Looking into the Future

Tonight we enjoyed a rare treat - a visit with Cortney's cousin, Marshall, and his family. This was a rare and special treat because Marshall and Jenny live in San Diego and had not been back to Ann Arbor since their daughter, Iris, was born in January (on Cortney's birthday, the 24th, to be exact) so we had not yet been able to meet her. We had a wonderful time for lots of reasons. It was, first of all, just plain great to see them, although we can't say we did a lot of catching up because most of the talk focused around the babies. It was also great to connect with another couple with an infant and to gab a bit about routines, toys, and gear. Additionally, it was great for Calvin to connect with another baby - it is absolutely true that babies love other babies. It was very interesting to watch the two second cousins interact! Even more interesting than that, though, was watching Iris do all the things that she can do now as a seven month old, knowing that it is a little like a sneak preview. She was just a riot: she rolls around and sits by herself; she grabs toys, puts them in her mouth, and throws them; she plays peak-a-boo; and she makes a wonderful and endearing squealing noise that we just loved! What was crazier than that, though, was watching Jenny's sister's son (can you keep that straight?) who is eleven months old - now that's scary! He was walking around, pushing chairs, and babbling. We even got to observe his solid food eating habits - something we hope Calvin did not witness and commit to memory - all we have to say is: the tarp under the high chair was necessary.

Comments appreciated

We have finally reached that pivotal point in our lives where we have overcome our personal fears of not being as interesting or funny as we'd like to think we are and have, thus, turned on the comments function on our site.  This of course means that anyone can let us know what they're thinking by simply clicking on the "post a comment" link at the bottom of any given journal entry.  It is quite likely that this new-found confidence is due in large part to our coming to terms with our new roles in life as Calvin's stewards.  We accept that the growing amount of daily traffic on this site is comprised mostly of Calvin's admirers and that any posted comments are likely to be mainly fan mail in response to his growing stardom.  We are not hurt by this.  The power will swing back around when we are in charge of his allowance.

Cortney has a bald head?

Did you know that "Snakes on a Plane" begins in theaters tomorrow?  We were reminded of this upcoming important event by Samuel L. Jackson himself, who called  Cortney tonight to encourage her to "stop dancing in front of the mirror and quit polishing her bald head" and take her brother to the opening night of the movie.  Thanks Sam.

the excitement of discovery

Do you think it's too early for lessons?
 

A Saturday down on the farm...

The actually sleepless nights, the kind where we truly get NO sleep, don't come along very often, but last night was one of them.  We'd like to say that it was because we were out partying, but we'll have to blame it on the aftermath of the vaccines.  Calvin whimpered through a lot of the night and constantly wanted to nurse, mostly for comfort.  So much for his "big boy" status!
But this morning brought a bright, new, promising day - at 5:30.  Babies, probably children in general, have no respect for Saturdays as sleep in days.  So, with the weight of that realization upon us, we decided to take advantage of our early wakefulness by going...garage sale-ing.  Isn't  that what young parents do?  And Calvin got his 2 month old portraits taken before we headed home.  But it was the afternoon that was especially fun.  Earlier in the week we had passed a road side sign for U-pick blackberries and decided that would be a good activity, especially with this weekend's acceptably cool weather.  It reminded Cortney a little of picking raspberries when she was little on her Grammie's farm, and reminded Jon a little of looking for hay in a needle stack.  On the way home we stopped by the local farmer market and picked up Michigan grown dinner.  Michigan grown, yes, but dinner more closely resembled a southern farm meal - Barbecued pork, sweet corn, fried green tomatoes, and homemade blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream.  Yum.  Once again, Calvin will have to enjoy it indirectly later.