variety of factors made that impossible. Back on May 21st of 2023 when Aaron was almost two and a half, we made a solid attempt at the boys sharing a room, but it went dreadfully, I posted the following to Facebook on June 21st:

“After almost a month of hell, we gave up kiddo room-sharing for now.

Little Aaron wouldn’t stop ruining Adam’s sleep life; they go to bed too late (and required an hour+ of supervision from us), would wake up in the middle of the night, and get up too early. No one was getting enough sleep. I think Adam is just too sensitive right now and Aaron is still too immature to understand the impact he’s having by pushing boundaries all night. We’ll try again in a few months when Aaron is a little older.

Keeping Aaron in my home office was out of the question now that he is able to leave his crib, so instead he’s taken over MJ’s home office downstairs. It’s not optimal, nothing is, but since MJ’s office was never fully set up the change wasn’t a huge deal logistically, and he’s a lot safer there.

I’d celebrate having my office fully back, but I’m too tired. Here’s hoping at least few days of restful sleep are in my near future, I desperately need it.”

It took a more than a few months to try again, but in case you can’t tell from that post, I was not in great shape after that first attempt. It was necessary though, Aaron was old enough to leave his crib phase and we didn’t have a solution for Aaron in a bed except for in Adam’s room. So at the end of April we began attempt number two. It succeeded! As well as it could succeed anyway, no one likes sharing a room, and every time Aaron is extra noisy at bedtime Adam likes to remind us that he doesn’t want to share a room. Sorry kiddo.

Aaron started out in a converted crib but at three and a half now, he was getting to big for it. Instead, we used “we’ll get you a big boy bed!” as a reward for good behavior in Adam’s room. We also picked up new sheets for both boys, since we figured a reward was also in order for Adam.

Having them share a room has been quite a relief. With Aaron downstairs our ability to use the living room after 8PM was incredibly limited, and I’m glad MJ will finally be able to settle into his home office. Plus, at the townhouse in Philadelphia Aaron had been sleeping downstairs in a rough-in bathroom, not great for him but also putting a damper on how we could use the house after bedtime. This is the best solution.

The next two weeks were spent squeezing as much California fun out of weekends as possible. We made the decision to spend eight weeks, nearly the whole summer break from school, at the townhouse in Philadelphia. The pandemic put a huge dent in our ability to enjoy it for nearly three years, and we have catching up with so many loved ones to do. Not being stuck on a tight schedule over holidays will be nice. But first, I wanted to enjoy California a bit more!

The first adventure was a Lake Chabot boat tour. I bought tickets online ahead of time and took the boys out one Saturday morning for a far-too-chilly tour around the lake in a peaceful little boat. Aside from the cold, the boys and I had a lot of fun.

On Sunday we had a couple errands to do in San Francisco and treated the boys to a visit to the Children’s Creativity Museum. It was a cute museum, and I was always curious about it because we lived nearby when we lived in the city, but we probably won’t go again. It quickly became apparent that it’s a very city-kid focused place, with a bunch of toys and activities that a small home in the city won’t be able to have, but many of which we have in our huge playroom and yard in the suburbs that we put together during a pandemic when we couldn’t leave the house. Still, Aaron was delighted to play with blocks and BRIO trains for an hour, and Adam had fun with various other things, like a topography-enabled sand table. We concluded our visit to the city by going on the carousel, and then over to Fogo de Chao for lunch (kids eat free!).

We concluded our day by stopping by Panorama Park on Yerba Buena island on our drive home. It’s a tiny and rather industrial feeling park (a lot of concrete!) but the views are spectacular, which is the point.

MJ and I were able to go back to the city at the end of the month to do a rare date night and see a show!

On Friday, May 31st Adam completed TK! With the school year wrapped up, we turned out attention to our trip to Philadelphia and flew out on Sunday, June 2nd, after spending Friday evening at a local “summer nights” event within walking distance of home, and then spending Saturday visiting a very crowded Cherry Festival in nearby San Leandro.

Looking forward to the summer. I’m taking a little vacation time while we’re there, but will be working for most of it. I’m still a little apprehensive about how we’ll keep the boys entertained without school or a walkable downtown, so I’m already working on my queue of activities and what we should buy for our visit.

The first was to a baseball game! The A’s are moving away from Oakland next year, which is heartbreaking. I wanted to get a few final games in before they move, but it was logistically difficult. So one day I took the afternoon off from work and hopped on BART to see a game. It was great!

I ate chicken nachos out of a helmet.

And had a delicious churro sundae.

And watched the A’s lose, but that’s OK. It was a delightful afternoon away.

As a solo activity it was OK, I think I prefer going with someone because there’s so much down time in sports and it’s really a more social activity. I think going to movies, museums, or other active exhibits or parks may be more my speed moving forward.

And I know I said solo time should be time that’s not work, but on a whim I went up to RSA 2024 recently with an Expo hall pass. I met with some folks and got some great work done, I’m glad that I went.

Then I got to the solo not work part! I took a lovely walk down Market street to check out the new fancy food hall attached to the new Ikea. It was really nice. I decided to check out Curry Up Now, an Indian street food spot that served up a delicious Saag Paneer And Chicken Tikka Masala burrito, along with a mango lassi. I really miss living in San Francisco, so even if it was a work visit, just getting back in my favorite place was refreshing. On my way back to BART I was also happy to discover that the entrance from BART to the mall has re-opened!

We’ll see where my solo plans take me moving forward. I really can’t let this time get de-prioritized again, my family deserves a happy and energetic mom, and I deserve a happy and energetic me.

“What do you want to do in San Francisco?”
“Just ride around in buses and trains and cable cars.”

That’s my boy. He also wanted to go back to the Cable Car Museum and to the new Transbay Terminal park where they have a fountain that activates along a path whenever a bus passes beneath it. With all these things in mind we mapped out a plan.

First up, we decided not to take the stroller. It was the first time taking both boys into San Francisco without it, so we were a little nervous, but we managed to keep walking to a minimum and relied on public transit. We took BART into the city and got off at Embarcadero Station where we picked up the California Street cable car. Aaron and I rode on the outside of the car while MJ and Adam rode inside for the first half of our ride. Once some people got off, MJ and Adam joined us on the outside and then we hopped off at the stop just down the street from the Cable Car Museum.

From there, we walked over to the new Rose Pak MUNI Metro station in Chinatown, during which we got to wave to several cable cars coming by!

We took the Metro from Chinatown back downtown where we then walked over to Jeffery’s Toys, which was sadly going out of business. We picked up a couple trinkets and then got lunch at a nearby California Pizza Kitchen that we sometimes went to when MJ and I lived nearby.

Right after lunch we stopped at the Ghirardelli ice cream shop at the corner of Market and New Montgomery for a couple sundaes.

After lunch we hopped on a PCC street car for a couple stops down Market and then made our way to the Transbay Terminal where we spent some time playing and watching the bus fountain until it was time to take our last exciting type of transit: a bus! It would take longer, but the boys really wanted to take a bus, and MJ found an AC Transit Transbay bus that we could take across the bay, through Alameda, and concluding at an Oakland BART station, which we’d then take back home. The plan was a hit for all of us. It was a nice and comfortable bus which was enjoyable to take, and Aaron fell asleep on me during the journey, so clearly he was comfortable!

That Sunday was quite rainy, and our only journey was to a thrift store to pick up a small filing cabinet to try and contain some of Adam’s school papers which had been increasingly taking over our house. During Aaron’s nap, Adam and I made a trio of custom shirts for Valentine’s Day!

Later in the afternoon, we made some banana bread and then some popcorn to enjoy with our stuck-indoors, movie-driven afternoon.

Speaking of movie-driven, I went to see a movie! I realized recently that something that would help a lot with life balance and mental health would be taking some time for myself. It may seem obvious, but our life is just so busy and we’ve been very reserved about hiring babysitters, only really doing it when absolutely necessary. Part of this is just a holdover from the pandemic, we haven’t adjusted our habits or repopulated our babysitter pool. But taking some time for me to go out, meet with friends, or just go to the record store on my own is so important. So last week I walked over to The Chabot theater, our local, historical, single screen theater and saw Argylle. It was so much fun! I also made some time to stop by my local record shop, and then over to the library where I picked up a couple books.

Last weekend celebrations began for the Lunar New Year. Adam had some celebrations at school to observe it and he was pretty excited, so I searched for some local events and found a lion dance event and crafts right nearby at our local library! So the boys and I first made our regular stop at the local farmers market, and then continued on our journey to the library where we met up with our au pair and her friend, and made it just in time for the dance to begin.

When that concluded, we made our way over to the children’s section of the library where they had celebratory crafts. Predictably, Aaron loved the crafts and Adam wanted to explore the rest of the library and check out a couple books. Around 11:30 MJ picked us up so we could go to lunch.

Before the sun rose on Sunday MJ was off to the airport for a business trip. That morning the boys and I went to the local Japanese Gardens. The boys love the gardens, they’re beautiful, have rocks to climb, and they can see fish and turtles in the water features. From there, we were off to lunch at our favorite local restaurant. Unfortunately, Aaron turned out to be terribly annoyed that we did the gardens instead of a playground, so we rectified that later in the afternoon by going to another park, this time with a playground.

Once all park needs were satisfied for the day, it was time to go home for the Super Bowl! We don’t really watch football and I can barely follow along, but Super Bowl Sunday is basically a holiday in the United States, and it turns out I really enjoy celebrating things with the boys. So we turned on the game, had snacks, chicken tenders, and little bagel bites. And we made and decorated sugar cookies. I guess making cookies isn’t a traditional Super Bowl thing, but the boys weren’t really going to watch the game and we needed something fun and different that we could do with the TV on aside from the regular playroom activities.

Then the game went into overtime right when I was supposed to start getting the boys ready for bed – oops! As a result, I was actively putting Aaron to bed as 5 minutes were left on the clock, and returned just in time to see Kansas City triumph over San Francisco. Adam was adorably disappointed because he knew San Francisco is “his” team, but he got over it within about 30 seconds and the subsequent bedtime routine went smoothly.

The week ahead promised to be very sugar-filled with a little birthday celebration for a friend and Valentine’s Day! We also have a week off from school coming up.

I once read that depression can feel like a part of your soul taking a vacation, and it really resonated with me. First, because I do feel quite empty when I’m depressed, like part of my self is gone and I lack the ability to enjoy things and feel hopeful. But also because it’s a comforting story to tell myself. Where is that bit of my soul? Is she having fun by the beach? Going on some glorious hikes? I hope she’s happy, and well-rested when she returns. When I stop being depressed, I wouldn’t say I’m refreshed and ready to take over the world, but compared to being depressed, it’s a very clear shift in everything. Soul vacations work! I hope she comes back soon though, it may not be strictly debilitating, but every single day, every single hour, is hard right now.

Now that I’ve got done sharing that I am not being thoughtful and creative, I’m going to share that the boys and I did something thoughtful and creative for the Jewish holiday of Tu B’Shevat. The holiday celebrates trees, and these days it’s an ecological holiday that’s typically observed by planting trees. We’ve tended to do little tree-related crafts on this holiday, but when Adam saw it on the calendar he became fixated on planting a tree. Unfortunately our small yard can’t really take any more trees and we weren’t able to find a local tree-planting activity that worked with our schedules, but I knew I had to do something. So, as soon as I was done with work for the day, I took the boys to the local hardware store to pick up a large bag of soil. Once we got home, we grabbed a giant pot that we’d originally gotten to grow a baby watermelon, filled it with soil, and then the boys planted several clippings from one of our jade plants (succulent trees! I can’t kill them!). It was a simple and cute activity, and seemed satisfactory to Adam’s desire to plant a tree.

Last week I had the nice surprise of my Aunt Mary being in San Francisco for a work conference. She was incredibly busy, but made time for us the final morning she was in town before her flight. I hadn’t seen her in years so even though only Aaron and I could make it up (MJ and Adam were busy with work and school) it was a real treat to get to see her, and for her to meet little Aaron! I also hope we can either make it to Florida in the coming year, or see her more if work brings here this way again soon, she hasn’t met Adam either, and he just turned five years old.

I’m glad Aaron got to meet more of my family, but I think mostly he enjoyed going on a trip with me to the city on the train. He was disappointed that we couldn’t go on a cable car and didn’t stay in the city for longer because we needed to get back for lunch and nap time, but it was nice to spend a little quality time just the two of us.

Over the weekend we took the boys over to the Oakland Zoo. We’re members and it’s just 15 minutes from home, so it isn’t something we spend a lot of time in planning for, but Adam shared that he wanted to go on some of the rides and the gondola, so we decided to make a day of it.

We started with a kids ride and the zoo train, but it was then getting to be lunch time.

For lunch, we took the gondola up to the California Trail and had lunch at the cafe up there. The zoo itself is located on a big hill, and the California Trail is on the top of that large hill, so you can see the bay, Oakland, San Francisco, multiple bridges. It’s a beautiful spot, and we even managed to snag one of the few tables outside to enjoy that view. It was also the first really beautiful day of the year, with sun and temperatures reaching the low 70s. It did mean that the zoo was rather busy and the lines were long, but it was all quite tolerable. After playing on the playground and enjoying the rest of the California Trail, we went down on the gondola and got to see an elephant and the giraffes before concluding our zoo day by letting the kids go on one final ride.

It’s now February. I spent January observing “dry January” to cut out alcohol for a few weeks. Just like in 2023, it wasn’t a difficult thing for me, but it was a change. I wouldn’t say it was interesting or helpful in any way, but it did reduce the calories I consumed! Speaking of which, back in July I reflected on my diet and weight, and how I had put on 25 pounds and wasn’t happy about it. I identified some changes I thought I should make, but at the end I made clear that I’d prioritize my mental health, and ultimately didn’t commit to making any of the changes I identified. I’d like to try to do that now. Let’s see how I do this time, I’m at 219 pounds now.

On Saturday we decorated and settled back into our usual routine, with an added bonus of a trip to Adam’s favorite restaurant to enjoy his favorite food and then some birthday ice cream.

On Sunday we held a little family party with our former au pairs. As requested by him, it was Paw Patrol themed. This was the first year he could clearly articulate what he wanted theme-wise, instead of me just following what I knew his interests was. I even made a Paw Patrol tower for his cake, even if he was disappointed that the cake itself wasn’t a tower – hah!

The following weekend we took the boys out to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. Aaron had been asking to see more dinosaurs, and Adam kept asking to go to the jungle to try out his “jungle hat” which is actually and old hat from the Philadelphia Zoo, the provenance of which is unknown to me, but I’m pretty certain it is from when MJ was a kid and it happened to surface while we were going through some stuff in storage and now Adam has claimed it. Since the academy had a temporary dinosaur exhibit AND a rainforest, it was a perfect fit! Plus, the weekend of Adam’s birthday was pretty low-key due to everyone being tired from the trip, so I’m glad we got to go out on an adventure.

Our first stop was the The World’s Largest Dinosaurs temporary exhibit, there were a lot of sauropod fossils! And some partial re-creations of the Argentinosaurus and Mamenchisaurus. It wasn’t as exciting for them as the dinosaur hall we saw a few weeks ago in Philadelphia, but it’s as close as we were going to get to satisfying Aaron’s desire to see dinosaurs for now and he seemed happy with it.

From there we went to the rainforest exhibit, where Adam was very excited to wear his hat. The rainforest globe is filled with butterflies, which the boys have been talking about ever since, and we were all delighted when one of them landed on Adam’s hat!

Seeing Claude was definitely a highlight. We have Claude: The True Story of a White Alligator by Emma Bland Smith, a children’s book about him, but this was the first time the boys saw him in real life! Aaron told us he was scary but didn’t actually seem very afraid, Adam said he thought he’d be bigger.

We then went to get lunch, a little late, but we were right on track to finish making our way through the cafeteria line when the museum fire alarm sounded. It took a few minutes, but it was soon clear that the alarm was real and wasn’t going to stop, and we had to evacuate, without our food! What followed was about 30 minutes of standing outdoors waiting to hear if we’d be let back in. A single fire truck pulled up to the front of the museum which the boys enjoyed, what they did not enjoy was being hungry, so I had to pull out the snacks. Fortunately that didn’t seem to dampen their appetite for lunch, once we were able to return to the museum they both ate well.

Once we were happily fed, it was downstairs to the aquarium! Aaron loves aquariums, and I’ve been wanting to go to this one since I made this discovery about him. Unfortunately putting it at the end of the day meant that everyone was getting tired, and I suddenly wasn’t feeling well. Still, we got to enjoy the rays swimming beneath our feet, and the boys got to see a lot of fish, and the downstairs view of Claude.

Our last stop in the aquarium was to visit 93 year old Methuselah, an Australian lungfish that’s been with the aquarium for most of her very long life. They discovered for sure how old she was last year via some new DNA tests and shared it during their 100th anniversary celebrations. Cool.

It’s surprising to me how many new things we’ve been bringing the boys to. It is very unusual that we have a three year old and a five year old who haven’t seen so many traditional childhood things! And then I remember the pandemic. We would have been able to introduce them to all these places and things much earlier if we hadn’t been sequestered for two and a half years! So while it’s unusual, it is our reality. I’m very happy that we’re at least healthy and able to do it now.

That weekend we also went to a farmers’ market in Oakland after meeting with someone who had a non-functional Oliver 9 typewriter for sale. I’ve been on the lookout for an Oliver 9 since I got to use one at the type-in in Philadelphia in November, but I wasn’t going to move forward with this one since it wasn’t working. MJ encouraged me to check it out anyway to see if it could be repaired. I watched some YouTube videos before we left, and through a basic inspection in the lobby I discovered that it was in really solid shape with all the important parts intact. So MJ bought it for me! Along with some flowers at the market. I’ve been pretty overwhelmed with things lately, and he knows that, so it was really thoughtful and sweet.

One of the things that has added to feeling overwhelmed is our four year old refrigerator. It stopped keeping things frozen in the freezer back in September and we’ve gone through a half dozen visits from repair and warranty folks over the intervening months. The timeline has definitely been lengthened by all our travel over the holidays, but it’s still a ridiculous situation. We’ve been effectively living out of my beer fridge, a large mini-fridge that we brought up from the garage, and only keeping a few semi-perishable things in the larger refrigerator, which was barely managing to keep a temperature below 50F. After our latest repair visit it didn’t even manage that, and the temperature rose to be in the high 50s, making it useless even for semi-perishable food. It’s now just a monolith that dispenses purified water. After discovering one evening that a bunch of recently purchased fruit had gotten moldy and feeling absolutely defeated as the kids clamored for fruit, MJ rushed to Lowe’s and picked up another large mini-fridge. Sigh. I really hope the compressor replacement solves the problem, living out of two mini-fridges isn’t very fun either.

At that point I had already exposed everyone, and we were all suddenly stuck at home for two weeks. I decided to go on Paxlovid due to my asthma, but it was still a brutal infection for me this time around, and for over a week I found myself having to take naps every afternoon. The medication caused the dreaded “Paxlovid mouth” for me, which leaves a nasty taste in your mouth that I could only really combat with fruit snacks and sweet candies, not optimal, but it actually made it hard to sleep some nights otherwise. Thankfully, the kids were fine. Aaron never even developed symptoms or a positive test. I joked that since he was born in 2020 he was issued full immunity (pandemic baby!).

Being sick is never fun, but perhaps the most frustrating thing out of it this time was how bored the kids were. Every day it was the list of places they were begging us to take them to, from Target to a train ride to a restaurant. We do get out a lot with them, so the swift reversion to isolation life was hard on them, plus Adam being out of school.

They still played outside and after the first week we went to some unpopulated playgrounds a couple of times. One day we made apple cake!

Another day we did do-it-yourself pizzas, where I enjoyed some turkey pepperoni and the tomato sauce we made over Labor day.

We had a little lamination machine delivered and made some clever bookmarks, along with bunches of other crafts.

And we observed Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, both of which our isolation totally clobbered and made the choice for us of whether we wanted to go out and attend services in-person. Ultimately I think we would have done them remotely anyway due to various factors, but it would have been nice to have the choice. We did decide to switch to virtual services away from our synagogue in San Francisco and instead dialed into the more local congregation. We haven’t joined the more local one yet, but it does seem like that’s the one we’ll ultimately be joining in the not to distant future, so it was nice to start getting familiar with their space and culture, even if it was over video.

By the end of the month most of us were testing negative and I got to enjoy a family-only birthday celebration and then got BBQ from a place down the street for a lovely birthday lunch!

On the first weekend of October we were feeling well enough for an adventure! Boo at the Zoo had begun at Oakland Zoo and we discovered that kids love hay mazes. It was actually a nice mix of something both the boys could have a lot of fun with, which can be tricky given their very different interests and temperaments.

The following weekend we took the train up to San Francisco for some transit adventures. We had sadly missed MUNI Heritage Weekend due to our COVID infection, but I was delighted to learn that the historic Blackpool 228 “boat tram” was out running that weekend for Fleet Week.

We didn’t intend to go up during the height of Fleet Week weekend, it’s just how our schedules landed, but it did mean the city was hopping and it was fun to see a few fighter jets and a massive battleship anchored at a pier. Our route took us up to Union Square, down past Jeffery’s Toys, then down to the Market Street Railway Museum and Ferry Building, and finally to lunch on the Embarcadero at Delancey Street Restaurant.

It was a delightfully transit-full day with rides on BART and MUNI Metro, but we skipped everything but viewing the historic fleet this time around due to how incredibly packed they were. Next time!

They had police horses that Aaron gathered the courage to pet, firetrucks that Aaron could climb up in, all while Adam explored the large grassy fields, marina, and generally enjoyed being outdoors in a park we haven’t spent a ton of time in.

Another evening Adam was rummaging around in my stuff in my home office (hey!) and found the Linux license plate that Compaq gave out back in 2000. I wasn’t the original owner, but it has been kicking around my office for some time without a home, and he excitedly told me that we should hang it up. Sounds good!

We did.

We wandered around the house replacing light bulbs and batteries another night, and the air filters for our HVAC system and air purifiers another. It actually turned these chores that had been piling up into a more fun and present experience. Instead of the boring manual labor of doing this tedious around-the-house work, I had a couple pint-sized helpers who would follow simple instructions like “bring me the screwdriver” or “bring me that trash bag” and enjoyed doing it.

One evening while out in the yard I even fixed the irrigation sprinklers. We had a monthly gardener for a while last year and on one of his visits he clipped one of the sprinkler heads and caused it to crack, which made the whole system unusable. Now, we don’t actually use it, so fixing it seems a bit silly, but the heads are less than $3 each and replacement is easy. Why not fix it? Plus, it was hot out, so it might be fun for the boys to play in the sprinklers!

Well, I quickly learned why we don’t use pop-up irrigation sprinklers with little kids. The damage a gardener did once was nothing compared to what a soggy kid who wants to clean his Cozy Coupe will do to a sprinkler head. I started with one broken one, and ended up replacing three. Oops. Though I guess I should be grateful that it was so easy to fix and they didn’t break anything more severely.

One of the reasons I’d been so eager to get out on a weeknight, or have more activities like fixing things, was that Adam hadn’t begun TK yet, and we had a (wonderful!) babysitter filling in while we were between au pairs for a few weeks. Unfortunately, due to the large price tag of hiring an hourly babysitter for what was effectively full time, we had her precisely cover while I was at work, not a moment more. That meant I had a bit more time with the boys than usual on weeknights, and that meant coming up with more activities to keep them engaged. At 2.5 and 4.5 years old, both are maturing in the direction that they can do solo play for longer stretches, so I’ve been able to get more chores done while still caring for them (and sometimes a little more work), a fact I was especially grateful for while juggling so much each day.

The week we matched with our new au pair, we went out to a local book shop to pick up some locally themed gifts and discovered the Ghirardelli Ice Cream and Chocolate Factory Outlet over in San Leandro. Having played tourist in San Francisco many times at the founding location that isn’t actually a factory now, it was a lot of fun to park in the lot for the actual current factory and enjoy their new ice cream parlor that opened up inside. The boys and I shared a brownie sundae.

Afterwards, we had dinner at The Original Mels Diner just down the street, which is the cousin of Mel’s in San Francisco, which we used to go to relatively frequently. The boys got their dinner in little paper cars, which I was pretty envious of until the amazing cornbread that went along with my turkey dinner arrived.

The first full weekend our new au pair was here turned out to be quite an eventful one. First was the Castro Valley Cruise Night. The town doesn’t shut down roads like for some of our annual festivals, but the boulevard is packed as people from all around the area make loops down the road in their classic and exotic cars. “Cruising” is frowned upon in most places, illegal in others, but for one night a year it is fun to get out with the rest of the community and enjoy seeing cars.

The next day we went up to San Francisco and showed our new au pair some of the classic tourist spots. Earlier that week we had ventured up to the city to check on some things at our condo, and ended up at Fogo de Chão where we made the surprising discovery that kids eat free there (though only Aaron was really into the whole experience). Our weekend visit was a much more exciting one though. We started off doing a near round-trip on the California Street cable car!

We got off near Grace Cathedral and walked down to the Cable Car Museum, which I was a bit worried would be too loud for my sound-sensitive kiddos, but Adam surprised me and spent the rest of the day asking to go back.

After the museum, we did the steep but thankfully mostly downhill walk down to Pier 39 where we had lunch and visited the sea lions. The big adventure for the afternoon though was visiting Aquarium of the Bay. Aaron loves fish and other swimming things, so I’ve been wanting to take him to an aquarium for months. With our half off discount via the Oakland Zoo membership, this was the perfect opportunity, and it didn’t disappoint. It’s not a huge aquarium, but it has some wonderful fish tunnels and overall Aaron had a blast there.

Our final stop was to to the Musée Mécanique, which was quite crowded and everyone was getting tired at this point. I think the boys would have enjoyed it more if the circumstances had been different, I’ll have to keep it in mind for the future. From Fisherman’s Wharf, we hopped on a vintage street car and made our way back to BART to go home. A fun day, and a successful one of showing off how the Clipper cards and public transit around San Francisco works to our new au pair.

Living in beautiful-all-year California, the end of summer is kind of a vague thing, but with work getting busier, Adam going to TK, and generally some things changing in our household, these adventures actually did feel like a close to summertime.

Sadly, the rides on the outside of the zoo are not included in the membership, but with free parking it’s still an inexpensive activity that makes them very happy. Plus, we can pop into the zoo too! On one small day trip on a very hot day, the boys enjoyed a couple of the little kids rides, and then we took the gondola inside the zoo up to the top and right back down again before heading home.

In other animal news, we also spent one Saturday morning visiting the Sulphur Creek Nature Center. The only one of us who had been there before was Adam, who went with his first au pair back before the pandemic! They have a lot of birds that are being rehabilitated, as well as some rabbits and at least one coyote, and an indoor discovery center where Aaron really enjoyed visiting the snakes. Definitely a place to go back to.

I’ve recently taken some modified advice from my therapist and started taking the boys out on separate adventures that cater to their specific interests. It can be stressful to take them out together, since they have very different ways of experiencing outings. At the zoo Aaron loves to stare at the animals, where Adam would rather run through fields and quickly inspect each unfamiliar symbol on the zoo map. When they’re out with one parent, it can be tricky to cater to both, and even when we go out as a whole family, we find ourselves dragged from one thing to the next rather quickly to keep them both happy. I’m sure it’ll get easier as they mature and can each better cope with doing what their brother wants to do, but for now it’s sometimes just easier to take them out separately.

In the spirit of this, I took one weekend this month and did an Adam day and then an Aaron day.

Adam likes typewriters, and I wanted to get my IBM Selectric II cleaned up and repaired. So I decided to take Adam for a drive up to Berkeley Typewriter. It’s a 25 minute drive each way, so there was a bit of a risk, but I didn’t have to be worried. I got my estimate and turned over my typewriter, and then we spent a half hour exploring typewriters in the store portion of the repair shop. Adam delightfully went around to various typewriters writing his name.

And I got to see the typewriter that Tom Hanks donated to the shop! Tom Hanks rather famously collects and uses vintage typewriters, and I first learned about his shop donations after he donated a typewriter to Philadelphia Typewriter. It was a delight to learn that he had gifted one to my local shop as well. And it’s a beautiful red IBM Selectric at that!

As a bonus, we brought home a professionally gutted typewriter that the boys could use as a toy. Adam now regularly plays typewriter repair shop, where he tries to “fix” it with a variety of tools. It’s adorable.

On Sunday it was Aaron’s day! He’s been asking for MONTHS to ride a cable car. He knows about them because I like cable cars and some of his books about San Francisco feature them. In general, my little two and a half year old likes public transit anyway, so my goal with him on this beautiful August morning was to take BART (train #1!) up to San Francisco and take him on some public transit downtown. First stop, a cable car!

I made the mistake of going to Powell, somehow forgetting that at the height of summer there’d be a huge line for the cable car on a Sunday morning. Instead of waiting in that line, we hopped on a vintage street car to the less popular California Street cable car line. I was quickly reminded how tricky it was bringing a lively two year old, a folded stroller, and a diaper bag onto crowded public transit by myself. People are incredibly kind, and someone even gave up their seat for Aaron on the street car, but it was an ordeal. Once settled in, we did have a nice time on the street car though!

As expected, when we arrived at the California Street cable car stop we were able to hop right on board. Due to having a stroller, we had to sit inside, but it worked out well for his first cable car ride. He could walk around a little inside, and we did the full length of the line, and then took it back to where we began.

From there we walked past Ferry Building to where the MUNI Metro line surfaces and took that down to the Giants baseball stadium, which he enjoyed seeing. We then ended up with brunch at one of our old favorites, the Delancey Street Restaurant.

It was a long morning for Aaron, but ultimately a very successful one. We took the MUNI Metro back to BART and made our way home after brunch, wrapping up our weekend adventures!