My First Post in My Third Decade

Well, I turned 30 this past Sunday and am still mostly in one piece. I guess I thought I might spontaneously decombust or watch, appalled, as various bodyparts just fell off, or -- worse -- that wrinkles (and more gray hairs) would wrestle me to the ground. And win.

Instead I woke up, went to the third day of my yoga workshop, ate lunch, then spent over eight hours either in an airport or plane, and came home @ 10 p.m. to this:

The 10:30 p.m. cake-eating contest. He won.

It's been a busy week, but we have managed to take lots of pictures with our fancy new Camera From Nanny. Click here to see more.

That's mostly it. Leave a comment ... let us know you're here!

A week (or two) in Pictures

Well. I'm turning 30 in 3 days and I'm leaving for Phoenix tomorrow for a Yoga workshop and yet I can't stand not to do my Thursday night thing. Plus, Nanny did the unthinkable and sent me her CANON REBEL and although I so do not know how to use it, I managed to get this one picture, which has more of his body than any of the others I attempted. Clearly, I need to read the manual.

In other, much more important and exciting and happy news, Mamabird has just hatched another one! I was driving today and thinking about whether I should say that she laid another egg or that her egg had hatched or what exactly would be the appropriate bird-related euphemism for pushing out a baby. But anyway, Mama and the new Birdlet are doing fine, and you can see pictures here. CONGRATS BIRDS!

So besides getting the camera of my dreams, starting a new semester, and getting my hair dyed to resemble a freshly-painted fire engine, it's been a relatively peaceful week, and here's the evidence:

It's faded (hint: Palmolive takes out hair dye) and it looks a lot better when I add my new mahogany eyebrows and some blusher and lipstick.

We went out for pizza. He ate TWO slices that size and drank about 12 ounces of "cow muck."

It rained a lot and thankfully Macy had prepared us.

This one is from New Year's Eve ... a night in which I was determined to have fun despite the fact that Husband had to work until 1 a.m. John and I went out to hear his favorite musicians play, and of course he did a couple numbers with them.

I left the room to go get his pajamas the other night and when I returned, I found him in nothing but a diaper and that cowboy hat reading Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed (by Eileen Christelow). When he got to the second monkey head-bump page he said, "I know this one" and discarded it for Dump It! (by Darice Bailer).

There are several more shots of our week if you just click on any of the photos above.

Happy Weekend, and not that it matters, but Sunday might be a special day in case you'd like to call or send a card or check or flowers. If you ask JEB, "How old is Mama?" he'll say, "29 for evah." They teach them the strangest things at school.

I love my daddy because ...

He reads to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah ... whatever ...

I love my daddy because ...

HE MAKES TRAIN TABLES WHILE I'M AT THE GROCERY STORE WITH MAMA!!!!!!!!!

Add to that the recent father/son lesson on HOW TO CATCH A (gold)FISH (with a Disney rod & reel):

I cannot even hope to ever compete with that kind of handyman/sportsman ability. And so instead, I'm just teaching him how to spell, remember author's names, and read music. He's doing well, by the way. He can tell you the author of any book that we own ... I'm not even kidding. We just started, kind of as a joke, saying the title and author of each book before we read it, and then one day we discovered that he could, on command, tell us the names of all the author/illustrators of what's gotta be at least 50 books. Like, for example, if you say, The Very Hungry Caterpillar he'll immediately say "by Eric Carle." Yeah, I know. It's totally MENSA material.

Now the spelling I can't actually take credit for, because clearly it's from watching our ONE video of Blue's Clues. For those of you who don't know, the host of that show is named STEVE, and he wears his name on the back of his shirt and he spells it before he starts searching for the clues.

Coincidentally, B's boss is also named "Steve," so the other day as we drove by his house, I heard this from the backseat:

"Steve's house. Steve. S-T-E-V-E. Steve."

And then on another day I said something about a balloon that goes "POP" and he said:

"POP! Pop starts with 'P'!"

Coincidentally, I had overheard Steve telling Blue that same thing on the video earlier that morning. Not that The Goose ever watches videos. It's me who likes Blues Clues. I watch it when he's napping.

And so then tonight as we were reading Guess How Much I Love You (by Sam McBratney, illustrations by Anita Jeram), we got to the part where Little Nutbrown Hare is hop hop hopping around and he said:

"Hop! Hop starts with 'P'!"

Naturally I launched into an explanation of initial, medial, and final sounds and a little primer on rhyming. To which he replied:

"No do a big jump on the top."

This is a reference to the fact that he is not allowed to "do a big jump" except at the BOTTOM of the stairs. PEOPLE: He is totally getting that "hop" and "jump" are synonyms.

I cannot get enough of it. I mean, granted, there are times in the car when I am just like, "Turn on the Laurie Berkner so he will stop talking." But most of the time it is completely fascinating.

And the singing. Oh the sweet music to my ears. My mother swears that I sang in the crib as an infant, and after that I sorta kept on a path of musical inclination (which, by the way, has NO earning potential) so I will not be at all disappointed if he decides to, oh say, be in the band instead of playing such an awful contact sport as football.

Anyway, he got this Little Book of Songs for Christmas (no author) and last night we sat down and for 30 minutes ... 30 minutes y'all -- do you understand how long that is in the mind of a toddler? ... flipped through the pages and sang the songs. After the first sightreading he said, "Do again," and so I did, of course. And by the way, during this time, The Dad was upstairs taking a nap. Not that it matters in the least. But this second time as I read it, he'd say the titles of the songs before I even had time to start singing. He was remembering it all after only one read through. He even remembered the ones that I had passed over, saying, "I don't know that one." He'd say, "Not know this one" and turn the page. Then he'd find the picture of the man sitting under a tree and say, "Sing it Mama. John Jacob." As in John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt. It's not like a man sitting under a tree gives any clue about JJJS, but still he remembered.

Sponge.

It's a good thing that I do not like to brag or go on and on about my kid because I think I could really get carried away and annoy some people.

Indianapolis for New Years

What you've all been waiting for is finally here: Nana's pictures from the Indy trip. Click the photo to see more.

New Year: 2007

Yet again I failed to take any photos during an important holiday. This is clearly a sign that I need a new camera to give me inspiration. And this past weekend I found out that Nanny needs a new camera. Needs! And so maybe if the New Year brings her one then I can take her old one off of her hands for her. It's just an idea. I have a lot of ideas.

So anyway, I thought we should go back in time to celebrate the New Year. This picture is to show you how far he's come in two years. It was taken when he was almost 4 months old in January 2005. It seems simultaneously like 1 million years and 1 day ago.

We have just returned from a nice vacation in Indianapolis where we met Nanny & Gampy for a New Year Jaunt. We met at the Carribbean Cove Indoor Water Park where The Goose entertained himself in the wading pool water fountains (under the watchful eye of paternal grandparents) and The Dad and I flailed our bodies down slippery and bright yellow, green, and blue tubes into 80-degree water full of people half our age.

And here are the three pictures I have to prove that we did this:

Dad & JEB taking a wading pool break.

Gampy & JEB checking out bikinis.

Nana & JEB putting out fires in the hotel (with a loon). Yes, Nanny has a broken arm -- she did that on Christmas day trying on her new (slippery) socks.

There were a lot of other events ... the children's museum, the regular pool in the hotel, but you'll just have to wait on those until Nanny has time to upload her photos with her one good arm.

Today The Goose and I played together all day. First here at home, then at the playground, where there was a little bit of a discrepancy about whose turn it was on the slide, and who had the right to claim a turn, and just generally what Mama finds to be appropriate (or NOT) about turn taking on playground slides. There was one time out, a lecture, and then an unprobed-for apology in the car on the way home. When he says "I sorry Mama" I just cannot help but pull the car over and get in that backseat with him for an Eskimo kiss.

When we got home he picked up the dad's radio and said, "10-4" clear as day. Then he ate the bun off of an all-organic, no-nitrates-or-nitrites-added hotdog, walked upstairs, said, "I so tie-yahd (tired)" (with a fake yawn, no less), and it was at this point that he caught a glimpse of the roofers who are laying our new green tin roof. Then he said, and I quote: "Oh my NO! Hobee COW. A man up theh (there). Anunna (another) man. Look! Mans (men) durkin' (working)." We think that the "oh my no" is a combination of "Oh my Lord" and "Oh no." He must've heard that from some people in the wading pool in Indianapolis. The other stuff is just general problems with pronunciation of very difficult consonants ("r" and "w" in particular) and an overuse of the plural noun rule. Irregular nouns (and verbs) are always late in the acquisition process.

There's not much other family news of late. There's still a whole lot of talking -- usually the object of the verb is a pronoun whose antecedent is placed AFTER the entire sentence (kinda like Yoda, but not quite). Here are some examples:

"I bonk it. Head."

"I eat it. Prune."

"I dink it. Appa juice."

"I push it. Girl." (remember the turn taking story? -- well, now you have the soundtrack)

I cannot get enough of it, I'm telling you. I am always recording it and promising to analyze the grammar because it is so fascinating. But then there's usually a catastrophe to attend to in the meantime and I end up losing the tape or forgetting about it altogether. Until Thursday night, when I try to throw together a week's worth of memories and happenings and commentary.

And so you have it.