News of the Boy

triptych at 3 months

2012-02-12T18:30:00.000-05:00

He is apparently the longest skinniest baby ever. At his 3-month check-up, they told me he was off the charts tall. "So what percentile is he?" I asked. "Oh no, there's no percentile for how tall he is, he's just literally off the chart" they answered.

Hipster

2012-02-12T18:26:00.003-05:00

He's going to move to Bushwick and manage a pop-up store that sells locally sourced, hand-knit vests for endangered owls.

Brunch

2012-02-12T18:24:00.001-05:00

In between bouts of killer strep throat (p-roc and dad, respectively), we made it into Manhattan for brunch with Corrie and Matt. It was SO nice to get out of the apartment for the day!

i-roc + kenza = bff

2012-02-03T18:39:00.001-05:00

Toys

2012-01-18T12:09:00.000-05:00

The older one has decided the younger one "likes" toys. What do you think?

The view from here

2012-01-18T12:07:00.001-05:00

Two months old!

2012-01-09T18:17:00.002-05:00

Full moon

2012-01-08T19:10:00.001-05:00

P-roc: "They SAY the moon is made of green cheese. That's because when you make cheese, one of the things that comes out is wane. And that's what the moon does, it wanes."Dad: "Um, I think you're confusing two different things, but that's pretty close."P-roc (who always gnashes his teeth when he's frustrated): "No, no, I'm true, that's what it is! Aarrghghgh!" (He means "whey", of course, and he's right, it's a by-product of cheese-making. That's the kind of all-important knowledge you pass on to your kid when you read the entire Little House on the Prairie series to them before they're 6.)

happy camper

2012-01-04T20:10:00.001-05:00

Big brother

2012-01-03T12:25:00.001-05:00

P-roc has been adjusting surprisingly well to being a big brother. He especially loves helping out by trying to calm the baby down when he's fussing. He's getting pretty good at it too (it helps that this kiddo takes a pacifier, unlike his older brother...)

Things you might find lying around the house if you have a kindergartener

2011-12-23T16:29:00.001-05:00

The thing about learning to read and write in kindergarten is that it makes you want to show off your skilz. So P-roc has been writing lists and cards and name tags and leaving them all over the apartment. And now he's apparently written a book:

"Christmas Eve"

"The Elf" (Yes, we have one of Those. It's very useful)

"Christmas Tree"

"Opening the Presents"And then there are other random things that you might find around the house that make you worry...

That says "criminal", for those of you who might be wondering. As to who the criminal is, or why this tag was stuck to a sheet of Christmas stickers, well, we just don't know. When questioned, the crimnol mastermind just cackled maniacally.

Sleeping bebe

2011-12-22T23:24:00.002-05:00

Not the outdoorsy type

2011-12-13T15:27:00.000-05:00

He's not entirely thrilled when I take him on outings. He either passes right out or makes this face. I think he's somewhat skeptical about the whole outdoors thing.

Unpredictable

2011-12-12T21:20:00.003-05:00

iRoc is changing every day. He grew 3 inches in his first month of life! So it's not entirely surprising that he gets a little cranky sometimes. My sister texted me today to ask how he's doing. So I took a quick picture of him to show her:

Then, true to form, he switched back into darling baby mode. He even smiled at me! A real smile, not a gassy grimace. (Wasn't fast enough to get a picture of it, maybe next time...)

Dyker Lights

2011-12-12T19:57:00.003-05:00

Deep in the heart of Brooklyn, there is a neighborhood that takes its Christmas lights very, very seriously. So we headed out for the second annual Dyker Heights expedition, with a few friends...

These are just a few shots. Believe me, the display went on and on and on...

This display looks like a cheerful Santa set-up, until you start wondering what those figures in the background are and go to check them out a little closer...

Aaacckkk, creepy!

Bath time for the two rocs

2011-12-07T20:59:00.001-05:00

Soothing

2011-12-07T20:46:00.001-05:00

He gets a little grumpy in the evenings, does iRoc. So we have a few techniques that work (most of the time). Swaddling, rocking, pacifier, and my favorite, turning on the exhaust fan over the stove. He loves that, for some reason. The first few, I can kind of understand. Swaddling and rocking mimic conditions in utero, and that's comforting. Pacifiers mimic, well, boobs, and what isn't comforting about those, I ask you? But the noise from the exhaust fan over the stove? (or from the one in the bathroom, or the dishwasher, or the drier?) Must be an evolutionary thing, right? Like his brain stem's distant memory of when homo sapiens roamed the savannah, running alongside cheetahs, eating nuts and berries and lounging around next to big household appliances that made lots of noise... Or something.Anyways, here's Dad working the magic (exhaust fan noise not pictured).

Black Friday

2011-12-02T18:54:00.001-05:00

We had an awesome Thanksgiving dinner at Erin's place, but somehow I have zero pictures of the whole feast. Must've been too busy, um, eating. :)But here are a few shots of what we did for Black Friday: bought nothing, and went to the library. What part of that is celebrating Black Friday, you might ask? Look closer...

He's dressed in all black, of course! He really likes celebrating every single holiday, what can I say (the baby was not dressed all in black. I mean, he's a New Yorker, so eventually he'll have to fill that gaping hole in his wardrobe, but not quite yet...)

Action shot

2011-12-02T18:49:00.001-05:00

I'm glad I'm not a professional baby photographer. It's hard to get a shot of him while he's awake cause he's ALWAYS moving! So forgive the blurriness...

Brooklyn marathon

2011-11-21T14:18:00.001-05:00

This year was the first-ever Brooklyn marathon. The entire course was in Prospect Park, and Erin was volunteering at one of the water stations, so we went out to help cheer on the runners. Well, a few of the runners, anyway. By the time we made it out the door (babies have amazing delay tactics at their disposal, it's almost like they WANT their parents to be stuck indoors indefinitely), the race was almost over. But we did get to cheer for the last few runners, and then take a nice walk in the park...

And here's a bonus shot of our fearless hero sleeping, safe at home.

Day 8

2011-11-17T10:50:00.001-05:00

In which our fearless hero sleeps through a trip to the supermarket through the rainy autumn wonderland.

Day 5

2011-11-13T17:19:00.001-05:00

Hangin' with the big brother...

...and yawning his head off.

Swaddle bum

2011-11-13T17:11:00.001-05:00

Swaddle'im up...

He loves it.

News of a New Boy!

2011-11-10T11:09:00.002-05:00

Born November 8, 11:22AM. 8 lbs, 2 oz, 20"

Let's call him I-roc (or iRoc, to be au courant).

Halloween

2011-11-02T13:44:00.002-04:00

So like we said, Mom was not feeling very ambitious this year. And P-rock had scored a sweet hand-me-down Power Rangers outfit from the toy exchange table at our block party a few weeks ago, and had his heart set on wearing it for Halloween. So Mom caved and let him wear it. No slouchy home-made costume this year, no sir. This costume is store bought! Fancy. (Not that P has any idea who the Power Rangers are. The outfit just has a cape AND gloves, so it definitely passes any 5-year-old's coolness test).

So here are P and G posing in front of their favorite Halloween displays in the neighborhood. The one that says "American Savings Bank" was a display that took up the whole front yard area of a house... It seems to be some reference to the financial crisis? Whatever it was, it was cool.We trick or treated all the way home from school and scored some serious candy, then we sat on our front stoop and ate half of it and gave the other half away to other trick or treaters.

Trip to the pumpkin patch

2011-11-02T13:36:00.002-04:00

Well, sort of. We weren't feeling very ambitious this year (something to do with Mom carrying her own giant pumpkin around in her belly?) so we took a short wagon trip with friends to the local supermarket for pumpkins to make into jack o'lanterns. Eh, the wagon ride was fun, at least...

October snow

2011-11-02T13:33:00.002-04:00

We were getting ready for Halloween when all of a sudden, it started snowing. Really snowing, not just a few flurries. So we canceled our trip to the haunted carousel in the park and stayed home and played in the back yard...

Homework

2011-09-20T13:29:00.000-04:00

I especially like the arrow pointing towards me that says "Babe". Why thank you. (Actually, if you look closely, it's pointed towards the bump in my middle, and I'm informed that the correct pronunciation is "Bay-Bee". :)

Farmers market horse and cart

2011-09-20T13:27:00.000-04:00

We go to the farmer's market almost every weekend, and lately I've had some expert cart-pushing (and pulling) help.

Wearing a tie is so sad

2011-09-20T13:22:00.001-04:00

It's over a mile to school, and straight uphill most of the way, hence the scooter. And the button-down shirt with a tie feels like it's STRANGLING ME, IT'S STRANGLING ME, I'M TRUE MOMMY, IT REALLY IS, hence the long face.

School boy

2011-09-13T09:45:00.004-04:00

P-rock started kindergarten! He's at a private catholic school - it's a long story, but it boils down to us living four blocks too far north to be in the "good" public school zone, and all of those schools being very overcrowded anyhow.

Yesterday was his first half day (I got to go with him, not that he needed me AT ALL :), today is his first full day. He's really excited and loves his class already. What could be better than a class full of new kids to get to know? He is, as you might have noticed, not shy at all. He's going to have a blast.

If you're having trouble spotting him in the crowd, here's a hint: he's the biggest, blondest head. But he's surprisingly not the tallest: that honor goes to a girl, who practically towers over him!

All dressed up

2011-09-13T09:43:00.002-04:00

Uncle Andy got engaged! We're so happy for him and Aunt Amanda. They had a really nice engagement party, and P was excited to get a chance to wear his fancy suit...

Home groupies

2011-09-13T09:29:00.003-04:00

We had a reunion with our friends from our former home group, and boy had we been fruitful and multiplied! There were so many kids, and they had so much fun. P-rock and little M from Sacramento took a shine to each other, it was really sweet...

Irene's devastation

2011-08-28T15:30:00.003-04:00

We had candles! We had flashlights! We had emergency food and an emergency radio and gallons of water in jugs and a refugee spending the night (a friend whose apartment was closer to sea level than ours)!

And then Irene hit, and it rained and gusted, and when we woke up in the morning and went looking for scenes of devastation, we saw this:

So, yeah, the damage to our particular block was really, um, minimal.

Soccer

2011-08-18T11:57:00.004-04:00

We watched a bit of the women's cup while it was on at the diner in our neighborhood. P says he's now a soccer fan. Not sure if he just means "TV fan", but it sure kept him quiet for 45 minutes straight...

Family re-onion

2011-08-18T11:11:00.011-04:00

We went to the beach in NC for an awesome family reunion (my dad's whole side of the family). There were cousins, cousins and more cousins! We had so much fun, there was barely time to take out the camera and take pictures. But here are a few highlights (keep in mind, these are the boring moments, when our hands were free to hold a camera, not being otherwise occupied eating crabs or building sandcastles or gripping boogie boards):

And if that's not enough for you, you can see more pictures here, here and here. :)

Sparklers

2011-07-11T15:39:00.002-04:00

We went and saw fireworks at Coney Island a few days ahead of the 4th, and that was fun, and then we got sparklers (normal ones and GIANT ones) for the day itself, and that was even better!

Summer uniform

2011-07-05T10:38:00.000-04:00

And then we went swimming

2011-05-24T10:16:00.003-04:00

Well, more like wading, since we had forgotten our suits...

And then the clouds were upon us, so we ran for shelter! And just barely made it before the skies opened up and it poured buckets the rest of the day.

Fishing derby

2011-05-24T10:05:00.003-04:00

The pond near the cabin hosted a kids' fishing derby last weekend, so P-roc got his first experience at competitive fishing! Well, "competitive". They made sure that all the kids got some kind of prize, and P won second place in his age division (5-10) for biggest fish (a 9-inch large mouth bass!).

Matt did most of the casting, but kiddo did all of the reeling in himself. All the fish were released back into the pond to try their luck at not getting caught next year...

Mythical creatures

2011-04-09T14:09:00.002-04:00

P's off to a friend's birthday party today, and the party has a theme: mythical creatures. Can anyone (maybe a cousin?) guess what mythical creature he's going dressed as?

Psychedelic

2011-03-30T14:46:00.005-04:00

This is what happens when you leave your kid alone to look at the pictures on your brand new smartphone:

Before:

After:

Little cupcake in the big city

2011-03-10T16:06:00.001-05:00

Spring

2011-03-09T09:49:00.002-05:00

The other day, we crossed onto the sunny side of the street and Prock remarked:

"It's warmer here! That's cause it's in the sun. The sun makes everything warmer. The snow lies around on the ground, and it wrestles with the sun, but the sun will always win because it has the weather on its side."

For the record, we still had a patch of snow in our front "yard" as of a few days ago. Yup. Snow on the ground since CHRISTMAS. The sun took a while to win THAT wrestling match...

The big diss

2011-02-28T20:26:00.002-05:00

Guess which stuffed animal is his favorite?

fotografy: a collection that made its way onto the camera

2011-02-28T20:09:00.005-05:00

by a certain 4-year-old

Big Apple Circus

2011-02-28T20:01:00.002-05:00

One of P's Christmas gifts was tickets to the circus. We loved it. It was the Big Apple Circus, a smallish circus as circuses (circii?) go, but that just meant we got to sit really close to the ring!

Then afterwards we wandered around Manhattan, being silly and showing off our superhuman strength...

Let it snow. And snow. And snow.

2011-01-24T21:35:00.008-05:00

There are some things that make P-roc go all soft and fuzzy and sentimental. We're not always sure what these things will be. Sometimes it's things that make sense, like newborn babies, or kittens, and sometimes it's the page of the book that has a picture of a vole eating a strawberry. Ugh.

But this Christmas he got a gift that invariably makes him scrunch up his shoulders and say awwww and act all protective: a stuffed snowy owl, who he has aptly named "Cutie" and who is apparently a she. He loves Cutie and won't go to sleep without her next to him every night. Score one for Santa.

Christmas was a good one, all around. I got the pick-axe I wanted, Matt got a book about how to make paper airplanes and other tricks to do with things lying around the house, and P got Cutie and The Biggest Snowstorm Ever.

We weren't PLANNING on driving home in a snowstorm, but we stopped in Philly on our way home to NYC and kinda sorta got stuck. Our good friends the Blankenbecklers took pity on us and let us crash at their place, and we had a great, cozy time hanging out and drinking hot cocoa and talking late into the night...

Pedrito mainly spent a lot of time piling their poofs into taller and taller piles.

Then when all the streets in Philly were plowed, we got back in the car and drove to NYC. It was all smooth sailing (ooh, look at those other poor cars stuck in the snowdrifts on the side of the freeway, aren't we glad we stayed in Philly last night, ooh look, all the exit and entrance ramps are blocked with buses stuck in the snow, yikes, etc) until we got over the bridge into Brooklyn, where a sign warned us that the highway ahead wasn't passable. No problemo, we'll take the side streets, we're only about 6 miles from home...

4 hours later, we gave up, left the car doubleparked in a snowdrift on the edge of the street and went to spend the night with the younger Blankenbeckler generation, at Josh's house in Kensington. We were only about 3 miles from home, but we were pretty well pooped.

We probably got stuck 15 times, and had 15 different Brooklyn ethnic groups help push/shovel us out. The heavy metal kids from Bay Ridge were great, the 7-year-old Arab kid standing in the middle of the intersection directing traffic was great ("Nah, nah, dat street won't take you all da way up to Pak Slope, take a left heah"), the older Hasidic man who offered to help was great, the weatherbeaten white lady who told us we could stay at her place ("I'm number 938, that house right there, come on over if you get stuck, I've got chicken soup and vodka") - she was awesome.

The bartender who let P and me play pool while Josh and Matt painstakingly dug a parking spot out of a snowbank was great, and once they were done, it was great of him to come outside and calmly point out that they were parked in a snow emergency lane. And even the hundreds of Turkish/Hispanic/Irish/whatever guys out joyriding around in their obscenely huge SUVs, wasted off their gourds, were somewhat amusing.

And the next morning, our car wasn't towed, we drove straight up to our neighborhood without getting stuck, the ONLY side street that was plowed was ours, and a friendly black guy and younger kid helped us shovel out a big space for his minivan and our car.

When we got home, we played in the snow.

And conveniently, it just keeps snowing, so parking rules keep getting suspended, so we haven't had to move the car at all since then, and it's been cold, so there's still PLENTY of snow around. We're due for some more tomorrow, actually. Maybe we should invite some Blankenbecklers over...

Lunar eclipse at the winter solstice

2010-12-21T18:33:00.002-05:00

So we set our alarm for 3am this morning, and got up and went out in the freezing cold of the back yard to take a look at the much-publicized lunar eclipse on the winter solstice. It was pretty surreal! But maybe that was just because we voluntarily got up at 3am and went out in the freezing cold...

Here's an artist's rendition of the event:

Escarole and white bean soup, a user's review

2010-12-21T18:28:00.002-05:00

Daddy, you have to cook something other than this. You cook this every night and I CAN't handle it. I don't like the taste of escarole and I never want to eat it ever again. If I have to eat this, I'll just jump out of my chair. I don't like the feel or the taste of escarole.The escarole is making a big problem. I can't do ANYthing. I can't do it. Really I can't do it. (starts wailing) I really can't do it. Please, pleeeease, I don't want to dooooo this I don't want to do this I don't want to do this, I hate doing this, I can't do it I caaaaaannn't do it. Icantdooooiitttt.... I can't handle it. I can't handle it. IIIII can't haaaandle it. No really daddy. I'm not kidding, mommy, I really can't handle it. I want some bread and butter...

Windy in the WC

2010-12-21T18:16:00.002-05:00

a windy hike in West Chester PA

Halloween!

2010-11-15T20:37:00.006-05:00

We went trick or treating around the neighborhood again, this time with Geneva AND the cousins! So there were two bats (one of the vampire persuasion), a traditional ghost, a truck who didn't want to wear his (very cool) outfit, Charlotte the spider and Wilbur the pig-in-an-ergo-carrier.

And then, of course, there was the loot...

Fall scenes in the back yard

2010-11-15T20:04:00.005-05:00

Wrong blog

2010-09-24T22:36:00.004-04:00

but when you get a rare sighting of a unicorn pegasus right in your own Prospect Park, you take a picture, dangit, and you publish it.

Renfaire continued

2010-09-24T22:05:00.004-04:00

We had a great time at the renaissance fair! Bows and arrows, live chess (with real sword fights!), paddleboating (not pictured here), people in renaissance garb, people in medieval garb, people in pirate and gypsy and bellydancer garb! It was all fun. Until the clouds gathered (check out Melanie's i-TOLD-you-to-check-accuweather-this-morning-and-not-weather-dot-com face) and it rained. And rained. And rained. And we were left stranded on a picnic table and ended up wading out through knee-high water.

The rain gods are determined to keep us from the renfaire, I swear. But we defy them. We will prevail. Next year, we're going to buy wetsuits and wait for a hurricane before we even consider going.

Berserker

2010-08-27T10:07:00.002-04:00

Maybe buying this battle axe at the Renaissance Faire wasn't such a great idea...

(thanks, Stav, for the picture! more to follow...)

Vermont

2010-08-01T20:59:00.008-04:00

Or, as we like to call it, The Promised Land, where Bill McKibben Himself dwells on high. :)

We had an amazing time, and the pictures reflect hardly any of the high-octane hang-out sessions we enjoyed with the assorted Blankenbecklers and Bakers in attendance... Thanks guys.

(more pictures here)

Look Mom!

2010-07-23T20:46:00.003-04:00

When I got home the other day, before I put my bag down, before I took my shoes off or hung my keys up, I was informed I HAD to watch this video. At first, I was like, hunh, ok. Then I noticed something was missing...

No training wheels!

And apparently he got Eeyore to narrate it!

He's also been going to swimming classes, and making steady, spluttery progress there. So, all proud of his recent achievements, he told Matt the other day "So, I guess I'm basically homeschooled." Yeah, who needs school when you can learn all the important stuff on your own, right?

Summer doldrums

2010-07-23T20:16:00.008-04:00

So we've done a LOT since that last post, but this summer has been HOT here. And the lack of AC in our apartment means that everything, including but not limited to blogging, gets done a lot slower.

If you want photos from our trip to Colorado for my cousin Bethany's wedding, check out my brother's blog.

If you want to see pictures of the mini-vacation that my two sisters and I just took to Greenwood Lake, NY, here are a few.

If you want silly pictures of P-bomb playing with his cousins (who now live in Brooklyn! yay!), check this out.

Ah, but we should post some pictures too, I guess.

Ok, so here's one from our trip to Vermont with the Blankenbeckler/Baker crew (many more to follow, once I get them all up on flickr):

And here's everyone (Claire, Jer, The Cousins, and The SmallMans and us) having dinner and silly times in the backyard:

And to cap it off, this is what the ride through Brooklyn to Bethany and Josh's apartment on the bus looks like, if you're 4 years old:

Blueblueblue

2010-05-04T23:09:00.004-04:00

And storm clouds

Old Bern

2010-05-04T22:57:00.003-04:00

Our last stop on that trip (I know, I know, that was ages ago, we'll get caught up to present-day activities soon) was New Bern, NC, to visit my grandparents. It was rainy, but P-roc still got to run around chasing birds and we got to tour the cute little town itself, and hang out with Grandma and Grandpa!

Savannah!

2010-03-28T21:21:00.005-04:00

Then we stayed with our friends Brady and Kristen in Savannah. It was awesome, we tooled around town, we hung out at their place. I mean, they have a hot tub. P-raisin was in love, he never wanted to leave the water (that's Brady in the background, unpacking his kiteboard to shake the sand out of it. Yeah, they have it rough down there in Savannah...)

Carseat

2010-03-28T21:16:00.002-04:00

We drove a LOT more than any of us are used to, on this trip. But P-roc handled it well, for the most part. Hey, as long as you have stickers, what can go wrong?

Then Georgia

2010-03-28T21:02:00.008-04:00

We stayed at the hostel in the forest, an awesome little place where you can stay in treehouses and shower in the open air and have communal dinners and sit around campfires... We loved it, rain and everything.
(We were using our film camera for this part, and must have been using an old roll of film or something, cause all our pictures turned out weird-looking.)

Then we went to see alligators in the Okefenokee swamp park! We went to the old swamp theme park, where some of the stuff has been around since the 1930s. It was great, and kitschy and the little train ride was the coolest, according to kiddo.

More Florida

2010-03-28T20:48:00.006-04:00

Wherein Lyla is the only one to say cheese and the boy learns where duck meat comes from.

Florida trip

2010-03-28T20:20:00.002-04:00

We went down south and visited with the southern Kirbies. The kids loved each other, and after one brief snafu involving someone calling someone else "yucky" and then everyone tearfully refusing to tell us what had happened for about a half an hour, they played happily for days. We want them to come up here and visit us soon!

The Masked Menace

2010-02-26T21:01:00.004-05:00

We got our camera back, y'all! So for a while, you might be seeing posts about Christmas and be all, whaa, wasn't that SO long ago? Yes. It was. But fun stuff happened around Christmas, so we're going to post all that old stuff anyhow.

Like this:

Melanie and Jason gave him that mask (with voice modulator and mix-and-match antennae/googly eyes) for Christmas and he wore it for days and days... He wore it on the train, in the snow, in the rain, in the car, and on the Chinatown bus. It was an awesome gift.

What does a mask with a voice modulator DO, you might ask. Aha. Take a look:

(ps: The green bandanna-cape is an almost daily accessory, these days. I mean, how could you NOT want to wear a cape every day? How else are people going to know you have superpowers?)

Science question

2010-01-26T20:46:00.004-05:00

For the biology majors among you: do three-year-old boys have more testosterone than two-year-old boys?

And the reason I ask, of course, is because the newest thing in this house is bragging. There's the classic "Mom! I can run fast! Look how fast I can run! I'm faster than a badger!"

And the numerically challenged "I have FOURTEEN raisins! That's more than you, Mom. You only have FIFTY raisins."

And the somewhat puzzling but clearly condescending "Why do you not know what icy stripes are? You don't even know what penguins are." (addressed to my long-suffering coworker, Annie, who had to admit that, indeed, she did not know what icy stripes were. But she says she DOES know what penguins are).

And this afternoon's "Look mom, I can jump in between these blocks so faster than anyfing in the whole wide world! Watch! Look at that! Mom! Could you not believe your eyes?"

And finally, as we were walking along this evening in our neighborhood and he saw a car with a bent fender: "Look at that. That's busted, haha. Those people should take that to a mechanic. They should bring it to me when I'm older and I would spraypaint it and they would give me fifty-EIGHTY dollars."

Yup. My kid's going to be a high-paid car body repairman. Sweet.

Reporting

2010-01-20T18:50:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the total lack of posts recently, we left our camera at Nonni and Poppi's house at Christmas and have been pretty busy since then, what with visits from family (who didn't send us pictures of ourselves, ahem) and all.

So instead of a picture post, P-rock wants to tell you a story about a toy dinosaur. I'll transcribe it faithfully, good little Verbatim Reporter that I am:

"We have a little dinosaur. And it erupted with a explosion. It is growing and growing and growing now, and it's going to be its normal size for three days. And it is a - I LIKE it. That's all it."

"Mooom, why did you write 'that's all it'. I was saying 'that's all it' to YOU. What are you saying, MOM??"

"This dinosaur can eat the water under water. And it comes to life some day. And it might die wif bones in its body. And it... can swoop down on really big trees. That's all it."

"Why did you not type 'mommy', cause I said 'mommy'. That's all it, mommy."

Sick is as sick does

2009-12-09T22:52:00.003-05:00

We've been sick. Well, the boys have. I personally escaped the wrathful flu virus somehow. Yay for me. But I didn't escape having to watch a LOT of Thomas and Friends on PBS (on every day at 3:30 PM, no need to set your alarm clocks, P will let you know several hours ahead of time). This has been the scene in our living room for the past 8 days.

Did I mention I'm glad they're better now?

I am NOT a pirate

2009-11-04T20:34:00.005-05:00

I'm a three musketeer! I'm D'Artagnan! Give me candy or I will stick you with my sword! Take that, and that, and that, sir!

We went trick or treating down through our neighborhood, and ended up at P-roc's friend's block party. She was dressed as the Fuschia Fairy, but as you know, those fairies are particularly camera-shy, so we don't have any shots of her willingly posing for us.

Famous cousin

2009-11-04T20:30:00.002-05:00

La fameuse Eloise came to visit! We had so much fun with her.
(Oh, and with her parents too. :)

bike

2009-10-06T21:12:00.004-04:00

Did we mention P got a bike? It was a craigslist special. And, as he'll tell you himself, "it has TWO brakes, a handbrake and a backpedal brake, AND training wheels, AND a rack to carry fings, AND a bell to tell people to get outta the way." Now every time we leave the house, we have to bring the bike...

Even dinosaurs get irritated

2009-10-03T19:01:00.005-04:00

Overheard from P's room:

"Millions and millions of years ago... these species lived together. 'Oh gawd', said the iguanodon. 'Oh gawd', said the triceratops."

Too modest

2009-09-25T14:34:00.002-04:00

Me: "Hey P, it's really warm out, I'm actually getting hot. Wanna take your shirt off?"

P: "Nobody wants to see that, mommy."

Silly faces

2009-09-25T10:51:00.004-04:00

P was inspired by his cousins' series of "angry" faces and wanted to do his own series.

Sound FX

2009-08-24T22:09:00.001-04:00

We tried...

2009-08-24T15:21:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago, our friend Annie drove us all the way up to Tuxedo, NY, over an hour away, to see the 60-acre renaissance faire that's there every weekend from August to October. We met up with Melanie and Jason and Olivia Bee and got all suited up for the rain, but on our way from the parking lot to the front gate, some wenches told us the whole fairgrounds had just been closed down. So that's as far as we made it. "Can't have people running around in metal suits of armor in the rain and lightning," explained the helpful monk who was changing back into his Hawaiian shirt and khakis and climbing into his Toyota (pictured here in the background)... As Jason said "Good morrow, fine folks."

Wrestlemania

2009-08-24T14:56:00.003-04:00

A common pastime in our apartment:

Magic word

2009-07-27T20:33:00.002-04:00

P-rock and Matt play "guess the magic word" when they have each other in head locks. Matt'll say "Guess the magic word, it starts with a C and it's orange and long and bunnies eat it" and P will say "Korange!"

And stuff like that. Once P guesses the magic word, he gets released from the head lock.

So Matt was in a head lock for a while this morning, when P said "Guess the magic word! It starts wif A-O-B!"

I'll give you a hint: it was a body part, and it was being used to reinforce the head lock.

Karaoke

2009-07-16T18:37:00.002-04:00

P: Dad, I don't like Karaoke.

Dad: Okay... Why not?

P: He throws bombs.

Dad: He? Who is "Karaoke?"

P: He lives in Spiderman's apartment and he wants to kill Spiderman but Spiderman and Batman and Superman are more powerful than him.

(But apparently he's allied with the Loch Ness Monster.)

How stuff works: catapults

2009-06-10T20:08:00.004-04:00

So P-rock is way, way into how things work. When first encountering a motion-activated hand drier: "How does that hand drier work, mommy? Is it magic?" No, it's not magic, it's just, um, automatic. "What's automatic?"... Then we have a 15 minute discussion on the inherent difference between things that are automatic (air conditioners that click on unexpectedly, the doors on elevators) and things that are magic (wizards and flying horses). I think we've nailed down that "automatic" requires the intervention of some kind of machine, whereas "magic" does not.

And at some point every day, we're treated to a long lecture that starts with "Lemme tell you what. It's sumpin about how X works...", X being the subject of the day, whether lightbulbs or shrimps' legs or - our favorite - anything having to do with dinosaurs.

Apparently, catapults have something to do with dinosaurs (ps: "hopticopters" means, of course, "helicopters").

Beacon

2009-06-10T20:01:00.003-04:00

We took a day trip to Beacon, to check out the Hudson valley. Of course, we needed to keep ourselves occupied on the trip back... Guess which shots are the ones P took.

Outdoors again, huzzah!

2009-05-10T21:43:00.002-04:00

Garden days are here again, time to hang out with our uptown friends...

...and drink blackberry smoovies with our Brooklyn friends (that's "Don't-call-me-baby" Geeves, all grown up!)...

... and help dad work out those upper arm muscles.

Puppy sitting

2009-05-10T21:32:00.004-04:00

Our landlords, who live upstairs from us, got a new puppy, Bella. And since she needs some play time every day and both of our landlords are off being lawyerly during the week, and Matt and P are home, they asked us if we could play with her for a little while every weekday. P-rock l-o-v-e-s Bella, it's great. He gets to play with a puppy (without us having to actually own one), and we get a discount on our rent. Win-win.

Pandemic joke

2009-04-30T20:10:00.005-04:00

The other night at dinner, we were talking about, you know, the flu. And P-rock interrupts me to say "No Mommy! Swine didn't fly!"

Overheard in Brooklyn

2009-04-21T21:35:00.001-04:00

P-rock (singing): "Can you tell me how the hell, to get to Sesame Street?"

Fpring

2009-04-19T20:40:00.005-04:00

It's that time of the year again. Bwossoms and silly faces.

Costa Rica

2009-04-14T21:36:00.002-04:00

I finally got all our pictures from our February trip to Costa Rica uploaded here. Disclaimer: we weren't just lying around on the beach, pura vida-style. I was in Spanish classes every day (my job partially subsidized the trip for that express purpose), AND I had homework.

Ok, so we still got quite a bit of lying around on the beach accomplished. But the highlight for Mr. P, of course, was all the wildlife: monkeys in the trees, iguanas wandering around everywhere, coatis in the cloudforest, and snakes in the serpentarium (which was a sort of snake museum for those of us who don't particularly WANT to see the real thing in the wild).

For any of you contemplating a trip to Central America, I highly recommend it, it was a great trip...

The terrible twos, the aaaCKK%*%^&$!! threes

2009-03-21T22:27:00.009-04:00

Forgive me, I am a blogging failure. We went to Costa Rica in FEBRUARY and now it's halfway through March and I still haven't posted pictures.

But you see, it's not my fault. See, I have a three-year-old. Yup. See? Airtight excuse. Cause as you all know (especially those of you who have already had three-year-olds, and lived to tell the tale but somehow managed to avoid letting ME know), having a three-year-old is WAY WORSE than having a two-year-old.

Seriously, he was pretty bad before. Tantrums, boundary-pushing, button-pushing, nap strikes, hitting/biting/clawing. But nothing compared to now. We were starting to wonder if he picked up some horrible good-behavior-aversion disease in the jungle in Costa Rica, but then our friends (thanks Sonia) and pediatrician (thanks whatever your name is) let us know: three can be worse than two. Thanks for the advance warning, y'all.

Let's just review this evening, randomly chosen from an entire series of other similar evenings, purely for educational purposes. Tonight, P taught us the invaluable lesson that you cannot leave a three-year-old on their own for even a second (mind you, both of us were home, and our apartment only has three rooms), or he might:

a) Eat the entire tube of toothpaste AND use the saliva that generates to soak through his bed and stuffed animals on the bed and then start shrieking uncontrollably because his stuffed animals are "too wet";

b) Take his cup of lemonade (only grudgingly allowed after the toothpaste incident) and the 3-foot-long flexible plastic tube attachment that inflates the guest air mattress, sit on mommy and daddy's bed and try to use the tube to suck the lemonade out of the cup, spilling (of course) all of it on the bed;

c) While getting a timeout for the lemonade incident, scream "I need to PEEEEEE", thus ensuring that his parents let him out of the timeout to go to the potty (no dummy, this kid);

d) While peeing (or hopefully, a little afterwards), grab a spray bottle of degreaser (don't ask me how it got there, I don't know) and proceed to spray the floor, the toilet, the walls and the toilet paper roll;

and
e) Just for good measure, take his shoes off and spit/drool/slobber into them until they're thoroughly soaked.

Keep in mind this was all between dinner and bedtime. That is, between 6:30 and 7:30 at night. P-roc wants to know: what did YOU achieve in that hour today?

To end on a more upbeat note, here's a picture of le petit prince enjoying himself in Costa Rica. It's a lovely country and we hope he survives his parents' wrath long enough to visit there once again some day. On his own.

When I grow up

2009-01-30T20:50:00.002-05:00

P has announced to us that when he grows up, he will be a man (pronounced ma-yun). He will then get to do all the things that men do. He will get to drink wine, push strollers, cook, light candles, go shopping, push shopping carts, and put stuff in the shopping carts.

We can hardly wait.

Imaginary fwends

2009-01-30T20:44:00.003-05:00

I think P met his first imaginary friend today. Things we know about Nikki:

- He fits in the palm of P's hand.
- He needs to eat P's dinner with him, thus
- He needs to sit on P's placemat
- He likes rice and tofu
- He can do flips
- If Mommy moves P's bowl over, it will SQUASH NIKKI! NOOO MOMMY, YOU SQUASHED NIKKI!!
- He is a mouse (Nikki Mouse, of course)

Oh, and also, sometimes, there's more than one of him. As in "Mommy! Look at all the Nikkis in my hand! SO many Nikkis!"

Urban Planning

2009-01-28T20:47:00.003-05:00

Sledding in Prospect Park

2009-01-26T14:32:00.002-05:00

Group of Fathers

2009-01-22T14:14:00.003-05:00

And now back to our regular scheduled blogging

2009-01-21T20:10:00.005-05:00

So there was Halloween, which was fun, and then there was a whole bunch of other stuff that we weren't blogging about. We'll do our best to fill you in on the major events that you, our viewing public, have missed out on. Numero uno, Thanksgiving trip to Denver, to see P's aunts and uncles and cousins and great aunt and second cousin (or is that couzant once removed. Beth?). Lots of fun, lots of running around and squealing and going to see red rock formations (and getting stuck in one). And of course, waiting for endless hours in the airport for our delayed flight. And discovering the magic of in-flight movies (I think this one was Mama Mia). Sigh.

Trifecta

2008-11-06T20:33:00.002-05:00

I had three whole arguments with him today, all before I left for work in the morning.

First:
P: Hey Jerah.
J: What? You don't call me that. You call me Mommy.
P: I call you Jerah.
J: No you don't.
P: Daddy calls you Jerah. And I call you Jerah.
J: Sigh.

Second:
P: Gimme that thing. What's that thing?
J: It's a safety pin.
P: I want it.
J: You can't have it, it's sharp. It's dangerous.
P: It not dangerous, it a SAFETY pin.

Third:
J (talking about something else): That was the day before yesterday, the day when we went to vote.
P: And YOU voted for McCain.
J: NO I DIDN'T... Argh.

He really knows how to get under my skin. Now if he could only translate that into a marketable skill. Maybe he'll be a lawyer when he grows up.

Halloween

2008-11-03T20:27:00.003-05:00

Being a farmer? I mean, I guess it's ok. If you like that kind of thing.

Trick or treating, door to storefront door on 5th Ave with Christel and (baby?) Geeves

We met up with the South Slope crew, and after the pizza dinner there was a crush in the hallway to see who could get their costume on first.

And off we rushed to the Park Slope kid's Halloween parade, wind in our hair...

Karaoke? Sure, how about I sing "I WANT CANDY!!!"

Raccoon and the miner, part deux

2008-10-30T23:43:00.003-04:00

The long-awaited sequel.

Quick poll: am I the only one who can understand what he's saying? I feel like he has a whole story to tell, and sometimes I understand him completely, and sometimes, eh, not so much. This one, I think I got most of it.

And of course, what better way to end a saga than by eating some unidentified piece of lint off of your pants. I hear that's how all the greats did it. Tennyson, Faulkner, Shakespeare. Gotta distract the audience from the fact that there's no real end to your tale....

The Castle

2008-10-30T18:22:00.005-04:00

Who let the viking in?