He still doesn't understand why we were laughing so hard

This morning, Mom was here for Henry's ritual climb into James's co-sleeper. My two sweet babies lay there looking up at us, like this:

"Look!" said Henry. "Mama and Debby have hairy balls!"*

*Read this, if you need an explanation. And meet my impertinent husband, if you need an explanation for why Henry might call his grandmother Debby.

Reader, I married him

SCENE: The children's department  at the Monroe County Public Library
Henry is working a puzzle, something he has quite recently become good at. A somewhat bigger little boy, red-haired, comes up and looks at Henry's work. "That puzzle over there is a lot harder," he says casually, indicating the other side of the table. "But I can do it. I've memorized it." He proceeds to sit down and work on the harder puzzle, encountering unforeseen difficulty in putting it together after all. As he struggles, a grown man looking on--a man fully 10 times as old as the red-headed child--is simply unable to contain himself. "Hey," he says, accusingly. "I thought you said you memorized it!"
Now, I'm not naming names here. If you were to guess that Henry's father is the man in question, I could only say: You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

Today, I've been...
Reading: This excellent series in Slate about what grief is like. Also, Illness as Metaphor, which I'm finding disappointing, I'm not sure why.
Eating: Ice cream AND chocolate, as soon as Henry was safely in the bathtub. Oh, the secret lives of grown-ups!
Enjoying: Hearing Henry say "Charles Darwin," the name of Mom & Virginia's beagle. It makes me appreciate the amusement Mom must have derived from teaching me to play Authors as a preschooler, and hearing me issue my lisping requests for "Charge of the Light Brigade, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson."
Not enjoying as much as I used to: Boilerplate British costume dramas. Boo. I hate it when cheap fun isn't fun anymore.

Today

A couple of my favorite people

More things Henry says

"James has a lot of talks in his mouth."
 Self-explanatory.

"That's your baby."
 Said in tones of insinuating sweetness when he is climbing up on my lap for a hug.

"Because he eats lots of red food and drinks lots of red drinks, like wine." 
Henry's explanation for why Elmo is red.

The oenophile

Roll over, Linnaeus

Henry's taxonomy:
"James's head is like a tennis ball. Henry's head is like a softball. Daddy's head is like a soccer ball. Mama's head is like a hairy ball."

Henry & a hairy neighbor

Too perfect not to post

Otherwise, I am not feeling very festive.
Maybe this is a good moment to remember the day I first introduced Peter to Dad. He had asked for parent-pleasing tips beforehand. "Just don't start spouting off about the constitution," I said. "That really bugs him."
We met at the Uptown Cafe. Jonathan and Julia were to join us later. As soon as the introductions were made and we were seated, Peter leaned over (as I remember it) and socked Dad on the arm. "So, let me tell you about that constitution," he said. Dad blanched.
I hastened to explain--although I'm not sure what explanation I could have offered--and before long we were talking Irish ancestry, O'Brien to Mc[REDACTED]. Peter must have made a good impression, because Dad was soon confessing that he had always longed to be called Paddy.
Julia and Jonathan duly arrived and were introduced. We all chatted on a bit. Then, as we were leaving, Peter turned to Dad and said--to the amazement and consternation of the late arrivals-- "Nice to meet you, Paddy."

Obligatory video of dancing toddler

The Naming of Doors

Henry has become interested lately in defining his family. He likes to recite a list of its members: Mama, Daddy, Henry, Daddy, Baby James, Mama, Henry.... This morning, when Virginia was here, he made a family of sticks: Stick Daddy, Stick Mama, Stick Baby, and Stick Henry. He understands that some members of the family have names as well as titles and has learned that Daddy is Peter, Mama is Leora, but James is James and Henry is Henry.
"What is the door's name?" he asked tonight, looking at the door to the bedroom.
"The door doesn't have a name," we told him. "But you can give it a name."
He thought for a moment. "Keylock."
Why not?

If doors have names, why shouldn't puppies have top hats?

Small things

"The small things of life were often so much bigger than the great things. The trivial pleasures like cooking, one's home, little poems especially sad ones, solitary walks, funny things seen and overheard."

-- Barbara Pym

I am so grateful for my small things.

Baby Talk

A few choice quotations from Thing One:

"Daddy go away in the back room and write sump'in."
(Thinking strategically, Henry proposed this when Peter interfered with his program of waking James up in the morning by jumping into the bassinet with him.)

"What Henry doing? Riding on a cow!"
(Trying hard not to take this one amiss; he said it while climbing on the back of his exercising mama. It goes right along with an earlier incident that happened while he and Peter were looking through a book on the history of statuary. They came to a picture of a stone Medusa, face a rictus of rage, snakes encircling her head. "Mama!" my dear son exclaimed in recognition.)

"Toilet paper--blow nose--wahhhh!"
(Henry's version of cowabunga)

and, in full-on pedagogical mode:
"James, this is James."

More of the same

Ideas, energy, and free time to write don't seem to align very often around here these days, so without further apology I will just continue to throw pictures up for the time being.

Proof that Henry's joining James in the co-sleeper each morning has become a McCobb family tradition:

Just a quick hello

Hello!

A few scenes from our week

Drinking smoothies...

Hanging out in bed...

Hanging out in bed some more...

And watching a DIGGER KNOCK DOWN THE GARAGE ACROSS THE STREET!