Grandma and Grandpa

 The Friedichses visit Brooklyn.

More questions

Perhaps to save my dignity, Marian did not mention the follow-up questions.
"Does daddy have a baby in his tummy?"
No
"Then what's in there?"

Time to hit the gym.

Isaiah tries to wrap his head around this whole baby thing.

I told Isaiah yesterday that we would hear the baby's heartbeat at Joni's office that evening. When we pulled into a parking space outside Joni's building, Isaiah said excitedly, "We are going to hear Bernadette's heartbeat now!" Well, she is our baby...

Joni lent us a picture book showing a baby's growth in utero. Isaiah was very interested and asked lots of questions. When I had finished explaining that the picture in the book shows the baby inside his mama's body, just like our baby is inside my body, Isaiah asked, "Did you eat it?" "No," I said. "How did it get there?" was his very rational follow-up question. I told him the truth: "God put it there."

Little traveler

 Sitting, for a moment, at the Providence Athenaeum.

A bite of ice cream on the street in Brooklyn.

Police motorcycle

Sometimes the route you don't want to take (Isaiah said he was tired of walking in Providence and wanted to go back to the car) has an unexpected surprise.

Playground

I had to climb and talk him down.

Big swing

 Still not quite able to pull himself into a sitting position, but soon enough. In the meantime, if there's no adult to help, there's always the belly, Superman-style usage.

Fun with sticks

 Fun to carry.

Fun for pretend writing.

Other boy's toys

Caden has an iPod touch, or something similar. Isaiah was sure interested in the game he was playing.

A Bernadette story from Grandma Tascio

First - I have to thank Clare again who spent 20 minutes on the phone with Verizon last night reconfiguring my phone while I drove us home.

Secondly, I have to thank Bernadette who somehow managed to lock me out of my password protected phone :) 

How do those little fingers do it?!!?  Can we Bernadette proof it for future use?!!?

I really do thank her though because there had been a glitch with my phone and email ever since I got it - and it is now working great!!!! 

Green House

Talking to Josh at the Green House.

The family philosophy

New York

Isaiah-isms of the Week

During our hike, observing a dog who was panting with excitement: He is eating up all the air!

Last night, while sprawled despairingly on the floor outside the bathroom door:

I must stop this whole thing!

Why, for fifty-three years I've put up with it now.

I must stop teeth-brushing from coming.

But how?

Noted

Bernadette would not leave the house this morning without her purse.

Hiking

Pockets loaded with rocks to the point Isaiah's pants were nearly falling down.

Girls

Isaiah never walked down the row running his hands across the clothes and stopping to try to pull specific items out.

Nesting

The other day I got up from a nap with Bernadette and was surprised to see--instead of Isaiah sitting on the couch listening to his audiobook as usual--the apartment door wide open and the carton of eggs on the table. I went into the hallway, where Isaiah was talking to our neighbor Rose. Rose explained that she had discovered him in the hallway with the carton of eggs, which he was carefully emptying onto a bench. He had propped our door open with a brick. Rose had persuaded him to put the eggs back in the carton (not one broke) and bring them inside. She had been trying to persuade him to go inside himself when I came out.

"What I don't understand," she said, "is why he was putting the eggs on the bench in the first place."

We both looked at Isaiah expectantly. "I was making a nest!" he said.

"And then were you going to sit on the eggs?" asked Rose.

Isaiah looked at her like she was a bit crazy. "No!" he laughed.

Before I lie down with Bernadette these days, after turning on the audiobook I dead-bolt the door.

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