Because I'm worth it?

 Since I am woefully behind in my posting, I will just throw out a few random vignettes of our lives from the last few weeks.


1. My dear friend Ray was visiting last weekend. A tale-spinner, a phrase-turner, a word-coiner, a musician, a polymath, he also happens, by day and for pay, to be a historian, the author of a book about police in post-war Germany. So his gift to Henry was a perfect choice, coming from him: a toy police car. Ray was laboring under the misapprehension that Henry's passion for garbage trucks & mailmen reflects a prejudice in favor of civic officialdom, and that he would therefore rather have a police car than a Caterpillar truck. Henry in fact has an equal passion for all noisemaking motorized vehicles. In any case, he is completely smitten with the car, and takes it to bed with him at night. He speculated aloud about who might be driving it. "Maybe it's a police man," he said. And then, gladdening my feminist heart, he added, "Or maybe it's a police woman." Further thought. "Or maybe it's a police boy."
If I were a police department, I would definitely look into that. Sort of like candy-stripers.

In the poppin' hole.

2. One day at naptime, Henry was in his room building himself a poppin' hole, his term for a nestlike construct of blankets & pillows. The pillows were refractory, and he called out for me to come help him stack them up to his orders. I said I thought that was a job he should handle himself, and that he could do whatever he needed to with the pillows. "No, mama," he said. "I'm a little tiny boy, so I don't can do it."

3. One evening he & I were looking out his bedroom window noticing how pink the sky looked as the sun was setting. Henry listened, properly unconvinced, to my vague speculations about the trajectory of the sun and clouds and the Earth's atmosphere, then he proposed his theory: "Maybe a digger came by and made it pink."

On the move

4. James! He's on the move! Just in the last week, he has started crawling, sitting up on his own, pulling himself to standing, and occasionally taking naps.  Henry now spends a lot of his time rushing around officiously snatching away anything he thinks James might possibly be about to crawl to/touch/put in his mouth, saying "No, James," in an ultra-bossy tone. He likes to educate James, holding up objects and repeating their names loudly and with unnatural clarity, as if he were a missionary amongst the savages. Example: one day, we were in the bathroom changing diapers, and Henry turned his backside to James, pointing at himself and enunciating over and over, "Butt, James. Butt."

5. And finally, on one of our near-daily trips to the Banneker Community Center and its huge playroom filled with toys, a 7-year-old boy I'd seen there several times before seemed finally to get up the nerve to ask me a question that had been bugging him for a while now: "How come your hair's so gray?"

Seven months old

Recent pictures of James & Mom.

Yep. Pretty cute.

Allons, enfants

My dear niece Eleanor turned 17 today. For her birthday, I had proposed a luncheon party for her & her friends. I had envisioned white linen, proper china, and polished silver (silver what, I don't know), but as was entirely predictable, and to quote Aunt Virginia, we cut the gracious living & just ate (ham & cheddar crepes, tomato salad, & three-berry fool).
It also turned out that only Eva, Eleanor's 14-year-old friend, came. Although I'm pretty sure Eva's been 14 for about 2 1/2 years, she says no. It's hard to believe she's as young as that. (According to her, she's governed by her inner 55-year-old crotchety biddy, which I guess could explain some of it.) After lunch, the two girls, Jamie, Mom and I all hung out on the bed while Henry napped in the other room. We talked about lots of stupid things, like high-heeled shoes, and nice things, like I Capture the Castle and The Breakfast Club, and James scooched around as best he could on such a crowded bed and got kissed and tickled a lot.

It was so amazingly restorative! I should do more of my socializing in bed; it totally made me feel 17 again (the good bits).

Oma & Grandpa's visit

Henry's story

Peter was away, fetching his parents from Gary for a visit. Henry, disconsolate, wanted to help me write a story as a surprise for Peter when he returned. I was amanuensis and prompter, but the story is largely Henry's work.

Here it is:

Henry and Dada had lots of good ideas.
Sometimes they climbed on ladders.
Sometimes they hammered hammers.
Sometimes they looked at diggers.
Sometimes they looked at statues.
[Here, Henry inserted a page of drawing and asked me to note that one bumpy bit was "Mountains for Dada" and another oblong bit, that he was surprised and delighted to have produced, was "A Banana for Dada."]
One day, Dada made a picture for Henry.
The picture was of lots of things Henry loves.
It was a picture of:
Dada!
and Charles Darwin [the dog, not the eminent Victorian]
and a cookie
and a bulldozer
and a wheelbarrow
and a sweet potato
and chocolate
and James
and a butt.

Sunday, June 19

Tough day.
I think I'll just put up a few pictures. They're a little tough, too.

With Mom, at Aunt Virginia & Uncle Dwain's house

Apparently my second birthday.

This expression is pure Dad.

Obviously, I love this picture of us.

James at six months

Weight: 17 lbs., 9 oz. (50th-75th percentile)
Height: 75th percentile
Head circumference: Ditto

James's outfit is approximately 84 times as old as he is.