Children's Museum

We went to the Children's Museum with our peps group on Saturday, to celebrate birthday 2.0. We had a great time. Benjamin has been with Jasmine the nanny before, and was very excited to go to the "zee-um", as he calls it. For probably the third time, Benjamin and Luca had matching outfits. I'm not sure if they coordinate in advance or what, but its pretty funny. Sadly Cora and Amelia couldn't make it. That N1H1 is really cramping everyone's style. I would have liked to get photos of all the kiddos, but those darn toddlers move to fast to capture on film. Benjamin conned us into buying him a small plush big bird at the gift shop (it was the Sesame Street exhibit). He took it up to the lost and found counter (which is in the gift shop for some reason) and put it on the counter and said "Pay", with big bambi eyes. So, since we are total suckers for the boy, we decided to get it, at which point he went back and got Bert and Ernie and added them to his pile. He now calls it "Little Bigger Bird", which I guess makes sense. After the museum, we celebrated another second birthday with Zachary (of raising hill fame), and then went to Luca's house for tacos and cupcakes and general mayhem. It was quite the party day.

So, I have some catching up to do

I know, I know, its been almost a month. I have no excuse. I am very sorry to the three little Fernies, who I know check all the time, only to be disappointed. But look! I am back now! Back with so many things to update on that I don't know where to start. Here are some of the highlights from the last month:

• Jam's first words. We have a tie here. He now says both "up" and "dog" and I could not tell you which one was first. Its a little like the walking. You think there will be this grand definining first moment, but its a lot more gradual than that. He said dog probably a lot before we realized what he meant. Up started as "Hey you, pick me up right now" and evolved into other meanings as well, like "help me" and "I want that". Dog refers mainly to Maisy, but also to Georgia, pictures of dogs, and all cats. We are working on the defining features of what makes a dog a dog, but its hard when you consider everything from Great Danes to those little fluffy dogs are dogs, when really, they don't have a ton of features in common. My mom claims that signs count as words too, so we have a couple of others to include. Waving, which he is a big fan of. Likes to wave good bye and hello, and likes to look out the window and wave. Also does an adorable sign with his hands which means "Give me that", "Pick me up", "you come here" and some other things. I will try to get it on video, as it is hard to explain but it is a two handed gesture, repeatedly folding his fingers into his palms. It is super cute.






• Christmas! What a big fun event! Many cool giftys were exchanged, and Benjamin made out like a bandit. This kid got a haul of presents, everything from power tools, to books, to puzzles, to golf clubs and on and on. Very funny key board with microphone, which he sticks entirely in his mouth, and then makes noises like Charlie Brown's teacher, or whale song. We also learned about Benjamin's sophisticated palet, where dark chocolate is concerned. He got a hold of my 78% cacao content fancy dark chocolate from my stocking and went to town! I had to arm wrestle him to get it back. Apparently the little turkey loooves the dark chocolate.






• Snow storms. We were basically blizzarded in for a few days. It was like Laura Ingalls Wilder in the Long Winter, when the trains almost didn't make it with the Christmas presents. We had to postpone the Nutcracker until after Christmas, miss the Peps Christmas party, and some other parties, skip the second round of Santa photos, and a whole bunch of other sad stuff. On the plus side, we did put Jam in the backpack and tromp through the snow, which was very satisfactory all around.






• Benjamin has mastered climbing the stairs. This was first officially witnessed in Issaquah on Christmas Eve (big night/place for milestones. Christmas Eve last year was the first roll over. We now have a gate at the bottom of the stairs in addition to the old one at the top.






• We had the first swim lesson this week, which is unfortunately scheduled right at nap time, so the poor guy spent most of the half hour rubbing his little eyes and crying with tiredness. Not sure what to do about that, since there is no other time we can take the class together. Stupid work, getting in the way of swimming lessons.






• Other events included a doctor's appointment, a new tooth, a new bathroom, new professional portraits (we love you Cookie!), eating grapefruit (yum!), and most likely some other stuff.






• Some other miscellaneous new tricks:






• Brings books when asked (sometimes)






• Shows tongue on command (rarely)






• eats with a plastic baby fork (more or less)






• feeds stuffed cheetah ("Kitty") dog treats when the real dog is not available to feed. Also now cuddles Kitty at bedtime. Sigh. So cute.






• Dances (so adorable I practically cannot stand it. Must capture on video).






• Can identify which toy is the duck toy and which toy is the frog toy when asked. May say "duck" but it sounds suspiciously like "dog"






• On one memorable occasion, he lunged toward the pack n play when he decided he was ready for his nap.






• Rides his toy lion. Hilarious.





• Throws temper tantrums. When he doesn't get what he wants he immediately flings himself to the ground, crying and flailing. It is simultaneously amusing and traumatic for me.





• Made his first succesful phone call. It was not to 911, which was my fear, but to the Washington State Ferry Information line. He helpfully put it on speaker so I could hear them asking him to say "ferry" for ferry schedule.
  

Now, if I were a super organized person, I would divide these all up into separate posts, and spread them out through out the week, but sadly I am not that person. So, instead I will upload a few miscellaneous photos that go with the above events and then go eat cookies and finish my book.

. H

Party On!

We celebrated all of the peps babies birthdays with a communal birthday party at the little gym. I thought they were going to be to little to appreciate it, but they had a ball. They played with balls, and bubbles, and a parachute. They walked on the balance beam (with help) and flipped over the bar (with even more help). (Side note: there is a very funny sequence of Benjamin flipping on the bar. Sadly, I am totally blogspot challenged, and I cannot get them in the right order. Grrr. You can imagine the right order though. It will be like a puzzle for the day.)We followed up all the playing with a gift exchange and Trophy Cupcakes. Benjamin approved.

Halloween is for Babies!

Halloween was pretty fun this year. We had a party with the peps babies, which was hilarious. We had a skunk, a strawberry, Elvis, Dorothy, a puppy, and Benito was a lion. On the actual day of Halloween, we went to Issaquah to pass out candy to Aunt Cookie's neighborhood ghosts and goblins. Sadly, no photos were taken there. But there are a bunch of funny ones from the party, and a couple of Benjamin telling scary stories with Grandma Pat's spooky flashlight.

Beer Babies

We had PEPs at our house tonight. And if you were wondering why Benito has such an impressive beer belly, wonder no more, just check out the photo of some of the dads and their babies. Names will be withheld to protect the innocent. Since peps is in the evening, and the little buggers move so quickly these days, none of my photos ever come out very well. I am posting them anyway, because I still think they are funny. Everyone was fighting over the same toys tonight, which was pretty entertaining.

Peps goes the beach club

We had a bbq at the Laurelhurst Beach Club (I know, aren't we super fancy!) with PEPS this afternoon. It was loads o' fun (and totally made me want to move to stupid expensive Laurelhurst. Hmpf.) Sad Loren had to miss it, but he seems to have had a good time reliving the glory days of grunge with subpop and all the other Seattle garage band graduates in town (more details at http://adventure-dad.blogspot.com/2008/07/sp-20.html )But anyway, the babies are all getting so big and so funny! Benjamin's first move was to try to lean over and grab everyone else in the cheeks/eye. It was not a popular move. There was lots of stealing and sharing of toys, and showing off of tricks. (Ardashir crawls like a fiend. Anya is standing mostly unaided. Many babies have impressive teeth.) Everyone is sitting up, and when we first got there, they were all sitting up on a blanket, and they looked like a little group of buddhas. They have come a long way since the first meeting, when no one could even hold their head up.

the sign says

We had our first sign language class with the peps group at our house tonight. No photos, sadly. It was pretty fun, although I did knock a canister to the floor, broke it, and cut my hand. But as far as the signing, we'll see how it goes. It reminds me a lot of dog obediance school. The class is really to train the parents how to use sign language with the baby, and how successful you are (or not) really depends on how much you stick with it. Hopefully we will be better with this than we were with dog training. The dog ate almost a whole plate of thin mints at the end of the night. Now, it wasn't entirely her fault, because they weren't on the coffee table, which she knows is off limits. They were on the window bench, which must have seemed like grey area between floor (ok) and coffee table (no way). And I can hardly blame her, because I find them irresistable as well. I wish she could have stolen oreos, or some other boring cookie. I'm sure she would not appreciate the difference like I do. On the plus side, she did have very minty fresh breath, and was not sick or anything.

Benito, tiny benevolent dictator

How perfect is this? We went to PEPS on Wednesday, and Christina and Agnish gave Benjamin this little hat. (Thanks guys!) It makes the perfect fashion statement for him. Apparently it is too small for Luca, who they say has a giant head. Its actually a smidge on the small side for Benjamin too, so its lucky we have it now. I love this shot - its like he is giving an impassioned dictatorish speech, and hitting the podium to emphasize a point.

Peps was really funny this week. The babies are all getting so much bigger, they are very funny and interesting. A couple of kids aren't actually crawling, but they are moving around a ton what with the rolling and the scooting. And they are all so interested in each other. Benjamin and Cora had a total staring contest. They were just enthralled with each other. Big, wide eyed stares. And Anya grabbed a hold of Benjamin's ear pretty vigorously, so later he retaliated by pulling on her cheek. The whole thing is very amusing.

For those of you (Cookie!) who found the rolling/scooching mobility problematic, take a look at this picture. Very disturbing. He can stand up by himself if he has something (coffee table or ottoman) to hold on to. He is getting all grown up!