The Fine Game of Nil

The Boy is currently smack in the middle of the terrific twos, and has been learning to assert his new found sense of independence something fierce.  Lately he’s been experimenting with misrepresenting reality to try and get his way, and really, I’m pretty impressed with it.  Since November we’ve been commuting to a daycare in town via the T (Boston’s public transit).  On the way home we can either go bus to the red line, or green line to red line.  The green line takes a bit longer but is all train travel, and Liam seems to have inherited Dad’s disdain for buses.  On the way out of daycare we usually stand on the bridge over the green line and take whatever comes first, bus or train.  Liam initially started saying “No bus. Train!” and trying to direct us down the stairs to get on the train.  Recently, he noticed that on walk to the bridge, Emily and I watch the interchange a couple of blocks away to see if a bus is stopped at the light.  From that he got the idea to call out “I don’t see a bus” in the hope that we’d go down to the train instead.  Today, on the walk to the bridge he told me “No bus”, then explained “The bus is broken”.  I have to say, I’m pretty impressed.  If I remember my cognitive development textbooks at all, creative deceit is a relatively advanced skill.  My hope is that by next month he’ll have moved up to direct acts of sabotage against the #47 crosstown.

The four of us had a good Christmas this year.  Liam is already two and a half, and is getting to be able to get really excited about opening presents and checking out new things.  Dor is 6 months (actually 6 months on Christmas day), and while she wasn’t as into the whole receiving and opening presents process, she loved the crinkly wrapping paper that they came in.  While Liam was busy running around like a wild man, she wiled away many a happy hour scrunching up and trying to eat the wrapping paper.  Though we tried to discourage the eating of the paper, there was discussion at the time that her upcoming diaper might look like someone had set off a confetti filled party popper.

The week before Christmas the four of us went on the Somerville Illuminations trolley tour.  It was our first time going, and it turned out to be a lot of fun.  We took the bus down to the Somerville city hall where we all loaded up on trolley tour buses and cruised around the back streets of Somerville to check out all the over-the-top decorating jobs that had been done.  It made a fun evening out on the town, and was nice to get out of the house for a drive around town.  Liam had a great time looking at all the lights, and Dor had fun grinning at all the people on the trolley. For the next several days, Liam keep asking to ‘see more lights’.  By the end of the trip he had gotten the hang of saying ‘Ooh and Ahh’  when we passed another decorated house.

Christmas eve we made our traditional pierogi and mushroom soup dinner.  Looking through my mom’s old cookbook, Emily found a recipe for a sauerkraut, mushroom and sour cream filling which may have come down from my grandfather or great-grandfather, depending on how you read the reference.  We made that along side the normal potato cheese filling, and it was excellent.  Liam spent the afternoon up on his step stool helping me at the counter.  He was pretty good with the rolling pin and helped roll out the dough for the pierogies.

You wouldn’t imagine that the step-stool would be that much of an important thing to The Boy, but it really is.  For him, the step-stool turns out to be a powerful tool of acquisition and inclusion.  With it, he’s able to get up to the adult working height and take part in the stuff that mom and dad are doing in the kitchen.  He’s gotten really good at pulling it up to the counter and climbing up to help put food in the Cuisinart, roll out dough, or simply make a grab for whatever is interesting on the counter.

There’s far more to write about, but its quarter of eleven and I’m already exhausted.  My New Year’s Resolution is to get back to regular posts on this blog, and for right now, a short post is better than none at all.  Hopefully more later though, and hopefully I still have a couple of people still interested in reading.

I was glad that Alex finished out the month of October at NEB, mostly because it meant that Liam, Dor, and I got to attend the NEB Halloween party one more time.

Liam trick or treating on the grounds, with the squeeky mouse that Paula gave him

Liam with Kaan, one of his friends from daycare, and one of the first kids that you could actually call his friend. They recognize each other and scream and give each other hugs when they see each other. They ride in the vanpool together, and sometimes hold hands when walking into daycare

Dor uses her third eye

Give me that donut!

Liam and Paula, a woman who rides in the vanpool. Liam loves Paula. She is the person who drove us to the hospital when Dor was born.

Dor and Paula

We’re going to make a concerted effort to try to get back into updating the blog. We had been very busy for a while, and then the upheaval and chaos around my mom dying. We’ve had a lot of change in the last several months. Dor born. Mom got sick and then died. Alex started interviewing for, and then got, a new job. I returned  to work from maternity leave. Alex changed jobs. Liam and Dor changed daycare. We are finally settling back into some sort of routine, but it’s been tough.

I’m going to try to put some pictures up from the last few months, but I won’t to intensive long posts about it, so that we can try to get up to the present.  As mentioned before, at the end of August we attended Kat and Taybin’s wedding. The following weekend we went to Lake George (our last weekend there as Bill and Linda sold the place). Then we went to St. Louis to visit family and introduce them all to Dor. I then flew to Seattle with Dor to see my mom and family, and Alex and Liam flew home to Boston. I stayed in Seattle a week, returned home to Boston and started work. I was at work for one week when my sister Anne called and told me to come back to Seattle. I flew back out that day, with Dor again, and was gone until October 8th. October 8th I flew back to Boston, toured the new daycare with Alex, and the next day we drove out to Syracuse to meet with Alex’s dad, Bill, Linda, Becky, Will, and Catherine to spread Penny’s ashes (Alex’s mom, who died in November 2007). We then had a few days in Boston before flying back to St. Louis for my mom’s funeral. Then back to Boston, where I  started back at work, and Alex went on to finish up his last few weeks at NEB. November 2 he started at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, where he is doing HIV research. As you can see, it was total chaos for a while there. Liam had some sleep set backs during all this, which isn’t really surprising when you think about all the changes and travel, etc. Not to mention that I was away from him for 17 days (7 and then 10), when the longest I had ever been away before was about 72 hours. It has taken a lot of patience and work to get his sleeping back to normal, but it seems to be there. He’s such a good, and resilient kid. They both keep me so busy I haven’t really had time to grieve. I can’t decide if that is a good thing or not. We just keep going, because that’s all we can do. I still terribly miss my mom. I’m sure that doesn’t change or go away.

I thought we had pictures from our Lake George and first St. Louis trip online, but we don’t yet. Until Alex can remedy that, I will post some pictures from Halloween and various other pictures from that time frame.

Liam has been learning how to take his clothes off, and often will take off his shirt or pants and run around…

Dor has been developing great head control, and actually really enjoys her tummy time. Our limiting factor is that Liam likes to try to do tummy time with her/on her, so we have to patrol like hawks while she is down. She has done lots of rolling from tummy to back (has been doing it since September) but just this week finally turned from her back to her tummy on her own. She is very smiley, and has the biggest cheeks around. She’s also quite vocal, and coos, squeels, and laughs/giggles a lot.

Liam drawing on his chalk board

We love cuddle time on the bed…

We were going to dress Liam up as Mario (from Mario Brothers) for Halloween, but just could not get organized to do it. Honestly, right after the funeral and returning home, it was a miracle that I was functioning at all. A mom friend from the playground who has somewhat adopted us lent us this costume, and Liam loved it

Dor’s costume was not nearly as exciting, but she was still pretty cute

A street near our house really goes all out for Halloween, choosing a theme and all the houses decorating around that theme. They close of the street to traffic, and everyone is out and about in their costumes. This year’s theme was Halloween Vegas. It was really cool.

Liam had a doppleganger out that night:

A few days later, Dor dressed up as a puritan