Sarah and Adam: The Next Generation

Interviewing Gus, 20 months

A video we just found of Gus from December, when he was 20 months. While he talked really well for a 1-year old, it's amazing to see how much he's developed in just the last five months.



Also, a handy link to Marc & Jo's awesome video they made for Gus's first birthday. And the one they made for Jasper's.

Letter to Sarah

This is actually a couple months old, but this is a letter the boys dictated (ok, that Adam pulled out of them over an hour) to Sarah when she was on a trip in DC.

G: I play with a ping balls. I put into and it goes up and down shhhh, where the air coming out. I play ball to, I push a button, shhoo, air came out. A  ping balls go up up up down down down in that box. [note: they did not go to the childrens museum today so this is vivid but totally false]

 

J: we went to Pump It Up (a place with inflatable slides & bouncy houses). when you got in, there was anot a ball pit. and we went on each step and I was so scared.

    [What did they have at pump it up? can't answer b/c Gus is feeding him mac and cheese, and passing Gus's spoon back and forth].

 

G: we're both sharing the mac and cheese. here here here.

J: here here here. Do you want to put some mac and cheese in here? (holding out Gus's spoon to Gus to fill it up for Jasper). Eat it gus, you're supposed to eat!

Our new life...

So, we moved out of our house (long story, suffice to say, living in a house you are trying to sell while simultaneously raising 2 and 3 year old children, was not conducive to sanity. In addition, we're testing out twitter, so for the very latest in funny things hte kids say, check out http://twitter.com/jaspergus.  In addition, Justin and Autumn had the very most beautiful baby girl, so while you are there, make sure to take a peek at http://twitter.com/nuggetthebean. 

Tell me a story

Gus: "Daddy, tell me a story about Kia dog, with Mama Yaya, and Papa
Ricardo, and Grandma, and Grandpa all together on an airplane." Adam
starts to tell him the story, and he adds, "And the airplane is
broken!"

Videopalooza

I spent the morning editing videos to get all caught up. Here are the two most recent, with links below to a few older ones that are mainly of archival and/or grandparental value. [Note a new feature in Youtube: once you click play on the videos, on many of them a grey "HQ" logo appears in the lower right, and if you click it the video will play in high quality.]

And here are links to a Winter 09 video (sledding & Hanukkah), Jasper's third birthday party, and Gus showing off with his ABCs and numbers (though it's from New Years and he's much more verbal now).

This is not my beautiful house

Front, originally uploaded by SarahAndAdam.

Our house goes on the market tomorrow, so we've been doing a ton of work on it and cleared several truckloads of stuff out of it to make it look spare and staged. We had the photos taken the other day and they look really great--in fact it looks like someplace we'd really like to live! Now, as long as we can keep the children from eating in the house or touching anything for the next several weeks, we should be in great shape. Click the photo above to see all the pictures.

Gus at 2

Gus has been changing so fast recently, and not just in the colors of the black eye he sustained from landing face-first on the train table.
--He loves singing, alone or with company. He especially likes "Baa Baa Black Sheep," "Patty Cake," "Twinkle Twinkle," the alphabet, and the Bob The Builder theme song.
--He answers every "why" question with "Because..." and then a brief pause while he tries to figure out why he did that thing.
--He's incredibly physically adventurous, climbing ladders at the playground, walking up and down stairs while refusing to hold on, and trying hard to do a somersault though he can't quite get over the top without a little push. (Unfortunately, he hasn't yet figured out that it's worth knowing what's in front of you when you begin the somersault.)
--He's really good at sharing when he wants to, though he definitely doesn't always want to and can get really frustrated when he wants something that Jasper has.
--He can basically say anything, but loses confidence when prompted to say long sentences more than about 6 words--he'll get two or three words in and then grin and say "I can't do it!"
--Happily, he's still really snuggly, and loves to climb in our laps and read or drink his soymilk.
--He has a cute baby voice he pulls out to entertain us. For example, he's playing with some stickers and rips one and then, mimicking Adam, says in a tiny high voice, "I ripped it...that's so sad!"

The red in your eyes

Jasper has been growing up so fast... He uses more and more grown up expressions, with just the smallest indication of his youth.

This morning, he looks at the pattern on my pajamas closely for a moment, and then looks up at me, "Your pants are so beautiful!"

Then later he holds a red ball up near my hair and says, "This ball brings out the red in your hair!" I'm thinking, wow, what a sophisticated observation!

Then he follows up by holding the ball a little closer to my face and saying, "This ball brings out the red in your eyes!" (And yes, I do look tired.)

Yesterday when we were out of cow's milk, he was give soy milk without any announcement. After a few sips, he looks over at Gus and says, "Gus are you enjoying your soy? Because I'm enjoying my soy milk."

Finally, this week he learned to say the letter "R." He's previously pronounced it like "w," like t"he color wed." Now he has a vaguely European trilled pronunciation in the back of the throat, like a Spaniard who spends his summers in Tel Aviv.