A first

Henry fell asleep reading!

I once gave myself a bloody nose that way. (Not with a Little Golden Book, however.)

An amour fou

I know it used to hurt my mom's feelings--or tickle her sense of injustice--when I used to tell everyone about how Dad read Pride & Prejudice out loud by the light of oil lamps one summer in Maine and changed my life, as if no one had ever read to me before, or when I would sing along with Ella Fitzgerald to Cole Porter's My Heart Belongs to Daddy.

Now I have an inkling how she felt.

At 2 1/2, Henry is besotted with Peter. The other day as we walked home from the store, his conversation the whole time was nothing but a love poem to his father. "There's Daddy's brown car," he said wistfully. "And there's Daddy's blue car, and Daddy's red car. Maybe Daddy's driving down the street in a big dump truck."

 We passed a house three or four blocks from ours. "That's your house, Mama," he said.

"Is that where I live?" I asked. "Don't I live with you?"

"No, Henry lives with Daddy in our house."

A pause ensued. "I loooove Daddy."

Another thoughtful pause. "Daddy's sump'n, Daddy's really sump'n."

That's my boy

Henry hopped onto his wheelybug this evening after his bath and announced that he was going to the grocery store.
"What are you going to buy?" I asked.
"Oh, kale and jellybeans."

A few more things Henry says

"I don't know where the other Daddy went."
 This takes a bit of explaining. We were sitting on the front porch, watching Peter drive around the corner on his way home from work. Since Molly had parked in his usual parking space, he drove around the block & parked on the street instead. Upon seeing him approach the house from a direction completely different from where he'd been heading, Henry was deeply perplexed, and repeated this question over and over, all the way through bedtime.

"That's a funny-looking noise!"
 Funny-looking, like crazy, seems to be an all-purpose modifier that means "delightful to Henry."

"What are you eating, Daddy? What are you eating WITH A SPOON?"
Occasionally, Henry goes into the bedroom and settles himself without a fuss into his nest of blankets on the floor. More commonly, he plasters himself against the crack at the bottom of the door, where he can watch whoever is in the living room and issue a running commentary/list of complaints, until we all crack and go to bed. Tonight, it was j'accuse all over again, when he deduced that Peter was trying to sneak a quiet bowl of ice cream while the babies were in bed.

Also, I just have to mention that I was taking a short walk around the park this evening, enjoying the sights of spring: At the west end of the park, householders tending their community garden allotments, Little Leaguers whacking balls, hipsters walking dogs; and at the east end ... a passing car with an enormous--real--parrot in the passenger's seat, and a couple of folks struggling to cover an iron lung with a tarp.

Sometimes, Henry tells me James is a funny-looking baby.

James at five months

I have no statistics this time to back it up.You'll have to take my word for it: this is one big, beautiful boy.
No, wait, I have pictures:

Although I think of myself as the sort of person who doesn't celebrate Mother's Day, any more than Valentine's Day, I have to confess that I was no end tickled this morning to be presented with a bag of excellent coffee--just in time, too, as I had less than a single scoop left in the old bag & was about to be reduced to drinking Peter's Kroger-brand instant. Nor was I rendered unhappy after breakfast when Henry led me into the living room to find three potted plants (two of them warranted indestructible, the third a gorgeous orchid) and two packages, one marked from Henry and the other from James.
Henry's, as befits a boy who loves nothing--NOTHING!--better than to dig in the dirt, was a book about edible container gardening.

Now grow, seeds!

James, who is an endlessly good sport about being swaddled in woolens, had selected a knitting book.

Don't be distracted by the pants; that's a hand knit vest on top.

To put the cap on this Spartan nonobservance of a Hallmark holiday, Peter called me on his cell phone, revealing the hiding place (tucked behind Julius Caesar) of MY new cell phone. Long though I have resisted, having children--and worrying about them--has finally won me over to the 21st century.
Later in the afternoon, Mom brought over a beautiful Kathe Kollwitz etching, Mutter mit Kind auf den Arm, which had been a gift to her from Jane and Andre and which had hung in her bedroom when we were children.
Peter and the boys and I then went for a walk at Lake Griffy, where we spotted a frog, three caterpillars, innumerable chipmunks, several geese couples, and a snake. Half of our party spent a longish time chucking rocks into a glinting and babbling creek, while I got in three rows of knitting, and a little quiet contemplation on the human condition, and the deeply disorienting coexistence of joy and heartbreak.
All in all, not a bad way to not celebrate the day.

Look what Virginia spotted!

In the miniature tree at the southeast corner of our front porch:

Le Weekend au Petit Trianon, part one

We were rustics this weekend. Saturday morning Henry & James & I met up with Mom at Bloomingfoods where we stood in line like groupies to purchase two rain barrels & a compost bin being offered at a low, low price.
Later in the day, we made a much-anticipated trip to Susan and Big James's homestead. The plan was for Henry to pet Susan's new rabbit, Juliet, but he was scared of her. We amused ourselves instead with the chickens.

Henry, Susan, and Bravepeep.

Once Henry found the tools, he could have spent hours rearranging the gravel with them.

 

The larger  livestock, i.e., Taco.