Four Months

I adore Miriam. She just turned four months. She's a very watchful, busy, and loving little person. On the days I need a smile, I know where I can turn to get one.

All I have to do is say

Hi..

Mir...

...iam. Bam. There's that smile.She's so much fun to talk to. She listens! Unlike another little person around here....

I'm kidding. Reuben listens. When he wants to.

But watch out for her mouth. She bites. She's like a shark. Anything that comes within sight she'll lunge at, mouth agape. She's constantly trying to steal my food. So we got her a giraffe chew toy which has become her constant companion.

It's kind of funny to watch her try to chew his head off.

Reuben and Miriam have started playing a game. She sits in her Bumbo and chews on her rings. When she drops them, Reuben picks them up and throws them back to her. They both crack up about it.

Miriam acting as Reuben's target practice. Pretty good aim, huh?

And if you are wondering about Thanksgiving I think this picture does a pretty good job summing it up. Here's Reuben stuffing his face with lefse, football securely in hand.

Kids and Weekends

Our kids fail to grasp the great opportunity the weekend presents to sleep in. They wake up at 6 AM. Every day. So what to do on Sunday morning around 6:45? We went for a walk at the nature center as a family.

Here's Miriam and Aaron smiling at me.

Reuben found his beloved rocks and water.

Reuben pondering a rock.
Reuben pondering all existence.
A deer we ran into. We saw several including a three point, drooling buck. Yuck. It's mating season so all the deer have been acting kind of loopy. I was glad we looked intimidating enough that he backed off.
Cold Miriam.

When we got back home Reuben decided to give his sister a hug = Danger!

These bottom pictures are from a day or two ago.

Miriam playing with a leaf that fell her way.

Reuben playing with milkweed fluff. He would throw it up so it'd fly away in the wind then wave and yell bye Milk weeeed!

Thanks Government

Aaron has told me he feels a little weird living across the river in what we jokingly refer to as the "socialist" state of Maryland. He feels weird because he's realized that he really likes it - lots of wonderfully maintained parks, nature centers, community programs, health assistance programs, great libraries, smooth roads, etc. We benefit big time from having so many wonderful parks to play at. It's a noticeable different from other towns I've lived in where the only communal place for kids to play was the McDonald's playground.

Last week I had a pleasant surprise when I learned our county gives out composters for Free. (Thanks to Dean who did the finding out for me) The day I found out, we picked one up and went to work assembling it. Joan and I paved an area for it to sit so vermin couldn't burrow into it from below. Then Reuben and Miriam "assisted" me in assembling it. The plastic was rolled Super tight so we wrapped it around our fisher price car to get it to stay open then Reuben helped me screw the bolts on. His tiny fingers were remarkably well suited for the job.

Here it is:

Here's Reuben next to it for scale.

Eight days later, it's up and running. I was feeling pretty proud of getting it put together. Then I reread the directions to make sure I had the green to brown ratios right. At the bottom of the assembly instructions I noticed it said "assembles in only 2-3 minutes" What?!? That drained away some of my pride. But not all.

Here's Battle supervising our efforts.

Here's Reuben throwing a frost frozen green tomato into the bin. And if you are wondering, yes the tomato made it in. On his first shot too. As poor Miriam can attest to, Reuben's aim is excellent.

Even though we've only had it a few days, it's already come in handy. There are tons of leaves falling from the trees. The frost took out our garden so we cleared what remained. All that and dinner scraps have found their place in our composter to make some good dirt for next year's garden.

As a bonus, while digging out the spot for the paving stones we found the biggest earth worm I have ever seen. It looked like this. See me at the bottom of the picture?

Okay, not really. But it was so big that I at first thought it was a snake. Reuben was mesmerized but refused to touch it. After I let it go Reuben insisted we find "more worms" for me to hold and him to glare at from a safe distance away.

Sadly our worm was not even as large as the giant gippsland worm pictured below. They are only found in Australia. If you want to read more about giant worms you can go here. There are legends and rumors of worms more than a foot in diameter and many feet long. Just like Dune...

Miriam Is Here Too

Looking at the previous posts I noticed there wasn't much Miriam. Usually I'm the person taking the pictures and Miriam is behind the camera in my arms. We were lucky enough to have Joan come visit and do a little holding so I got a few more pictures of Miriam than usual.

Miriam is alive and well. She's a very busy little person. She's figured out how to flip herself out of any chair in under 10 seconds. It's incredibly dangerous but kind of funny. I've caught her on the way to the ground more times than I want to admit.

If I try to put her down on a mat she can scoot herself off in less than a minute. She's also pretty close to rolling herself over.

My Aunt Joan showed me some great baby pictures of my Grandpa. It turns out he and Joan were born with a lot of hair just like Miriam.

We've been having fun in the beautiful weather. Here's Miriam happy enough outside that she's willing to hang out in her chair. Miriam loves watching Reuben. Any time she can catch his eyes she beams at him.

Here's Reuben and Aaron watching the election results.

Some people have complained that there isn't enough about me on the blog lately. But the stuff I have on my mind recently is pretty dull. Mostly just work, lots of work. But here are two things that made me happy. Both took place in the small mammal house at the zoo.

1. We caught a glimpse of this little fellow. He's an elephant shrew. Isn't he a beautiful color?

2. Reuben walked up to the meerkat enclosure. A nervous little meerkat was right at his eye level and when he saw Reuben approach him he freaked out and charged Reuben snarling. Reuben responded by cracking up. The little meerkat charged him again and again to Reuben's delight.

Reuben is 2!

Reuben turned two yesterday. He woke up to a good breakfast of his dad's crepes and strawberries.

He got an incredibly annoying, I mean cheerful Dora the Explorer balloon that sings happy birthday to him in English AND Spanish any time it gets bumped.

Reuben has figured out how to hit it with the football to set it off. Awesome.

We put up the traditional bird mobile in honor of the thousands of birds that flew over our hospital room when he arrived. There were literally thousands.

And we opened presents and ate some more yummy food including ice cream and green "dino" cupcakes with his Uncle Dean and Aunt Joan.

And as a special treat he got to spend the preceding weekend at Antietam, the bloodiest battlefield in all America. Some kids go to Disneyland. Reuben gets to go to Civil War sites. In this picture I can almost hear Reuben thinking "It's going to be a long childhood."

Here's Aaron with Miriam

Can you spot Aaron and Reuben at the base of the monument?

It was a little chilly.

Reuben and Dean showing us around.

Can you spot Miriam?

But check this out. Here's Reuben standing in front of Dunker church. Look at the pictures below him of Dunker church. Pretty sobering.

Reuben was having a lot of fun wandering around the battle field and jumping off the monuments. I decided to try to tell him why we were visiting. But how to explain the War Between the States to an almost two year old?

Here's the story:

Me: There were a lot of men here once. Lots of men.

Reuben: yeah

Me: And they had to run fast. And they were scared.

Reuben: yeah. Fast.

Me: And some of them fell down and were ow.

Reuben: ow.

Me: And they were sad.

Reuben: Sad men

Me: But they did it so we could all be free and happy.

I guess since you're almost two I can start saddling you with the historical baggage of your country. Happy Birthday Reuben!