The papparazzi just keep hounding us

 

 

Flying Solo

Well, all the grandparents have gone home and Joe just left for work. It's just me and the two munchkins. It will just be for the afternoon, so I'm not too worried. I'm more concerned about tomorrow. Our neighbor emailed to let us know her son has croup. I was mentally counting on Erik getting to go over and play with the big boys this week for a few hours, like he usually does.

People ask who we think Adin looks like. It's easier for Joe to see the similarities to his side of the family, and for me to see the similarities to my side. When I look at Adin's face, I sometimes think he looks like my dad or my Bestefar, probably because of the forehead and eyebrows. Sitting here at the computer, with the way the light is hitting his hair, right his hair looks red, red, red, and in profile he reminds me of the baby picture of my mom that's hanging above her parents' bed. I think Adin's eyes are much bluer than Erik's were at birth. Erik had grey-blue eyes, but I think Adin's are truly blue.

My internet connection won't let me post a photo right now, but I'm sure everyone will have lots of opinions to share in the next few months, as Adin fills out a bit.

Hurry! Hurry!

Drive the firetruck!



One weekend Joe took Erik to a transportation museum and they got to ride on top of a real firetruck! I guess it was pretty cool. When I ask Erik about it, he says it was windy up there.

Spaghetti!

I've probably posted pix like this before, but I just get such a kick out of how messy he gets when he eats spaghetti.
The video is of him shoveling in peas by the fistful, and me trying to get him to say, "I love peas" like he did before I picked up the video camera!

Easter Sunday

Joe's family came to town for Easter weekend and Erik had a great time with them. I don't seem to have taken any pictures, though. Ooops. However, our friends Jen and Zach came over Sunday afternoon with their daughter Eleanor. Erik loved playing with her and asked after for quite a few days after she left. Here's a picture of the kids in their Easter clothes before they decided they'd really rather just wear diapers.

Getting ready for Easter

Here are some pix of Erik decorating the pussy willow branches with the decorations I won a couple months ago at a baby shower. He was pretty careful and enjoyed looking at the branches all month.

"Help! Fire!"

Erik watched a video in which Elmo visits a fire station. Then on Saturday, Joe and Erik visited a transportation museum and got to ride on a fire truck. Today, Erik brought me a book about Sally the Sea Ferry, in which she uses the water from her wake to put out a fire on a fishing boat. Afterwards he talked about the book and started yelling, "Help Sally! Fire!". We pretended to spray water. Then he said, "help mama. Fire in my house." so I pretended to spray water in his little play house. He was sitting in front of it and seemed to realize what would have happened had I really been spraying because he said, "mama, I'm wet! I need a towel, I'm wet"! So I gave him a towel and he pretended to dry off. He did the same thing later, pretending that his crib was on fire, then requested a towel to dry it off.

Excuses excuses

Ok, so I won't be able to post any pictures for a while...I seem to have lost our camera. I took out the battery on Saturday to charge it and haven't seen the camera since. sigh.

This afternoon our friends Erika, Brooke and Evan came over to play for a bit. Erik and Brooke had fun, they had a little picnic on the floor of our front room and drew on the Magnadoodle. But Erik really wanted to go downstairs and I thought we should stay upstairs, since our friends couldn't stay too long. I told Erik we'd go down in a few minutes after Brooke went to the store. He sat down and played for a while, then looked up at her and said, "Thanks for coming over today." Subtle, huh?

Four Eyes

Erik wanted to try on my glasses. They are a few years old, so you don't get the full Ralphie effect, but it's pretty good.

The kid really loves muffins

A couple weeks ago, Erik and I made muffins first thing in the morning. He was so excited to eat them, that while they were baking, he would not get up and play. He sat there for 15 minutes watching the timer run down to "muffins are ready".

Manners

We went to brunch at the home of our friends Noel, Kristin and Grant. Grant is four months younger than Erik. One of the things Kristin had made was an egg fratatta. We didn't give it to Erik at first because it was too hot. When he saw us eating it, he begged for some "pizza". So I cut him a little bit. He's not developed a taste for eggs so I wasn't sure if he'd like it. He took a bite, looked up at Kristin and said, "it's pretty good".

Erik's grandparents were here this weekend, as Grandma Lois was on her way back from a week in Bogata, Columbia. (Blogger isn't letting me embed the website right now, but you can learn more about the trip at http://www.good-sam.com/bogota/index.asp). They left this afternoon and gave a ride to their friend Joyce. Joyce had been down here visiting her grandsons Cole and Nash. Erik wasn't very quick to warm up to Joyce, partially because he barely napped today. But as they walked out the door he said, "Bye Grandma, bye Joyce".

A little Norwegian

We read Erik a couple books in Norwegian. Well, I guess I read them in Norwegian, Joe reads them in English! One of them is a translation of "Where is Spot?" It keeps asking if Spot is in different places in the house. Then Erik lifts a flap and the text of the books says, "no". This weekend Erik began saying "nei" which is Norwegian for "no". Totally out of the blue. I sort of forgot this January to check into the Barnehage we tried this fall. Now that he's mostly given up his morning nap, it might work. It was so hard to contact them, I kind of dread going through that process again of trying to register.

Erik's World - Baby Brother Edition

There have been requests for more info on how baby brother is coming along. He is now at 30 weeks gestation. Ten more weeks to go! He's about three pounds and 17 inches long. We still don't have strong feelings for any particular name. Joe likes David, we both like Thomas, Kevin (Erik's friend from ECFE) said we should name him Tyler.

Arizona

Erik and Papa at the playground. Unfortunately, the camera wasn't handy when we saw the two havelinas walking by.


At a county park with Mama and cactus.


Erik had lots of fun visiting Great Grampa and Great Gramma. They read books, watched golf, and played with some Beanie Baby birds.


Joe's Gramma noticed Erik standing with his foot up like this and she thought it was very funny. So then he had to do it about a hundred times to make us laugh.

February pictures

Here's Erik in his new hat Grampa gave him.




Erik is actually moving snow now when he shovels.

Erik's on Flickr

Al Franken put a picture of Erik on his Flickr site. (Flickr is a site where you can post lots of photos.)

Don't you think Joe and Al have very similar hair?

Muffin Man

Remember a few months ago I wrote that Erik was in the bath and said, "Water going down the drain"?

Since Christmas we've been on a big muffin kick. A couple times a week he helps me mix up (usually blueberry) muffins. We always sing "Do You Know the Muffin Man" (just like we always sing "Rub a Dub Dub" while washing his hair). So now he knows the muffin song pretty well and will sing it while playing on his own, but he can't say Drury Lane. During a bath, earlier this week, he was singing "Muffin Man" in the bath and said, "Do you know the Muffin Man who lives in the drain?"

Erik Endorses Al Franken

St Louis Park, MN --

Early Tuesday evening, Erik Lindell endorsed Al Franken in his run for the Democratic endorsement in Minnesota's US Senate race.

In related news, our precinct went Obama over Clinton 2:1, which seems to be consistent with the rest of MN. Also, on my way out of the bldg, I saw Congressman Ellison and shook his hand.

Toddler Prayer 102

One of Erik's little friends is spending a couple days in the hospital with RSV. Joe called to tell me this just as I was preparing Erik's lunch. So I decided instead of saying our usual "Hands Prayer" where we sing a song, we would do the kind of prayer where you make it up yourself. I asked Erik to fold his hands and to say "Dear God" (pause for Erik to repeat) "thank you" "for food." "Please make Claire feel better". He seemed to find this all very odd and I can't say he really participated by repeating, but he did listen. We did it again at dinner and it went a little better. It got me thinking all kinds of thoughts about what makes prayer prayer, does what Erik did "count", I wonder what does "count". But after a while my brain started to hurt so I just decided that it didn't matter what I understood about prayer, that God would take care of it.

Joe and I each had the experience today of asking Erik "Why?" and having him say "Because". This was a first for us.

Erik is really humming along learning pronouns. Yesterday he kept practicing saying "We are flying on a plane", emphasizing the "we". Today he tried saying "I am lying on the floor" instead of saying "Erik's lying on the floor".

Erik had a great time in Arizona this weekend, visiting his great-grandparents. On the car ride from the airport to their house he was practicing saying "Hi Great-Gramma. Hi Great-Grampa." He warmed up very quickly to them once we got there. I'm sure getting there at lunch time and being fed by them didn't hurt!

Toddler Twos

Erik is becoming more and more of a toddler. He will often answer questions "no" that he clearly means yes. For example, I'll ask if he wants water, he'll say no as he's reaching for the glass and immediately takes a drink.

He has definate opinions about with whom he wants to do things. Today, he wanted to play basketball with me, rock in his chair with Joe and only I was allowed to read certain books. If the other parent offers to do it, yowza, he lets us know what he wants. Sometimes it's flattering and sweet to be chosen, sometimes it's a relief not to be, often it doesn't matter one way or the other. He's pretty receptive still to us saying, "you can say, 'Papa do it, please'" and then he'll say it nicer.

He's also huge into throwing. Fortunately, so far it's mostly confined to balls and usually we're playing catch.

It's sooo helpful to remind myself that he's not becoming a bad tempered child, he's just going through a normal and necessary phase of asserting his independence. I just hope this continues to be helpful as we get deeper into the Twos!

He also has a great sense of humor. He loves to do things that make us laugh. He just learned to jump in place with his feet leaving the ground. Once he did it and fell on him bottom. I laughed and so he tried to fall every time. And if he says something that makes me laugh he'll keep saying it as long as I keep laughing.