January 2011

Marcus is one month shy of two and a half. He's a little taller, a little sturdier, and just as chatty and happy as ever. He still loves babies, school (Kelsey/Declan/Ryan/Asher/Ella), the church nursery, the red bus, and anything purple. He's got strong opinions and loves following rules (after I told Robert he shouldn't pick at Marcus's teeth at the table, Marcus has helped me enforce that, saying, "Not at table, Daddy! Only in bafroom!"). He even has phone conversations now, like the following one with Great-Grandma Helena one recent night:

M: Hi, Manma!

GGH: Hi, Marcus! How are you doing?

M: I playing with my train tracks, Manma!

GGH: Have you been a good boy?

M: Yesssssss. . . . What're you doin', Manma?

GGH: Did you go to school today?

M: Yesssssss. . . . What're you DOIN', Manma?

GGH: Granma's going to give you a big kiss!

M: No kiss! No kiss! Bye-bye, Manma!

He's been very into pretend play this month, including playing "airplane," by arranging his little chairs and stools and bringing along a suitcase (that happens to be full of bristle blocks) to safely stow (below right). Robert appreciates how Marcus manages to capture the uncomfortable aspect of airplanes especially effectively. Marcus has also been particularly obsessed with a little baby doll (see above right), dragging it all over the house with him, into the bath, into bed (a problem when the bath immediately precedes bed), and into our bed when he wanders in in the middle of the night. He swaddles the baby ("Baby get all wrap up!"), wears the baby in a sling, offers the baby bites of whatever he's eating ("Open mouf, baby!"), and suggests that I tandem nurse him and the baby ("Baby wa-wa my mommy! Baby put mommy wa-wa milk in the mouf!").

This month we went to New York for a long weekend for baby cousin Davey's first birthday party, and we went to a UConn-BU women's hockey game to cheer on big cousin Jocie. We had a lot of snow days: one actual day the university closed, two half-day/delayed openings, and another day of a big storm on my normal day home with baby anyway (see left--watching the snow out the window). Still, we've stayed well-supplied in all the storms: in addition to our winter CSA share, which comes by bike on Tuesdays, we get milk delivered now (and cheese, eggs, cider, apples, potatoes, chicken, bread, etc.) from a cooperative group of Vermont-area farms that drives down to Somerville on Wednesdays and coordinates with the same Boston-based bike delivery company. We had a birthday party for Robert, with Bob, Jef, Jin Yoon, Jayden, and Tim; we had Bob over for another night of dinner and book-reading; and we saw Sarah and Sean for a couple meals ("Marcus go home Sean house?" Marcus asked hopefully. "Sean has them, MANY TRAINS in his house!").

In short, life is good--what more could you ask for from a January?

Below, lots of pictures from this month--first, a series of indoor babywearing on a snowday. Ah yes, a boy and his baby. . . hm, wait, he remembered he has another baby. . . okay, two babies--on your back! No problem.

Wait, what's going on now? Uh-oh--here he is two giraffes, a dog, and a dinosaur later (plus the original two babies, of course):

Below you see Marcus and Jayden at Robert's birthday party. Jayden was completely agreeable as Marcus led him around the house.

Robert took Marcus out sledding, although sometimes the snowed-in playground proved more interesting than actually using "my slide," as Marcus calls the sled.

In New York, as always, Marcus had lots of fun with Pop-pop: here they are watching Pop-pop's red helicopter flying around; eating ice cream; building elaborate stables and garages for the assorted animals and cars; and napping (Marcus put Andy and Mr. Rabbit in bed, got them "all wrapped up" with blankets, and then made them sleep next to Pop-pop while he took a nap in the other room, on his little nap-mat with the stuffed sheep).

Here, Davey's first birthday party--Marcus loved giving Davey his present (multiple times) and playing with big-boy Brian (not pictured). The thing that looks like an attempted strangulation below is actually a happy hug, I promise.