Testing in 2012

Happy New Year!

Maeve Stream of Conciousness, 5:40 p.m., Saturday, January 16, 2010

"You, baby, are in time out. For not listening to anybody. Because she's was not listening up there in my room. Because she's not listening to my fathers OR you can sit here and... so you don't talk anymore or not listen anymore with your ears. When my daddy comes home, I'll talk about this. So she'll go to sleep here, so she wouldn't wake up you... don't Declan—she's sleeping. Mister, you don't talk to anybody, who is not listening... not listening, but baby wasn't listening."

Note: the theme of this overhead "discussion" with her baby doll was listening. What do you guess Maeve has problems with recently? Also notable are the references to "when my daddy comes home" and "mister." I figured out that she got the mister part from a book she likes to read.

—posted by T

Happy Halloween

Here are some sights from our Halloween festivities, starting with carving pumpkins. Maeve enjoys sharing pumpkin slime and seeds with Declan:





Declan and Maeve in their costumes on Friday, October 30, enjoying the Halloween celebration at their daycare:









Fun times on Saturday as our friends Mike and Stephanie came over with their kids, Devin and Eamon, roughly the same ages as Maeve and Declan, for pizza and trick-or-treating:



Declan's slightly skeptical about this whole experience:







Wouldn't you be, if your parents looked like this?





Off to get treats!

—posted by B

Squeaker Swine Flu, Or Is It?

For the first few weeks of October, both kids and I had some sort of illness. The kids' spells were separated by a full week, of course—it would be too easy to have them sick at the same time. They each had a fever for three to five days and some congestion and coughing. Since H1N1 is very widespread here, the pediatrician's office has been treating all cases of flu-like symptoms as, well, the flu. In short, stay home, rest, drink fluids, and so on. So the week of October 4, Brian and I split Thursday and Friday to be home with Declan. The week of October 11, I was home Wednesday through Friday with both kids as Maeve recovered. And the week of October 25, both kids were well, but I had a bad cold. Sheesh.

Here's a video clip from our early flu season as two stir-crazy kids get very excited about a bag of cashews. Note that Declan points to the nuts and says "Da" and then Maeve repeats his exact motion and speech. Seems like a certain big sister is not above mimicking her baby brother.

—posted by T

Whatcha Talking 'bout Maeve?

As Maeve nears her third birthday, her vocabulary has shot into the stratosphere. There's virtually nothing she can't express, and even though she doesn't know all the words we use, she seems to understand a lot more than we'd like. Before they fade away, we want to remember some of her idiosyncratic speech patterns:

• "beppus"—breakfast
• "eat my waffles all gone"
• "I want one bana—the whole bana." For some reason she always says this about bananas.
• "baafud"—bathtub
• "tomahno"—tomorrow
• "cool"—pool
• "strolyer"—stroller
• "all bofe a dem"—"all both of them." Somehow, both is almost always preceded by all.
• and maybe the cutest: "Decwin" for Declan.

And Declan, not to be left out, is slowly starting to "talk." Well, the only thing he says even semi-clearly is "firetruck" when he hears any emergency vehicle. He also says "Dada" (of course... sigh) and some sort of "all done" and "more" when eating. And as of last week, he says "deet doo" when you hand him something—we think it's his version of "thank you." You can hear it at the end of this quick exchange about peaches:



And if you want to hear Maeve at her legalistic best, listen to her explain how the spilled water is not her fault:

—posted by T

Declan and Mookie

We celebrated ten years with our beloved calico, Mookie, this summer. She's been known to scratch occasionally, but generally, she's very patient with the small, grabby creatures who always want to be in her space. Mookie—we love you!

—posted by T

California Squeakin', Part One

Another summer rewind, this time to our late-July trip to Sonoma County, California, where we visited my brothers Bill and Pat, as well as the friends Tracey met through an online expecting mothers group back in 2006. There will be a separate post about our visit with them.

We drove out to Sonoma Coast State Beach near Bodega Bay one morning. There was some fog, as usual, but it gradually cleared. Uncle Pat didn't really take a nap on the beach, just a quick rest after walking all that way from the parking lot:



Uncle Bill, cooler than most, chilling with Tracey and Declan:



Maeve busily digging in the sand:



Declan having his first encounter with the chilly waters of the Pacific:





A brief video slice of our beach time:



Another video from later in our visit, this time at the house, where Pat demonstrated his dexterity with a simple yet challenging back yard game:

—posted by B