The kinds of questions Yogi is asking these days

"How can my ass be wise?"

"Why are all the dogs attacking me with their noses?" followed by a gleeful giggle.

Santa Claus

Yesterday Yogi and his friend Martin were talking in the back seat. Martin asked Yogi if he believed in Santa Claus. This is a sensitive topic for Yogi because in April he caught us preparing for Easter and thus - in his mind - 'ruined all the holidays' for himself. He has expressed in the past that believing in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny gave him a 'warm feeling' that he no longer has and that he longs for.

I know, the kid is amazing.

So Yogi doesn't want to take away that belief from anyone else and so he treads carefully when the topic comes up.

Martin is a year older than Yogi so it was probably safe.

Okay, enough background. This is what Yogi said.

"I think Santa Claus is a warm feeling. He's like the spirit of Christmas you know? The spirit of generosity and the spirit of kindness."

My heart was in my throat. How could this child have such a beautiful, poetic understanding? Then he said:

"He's also the spirit of gingerbread people."

So there ya go.

New vocabulary

Last week Yogi told me his friend Xander was a "girl magnet" and that Asher and Keller had tried to cure Xander, which seemed to work for a while, but the effect wore off. So apparently Xander is still a "girl magnet" which is a potential problem when you're eight.

He is full of interesting and funny stuff like this these days.

Last night at Therese's birthday party we were teasing him about being nutty or something like that and he yelled, "I need my medical records!" (He knew I'd been working on getting his medical records transferred from his old pediatrician to Kaiser.)

He still loves speaking in accents, and last night he was working on mumbling in French, British and American southern accents.

He's also been getting really good about talking about his feelings about being teased at school (by his "friends" who are going through their own stuff and can be pretty mean as a result.)

Today we talked about Santa Claus. He's in this murky place where I think he knows Santa isn't real, but is trying to figure out the implications of coming right out and saying that. Last Easter when he got his first big hit of the possibility that Santa isn't a physical being he told John he'd lost that "warm feeling" about the holidays and was sad about that. Geeze! I think I remember those kinds of feelings as a kid, but I never talked about them.

Nothing brings me as much joy as how fun, funny, unexpected and thoughtful Yogi is.

Yogi is 8

We celebrated Yogi's birthday on Friday with a full day of activities.

John cheffed up a breakfast of peanut waffles with whipped cream which was shared by Yogi, John, me and G-Pa, who is visiting. (G-Ma was in St. Louis visiting (great) Gramma.)

After that we decided to open presents and Yogi got showered with LEGO and games for Wii and his Nintendo DS.

We played games for the rest of the morning, and then went to Bucaneer Bay in La Mirada.Bucaneer Bay is not quite a water park, but among other things it's got 3 great tube slides (one is a sort of free fall that we all braved) and a lazy river you can navigate with intertubes. Our friends Apollo (the kid) and Xander (the dad) were there so we met up with them and lots of getting-away-from-the-monster games ensued on the lazy river, with occasional forays over to the slides.

After we closed down the water park we went for dinner at Yogi's restaurant of choice, Homegirl Cafe. The food was exquisite, and after dessert Yogi and Apollo became volunteer busboys and cleared our table. The staff was very sweet and generous, and Yogi got a card and a birthday brownie which blew his little culinary mind ("Mom! This chocolate!! It's so intense!")

The next day, Yogi got his first stitches when he backed into a floor lamp which cracked (the glass sconce hit the window framing) and rained down on him causing 2 lacerations in his scalp and one on his knee. It was a pretty bloody scene, but when all the blood was cleaned up and our jangled nerves calmed, the wounds didn't seem so severe. To be safe we called the triage nurse at Kaiser and she said to bring him in for a look. So we went off to the emergency room and Yogi ended up with a stitch in his head and one on his knee. He was so scared, and so, so brave. I've never had the chance to see him display such courage and it was truly amazing. First were the shots of lidocane. He was talking and talking and trying to get the whole process to slow down, but we were in the ER so it was hard to put the breaks on things. He said to the doctor "Don't stitch me right now, I need some time to calm myself!" and he'd put his hands together and close his eyes and do deep breathing, all this amidst tears and sobs. The lidocane was administered, one in the head wound and one in the knee wound, and he held so still while he gripped my hand and wept. Soon it was time for the knee stitch which turned out to be not so bad after the lidocane. When it was done I said "It actually looks pretty cool." He bent forward and peered at his knee and proclaimed urgently, "No! That's not cool! It's not cool!" He wasn't yet ready to marvel at medical science and the healing power of the body at that point. Then the doctor told him he couldn't move his head when he was being stitched. He was especially scared of having his head stitched because he thought it would hurt more than the knee because it was so close to his brain. He was in position with his head on the pillow, and suddenly said, "I really want to move my head, I really want to move my head! Wait! Can I just move my head around first?" The doctor consented and Yogi shook his little head around and around as fast as he could, again while sobbing, and it was amazing and cute at the same time. He was so good at talking about his fear and communicating what he needed to do in order to feel more comfortable. From his bedside manner, it was clear that the doctor had never encountered a young patient who was able to articulate so much about his experience. When Yogi shaken for a bit the doctor said it was time, so he put his head on the pillow and the operation was over in 2 minutes.

He spent Sunday and Monday recuperating - no swimming, no baths. But Apollo ended up coming over Sunday night and they were racing around as they usually do so my motherly fears were able to calm even more, which was a relief.

So that is how 8 started for Robert Yogi Wenk Sylvain: Fun, exciting, scary, triumphant. It was such a privilege to share it with him.

Trip for President

Yogi and Trip are talking on the phone right now about Trip being President when he grows up.

"Trip!" said Yogi. "You can't make all the rules! I know more about Congress than you do!"

Question of the day part 2

"How are angels different from those flying babies with bows and arrows?"

Question of the day

"Daddy, why do you have to open your mouth to talk, but not to chew?"

Yogi just asked "What is claustrophobic?"

"Does it mean being afraid of Santa?"

Happy Easter! New videos and pictures! Fencing and more...

Finally, new videos and pictures of son #1!

Here he is at fencing class:



Yogi said to me that in fencing you're supposed to hold the tip of your sword up so you don't accidentally hurt someone.

"It's the way of the blade," he said.

Click the link below to watch more on the family YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/sylvainfamily

And some great pictures...

Yogi loves to play with the PhotoBooth app on the computer. This is a self-portrait:


Glasses were a gift from Granny Deb:


Yogi and John are writing a book together about a boy named Bobby Blinx. Here they are working on the first draft on a Sunday afternoon:


We have endless photos so...Coming Soon: A Flickr account to make perusal easier!

New Years Eve 08

We have two family traditions for New Years. One is a New Years Day Brunch which we have been doing for 4 or 5 years and which we are really looking forward to. Then we have a new years eve ritual that we stole/invented/cobbled together last year. It goes like this:

We bath
We write down things we want to give up for the new year
We take turns smudging the house with sage as we ring a bell 108 times to dismiss the 108 human weaknesses.

This year John is giving up Selfishness, Procrastination and Lazyness and Impatience. Shelley is giving up Impatience, Reasons for not exercising and meditation, things and clutter and perfectionism.

Yogi did this for the first time this year (giving rise to some impatience in John!) and he said he wanted to give up:

Anger
Impatience
Agitation
War and Destruction
Pain (for other people and me)
Selfishness
Buying Things I don't need

Cool!!!

We've had a couple trips to the snow and Shelley and Yogi made a ginger bread house that collapsed under the snow. Vids and story coming soon..

Right Shelley?

The family that votes together

Well we all went to the polls together, Shelley, John and Yogi and we all voted.

Well Yogi didn't vote and he's a little upset about that. Trying to explain why he can't vote yet was difficult. It really doesn't make much sense that kids have no vote. Yogi will be paying for George W. Bush's policies for a long time.

After we came home I said to Yogi: "I want you to remember this day. It's an important day in American history."

He said: "Of course I remember this day. It's today!"

Thank you G-Pa - Yogi loves Lego Batman for Wii

Tooth Care

School Starts!

Yogi started his 5th year at Play Mountain Place Tuesday (his 2nd in Primary Group in Mountain Yard.)

The pics below are from his first year (2004) and his 2nd year.

Ready for Little Nursery. The first day ever!

First year of Big Nursery.

Yogi's first visit to the dentist

Yogi went to the dentist today for the first time. He's on the phone right now with Granny Deb, telling her about it. "It's not a he...and she's very nice."

He got his teeth cleaned, x-rays taken (no cavities,) and his back teeth sealed to prevent decay.

Yogi's birthday is coming

Yogi is going to be 7 next week! Hard to believe. It feels like it's gone by so fast, although looking back over pictures I guess we've had 7 years full of good times.

Over the past year Yogi has really become a boy with hardly any trace of toddlerhood left. He's into Pokemon and Wii games, boogie boarding and playing with his DS, swimming and Jinenkan. He's moved from Playmobil to Lego, now that he can build things out of the millions of small pieces that only look like the picture on the box for about 10 seconds (after hours of frustrating construction for John!) He and John are on the last few books of the Harry Potter series, after which they'll see the movies which have been banned until the book-reading is completed.

Other books he's been listening to on CD include the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Chronicles of Narnia, Redwall and others in that series, Eragon and Eldest, Castles in the Sky, The Mysterious Benedict Society, and many others. He loves stories and can listen for hours. His ability to focus is fierce. He still doesn't read, but is definitely showing signs of being close. However he resists being taught, so we have to slip reading tutorial in when he's not looking! He's good at math - can do simple addition and subtraction in his head.

He's articulate and outspoken. He's not shy about shouting, "Mommy!" (Or whoever else is close by...) "A little help here?" And he says funny stuff all the time. I still find it hard to believe that he's my kid sometimes. He just seems like an amazing creature that came from some kind of magic place!

Alienor Has Arrived

Yogi's friend Alienor has dodged the hurricanes and arrived in Dominica.

Saying goodbye to Alienor

Yogi's dear friend Alienor Mendiburu moved to Dominica in the West Indies yesterday. Alienor and her family moved to Los Angeles from Paris, and she came to Play Mountain Place when she was about 5. Yogi met her in House Group when he was 5 years old and Alienor was 6.


Saying goodbye was very hard. Both Yogi and Trip wanted kisses on the lips, but Alienor (being the smart girl she is) would only kiss on the cheek.

Here they are in the back of Fabienne's fab*fab convertible.


Finally it was really time to say goodbye.


We will all miss Alienor, who is very special. And we'll miss Fabienne, Bernard and Lupin, too.

But we know we can visit them in the Caribbean, and eventually in other wonderful places as well!

Yogi in costume

Yogi is very game to dress up. He and I recently went to the thrift store to put together an Indiana Jones costume for him.

Yogi and his best friend Trip at the end of Yogi's Indiana Jones birthday party.



Yogi attended Asher's disco-costume birthday party dressed as an American Indian. Our friend Michele made this costume for Yogi for last Halloween.

But will he learn to wipe?

Yogi and I were sitting on the couch this morning watching Mythbusters. I glanced up at him and he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and got that I-wasn't-doing-anything-I-shoudn't-be-doing look on his face.

"Yogi!" I said. "Are you playing with your spit?" (Playing with spit bubbles is a gross thing he's been doing for a couple months now, and he knows I think it's disgusting.)

He broke out in a smile, and I said with a laugh, "You're so weird and gross!"

He cracked another tiny smile and then said, "I'm a kid."

A pause, and then he concluded, still smiling, "I think I'll grow out of it."