Child's Play

At 10 months, Kai is becoming more of a playmate for Xander, and Xander is becoming more of an object of obsession for Kai. They've started to interact more. This weekend, they were both coloring at the coffee table in the living room. Well, Xander was coloring, Kai was imitating him and bapping crayons on paper.

The boys coloring together. Kai has some marker on his eyebrow.

Kai's a proficient crawler and has been crawling into Xander's forts, making for Xander's train tracks, generally trying to do whatever Xander is doing. We're working on getting Xander to calmly say, "Mommy, Daddy, please move Kai!" instead of tears and "NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!"  Fortunately, he is getting  more patient with Kai, and is learning how to distract him with a different toy. Sometimes, they do play trains together:

Reindeer Kai

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This is the season of neighborhood block parties and Sunday Streets. Last weekend, we made a quick trip up to Rockridge Out and About with our neighbor. Her daughter, Bella, just learned to ride her push bike. Bella and Xander had a great time whizzing down College Avenue, which was closed to cars. All the neighborhood families came out for the party. Guess what kind of store these kids are looking at:

Yes, that's right, a toy store.

Today, we went to Berkeley Sunday Streets. The event closed Shattuck Avenue in downtown Berkeley for a good mile. This was the first Sunday Streets in Berkeley, and it was a big success--lots of people and kids, and a whole bunch of free activities and booths. We saw the usual Berkeley suspects: a middle-aged couple walking meditatively down the road in bare feet, a woman dressed all in pink, on a pink bike that made pink bubbles, an anti-circumcision booth manned by "intactivists," several in-street yoga classes, UC Berkeley physics students' demonstration table, lots of pro- and con- signs for the upcoming election/ballot measures, a jazz band in front of a wine and chocolate shop, and  local/slow/organic/handmade/gourmet food samples. We stopped at a kids jam session, and Xander and Kai both got into it:

We hope he decides NOT to take up drumming.

Kai is a natural drummer.

Highlight for me was the demonstration bike box on Hearst Avenue, spraypainted on the road by the East Bay Bicycle Coalition. Xander saw the green and said, "This is for bikes, right Mommy?" So proud of my little biker boy.

Xander demonstrates bike placement in a green bike box.