Weekend trip to Oregon Coast

Milosh and I took a weekend road trip to northern part of Oregon Coast. Pictures of our trip: https://photos.app.goo.gl/CT6ZNzEb3goXGEYB3

Here is a summary of what we did:

• Astoria trolley tour which runs by the Columbia River
• Climbed up Astoria column and flew aeroplanes 

• Went back to the hotel and Watched DVDs in the hotel
• Ate a lot of breakfast
• Drove to Ecola state park and walked around looking at some great view points of the Oregon coast

• Went to Indian beach, walked on the sand and water, looked at star fishes and shells, made sand castles and bridges.

• After lunch, we bought a kite, successfully assembled it and flew it :)
• Went to hay stack rock on Cannon beach and played with the dry and soft sand.
• Went back to hotel, and watched DVDs
• Ate a lot of breakfast
• Rented a tandem bike and rode it on Astoria Riverwalk
• Stopped by at the Astoria farmers market 
• Drove back to our "normal" home.

Serious alert mommy

No hiding the fact that I get angry and impatient more often than I should. Milosh often responds to this by saying, but why are you so upset mommy? Sometimes i am more justified than others, and I often apologize to him and ponder why I had to be in a hurry or so anxious.

This time I said okay, why don't you help me be better. So we decided whenever I am being "serious" Milosh will give me a serious alert and the deal is that I have to laugh.

It's working very well. E.g. I was serious about making sure we reached Astoria column in time so he could fly them down. Milosh gave me the serious alert. No need to hurry to have fun. Of course he tries to try his luck asking for more videos and desserts, but I have to respond calmly. Or I get the alert!

(Btw, while writing this blog in a parking lot, waitress caught me and gave me my card back! I was in a hurry to leave and write this blog - talk about slowing down!)

Back to DVDs?

Milosh and I are on a weekend vacation, and we are staying in this place which gives free DVDs to take to the room and watch.

I let Milosh pick one DVD but since our room was a little bit of a walk, I asked him to keep a second one, as a back up. I don't think he understands what back up means, and sure enough he watched both DVDs on the first evening we stayed here. When going to bed I asked him what was the highlight of his day. I was wondering if he will pick the long drive, the trolley ride by the river, or may be flying down a wood aeroplane from Astoria column or at least the fancy ice cream I got him.. And he said (yes you guessed it) watching the DVDs!!

There.was no choice but to repeat this the next night. Fortunately, I could enforce just one DVD. And he complained what's the point of getting the second DVD (he is starting to sound like us)

Today we are checking out, and he said I am not going to wake up the whole day, so we don't have to leave. I said I know I had a fun vacation too. Then I paused and asked, is it because of the DVDs? He said yeah! Grrrrr...

I told him we can watch most of these on Netflix at home. That was not cutting it. So I said or we can DVDs at home also. And he said... Really?! Yay!!

There is something about the tangible thing that he can pick  and hold (he was way faster picking this than on the myriad choices on Netflix) and a guarantee that he gets to finish the whole movie that makes DVDs way more appealing for him. I thought this generation will never care about DVDs and here he is!
Now, can someone remind me why blockbuster went out of business? :)

What makes Milosh cry...

Milosh cries a lot less frequent than most 6 year olds. He probably will not cry if he falls down or gets a minor scrape etc.
Yesterday I found him in tears, he was crying uncontrollably, he could barely explain why he was crying.
Turns out his little ninja could not reach the handles after mounting the bikes!!
After sometime he was able to fix it and his joy had no bounds!!
Milosh and his cute little problems!

Slides and swimming pool fun

Video of fun time in pool today: here
Milosh talked me into doing this with him, saying he saw a grown up do it.

Shivum thinks there are bad guys for real

Milosh came and said - "Mommy, Shivum thinks bad guys are there in real life."
I asked if he meant the spiderman or Ninjago type of bad guys.
He said, no any bad guys.

This is one of those times the innocence of children strikes you and you want to save it pure and precious as long as you can. You wonder whether to tell them what we think is the "truth" and bias them, or letting them figure everything out.

What also struck me is how blessed you are, if your child thinks bad guys are only for movies and shows :)

Here's to never ever finding any bad guys!

You can never guess this

Milosh: guess what word I am thinking of
Me: give me a clue
Milosh: it starts with an a and ends with an s.
(I tried a few words but failed)
Milosh: you can never guess this one. It's "of course"

That's my little boy who has started to notice words new to him and thinks of them.

Three visits to Derby days and our bike ride

I took Milosh for the kids' bike parade in the morning, followed by fun riding times. After many hours of fun in the sun, we rested at home. He went again with Rhea, and then after I picked him he had broken a toy that he badly needed. He even kissed his toy a few times declaring  it's the best toy  he ever had. So we

had to go a third time! Every  muscle of mine was asking for rest! But he won't budge, he calls his toy a wrecking ball. It's an inflatable weapon and it had ripped. The guy at the fare was very kind and let him exchange it. Our efforts in making a third trip paid off! We also got to see amazing fireworks up close.

The only irony is that the replaced wrecking ball ripped again within hours, lol!

We spent the rest of the weekend i.e. Sunday biking around the locks and south lake Union. We did 15+ miles on a tandem bike and he did fantastic! I thought I was stretching his limits, but he asked to go out biking the moment we came home!

My six year old in all his toothless glory

Happiness is ..wearing Seahawks gear

Milosh got new shoes and new clothes on Friday, thanks to his daddy. These are not ordinary clothes, they are Seahawks branded clothes, the one brand that is allowed in their school and one brand that every one in this area recognizes.

Milosh is so excited about his clothes, he put them on and started dancing and running. Kept looking at the mirror. He said if only I had a helmet I would be a real Seahawks player :)

Entire weekend he wore these clothes, chances are he will wear it for few more days and nights. Food, dirt, sweat can do no harm to a true Seahawks player ;)