block party

Max has discovered a new favorite game: knock down the block tower. Fortunately, Liam loves to build block towers, so it mostly works out well. Until Liam gets frustrated because all his towers get knocked down. Tonight, they had a full half hour of shrieking, crashing joy playing with the blocks. It's so much fun to watch.

First, Liam painstakingly builds a tower...



Then, Max approaches in baby stealth mode...



He destroys the tower...



And vanquishes all his block foes. Triumph!!

a trip to the dentist

Taking a two and a half year old to see the dentist is an interesting experience. I'm glad we only have to do it twice a year. Today was Liam's second-ever dental checkup. We take him to a pediatric dentist, so before every appointment they take the time to show the kids all the equipment and let them play with it. Six months ago, Liam just stared while the hygenist demonstrated with the water squirter, the sucking tube ("Mr. Thirsty"), and the tooth polisher. Today, he squirted the water into a cup, drank some, squirted some more, used the sucker, and when shown the toothbrush, promptly put it in his mouth. Then asked for more water. So when the dentist came around, Liam was in a pretty good mood...which dissolved as soon as the dentist started looking at his teeth. But we got through the cleaning, and once his tears were dried, Liam got a Thomas sticker and one proclaiming him a member of the "No Cavity Club." Then he got to pick a toy from the toy chest (a beep-beep, of course). I'm pretty sure by now he's forgotten the agony of the cleaning, which is good. And his little teeth are so shiny and white! Next time, it'll be time to bring Max along too. Double the fun!

happy thanksgiving!

This year we packed up the boys and went for a nice dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's house. The boys had a great time. Max at a heaping helping of Gerber's best Turkey Dinner with Vegetables, and Liam stuffed himself full of all the good food Grandma made, then topped it off with a big piece of "birthday cake." On a side topic, all cake is "birthday cake" to Liam--even pancakes, which he calls pan-birthday-cakes. Anyway, fun was had by all. The boys got to spend tons of time playing with Grandpa, including some time spent playing the piano. Check them out:



In other news, Liam is starting to speak in sentences more and more. While I was typing this post, he climbed up on the desk and started messing with all of our papers. I didn't mind too much until he started on a path of destruction, after which I told him to get down. "No!" he replied. Then Daddy came in and told him to get down. His response? "Okay, I'll get down." Figures.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I know we've got a lot to be thankful for.

a fine specimen

Max had his 9-month checkup this afternoon. He is happy, healthy, and a nice shade of orange as a result of his love affair with vegetables. The doctor was very pleased with his progress, and said that he's doing wonderfully. He's big stuff, but we knew that already. His weight is 21 pounds, 13 ounces (a little over double his birth weight), which is the 75th percentile. His height is 30.5 inches--above the last line on the chart. He's tracking exactly the same as big brother has so far, and he's showing no indications of stopping.

Here's a shot of our big boy with one of his favorite people: The baby in the mirror.



And one of him modeling his new Irish wool hat. (Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa!)

a portrait of the artist as a toddler

I'm starting to feel a lot better and doing a lot more with the boys and around the house each day. The bruises are healing, and next week I go in to get my stitches out. Yay!

Liam's newest obsession is waiting until we're distracted and then going for the camera. He's figured out how to turn it on and take pictures (nothing gets by that kid!), and his favorite subject is...himself. So without further ado, here's Liam's first photography show. I think his work shows insight and great promise for such a young age. Wouldn't you agree?

post-surgical report

OUCH!!!!

(I would include a picture, but I don't want to offend the more squeamish members of our readership.)

get a leg up

I'm going in for some vein surgery on my right leg Friday morning. I'm excited because I've had pain in that leg for a long time now, and it's gotten worse. The surgeon is going to go in and close off all the bad veins (they have busted valves), and then other (healthy) veins will take over the job of getting the blood where it needs to go. I'll be glad when it's done, but of course I'm not looking forward to it. It's outpatient, though, and with any luck I should be back at work on Tuesday. So that's good. Another silver lining: I can't lift anything over 10 pounds for a while, so Mike is going to have the bulk of the childcare duties, and I might get a full night's sleep. He says he doesn't mind, since he shares equally in all the household/child duties anyway. But still, I think the man deserves all the credit in the world. The boys aren't easy, even when both of us are up to the challenge. They're a lot of great things (sweet, funny, generally happy, often surprising), but easy isn't one of them.