Sarah and Adam: The Next Generation

It's too moving, and other stories from the mean streets

About a week ago, Adam showed Jasper a grasshopper in the backyard. Today, when Jasper was about half way down the steps to the backyard, he stops and says. "Too scary. It's too scary." When I ask, "What's too scary?" He says, "The grasshopper. The grasshopper is too scary." He then follows up with this explanation, "It's moving. It's too moving."

Gus is now fascinated by Jasper--whenever Jasper is near, Gus can't take his eyes off him (at least until Jasper sticks his finger in Gus's eye and proclaims, "eye!"). When Jasper's across the room, Gus will just turn and grin at him. And when Jasper makes a scene, that's especially exciting.

Jasper coughs. He says, "cough! (pause) A coffee shop!"

Teething x2, High Five with Divers, Cheese!

One of the downsides of having our kids so close together is  the simultaneous teething phase which we've just entered. Jasper is still working on his canines, while Gus has just started teething...

Today Sarah took Jasper to the aquarium, where he had a fabulous time. He had a lot of fun with the divers, who gave him a high five through the glass. Since then, he's repeated the story numerous times,
"Divers! Divers! I give high five!" 

Jasper is nothing if not outgoing. At the aquarium when he saw a family getting their photo taken, he ran into the midst of the group, turned around and grinned and shouted "Cheese!"

Gus had a much  mellower day, but he really enjoys going outside these days, and has started to actually pay attention when we read books to him. Jasper's old favorites, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, and Polar Bear, Polar Bear are quite popular with Gus as well.

Tonight at dinner Jasper exhibited his increasingly particular food concerns. When we gave him some veggie sausage, which was already cut up into small pieces, Jasper demanded "little pieces" over and over again, until Adam had cut much of it up into pieces that were almost too small to qualify as more than crumbs, at which point Jasper demanded more veggies sausage!  Later, Jasper had some apple with honey. He really enjoyed the honey, but not so much the apple, so he then requested honey on his veggie sausage!

The Children's Museum

The Seattle Children's Museum is one of our three mainstay outings with Jasper.  We drive down and walk past the Space Needle, go play with the ping pong balls and see the bats and play in the water, have a burrito or a muffin for lunch, and fall asleep in the car on the way home. Here's a little bit of Children's Museum fun.

Gus: "My hands! I can control my hands!"

IN the past two days Gus has achieved some new milestones. He's finally figuring out how to control his body. Although he's had success in the past at putting his hands in his mouth, and putting objects in his mouth using his hands, he's had a really hard time keeping them there. Without any notice, though, Gus has suddenly gained the ability to keep his hands where he'd like them for an extended period of time, holding and controlling an object with his fingers while he moves his arm around (or holds it still). And the sudden, uncontrollable jerking of his arms (where he inadvertently flings said object out of his mouth) has ceased entirely.

Not only is he controlling his hands and arms, his whole body is better coordinated and MOVING.  He has rolled over from front to back 3 times in the past 24 hours, and from back to front at least once.

Jasper, on the other hand, has a new favorite toy, Sarah's mouse, which is a trackball mouse that he refers to as "Ladybug Mouse."

New Childcare for Jasper

Jasper started new childcare last week, and it's going great. He loves it!  Anna, our friend, takes care of Jasper and her daughter Sylvia together (Sylvia is the same age as Jasper), and eventually Gus will join them as well.

Today Jasper said: "Anna, pick this one up!" (referring to himself as 'this one').

When we got home today, Jasper said, "Want more Anna."

Also, while we were out this afternoon and in the bookstore, Jasper threw down the children's book Sarah had handed him, and instead selected a mystery novel. When Sarah couldn't find anything else and just decided to go ahead and get the book Jasper had picked, when she took it from him to check out, Jasper said, "Give it back!" Then, in the car, he looked at the cover image (which featured an owl) and said, "kiss the owl" and then kissed the cover of the book.

Gus continues to grow faster than ever. He LOVES kicking, smiling, laughing constantly, and putting two fingers in his mouth. He also really enjoys peekaboo these days, which is very fun. Also, he has gotten very good at grabbing and holding his own foot.

His sleeping continues to improve; although he still wakes up some nights at inappropriate times, he can put himself back to sleep. He generally gets up once to eat sometime between 3-5 AM, and then goes back down until around 7 AM.

Unfortunately Gus hates the car seat, which is kind of a bummer, as every day involves at least one car trip to go and get Jasper.  But we're sure that eventually he'll grow used to it!

Sarah and Adam have also gained new skills lately. We have both successfully put both children to bed without any backup - Sarah when we were in Massachusetts, and Adam when Sarah was in DC last week. This may sound minor, but this is a major new development!

The many faces and noises of Gus

Here's a montage of a few clips of Gus enjoying life, often quite vocally, plus one of Jasper very proud of himself for walking down a stair (and wanting to make sure he gets the acclaim deserved for such an accomplishment).

New Photos and Words

Loads of new photos, mostly of Gus, who cannot run when having his photo taken.

Jasper, although he rarely sits still for long enough for a snapshot, continues to talk up a storm. This morning he says, "muffins? I want muffins!"  When we reply that we don't have any muffins, he responds with, "Don't say no muffins!" 

Jasper sings the hits

Jasper's gotten really into singing lately--he LOVES to listen to his CDs (mainly, nursery rhymes sung by toddlers), and while he doesn't quite get melody yet, he's learned a lot of lyrics. Here's Jasper singing in the shower (ok, the bathtub).

Scenes from a wedding

We just returned from Justin & Autumn's wedding back east. It was a hard trip on the kids--both the travel and the large loud crowds--but it was great to see everyone. Many of the kids' best moments were during quiet times, with only a couple other people around, including with Marc and Jo back at the house where we were staying. We also did a naming ceremony for Gus, giving him the Hebrew name Asher (in memory of his great-grandfather, Milton). Here are a few scenes of the kids in and around Camp Becket.

Our First Cross-Country Trip with 2 Babies

First, I need to say, the operative word here is babies. Not boys. Not kids. Babies. Babies are small, don’t watch videos, and are almost impossible to reason with. We have two of them.

We left on Thursday, for Justin and Autumn’s wedding in the Berkshires.

Read on if you want all of the gory details.