bogen.org

Every year about mid-February, Sarah gets really antsy for winter to end. At a minimum, she wants a week long trip to somewhere warm. This year is no exception, and probably because we haven’t gone on a mid-winter trip for a few years, she’s got the itch pretty badly this year. Normally, she’s a rock of optimism but when it comes to February and winter she definitely has trouble turning the other cheek. I’ve been saying how winter is just about over and even if we go somewhere warm we’ll just come back to the same cold weather that we left but she won’t hear any of it.

Today she declared, “Next year we’re going to Spring Training. It’s our last chance to take a week-long trip before one of our kids is in public school.” So, I guess I can block out some time in February, 2014 for a trip to Florida to see the Minnesota Twins in Spring Training.

Dinah continues to grow apace. She seems to learn something new every day. She’s gotten a few more words now. Her inventory includes “off”, “on”, “wa-wa” (water), “dis” (this), “ello” (yellow), “oof” (woof), and “mrow” (meow). She knows what all of those words symbolize or mean, with the exception of yellow. That’s one she can say, but doesn’t understand yet. All of the others have discrete meanings. We year “dis” about ten thousand times a day when she’s somewhere with plenty of new things to see. It’s her way of asking what something is called and what it does. “Off” also gets plenty of usage as she wants to take off her jacket, hat, shoes, bib, playdough lid, or just about anything else. It’s a multipurpose word that she uses to cover any all removal scenarios.

We all have Dinah-assigned names. Sarah is still “mama” and I’m “dada”. Dalla is “alla”. Garrison is “baba”. Garrison, meanwhile, has assigned himself the name “Big Bubba” when he talks to this sister. I’ve contemplated telling him that “Big Bubba” is a name that he may not want when he gets older, but I’m guessing that he’ll outgrow it long before that name becomes a problem.

Dinah is still very much on the bear diet. Her ability to go days without even sniffing a vegetable is legendary. She can detect and eject from her mouth a single pea from a mouthful of fried rice without any difficulty. She seems to enjoy sour foods more than Garrison does. She really enjoys unsweetened yogurt with her cereal in the morning and even enjoys fresh-squeezed unsweetened grapefruit juice, something I wouldn’t eat to save my life when I was younger.

The kids got crayons and coloring books for Valentine’s Day and Dinah has really been into coloring since then. She can rarely be found without a crayon (or three) grasped in her tiny fists as she wanders the house.

Garrison is four now and still as physically active as ever. His current interest is basketball. We’ve been taking the kids with us to the YMCA and he loves going into the open gym sessions and throwing around a basketball. He can’t even hope to throw the ball into the hoop on a standard 10′ basket, but on a lower basket like the use for smaller kids to play in leagues, he can occasionally toss one in there underhanded. Regardless, he seems to love just running around in the gym with the basketball.

He has also been expanding his digital entertainment a bit more. We still don’t let him spend much time in front of glowing rectangles (TVs, smart phones, computers, etc.), but he’s learned how to do a few things on those devices to bend them to his will. For instance, he knows how to use the mouse to click on the Sesame Street bookmark on Sarah’s computer if he gets to watch Sesame Street.

He’s also been picking up words and letters fairly rapidly over the past few months. He’s learning more and more words all the time. He seems to have figured out that words are the key to deciphering much of the world around him. He still has trouble with lower-case letters (and cursive is a complete mystery) but he has a very solid understanding of all the upper-case letters.

Garrison’s birthday party was held at the local YMCA again this year. Instead of holding the entire party in just a couple of rooms we started the party in one of the gyms where they had inflated big bouncy house/obstacle course. That gave the kids an opportunity to run around for an hour in a warm setting before we moved them upstairs to eat cake and snacks. Sarah and Garrison made the cake for the gathering this year and it was very good.

I put a few photos of kids in the photo gallery. For whatever reason we haven’t taken too many photos over the past six weeks to the pickins’ were a bit slim.

Dinah is past her one year birthday now and she’s beginning to show more and more individuality. She’s a bit more physically cautious than Garrison was at the same age so it’s taken her a couple of weeks longer than him to get her mind around the idea of walking. The past couple of days, however, she’s been walking up a storm. She still holds her arms over her head or in front of her when she walks, I supposed to catch herself when she falls. Fortunately, she’s a tough one and she doesn’t cry when she falls while walking.

She’s also come up with names for everyone in the family. Sarah is “ma-ma”; I’m “da-da”. Garrison is “ba-ba” which we think is her word for “brother”. Dalla is “al-la”, which is curious because she used to go on and on with “da-la-la-la-la” when she was younger. Dinah isn’t nearly as vocal as Garrison is, so it’s something of an event when she goes on one of her long rambling speeches. We have no idea what she’s saying but she’s not going to be denied the saying of it.

We had Dinah’s birthday party on the Sunday before her birthday due to numerous conflicts on Monday (curling for Sarah and a day care potluck for the rest of us), Tuesday (curling for me), and Wednesday (Halloween) nights. My mom, and my sister were able to attend. For dessert Sarah had made a cake (by herself) and decorated it (with Garrison’s assistance). Dinah seemed ambivalent about the cake. She ate some but didn’t seem blown away by it.

We served pasta with garlic and oil for her birthday which seems to be one of her favorite dishes. She’s still very much a top predator when it comes to food selection. She prefers chicken, fish, sausage, pork, and beef over vegetables. She’ll eat some steamed broccoli or a carrot stick occasionally, but that’s about it for veggies. We keep presenting them and she keeps trying them, but she always spits the offending vegetable out almost as soon as it hits her tongue. Fortunately she does enjoy fruit so we don’t have to worry about regularity.

Dinah’s birthday was an interesting day. I had to get up early to get into work early so that I could get to a 16:30 curling match. As soon as the game was over I left to get home and try and spend some time with Dinah on her birthday. I got home, and ate a quick snack for dinner. Both kids were really tired (neither had slept well at day care) so we started to herd them to bed a bit earlier than usual. Dinah seemed particularly done as she was a crying, wailing mess. I got her to drink a bottle and into her PJs. Then I rocked her and sang to her and she started to calm down. As we were rocking in her room I noticed that her chest muscles were doing some sort of weird spasming. I doubted that she could sleep with all that going on but at least she had calmed down and stopped crying. We rocked back and forth for about ten minutes like that, me singing, her silent but with weird muscle spasms. All of a sudden she sat up and vomited all over me. That was certainly a surprise but it did explain the chest muscle spasms. After she vomited she certainly felt better, so that was good, but the nasty mess all over the chair, the rug, the floor, and me was a bit unfortunate.

So, I’ve got one parenting achievement unlocked: both my offspring have vomited on me at one time or another. Good times, let me assure you.

Garrison is still three and one-half going on four. It seems like he’s been that age forever. He’s also been really interested in testing when the rules might or might not apply. All. The. Time. Some days are noticeably worse than others and the last couple of have been full of lowlights.

On the plus side, he’s a great eater. For some reason he’s been fantastically interested in eating brussel sprouts this fall. I can’t stand them so I don’t make or eat them, but Garrison will eat a huge serving and ask for more. He’s decided that he doesn’t like peppers, tomatoes, or onions (and I can’t blame him because I didn’t like those as a kid either and I still don’t like onions and peppers much) but he’ll eat most other vegetables. He’s got no problems with squash, carrots, kohlrabi, corn, potatoes, beets, and sweet potatoes which gives us a nice range of things we can serve to him.

He’s still super active physically. He is always on the go. He’s also super loud most of the time. You can’t get him to stop talking for five minutes to save his life. There is no filter between his brain and his mouth. To the introverts among us, living with an extremely active and loud extrovert can be trying at times, but he’s not likely to change any time soon and neither am I so I just try to go along to get along. Sometimes that strategy is more successful than others.

Garrison has been taking swimming lessons for the past year or so and he’s getting pretty good at that, too. He can backfloat for a respectable amount of time and he’s definitely mastered the cannonball dive.

For Halloween, Sarah made Garrison a clown costume. She sewed him a suit and made him a hat to go with it. Garrison loves Halloween, or maybe more precisely, he loves getting candy on Halloween. He got a pretty decent haul this year and when he got home he poured it out onto the floor and proceeded to roll around in it. He had no idea what more than half the stuff he got was, but he was still glad to have it. For the next couple of days he made a game out of dumping out his candy all over the floor while pretending that he was breaking open a pinata. Like I said earlier, he’s already super active so he certainly didn’t need a whole bunch of candy to fuel his twitchy little self, so I made him an offer I was hoping he couldn’t refuse. I’d buy him a brand-new digger from the toy store in exchange for all his candy. He thought about it for a minute and agreed to the deal. We went to the toy store that night. He doesn’t seem to miss his candy as he’s never mentioned it and he was super excited to get the digger at the time.

We don’t let Garrison watch all that much TV so when he does get to watch it he’s always excited to do so. One of his favorites is “Road Construction 2″. It’s a movie where the building of a road is documented from start to finish. He got it last year from his Grandma Bogen for Christmas and he’s already managed to watch it so many times I can’t even be in the room when it’s on. I’ve tried watching some football games with him, but the game itself seems to be beyond him so he’s mainly watching for the commercials. In fact, he’s even said, “When are more commercials going to be on, Daddy?” So, since he’s so interested in construction I’ve tried to get into the habit of watching This Old House on PBS with him. He seems interested in that, I enjoy watching the show, and it isn’t laden start-to-finish with advertising so we’ll see how that works.

Sarah had to take a year off of curling because of Dinah’s pregnancy but she’s back on the ice this year. I’m in my tenth year (hard to believe we’ve lived here that long already) on the ice and am now the vice skip for my team. Garrison has seen some curling and in his vague understanding of the game there are people who yell and point, people who slide the stones, and people who sweep. So, as a vice skip, I sweep four stones, deliver two, and stand in the house and yell and point for two.

Our littlest one is one year old today. She remains a happy-go-lucky baby who is starting to get really interested in the world around her. This morning I uploaded a very recent photo of her.

Today I stayed home to take care of Dinah because she’s battling a particularly stubborn illness that’s given her a rash on her face, spots all over her body, and a fever. Sarah couldn’t help today because she had to give a training seminar for work in another town.

The plan was for me to take care of Dinah all day and for Amy to take Garrison to swimming lessons and out to lunch.

As I was shoveling in my cereal with a fussy Dinah on my lap (I needed to eat and she wanted to take her nap) Garrison said to me, “You’re a bad babysitter. Maybe Amy can do a better job.” Then he declared that he was going outside because he was tired of “hearing that baby cry.”

Fast forward to this evening when he was helping me in the yard after spending most of the morning and all of the afternoon with Amy. I asked Garrison if Amy was, in fact, a better babysitter than I am.

“Yes. She does fun things all day,” he said.

“What do I do,” I asked.

“You do angry things”, he said.

“What do you mean, angry things?”

“You send me to my room when I do bad things. She didn’t send me to my room one minute today,” he said.

“What am I supposed to do when you do bad things?”

“Leave me alone when I do bad things,” he said.

“Garrison, I can’t just let you do whatever you want. It’s one of my jobs as the Dad to teach you right from wrong,” I said.

“I don’t care. You should stop sending me to my room,” he declared.

There you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth. Amy is a better babysitter than I am.

Dinah has a new game she likes to play. The YouTube video is pretty self-explantory.

There are also a few new photos in the photo gallery.

We started off the month with Free Fishing Weekend here in Wisconsin. Every year, the DNR makes one weekend in June available for everyone to go fishing without a license. Since we don’t buy licenses that’s our big chance to do our level best to catch a fish. Every year so far we’ve successfully avoided catching any fish and this year was no exception. The big difference this year was that Garrison wanted to do some fishing. So we found some local ponds that are stocked with fish. Of course, because one person had to watch Dinah and the other person had to help Garrison neither Sarah or I did any fishing and Garrison did it all. He didn’t know how to cast and he wanted to use an open-faced reel so we did the casting for him while he reeled in the line.

It’s fortunate that no fish ever tried taking his bait because he didn’t have the slightest idea of how to set the hook and we weren’t telling him because we were worried about him ripping the hook backwards out of the water in his typical extremely enthusiastic way. Even though he didn’t catch any fish Garrison did catch some sticks, a couple of logs, and a cloth bag. So I guess we did our part to remove some trash from the ponds.

We did teach Garrison how to cast a line the next day with a closed-face reel and a weight at the end (no hook). He spent the morning casting the weight back and forth across the yard. A couple of times he got close to casting from our patio and over the fence into the neighbors yard. That’s a pretty good distance for the three year-old on his first day of casting.

Dinah now has two bottom teeth and her two top front teeth have cut through the gum though they haven’t completely emerged yet. She completely rejects being fed with a spoon so we’ve completely given up on buying or making baby food, which saves us plenty of money. Dinah is more than happy to feed herself fruits, veggies, carbs (rice, toast, cereals, noodles), and meat. In fact, she’s quite the little carnivore. She devours chicken, ground bison, ham, and just about every other meat we’ve put in front of her. In contrast to Garrison, who would occasionally take entire days off of eating, she’s hungry at every meal. In fact, we’ve often pondered where she puts all the food she eats.

Dalla, of course, loves the fact that Dinah now feeds herself. Babies aren’t the neatest of eaters and what falls out of Dinah’s hands usually goes directly into the dog’s belly. Dalla will be ten years old in September and her age is starting to show. Her muzzle is getting much whiter and she’s starting to get stiff in the shoulders, especially near the end of the day.

We visited Cleveland this month to see Sarah’s family. To break up the trip, we took the Lake Express ferry across Lake Michigan from Milwaukee to Muskegon, MI. That took Chicago out of the picture on the eastbound leg of the trip and also gave Dinah (who does not enjoy time in the car) a chance to get out of the car for three or four hours while we still moved closer to our goal. We spent a night in Ann Arbor, MI, before getting to Cleveland the next day. While there Garrison got to spend some time with his cousin Kyle, who is just a couple of months shy of two years old. It took them some time to get acquainted, but on the last night there the two of them were wrestling together like little boys do.

Garrison’s big news is that he’s now riding a bicycle with pedals and without training wheels. He’s been riding a balance bike (his “tippy bike” as he calls it) for a couple of months now and it had become obvious that he had balancing on a bike figured out when we’d see him on a downhill hold his legs behind him and just coast for long stretches. Saturday he and I bought a second-hand bike off craigslist in the late afternoon. We didn’t have much time to try it on Saturday so on Sunday we took it out to ride it on the sidewalk. I ran along with him for a couple of minutes until he was comfortable using the coaster brake; starting from a stop; and steering the heavier bike from a higher riding position. Then it was showtime as he showed us just how quickly he can pick up a new skill. He was soon zipping back and forth down the sidewalk saying things like, “This is a speed bike, Mommy!” and “See? I told you I don’t need training wheels!” Both Sarah and I were impressed with and proud of just how quickly he adapted to a real bike. Now he wants to ride the bike to day care and all over town.

Everything is really dry here since we’ve only had 0.20″ of rain this month. Normally we have several inches of rain by this time in June so we’ve spent plenty of time outside holding a hose so far this month. Some of the landscaping we did last year in the wake of our addition/remodel project is definitely suffering due to immature and/or inadequate root systems for this kind of weather.

Finally, there are some pictures in the photo gallery.

Our video of the kids in June, 2012 is now online.

I was driving Garrison and Dinah to Garrison’s swimming lessons yesterday. For whatever reason, traffic around Madison seemed a bit worse than usual. As we were waiting for traffic to start moving at a light, I heard the following from the back seat:

“Just honk at the guy, Daddy!”

I explained to Garrison how that wouldn’t do any good because the guy in front of us was just waiting for the guy in front of him to move and how that guy is waiting for the guy in front of him to move, etc., etc.

We drove on a bit farther and we stopped at another light. Again, traffic started to move slowly after the light changed to green.

“Just honk at the guy, Daddy!”

Once again I explained how that wasn’t necessary in this instance and once again the vocal populace of the second-row car seats was quieted.

After swimming was over we were running some errands. We got stopped at another light. The light changed to green, and it didn’t take long for the familiar chorus to start.

“Just honk at the guy, Daddy!”

He may not yet be able to tell me how to change lanes, parallel park, or get him where he wants to go, but Garrison clearly thinks that he’s got the car horn figured out.

This morning Dinah went with me to drop off Garrison at day care.

I was helping Garrison get settled there when Meredith, one of his day care buddies about his age, came up to Dinah (who was still in her car seat) and said in all earnestness, “I love your shoes. Where did you get them?”

Dinah looked at me. I looked at Garrison and said, “I don’t know. Garrison, do you know where Dinah got these shoes?”

Garrison shook his head sadly as though I had asked him the dumbest of all possible questions and said, “From a drawer in her room.”

Yet another important life lesson learned at day care: never ask two guys where a girl got her shoes.

Some more of Garrison’s journal entries from day care. The first is from their circus unit. The second is from their farm unit. These are usually dictated to the teachers after reading a particular book.

The circus ring got damaged by a storm.
A worked fixed the edge before the last show.
The audience wanted to watch the clowns do their act.
The snake looked in the crystal ball and saw a baby.
She telled the audience that it was their baby.
It turned out to be the snake’s baby.
The End

Charlie sleeps in the crade.
Charlie goes inside the gate with his mommy, daddy, sister, and dog and cat.
His dad sheared the sheep. He does it every day and every night.
Charlie was going to make a sweater and a cloak with the wool.
He put log bark in the water to make color.
Then the bark made it black.

Another Memorial Day weekend has come and gone. It seems like we just got started with 2012 and we’re already almost halfway through it.

We had a very busy weeekend. The weather was hot all weekend. Sunday was our first day to turn the air conditioning on this year but fortunately Saturday and Monday were just run-of-the-mill (for July) hot.

We started our weekend by going to the Farmer’s Market. The weather was pretty nasty with spitting rain and strong winds, so there weren’t too many other people at the market. As a result of the light turnout, we got our first basket of local strawberries for the season even though we were later than usual. Normally those strawberries would have been gone by the time we got there since just one vendor had them for sale. We also got our first kohlrabi and sugar snap peas of the season. The market is definitely underway for real now.

After breakfast we stopped by a garage sale in town. While we bought Dinah a nice little pile of clothes, Garrison played with two kids from the family holding the sale. They had fun climbing in, out, and on top of a dog-loo (a dog house shaped like an igloo) that the family was selling.

Next on the agenda was some lawn mower shopping. The Craftsman mower we bought five or so years ago needed a ring job to stay alive and since that would cost almost twice as much as a new mower, we found ourselves in the market for a mower again. The new mower would be our fourth in a little less than nine years of home ownership. Clearly we haven’t had good luck with mowers.

The reel mower we bought initially was sold after we discovered that it worked best on small, perfectly manicured, homogeneous lawns (three concepts that will never be applied to our lawn). We then bought a Yard Machines or an MTD-branded mower (they’re made by the same company but I don’t remember which brand was on the mower) from Menards. That was a mistake as it was the typical junk you find at Menards. That one didn’t even last one season. We then bought the Craftsman from Sears. With regular maintenance it lasted until late last season. I gave it an oil change to start the season and sharpened the blade but after just one mowing the oil was already black and the engine was chugging. A trip to a small engine repair business confirmed the worst.

Earlier in the week we had borrowed a rechargeable, cordless electric mower from a neighbor to see how it would do on our lawn. It did OK, though it wasn’t quite able to cut the whole thing in one charge. We did like the easy, no-pull start and the relative quiet of the mower when it was running. We also liked the zero-maintenance nature of the device.

After visiting Home Depot where we found nothing interesting, we stopped by a local power equipment dealer. As Sarah later said, “That was a real lawn mower store.” While there we found a good price on a Toro cordless, rechargeable mower so we bought it. We haven’t done a complete lawn mowing with it yet, but we did finish up the job that we had started with the neighbor’s mower. If anything, the Toro is even quieter than the Black & Decker we borrowed. It will be interesting to see if the Toro mower can do the whole lawn in one charge or not.

With the new mower settled in the back of van it was off to Bratfest.

Brat Fest is always held over Memorial Day weekend, and we try to make it a point to stop by and have a few brats once during the festival. Garrison always enjoys the brats there, while Sarah and I enjoy the brats and the roasted corn. Dinah enjoyed a nap this year. I was impressed that Garrison ate a complete brat, with bun. That’s a lot of sausage for one little guy. While there we all had milk from a local dairy. They were out of chocolate, so we got one bottle of strawberry and two bottles of plain 2%. Garrison was initially skeptical of the strawberry (especially because he was still bitter that they were out of chocolate milk), but once he tried it he was a convert. We ended up bringing the remainder home where he nursed it along through two more meals.

After Brat Fest it was home for naps for the kids. While they were sleeping (or not) we got some meatloaf made on the grill.

Sunday was a hot and humid day. Garrison and I visited a local store in the morning to purchase a GPS unit that I’d been eyeing for sixth months or so. When it went on a good sale we finally decided to buy it. After that, we stopped at a garden center where Garrison wanted to buy a Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) while I wanted to get some cocoa mulch, potting soil, and marigolds.

We spent most of the day after that around the house putting in our vegetable gardens for the year. This year we’re growing tomatoes (several varieties), broccoli, parsley, basil, cucumbers, eggplant, dill, green peppers, pumpkins, and carrots. The carrots were Garrison’s special request. We haven’t had good luck growing them in the past so it will be interesting to see how we do this time around. Garrison and Sarah planted the Jack-in-the-Pulpit in our backyard where it will get plenty of shade.

Garrison did play in a kiddie pool with one of the neighbor kids once it got really hot out. We had take-out pizza for dinner because we didn’t feel like cooking or heating up the kitchen.

Monday we decided to get out of town and try to take a road trip. We packed a picnic lunch, swimsuits, beach toys, sunscreen, towels, water, and the fourteen-hundred other things you need to take two kids to the beach and drove forty-five minutes to the north shore of Devil’s Lake State Park. Garrison was really excited to get into the water and show off how much he’s learned from going to swimming lessons every week. The only problem was that the water was, predictably, cold this early in the season.

While Garrison and Sarah went into the water, Dinah and I sat on the picnic blanket along the shore. About the time that Sarah and I switched kids, I noticed that Garrison’s teeth were chattering, so I encouraged him to join us on the shore for a warm-up. Once he was out of the water, the strong wind coming off the lake made him even colder so we wrapped him in a towel and held him for a few minutes. Then, the skies started to rain on us. We were in the midst of changing Garrison back into dry clothes (to warm up) when the rain started coming down, of course. We quickly finished that job, but by the time we were done the rain had stopped. Regardless, it was time for lunch. We took our blanket to an area sheltered from the wind and ate our picnic lunch. Garrison and I went into the general store to see if they had any popcorn (something he and I both remembered getting the last time we visited Devil’s Lake) while Sarah nursed Dinah. The popcorn shack hadn’t opened yet for the season (bad) so we ended up with a bag of cheese popcorn (good). That led to very orange hands and a cheese popcorn mustache and beard on Garrison.

After lunch, and a few more threats of rain, Garrison and I played “football” with a small vinyl football while Sarah and Dinah watched. Then the winds came up, some more rain came down, and we headed for the van. Along the way, the rain stopped and Garrison played “soccer” with another toddler until they ran face-first into each other and both broke down crying.

Once we had everyone in the van, we made the decision to take the Merrimac Ferry home instead of using a bridge to cross the Wisconsin River. There is usually a wait when traveling southbound, but you can watch the ferry, the river, and the other passengers so we weren’t too worried about how we might spend the time waiting. As it turned out, a local church was having a brat sale next to the ferry landing (smart people), so we bought three brats and ate them while waiting for our turn to take the ferry. Garrison was fascinated by the ferry and he enjoyed telling everyone who would stand still long enough what the cables that guide the ferry were for (even if he wasn’t completely clear on the concept himself).

While waiting for the ferry we watched some fishermen pull in some small bluegills and now Garrison really wants to go fishing during Wisconsin’s free fishing weekend. He might be disappointed in just how unsuccessful Sarah and I are as fishermen.

After getting across the river, we were quietly shocked when both kids fell asleep in the back of the van! We found a new Dunkin’ Donuts along our route home (the world’s slowest Dunkin’ Donuts is in Waunakee; nice people, but slow, slow service) so Sarah and I enjoyed some peace and quiet for twenty-five minutes along with our coffee.

All in all, we had a very full but fun Memorial Day weekend.

There are some new photos up in the photo gallery for those of you who are interested.

It’s been a long time since I’ve uploaded a video of either of the kids so I decided to rectify that situation tonight. Enjoy some of their most recent antics.

Dinah has accumulated a number of nicknames so far. Some of them are more widely used within the family than others.

Garrison insists on calling her “Boze”. We’re not sure how to spell it, nor where it came from, but he uses it two hundred times a day or more. We’ll be lucky if she doesn’t grow up with that name. Sarah will occasionally use it while she’s talking to Garrison about Dinah but I’ve so far been refusing because I don’t like it.

Dinah’s other nicknames include:

Cranky Baby

We haven’t used this one for a while. When she was much younger she was often inconsolable for anyone who wasn’t Sarah. At those times she was definitely Cranky Baby.

Little D

This one gets some play around the house. She is the littlest member of the family whose name starts with the letter D so it’s not even terribly inaccurate.

Baby Time

This is her newest nickname. It came about from people wanting to spend time with the baby and since has evolved into a nickname. Garrison even used it the other day, which I wasn’t expecting, since it doesn’t quite lend itself to extended verbal mangling like the word “Boze” does.

Dinah’s first tooth made its appearance today. She was fairly cranky last night and rather than sleep from 21:00-05:00, as had become her custom, she was up several times during the night. Now that the tooth is out we know why. We can’t see much of the tooth yet (only the edge of it has come through the gum) but the sharp edge can definitely be felt when you put a finger in her mouth.

On another note, I finally copied some photos off our camera, so I’ve got pictures of our backyard play set below. Click on the photos for a larger view.

Finally, there are some new photos in the photo gallery of the kids.

After a long dry spell, I finally got a number of new photos uploaded to the photo gallery.

Dinah is still her extremely happy baby self. She loves to smile at people and she’s still pretty quiet (probably because it’s hard to get a word in edgewise with her brother around). She’s starting to sit up on her own for longer periods though she’s still prone to falling over and bonking her head if she’s left alone for too long. She has been sleeping through the night more often than not of late which is great for Sarah and I. She goes to sleep around 21:00 or so every night and usually doesn’t wake up until 05:00-06:00 in the morning. We’ve started her on some solid foods but she hasn’t really shown a real appreciation of them yet.

In looking back at some old photos it’s clear that she’s getting a different experience than Garrison did at the same age. We did more stuff and went more places with Garrison when he was an infant because we didn’t have a toddler along with us to suck up all available time and energy. She’s spending more time at home and probably getting to do a few less interesting things.

Garrison is still his rambunctious, boundary-testing, three year-old self. He’s doing well with his swimming lessons and he’s been zipping all over the neighborhood on his balance bike that Santa got him for Christmas. He routinely rides his balance bike (what he calls his “tippy bike”) to day care and bike which is probably a half-mile or more each way. In fact, he’s doing so well with his bike that we’ve been considering getting him a bike with pedals and no training wheels to see how he does.

He’s also been eating more foods of late. In fact, he often surprises me when we go out to eat with what he’ll order. He’s ordered fish fry in the past, and pulled off the fried breading in order to eat the cod inside. He ordered grilled cheese the last time we went out which both Sarah and I were concerned that he wouldn’t eat since he usually doesn’t eat cheese at home. However, he promptly gobbled it down when it arrived. And, in all honesty, he’s been eating more cheese at home. He enjoyed some pepperjack cheese that we had recently, as well as some Colby cheese. All of that is a real change since even a couple of months ago he wouldn’t touch white cheese at all and would only occasionally eat “orange cheese”.

Last weekend, Garrison and I spent most of Saturday building a large play set in our back yard. It had become obvious to both Sarah and I that he needed a better outlet for his energy in the backyard and after seeing him exert himself freely on other play sets in the neighborhood we started searching for one of our own. We looked at used play sets and new play sets before deciding to buy a new one and put it together ourselves. It was delivered by a large lift truck and one guy, despite weighing over seven hundred pounds. Sarah did an extensive inventory and labeling of the parts (with Dinah’s help) once I got them all out of the shipping crate. All that labeling really helped once the assembly process started because it meant that I could look for the properly labeled part instead of having to spend time comparing similar parts to find the right one.

It probably took twelve-fourteen man-hours to uncrate, label, assemble, and clean-up but now the thing is complete. Garrison has already spent a good deal of time climbing all over it, pretending that it is a ship, and generally enjoying himself immensely, despite the fact that it’s been somewhat rainy, windy, and cold since we set it up.

This year was the first year that Garrison really got any sort of Easter experience (probably because it’s the first year that he’s been old enough to understand it). My mom was out for the week of the holiday and she helped get Garrison into the mood by practicing hiding eggs with him during the week. They also dyed eggs together the night before Easter, along with my sister, which Garrison really enjoyed. Since then, we’ve been trying to keep his overall Easter candy consumption down to a readable amount since he gets hyped on sugar pretty easily. So far, he’s managed to eat all of his chocolate bunny, some of his jelly beans, all of his Peeps, and a few of his chocolate eggs. Fortunately there isn’t another candy-centric holiday coming up for quite a while.

Another one of Garrison’s journal entries from Honeybees. I can only assume that they read a story about a mouse named Moses.

Moses is trying to jump in the pool.
He is trying to collect fries and hamburgers.
He goes into his house when it’s cold.
Mommy, Papa, Nanny, and Grandpa all live there.
Moses is a good mouse.

Me: “Why do you say ‘No’ to me so much?”
Garrison: “When you say something wrong I say ‘No.’”

It struck me today that Dinah looks more than a little like Jack-Jack in Disney’s “The Incredibles”. She even has the same crazy curl of hair on top of her head.

Garrison’s day care helps the kids keep “journals.” Primarily, these are little one page stories each child tells after reading a book or listening to a story. The teachers write down what the kids say and post it on a bulletin board for the parents to read. Below are a couple of samples from Garrison’s journal.

These are rainbows. I love rainbows.

On Thursday, the rainbows came to play.

The rainbows got hurt and pushed. They cried.

I helped them back so they wouldn’t cry anymore.

I didn’t push them down.

-=-=-=-=-=

My turkey’s name is Dinah Emberly. She slept in a nest with eggs.

There were 2 eggs. The eggs cracked and little eggs came out.

There were more little eggs in the little eggs.

The turkey ate some eggs. She liked them. I do too.

She went in the leaf pile to look for bunnies. She didn’t find them yet.

Then she went into the hostas to look for them and there they were.

There were 2 bunnies. The bunnies said, “Don’t find me.”

Dinah said, “I’m sorry.”

Some other Garrisonisms that I forgot the other day..

Hopsabill

Hospital

Freezy

Refridgerator

Sword Fwight

Sword fight. I’m not quite sure why it has attracted the extra consonant, but it has.

A few translations from Garrison’s words into the English that the rest of us use. This cheat sheet may come in handy if you find yourself interfacing with him for any extended period of time.

Gra-Lumber Bar

Granola Bar

Miss-struction

Construction

Miss-ghetti

Spaghetti

Teh-Vee

TV

Mud Shoes

Croc-like plastic sandals

Flat egg

Fried egg with a broken yolk

I’m thinking about…

I’d like to…

Peanut Butter Quesadilla

Peanut butter on a rolled-up tortilla

Orange cheese

Orange cheddar cheese, not to be confused with (apparently inedible) white cheddar

My beer/cider beer

Apple juice or apple cider

Glass glass

A glass drinking glass, not to be confused with a sippy cup.

Happy Birthday to You!

Your birthday

Hang-ga-burr

Hamburger

Peanut Bomber

AJ Bombers, a local restaurant that delivers peanuts to tables via ceiling mounted “bombs”.

Different candy

The collective term for the candy he collected on Halloween this year.

Gummi Pill

His morning gummi multi-vitamin or evening gummi omega-3 vitamin

Compweeter

A computer