Lately C has been forced to cope with the hard fact that his little brother is an infant, and is therefore the focus of attention among strangers. Where they used to spend all their time interacting with him, now they try to get N to smile or wave at them. This past weekend he finally […]

On Sunday, we went shopping.  C wasn’t terribly happy about this.  He typically likes shopping, but for some reason he was feeling quite cranky and was opposing pretty much everything that was done or said. This is the end of a conversation that C & I had in the car as we were looking for a parking […]

We were moving furniture last weekend. At one point, J was off doing something and I was "watching" C & N. I say "watching" because I was actually shoving furniture around, carrying boxes, and looking in on the two guys every couple minutes. Mostly I was listening for screaming. Despite their huge age difference (C […]

At some point in the past few months, J almost dropped N. Well, not really, but she looked like she was going to. It was one of those things where you’re carrying the infant and you switch from one arm to the other at the same time that he decides to try to fling himself […]

A few evenings ago, J, N, and I were playing in the kitchen when C came quietly walking out of his bedroom. He took my hand, whispered "tigers" and led me back to his bedroom. I said "tigers?" and he nodded. So we went to his room. He closed the door behind us without turning […]

Yesterday morning I came down a little early to join C for breakfast. When I walked into the kitchen, he was sitting at the table with a piece of raisin toast sitting in front of him. J was off doing something else. He had his hands over his eyes and was slowly counting: "1..2…3…4…". I […]

Just as C did, N has been learning language skills from listening to us command the dogs. One of his few words is "tay!" – short for "Stay!" He holds his hand out and says it very sternly, mimicking the way we tell the dogs to stay. N loves to climb. Being less than 1 […]

All daddy pride aside, C learned to talk at a very young age. Younger, in fact, than we realized. For example, he apparently learned to say "train video" (his favorite video) privately and in complete isolation. This seems like a good thing, but it ended up working against us. Even back then, C usually finished […]

Sometimes, the absurdity of a situation really gets to me. Having the kids around makes this more of a problem, because laughing is simply not always appropriate. Here’s a case in point. The other night we had pasta for dinner. When I say "we", I mean J, N, and I. C was refusing to eat. […]

One of the oddest things about being a parent is hearing your own phrases and mannerisms adopted by your kids. In our case, I have a habit of trying to get C to figure things out himself. If he asks me a question, I’m fairly likely to say "Maybe" followed by the answer and then […]