Movin' On Up

Mason and his buddies have been heading to karate every Tuesday night since the fall, and we hit a big milestone today! They got their first belt promotion, from white to orange.

As Kushinda, the master, explained it, they are not fully accepted into the community until they hit this mark, so it was kind of a big deal. While they're still working a lot on the basics, they have mastered the art of following directions. Here's Mason performing the technique to move on:



Officially receiving his belt:



The new crop of orange belts:



And, the entire class -- as you can see -- there's a big range of skills and age levels, but all in all they have fun each week when they meet!



Lastly, striking a proud pose with Dad-O after the festivities:

New wheels

Check out the daycare kiddos rockin' their new ride. It's like a stroller bus!

Daycare Kiddos

Melissa and her brave staff took eight of the kiddos to the Children's Museum last Friday night. All us mommies and daddies picked them up from there and spent a little time playing. Here are some shots from the action:



Mason, as you can see, refused to take part in the group shot. It might have had something to do with this group lining up by the door, awaiting their parents' arrival and eventual dismissal. As I was already there, he wanted to keep playing. To wit, here he is running all over the museum, wearing the fire fighter's hat he picked up sometime before I got there. Also, note the stickers on his cheeks? Well, when I took those off later that night, they left little sticker-shaped rashes that lasted all weekend. Oops!



Zachary and Lilly...



Kellyn and Zion



One more shot, though not from CMOM. This one is from our usual Tuesday night trek to karate class. They're getting pretty good! I thought they looked pretty cute all bundled up and waiting on the stairs while the stroller was parked.

Bilingual Babies

Today marked the final chapter in our 10-week Spanish playgroup. With Melissa's help, Mason and his buddies from daycare would make a weekly Wednesday-morning trek down to Chelsea to spend an hour making new friends and learning Spanish as part of their Hola Playgroup.

Here are some shots from the action:



Classes always started out with a song welcoming everyone to the group and each of the kids got to pick out an instrument to rock out with. Mommy was lucky enough to be able to hop on the train and meet up with the group to take part in the classes.



A great way to spend my lunch hour, no doubt.



Here, Mason and his friends point out vegetables. Each week, the class would focus on a different theme and included an introduction to that theme, a song about the topic, some sort of group activity, a puppet or slide show and an art project before some open group play.



Mason waits for the art supplies to make their way down the table to him -- but mostly, he would participate in the art only until the toys came out. We have more than one half-finished project from this class. He was pretty obsessed with playing with the trains, or the pop-up bus/tent ... not the paint, glue and markers (after all, we don't have a pop-up bust/tent at our house.)



Class is ending, and Hope, Mason and one of the other little girls pile on Veronica's (or 'Nica, according to Hope) lap to give her a hug and say "gracias" before we head back to the train.

With the session over, we're trying to work out something for the summer and convince our new friend Veronica to move her class uptown for the fall. For now, the Spanish CD we bought from the class is on constant rotation!

Surprise, Surprise

Yesterday marked Melissa's birthday, and all of us daycare mommies got together to throw her a little surprise party. It was no small feat pulling it all together and keeping it quiet when I was at her place twice a day!

Luckily, the weather held out for us and we were able to party on the sidewalk -- other option was our apartment, and you all know how small it is for three of us!

We tried and tried to get a picture of Melissa with all her charges, but this is the best we could do...



Here, the Mason-man shows off his crown. Resident artist/Kaya and Fiona's mom Sandra was charged with the decorating and making the party hats for everyone.



This look...well, we saw it a lot, from a lot of different kiddos -- it is the universal sign for "Oh, No! My balloon got away and is floating up, up, up into the sky!"



This is what Mason did all night -- eat cupcakes. I can count at least three different ones from the sequence of photos on my camera. He kept finding friendly adults (read: not mommy) to give him more sugar, I guess. Smart kid...



Here's the surviving crew -- Kellyn, Fiona, Kaya and Mason, who along with their mommies outlasted all the other party goers.



The most entertaining moment of the night? Undoubtedly when we gave them the cooler full of ice and told them to wash their hands in it (a ploy to buy us some clean-up time). They did that, and then proceeded to dump all the ice, cup-by-cup onto the sidewalk. It was all fun and games until Mason nearly pelted some cops with a cupful of ice and the pile caused one biker to come precariously close to a spill.