My co-worker's son turned two last week, so we all went to his birthday party on Saturday. We all had a good time, as much as anyone has a good time at a party for a two year-old. Edie played it cool so none of the dinosaurs thought she was trying too hard.
She didn't seem interested in any of the other kids there, but she was excited to see that there was a plate of grapes and cheese and that she could have as much as she wanted. Eventually, she got so excited that she squeezed the bottle of water she was drinking from and spilled on her shirt. She got really upset and started saying (a little too loudly), "I need to go home! I need a new shirt!" Marty seemed completely indifferent to everyone, so long as people were feeding him.
He liked being held, and since most of the people there hadn't seen him in a while, he had a lot of people willing to hold him. He was also keenly interested in eating directly from the garbage can, which was less exciting for us. Not much new to report this week. Both kids continue to fall on their faces repeatedly, but we still like them.
We have a tradition in our family of not making a big deal about Mother's and Father's Day. Not for ourselves, anyway; we still get nice, lavish gifts for our parents. Our agreement is that we each get a treat from the grocery store. This year, Tamsen got herself some gummi bears, and I got myself some potato chips. (Cheddar and sour cream! It's a bigger deal for me than you'd think!) So imagine my surprise when Tamsen revealed to me on Sunday morning that while I'd been gone all Saturday at church meetings, she and Edie had made me a Father's Day cake.
Granted, Tamsen did the baking and icing, but Edie added all of the ingredients, mixed them, and poured the batter into the pan. She also picked the colors and added the food coloring herself. The yellow and green are Oregon Ducks colors, but the inside is red for no other reason than that it's Edie's favorite color.
She even signed it! Or Tamsen did for her, whatever. After we celebrated by stuffing ourselves silly with cake, I gave both of the kids baths. We have enough Edie pictures in the bath, but it's still a new experience for Marty, so Tamsen took a few shots.
I love the vague finger pointing he's doing here, as if to say, "Can you get a load of this guy, peeking in my drawers? Who does he think he is?" Marty really doesn't enjoy baths lately, but it turns out that if we give him a rubber duck to chew on, he calms right down. And in a pinch, they work well as strategic covering for highly inappropriate baby nudity.
Edie is a girl, but she doesn't really do anything that would set her apart as an especially girly girl. She likes to build things with Legos and blocks, she likes to play with her train set, and she enjoys making shapes with her magnets. Today, before church, she was playing with her magnets and told me, repeatedly, "I'm making a hexagon."
You can't really see it here, but she was absolutely making hexagons, complete with 120 degree angles. STEM, here we come? Meanwhile, Marty was crawling around this week and found an old hairband that Edie refuses to wear. He didn't seem to mind if we put it on him, though.
Not much new to report this week. Edie is improving in her speech, and she still regularly falls on her face walking around the house. Marty's working on standing and walking, and he regularly falls on his head, too. He's working on vocalizing now, throwing out CVCVs like it's his job. (You know, mamamama, babababa, etc.)
And that's all good and well, but I'm guessing the only reason you're reading this at all is because you heard that Edie and I pinned Marty down a few days ago and made him into our own personal set of bongos. Take a listen! I think we got a pretty good sound out of this kid.
We went to our church Memorial Day cookout today, and it was alternately fun and miserable, depending on when you talked to Edie and Marty. Marty wore a hat.
He was right to do it, too. The sun was out, and it was plenty humid besides. He spent a lot of the day sitting in his stroller, squirming around until someone picked him up, at which point he would squawk that it was too hot to be held and demand to be put back down. He fell asleep for about an hour, which was a small slice of heaven. (I was eating several small slices of pie at the time, so maybe I'm thinking of those.) Marty's getting better and better at standing, though he still doesn't have the balance to stand on his own. He climbs on everything, and he only has several dozen bumps and bruises to show for the resulting falls. He's not quite eight months old, but it feels like he'll be walking any day now, which is exciting and terrifying all at the same time. Edie didn't wear a hat today, but she did go down a slide.
She mostly had a good time at the cookout, as long as no one tried to remove her from the playground. She sobbed endlessly when we first got there until I realized that she didn't want a hot dog, she didn't want chips, she didn't want watermelon, she just wanted slice after slice of cheese. She loved the swings and slides, though. Edie continues to get better at talking, but she's graduated to the point where she's learning phrases that have stock responses to them, only she doesn't know those stock responses. Here's a sample exchange that she and I have about fifty times a day. EDIE: Hey, daddy? ME: What's up? EDIE: Yes. (four second pause) EDIE: Hey, daddy? The really frustrating thing isn't that she gives a nonsensical response, it's that I fall for it literally every time. I always forget that she's not actually asking me anything, and I always respond as though she is. I recorded her singing again. You can listen to it if you want to, I dunno, whatever.
Edie has a brush and a comb for her, but she doesn't really like to use them, because she's a vigorous brusher, and they always get caught in her hair. She doesn't mind doing that to Tamsen, though, although Tamsen has similar complaints. I don't have long enough hair to get tangles, so I offered to let Edie brush mine. Except that since it's so short, she finished in about ten seconds and went to bother Tamsen again. So I had to get a little, creative.
She brushed my face, and then my arms, and then my legs, and then my face again, and then her own face. She had a great time doing it, although her beard isn't nearly as impressive as mine. Yet. Marty continues to be focused on standing up, which comes at the cost of his continuing to sustain head injuries as he topples onto the floor. He's getting pretty good at it, though. (The standing, but also the head injuries, sadly.) He's a champion crawler, and Edie continues to encourage him. The two of them were racing across our kitchen floor tonight, with Edie shouting, "Come on, Marty!" and Marty responding with a spirited "Mmmmmpf!", since he hadn't bothered to spit his binky out yet.
They're both pretty well-behaved lately and reasonably comfortable with people who aren't us, enough so that we left them with a babysitter on Friday so we could go to the temple. (It's an hour drive each way, so it's a significant undertaking.) They were both wonderful and even went to bed on time, so I think I'm justified in saying that my children are better than yours, no matter who you are.
Every year in May, our electric company has a free hot dog day, so when it rolled around this week, Tamsen packed up the kids and came to my work to pick me up so we could all get our hot dogs. Since they were all there, we brought everyone inside to say hello to my co-workers. They all loved Edie and Marty, and the kids loved them right back. We took about a thousand pictures, especially when both kids crawled up in my lap.
(Yes, Tamsen made that onesie, and yes, it's my company's logo.) Edie, who is normally shy and quiet around people she doesn't know well, was chatty and vivacious, which was wonderful to see. Speech therapy has made a world of difference for her. She kept walking around saying things like, "I love your black shoes!" Marty was charming and adorable, although he burst into tears whenever she saw any of my Asian co-workers. Way to be racist, little guy. Last week, I worked with Edie on recognizing my siblings and parents. We took a video, which maybe isn't the greatest or most interesting, but here it is, just the same.
