Sam is Two Months Old

Samantha is fairer-skinned, with deeper-set eyes, than Marcus. She is gassier, droolier, and sometimes fussier, but counter-intuitively, she's also a more mellow baby, who can actually chill in her basket for twenty minutes or so while I read to Marcus or make dinner. By the time she was six weeks old, though, I got reasonably good at putting her on my back in a wrap, so she also can hang out there while I cook. It's lovely feeling her baby breath on the back of my neck when she falls asleep there.

She is alert so much more, and she's losing that quasi-cross-eyed new-baby stare. We are loving having her in our lives. She's outgrown Newborn size clothes and diapers.

She smiles, she makes funny faces, she stares at the ceiling as though there's a miniscule spider there, she sleeps great, and she nurses well. By six weeks, too, she got really good at latching side-lying even in the dark, and we almost never need to change a diaper in the middle of the night anymore. And, having frozen 180+ ounces of milk, I'm done pumping overnight for awhile as well.

She also tolerates an awful lot of sloppy wet kisses and occasionally almost strangling hugs from big brother Marcus.

Marcus finished building the ladybug robot with Robert this month--this was the robot we got Robert for Christmas because around September Marcus declared that he wanted to buy Daddy "a robot that really walks" for Christmas, and I found a solder-your-own-robot kit that fit the bill. Robert was amazed that the robot actually does something--it happens to walk in circles, rather than the way it's supposed to, but given the exhuberant "help" Marcus gave when working on this, I think Robert had had very little hope of its ever moving at all. Robert explained that it goes perpetually in circles because he soldered something in wrong, so Marcus drew Robert a circuit diagram showing him how to re-solder the robot. Now he tells everyone, "The ladybug robot goes in circles because Daddy didn't follow my picture!"

At three and a half, Marcus tells jokes all the time, classifies the world into "nice" and "not nice" everythings (nice robots, not nice robots, etc.), and knows what I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M and S-P-R-I-N-K-L-E-S spell--uh oh, there goes our secret code. He got a Valentine's Day mug in the mail from Rie and Steve which had Snoopy on it and Marcus's name, and he looked at it lovingly. "I LIKE this," he said happily. "That's great!" I said. "What do you think it says on here, though?" He looked at it for a minute thoughtfully. "It says. . .," he began, "We're going to get a dog!" Uh, no.

When we got our first real snowfall of the winter on a Saturday morning, we took a sled to karate and then walked with Marissa's family from Centre Street over to the Brewery for lunch. Robert rigged two sleds together to pull both Marcus and A., and the kids of course had a great time.

Our snowy weekend adventures also included an exciting drive south to Ren and Matt's house, with a flat tire on the way; a birthday party at a karate studio in Arlington and a double-bus commute there; and a Sunday evening twilight sledding excursion at Titus Sparrow Park.

At the end of January, we went to the Lunar New Year of the Dragon celebration in Chinatown with Bob, Sarah, and Sean. After church we had dim sum, and then we watched the lion dance parade. Robert and Marcus were even inside the little sushi place getting egg cakes from the old woman there when the lion came right inside. Marcus was thrilled by the dance, and then the friendly sushi chef gave him a red envelope too. That, plus little cakes? He was having a great day even before we walked over to the main stage and saw the martial arts clubs performing; he loved riding on Robert's shoulders and watching the kids' karate demonstrations. Samantha, however, was unimpressed. She slept through the parade in my sling and then nursed through the karate.

Other exciting events this month included a visit from Uncle Michael (Grandma Judy's baby brother!), combined with a trip to the Northeastern Arena to see Jocie's hockey team play--we brought A. along, and the highlight for both kids was when the UConn goalie lost her stick and Jocie gave her hers. Marcus also really enjoyed eating pistachios as fast as the woman behind us (the grandmother of UConn player no. 5) could shell them for him. When we went to the UConn-BC game a week later, this time with Sarah and Sean, Marcus was disappointed that "the woman with the things in the shells" wasn't there again; on the bright side, though, some UConn hockey alums sitting in front of us gave him a chocolate lollipop.

We had a few people over to watch the Superbowl, too. Marcus kept asking why we couldn't watch the Super Readers Bowl. Robert had to check with me that such a thing didn't actually exist.

Marcus got his belt in karate this month, and meanwhile, we always have fun hanging out with Marissa and Jon and the babies while the big kids are in their lesson.