Fruit

While Jesse sleeps, the paint comes out!

Last week Lucas got on a fruit kick. He wanted to make grapes and oranges, bananas and apples. I found it so interesting that he added stems to most of his pictures.

Flowers

He learned to smell flowers from reading Pat The Bunny (his absolute favorite right now). His entire face crinkles up as he sniffs in and out:

...and when he takes a bite.

Sprinklers

Microphone

This past Saturday I scored a sing-along microphone/cassette tape player for fifty cents at a stoop sale. I've been keeping an eye out for a discounted one because they tend to be really expensive these days and I knew that Lucas would LURV it. I was right!

At first he didn't appreciate some of the offerings of old cassette tapes we gave him to sing along with. (What, Lucas?! You don't like old-school Bobby Brown? Tears For Fears? The mixed tapes made by friends of Indigo Girls songs?!) He's on a Wiggles kick once again so we set him up to sing along with a Wiggles DVD. He's beyond delighted to hear himself through the microphone and has been doing so pretty much non-stop all weekend.


Here are some every day glimpses of the boys doing their thing. Apparently Lucas has to eat the microphone for it to feel like it's working. (If you want to know what he's singing because he's smothering his mouth, click here. He now says "car" like an Australian.) It's especially the Jesse sideshow that cracks us up in each of these videos:



Here's some Lucas sassitude and more Jesse cuteness. This weekend we've also been inculcating upon our boys the music and dance moves of Michael Jackson, which is why I made the tune suggestion to Lucas. His favorite part is getting to yell, "Shamon!"



The couch has been set up this way pretty much for more than a month now. Jesse gets angry when we cover the entire couch with two couch cushions because it's too high for him to climb. So we leave one cushion off so that he can climb onto the couch and then climb up another level onto the one remaining cushion. If Jesse's not sitting or climbing, then Lucas is jumping on the cushion-free area, just on the right spots where the coils are so that he can get a bit more lift.

Hammock

It's back up! Now that some parts of the day have been hot enough for a bit of help from the a/c units, we're able to make room for our favorite summertime hangout spot...

Oh boy, I can't imagine loving these three boys any more...

15 Months

We have tons of Jesse photos to share with you (no surprise!) from the last three months that we'll include here. He's just too cute to pass up!

Just say the word "afuera" and Jesse goes running to the door to wait for his shoes to be put on and to go outside:

But first a last sip of water before we go! He's learned that Lucas's bottle is blue and that his is purple (and so he no longer tries to sip from Lucas's). We love it when he points to Lucas's bottle in a certain way that tells us he's begging for his own.

Neither of these pictures is of good quality but they both showed such classic Jesse expressions that I couldn't leave them out:

Jesse now has 7 teeth (#8 is currently threatening to poke through...). One of those is a chipped front tooth from a nasty fall he took last week!

What kid doesn't love music?! Jesse knows where we keep the guitar and the melody harp and knows how to turn on the piano keyboard. He often drags out the guitar and harp, and long after the boys and I are finished playing them together, Jesse continues on with the plucking and the strumming and humming.

The pictures that follow are more updated because they were taken this past month. Here he is two weeks ago during his 15-month well-visit. He's old enough (and smart enough) to know that a shot on each leg comes next. Sorry, J-Bird!

I just love this picture. Those cheeks!

Jesse is doing all the typical things babes do at this stage, like taking things in and out of containers (below). He's adding more signs to his repertoire every week. (I'm tellin' ya', signing is one of the best things we've ever done with and for our boys!) His favorite things to do right now are: read books, spin around in place (usually until he's so dizzy he can't stand up), play with Thomas trains (oh lordie), make animal noises (dog and cat and cow especially), and point to body parts. He LOVES to stick out his tongue if you ask him to. When you ask him where his nose is, he'll slap his eyes with two hands (as if to play peek-a-boo) and then slowly migrate his hands down to his nose. Same with the ears. It's so stinkin' cute.

And finally, here's Jesse getting down with The Wiggles (and apparently in need of a diaper change, judging from the saggy crotch area):

Summer Fun

Hey folks!

We've been keeping busy... at play! Between spending most of the day outdoors, catching up on make-up soccer practices (thanks to all the crazy rain we've had), and meeting up with friends, there hasn't been much time for posting pictures.

Here's a taste of all the bubble-blowing, sidewalk chalk-drawing, pretending-to-wash-the-submarine-after-it-returns-from-diving-in-the-water-to-find-seaweed-and-sand-dollars-to-eat-for-dinner that's been going on:

Wrong side of the wand (a step up from always wanting to put it in his mouth!):


What have you been up to so far this summer?

School's Out!

Today was Lucas's last day of preschool, one day after summer solstice began. Summer time is really here!

Lucas on his last day of 3-year old preschool:

You might remember this picture from his first day of preschool. Look at how much he's grown in just 9 1/2 months!

This past Friday his preschool held a "stepping up ceremony" for the 3-year olds. (Lucas will be entering a 4-year old Universal Pre-K class in the fall on a half day basis once again but five days a week instead of three.) The children performed some songs for the parents and family members in attendance, then there was a reception and running around in the gym. After all that, we went to a cafe to celebrate before coming home.

He's waving hi to me as we wait for the ceremony to begin:

I can't remember what they were singing here but Lucas was very focused on getting the right number of fingers up:

One by one the children were called by name to come forward, then they were instructed to shake hands with one of their teachers after receiving a diploma, then to cross the room and shake hands with the other teacher, then meet in the middle to take a bow! Later when I told Lucas how impressed I was that he remembered to bow, he told me, "No Mama, I did a curtsy. I'm a 'curtsy girl.'"

With one of his best friends Erin:

Can we just get some snacks already?!

With one of his two teachers Ms. Mullin:

With Mrs. Perloff:

Congratulations on completing a wonderful first year of preschool, Lucas! We're so proud of you!

Mapi

Lucas has become a pretty articulate kid who can tell us most of the time what it is he's feeling and/or wanting to communicate. In terms of pronunciation, his L's are sounding less and less like M's (remember how he called himself "M-ucus?"), and his R's don't always sound like W's anymore ("pweschool")... We love these little signs that demonstrate to us how young he still is and that these days are precious -- though we feel both pride and sadness when he grows out of them, losing his baby ways. These days he's very interested in language: wanting to learn the exact word for something, or wanting to know what words mean and figuring out how to spell them, or making sure that we noticed when he just said something in Spanish...

But there is one way he often gets tongue-tied, which is when he's addressing either Mama or Papi, creating an accidental combination of our two names to make the new name "Mapi." Though he'll then immediately correct himself with our appropriate names, the collapsed word "Mapi" gets heard what feels like a hundred times a day.

At first Papi was loosely offended by this, theorizing that because "Mapi" starts with the syllable sound "Ma," perhaps it's Lucas's instinct to think of his Mama's name first whenever he means to say Papi's name instead.

But I say that the moniker "Mapi" is completely fitting: Papi is always there, always involved, always putting our family first, always giving as much as or maybe even more than Mama. In fact, there's no clear sense of where Mama starts and where Papi ends. Together our partnership makes up one unit -- one parent -- in his eyes.

And our boys have no idea how rare and special that is.

Happy Father's Day, Mapi lindo! We love you!

Drawing

What amazes me about these pictures is not that they're playing together (they do that pretty well) but that Jesse is seated and drawing with a crayon. He often comes to this little table to pick up some paper and a crayon to carry around with him between pausing here and there to scribble, just like he's watched his big brother do so many times.

Aside from providing a dubious chew toy, at 15 months old it never occurred to us to introduce Lucas to crayons (at least not regularly, or with any expectation that he'll sit for more than a few moments to actually draw). And yet there's Jesse, getting it! Little brothers are so cool like that! (And having a big brother to follow, too!)

Then this is how it usually goes: Jesse actually lasts at the table much longer than Lucas after Jesse starts to sabotage everyone's efforts to create art...

...creating instead a big 'ole happy mess!

Rainy Day

Afternoon. Post-nap and post-Second Lunch (we're like hobbits around here...). Raining hard. Going stir crazy to go outside again. A new movie on the t.v. to give us all a break, made a tad more special by our new double jogging stroller we traded with our single.

Phew!

It's CSA Time Again

Woo hoo! Our local farm veggie share has started up again for the year. (This time we'll have fruit and eggs, too!) Papi is still one of the two coordinators for the pick-up site, so we spend every other Saturday morning in the church building and garden doing things like hanging out, making new friends, and snacking on yummy stuff like sugar snap peas!

The first three pictures were taken by a friend's camera phone. These days Lucas is going through *something* where he gets very protective of my attention and tells people that he doesn't want them talking to me (!). (He did this at 2 1/2 years old as well.) So it took a bit of cajoling from Mary but he finally gave her a real smile (and we spent the rest of the weekend having as much Mama-n-Lucas time as possible):

Jesse is also going through a new stage -- displaying some shyness and clinginess for the first 20 seconds or so of a new encounter. If you have a dog, a balloon, or some food with you, make that 10 seconds instead:

Papi and the best conversation starter among these metropolitan peeps -- his felt hat. (So cute!)

The sidewalk chalk is always available(/edible!) for kiddies to draw on the concrete wall while their parents weigh and pick up their food.

Welcome, summer! And the delicious food that comes with it!

Postcards from Uncle Reid

Uncle Reid often send postcards of places he's visited or of other interesting pictures to Lucas and now Jesse as well. Lucas gets so excited when he receives mail in his name! Not only does he like to know that they come from Uncle Reid, but he also beams with pride to be able to identify his and Jesse's first and last names in someone else's handwriting.

For some time now, Lucas has also memorized (and likes to identify on the postcards) his house/apartment number, street address, and neighborhood (as well as which two subway stations on the R train lead him home -- can't you tell we've heard horror stories of children getting lost in the city?! We've made sure that he knows his Mama and Papi's first names, too!)

Thank you, Uncle Reid!

Pool

You already know this cutie...

...now meet Maya Luz, whose parents so graciously hosted us at a local private pool last weekend. She asked me to take her picture and was saying "Cheese!" before I could bring the camera to my face:

Jesse is meeting her shiny gold sandals with a picture of a little girl and monkey (we know it's Dora and Boots, but our kids don't, so shhhh...)

Jesse doing that thing I told you about earlier -- climbing into the chair, expressing joy to be in it (with a butt shimmy)...

...then leaning back to enjoy and laugh!

Hurray for pool weather and loving friends!