Snow!

After I cleaned off the turtle's head, I suggested we continue walking. "First we have to brush off the turtle's fur," Isaiah said. So we cleared the shell. And then we cleared the other turtle at the playground. And then I pushed him in a swing and we watched the snowplow and caught snowflakes on our tongues and walked through more snow.

Driving into Hartford this morning, Isaiah sees the skyline: "Empire State buildings."

Driving in Brooklyn this afternoon, Isaiah sees the lighted Christmas decorations affixed to the utility poles: "Starflakes."

Reflection: Sledding is still fun. The long, slower hill with multiple drops is good for distance. The short, steep hill with ramps and rises at the bottom quickens the pulse (and I'm more aware of even tiny trees than I was as a kid). The guy 35 years younger than me is always going to want to sled for more clock ticks than I will. The best part, though: Right now he'd rather ride tandem with me than by himself.

Quote of the Day

"Sometimes nook makes your body go down from hurting." --Isaiah J. Friedrichs

Great Grandparents

Marian, Bernadette and Grandma and Grandpa Carr on Jan. 1, 2011.

Notes, mid-December to present

Bernadette: Almost rolled over twice the other day. Still hasn't mastered the arm tuck needed to get all the way over. Also more adept at manipulating things with her hands, although she frequently drops them and then they are lost. 

Isaiah: Used to reach up to my knees from the floor, now almost reaches down to my knees when I carry him in from the car, sleeping with his head on my shoulder.

2011 auspicious and lucky start. I snatched at the paint brush we play with in the tub as it slipped into the drain but missed. When all the water drained, no red handle was visible. Two stabs with a clothes hanger: nothing. On the third dip, some resistance, which I chalked up to catching on the pipe. What should emerge but a handle caught on the wire (and some hair that we didn't want back). Yay! No plumber!

"What is that?" Isaiah asked about a New Yorker cartoon. So I tried to explain the cultural references that make a street food cart advertising "hunka, hunka burning love" funny.

Isaiah's currently reading the Mediterranean cookbook. He sat as read the names of the foods pictured. Then started flipping through on his own when I stepped away.

If you need a slobber machine, Bernadette is available for New Years parties (althuigh she goes to sleep by 10).

The number of trucks increases exponentially. Soon our house will be used only as a garage for all the toys with wheels, and we'll have to rent a new place for sleeping and eating.

Morning family Grease dance party.

Isaiah shows interest in butter sculpting, although his early work is abstract and may be shaped more by his taste for the dairy material than any artistic vision.

Fun!

  Helping with the whipped cream at Christmas.

Siblings and their bunnies.

Christmas Family

Matt, Isaiah and Paul at brunch on Christmas Eve.

 Marian, Liz and Bernadette at brunch on Christmas Eve.

 Magda, Bernadette and Pete Christmas morning.

 Isaiah and Bernadette listen to Uncle Paul read.

 Grandma Tascio helps Isaiah find the good presents on Christmas Day.

Grandpa Tascio entertains Bernadette.

 Presents!

Fun with wrapping paper. You mean there's more?

The trains are on schedule at the Friedrichs house.

Is there anything else back there?

Face time

 

Chocolate-blueberry pre-Christmas beard.

Warning

"Look out! We are falling asleep," Isaiah yells as Marian enters the darkened bedroom with Bernadette. "Look out! We are falling asleep!"

Bernadette's Days

 

Playing with the Asics, Marathon bear. It was a favorite for Isaiah, and Bernadette likes it, too.

 Luxuriating on the quilt from Aunt Marilyn.

What was that?

Into the woods

 

We spent Saturday in at the Voluntown Peace Trust (near the Rhode Island-Connecticut border) for the Hartford Catholic Worker Green House Christmas party. The woods and stream were beautiful. Despite the calm you see in these pictures, there was a rollicking party with food, games, crafts, presents, singing and more for a bunch of kids from the North End of Hartford who regularly attend the Green House programs. It was a great afternoon.

Haircut

Moments

Yesterday, Isaiah clambered on top of his mother and father in bed. When asked what he was doing, he replied, "Climbing on a pile of friends!"

Also, he has a plan: "When Jesus's birthday comes, we will all tear open the paper and devour the trucks together."

And a Different Kind of Note

At the grocery store today I asked Isaiah to be in charge of our shopping list. He eagerly took it, studied it, and reported, with his eyes fixed on the paper, "It says, 'Give us all your gold and jewels and you can have your daughter back safe and sound. Signed Morbert and his terrible dragon.' "

Notes

Saturday: The fish at the store enthralled Bernadette. Never, in her whole life, had she seen anything like them swimming about in their tank.

Sunday: This morning's object of fascination: Slinky. Bernadette looked at it. She touched it. She talked to, or about it (I don't have the full translation, so I'm unclear of her sentiments).

Jumping on the bed is more fun than brushing teeth.

 

Isaiah these days

He's been singing "Jesus, Name Above All Names" often, but he has begun substituting other beloved terms, for instance: "Dump truuuuuck, name above aaall names..." or "Truck booooook, name above aaall names..." He sings loudly.

The other day he said he wanted to give Jesus a kiss, so I handed him a little plastic crucifix. Jesus indeed got a kiss "and a smooch and a hug." (A kiss differs from a smooch in that the former is a peck on the cheek, while the latter is a big wet one on the lips, in case you were wondering. On the little crucifix not much difference was detectable. The hug had to be scaled down to a cheek press.)

His current literary obsession is The Gift of the Magi. When I read the sentence, "Della heard Jim's step away down on the first flight," he commonly interjects, "And then Jim heard Della's step away down on the first airplane." In this story we learned the word "parsimony," which is hilarious and endlessly repeatable.

Notes

Bernadette showing great interest in her fists. Sometimes she stares at one or both. Sometimes she talks to them. Sometimes she sticks them in her mouth. Today she accidentally bit herself with her new tooth. And the other day she grabbed one of her own fingers and was upset that someone was pulling so hard.

And here she shows interest in Grandma and the shoe Grandma is dangling.

 

Motion

Clare, Isaiah and more

Just getting started

 Bernadette exuding cuteness on Thanksgiving and there weren't even any grandparents present to observe her at the moment!
 

Isaiah briefly helped transport stuff to the car. Shortly after this picture was taken, there was a cry of "help, help," which we often hear now when he is frustrated or can't do something.

Notes

Today:

Matt in elevator, presses button and points: Do you want to press three?

Isaiah: No, Two.

Isaiah pushes button and narrates.

Isaiah: He pushes two. Daddy pushes three.

Wednesday evening:

Isaiah: Daddy will put the left front sock n the smoocher's left front foot.

Wednesday morning:

Endless snaps (the price of being able to change diapers easily later), wind that pushed my bike around. I'm enjoying this day.

Monday evening:

Minor death experience. Balloon pops. I show Isaiah the remains and tell him the balloon is gone. He looks up in the air. He goes into the other room. "Looking for the balloon." He comes back. He looks up.

Parents ...

Marian and I dancing around the living room to South Pacific soundtracks cracks Isaiah up. "We are so entertaining," he says. 

Blocks, building

Reading 

 

Brown Bear, mesmerizing (and still popular with the older crowd, too).

Couch time

Bernadette is smitten...

You should see the beaming smile she wears when she looks at Isaiah. He is just the most fascinating thing to her. He's been showing a little more interest in her, too. He usually brings a pillow to rest his head on when we're going to nurse, and the last couple of times he's brought two: "One is for Bernadette." Yesterday he brought me a book (Love You Forever) and told me to "read it out loud for the baby."

"Oh," I said. "You think Bernadette wants to listen to this story?"

"OK."

p.s. Bernadette has also been known to fill the room with a big, sunny grin when she sees her sling getting into position. So there you have it: her first and second loves have been established, and she's not even four months old. I wonder when the crush on Daddy will start?

Circus practice

We would never run away, but it's also fun to practice some acrobatics (and Dad gets a little workout in the process).

Tractor! (And trucks)

Pulled out the tractor and dump truck that had been stored away for months. They were very popular. Also went to the small, local Plainville aiport today and saw one helicopter take off and two planes doing repeated takeoffs and touch-and-go landings.

Dialogue

Isaiah: He will take the dump truck and backhoe loader to the Green House.

Matt: You have a very specific plan.

Isaiah: OK.

Matt: Do you just say "OK" when you don't understand what I said?

Isaiah: Yes!

October Ends

Saddled up.
For homemade pizza in Yonkers at Pete and Magda's.
And a final look from a friendly face.

Playing Basketball

Halloween Bat

Isaiah was a bat, at least for a few minutes. Then he started saying help, and we had to switch to a shirt with no wings sewn on.

At the Grown-ups' Table

Tonight Matt invited Isaiah to sit "in a regular chair"; he accepted eagerly, even grabbing his drink and moving it from the high-chair tray to the table. Isaiah climbed into the chair and got settled, took a big bite of his corn, and kicked off the following dialogue:

Isaiah: So how's your day?

Mama: (Trying not to crack up completely.) My day was fine. How was yours?

Isaiah: OK. (Pauses and looks around with a grin.) We are all eating in chairs. We have no experience. We are not at all offended.

Daddy could only laugh helplessly through all of this. Bernadette slept.

p.s. Although we've been reading the Little House books, I've read chunks of them to myself, and Isaiah just listens to whatever part I happen to be on when he asks to "hear more about Laura." Today, however, Isaiah and I finished reading the first novel that he listened to all the way through: Stuart Little. When I closed it, Isaiah said, "Read it again!" So my challenge now is to figure out how to explain that a novel is different from a picture book, that we just spent three days reading the whole thing, and that I'm not going to go back to the beginning and start all over. Or I can do what I did today--divert his attention. Or I can go back to the beginning and start all over. Any ideas?

Siblings

Couch Time

Looking up at the world.

More Personification

(With a Little Onomatopoeia Thrown In)

It seems there's something about a swing that really brings out the bard in our young man. Today, after swinging for half an hour while engaging in our traditional activity of pointing out all the different kinds of trucks that went by, I asked Isaiah if he wanted to play on the slides.

"No," he said. "Still swinging. Still listening to the babble of sweet trucks."

The Little Pumpkin

Fall in Bristol

Isaiah didn't get to handle the knife this year. Maybe next fall.

Notes

Tuesday
Playground in the dark, sliding, swinging under a moon alternately shrouded and peeking between the clouds. Cooling air, accented by wood smoke and dry leaves. On the way home, we raced.

Friday
"Cars and Trucks and Things That Go" has 70 pages. I think Isaiah has it memorized. He just recited 50+ pages to us (he occasionally flipped past a few).

Saturday
Eight pumpkins carved. Lots of snacks consumed. But the best part of the day was socializing and watching the kids running around.

Sunday
The problem with Stellaluna? The new favored form of transport around our house is upside down.

Clear, babbling stream on an overcast fall day. A couple of brilliant leaves peek back at us from the bottom. So do the acorns that hit the surface with a pleasant plunk and then sank when we tossed them by ones and twos.

Grandma Time

Bernadette hangs out with Grandma Tascio in Pawling.

Basketball Practice

I looked over after doing something in the kitchen last night and saw Bernadette had found the basketball (or maybe Isaiah rolled it to her?). She bumped it as she waved her arms, causing it to gently roll back and forth.

Saturdays At The Green House

Isaiah loves the swings. I get to push everybody. Nangelie (foreground) likes to push Isaiah and tries to pick him up, but he's leery of her efforts.


He also likes the trucks and Play-Doh. And sometimes he engages the other kids.

The Young Poet Dabbles in Personification (and a New Cuisine)

This afternoon at the playground, when the wind kicked up and swirled the leaves below Isaiah's dangling feet, he looked down from the swing, pointed, and grinned. "The leaves are chasing each other," he said.

But lest you start thinking he's become a complete erudite before his time, let me add that one of his favorite outdoor activities lately has been nibbling grass on his hands and knees, just to see how it tastes. I admit that today, reminding him of that activity was how I got him to hold still so I could put his shoes on. I'll try to get a picture next time. Please don't have me arrested.

Amusement Park

Notes

Delayed departure for work this morning because Bernadette was sleeping on my chest. I couldn't bring myself to disturb her. Soon enough she woke and started looking for milk.

On a recent evening I was playing with Bernadette on the bed while Marian prepared for bed. The youngster grew tired of our games and began to agitate, with growing vocal distress, for her mother. Isaiah came in to play with his trucks next to us. Fascinated, she quieted down and stared at her noisy brother's driving.

Friday night Isaiah and I went to high school football game. On the way home, he provided this summary: "We had fun. We watched the football game. We ate popcorn. And we ate a pretzel."

Halo Effect

The digital camera is slowly dying. The result: this cute, oversaturated image of the siblings from this morning. Isaiah initially agreed to give Bernadette a kiss, then demurred.

Conversations

Isaiah (pointing to a photo of a blue tractor in a book): That's Grandpa's tractor.

Mama: That's right.

Isaiah: Grandpa will give you (meaning "me") a ride on his tractor.

Mama: I bet he will.

Isaiah: Or on a combine.

Mama: A combine?

Isaiah: Or on a airplane.

Mama: I don't know if Grandpa can fly an airplane.

Isaiah: Maybe Grandma can fly a airplane.

Feeling inspired, Grandma?

And later that same day...

Marian (to Matt): I think you're going to have to buy a shotgun when Bernadette grows up.

Matt: Why?

Marian: Because she's so pretty.

Matt: Oh, if we raise her right there'll be no need for that.

Marian: Yeah...

Matt: She'll have her own shotgun.

Hats On

Bernadette models the new pumpkin top Michelle made and gave her at the Collinsville farmers market.