Alternative marketing

Corin's two favorite things to do with the dollhouse we got him for Christmas, to go with his Playmobil vacation family and rescue workers: 1) set various room on "fire" to put out (OK, that goes with firefighter and police officer figures) and 2) make the dad get in the bathtub, then ring the doorbell and run out of the room while I make him run down the stairs to answer the door. These scenes have never appeared on the packaging to a dollhouse in the history of the world (although I have fun imagining such a box).

@Spuds

"Mmm... I like shir'mp! Shir'mp is the best thing in the whole world!"
--Corin, on first trying shrimp

Bob Loblaw

Alistair has started getting his tongue into his noisemaking, so his "aaaaaah"s are turning into "blah blah blah"s. Fun!

Solid career

Starting to read "The Snowy Day" to Corin: "One winter morning Peter woke up..."

"What does he do?"

"You mean him?" (pointing to Peter, the child)

"The guy."

"Peter? He's a kid like you. He doesn't really have a job..."

"Well, I play with toys and make a 'latest invention'!"

Sibling smiles

Age 1, 2, 3 & 4

Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer

Corin beside the same tree out back, through four seasons:

Now a family of four

Introducing Alistair

Alistair's first day

Hey, lookit that

New entryway/kitchen floor.

Getting close

"i got the blues," a poem

Written 9/20/96 for Amanda, found yesterday in a box I was sorting. Happy Birthday, sweets!

i got the blues
blue is the color of the tv rays that shine on your face in a dark room, tracing the contours of your face
blue is the color of my toenails (still) because I thought it would be cool if we matched
blue is the color of our jeans, pressing together as we sit close and watch Seinfeld on the couch
blue is the color of the sky, all around us as we're lifted high by the ferris wheel
blue is the color of my shower curtain
it's of no particular relevance, but it's blue
i got the blues
i like the blues

Meaningless lyrics

I was cutting the crusts of of Corin's banana bread, despite having told him that this kind of crust tastes the same as the bread, and midway through he started singing:

"Leave the crusts alone, leave the crusts alone, leave the crusts alone..."

I stopped, thinking my point had sunk in. "You do want me to leave the crusts on?"

"No, Apa," he said, laughing. "I was just singing."

Signature moment

Corin's been showing interest in writing letters for a while now, but had never quite managed to write all five letters of his name sequentially without any assistance from us until, suddenly, today.



He then proceeded to knock out "Mama" and "Apa," with only the first line of "Mama" done for him. (He can also do T, E, L, and H pretty legibly, and likes to do Q, B, X, Y, and Z, but is still getting the elements lined up right.)

Doodles

Corin's usual drawing style thus far has been to fill most of the entire sheet of paper with bold scribbling; it's more about color and feel than representation. But recently he's been asking Amanda how to make numbers and letters, and I suggested he could draw some animals and vehicles too if he wanted. I like his results:


Bus


Horse


Ladder


Elephant

(The ones on the left are mine, incidentally.)

I'll raise you one

"Slow down. I tell you what you need: hat, jacket, boots, hat..."

"Two hats?"

"No! {beat} Three hats!"

Market this

Corin was asking for cereal this morning, and he wanted "the crunchy kind with salt on it."

At first we thought he might be talking about pretzels, or Ritz, but eventually we figured out he meant Frosted Flakes.

"Yeah, Salty Flakes!"

[Shudder]

Who said that?

"I just told you. I just said it with my speaker-mouth."

The missing engine

"Why don't Grandma and Granddad have an engine?"

"You mean like a train engine?"

"Yeah."

"Did they have a train engine when we were there?"

"No, they didn't."

{beat}

"Maybe it's like a mystery."

{beat}

"Maybe someone took it."

{beat}

"That's good thinking."

A first

Every since Corin cut back to one nap a day, and then to no naps, he's only ever fallen asleep in the carseat or by being nursed. Last night (after bouts of bouncing back and forth between Amanda and me, drinks of water, back rubs, head rubs, humming, and anything else we could think of), he snuggled up next to me, put his hand in mine, and finally went to sleep. I like it.

Halfway