Alone with Kate, Day 1

Emily's starting a temp job that may become permanent. Today was her first day.

8:30 a.m. We say goodbye to Emily at the door. Kate is smiling and happy, no idea her world is changing. Emily is the opposite.

8:35 a.m. I put Kate down in the living room. Par-Tay! She immediately crawls into the midst of Jack's toys. Nothing appears dangerous. When she crawls, she kind of breathes heavily and snuffles with the effort, a little like a bulldog. She goes to his store and starts pulling out vegetables and sampling all of them by putting them in her mouth for a second, then moving on to the next one. I sit nearby. We do this for the next 15-20 minutes.

9:00 a.m. At the coffee table, she pulls books off the underneath shelf. She can do this for an indefinite amount of time.

9:15 a.m. Plays with musical book that plays tunes like "Patty Cake, Patty Cake," and "the Big Bad Wolf." Insipid, but she likes it and is proud of herself for getting the music to play. She turns and smiles. Claps a little.

9:30 a.m. Starting to get a little cranky. She's been up for over two hours. Basically her getting cranky is making loud noises a little more frequently. Getting more easily frustrated with her toys and stuff. Picking something up and putting it down heavily.

9:45 a.m. I put her down for a nap. Doesn't take. Five minutes later I walk in, and she's sitting up, running her little plastic fish on the bars of the crib. Just like a prisoner with a tin can. Funny.

9:55 a.m. Take two. She goes to sleep within minutes. I clean up my desk. Gamble that she's tired enough that I can shower without waking her up. Win that bet. Clean up breakfast dishes. Empty trash.

11:30 a.m. Kate's awake! I prep a bottle and go up to get her. She's crying, then switches it off in an instant. Crawls across her crib to me. I change her diaper and we head downstairs.

11:45 a.m. Kate takes her bottle well, but she's basically doing calisthenics in my lap. She doesn't just lie there, she sits up, rolls over, twists around, continuing to drink. Every once in a while she stops and bats the tip of the bottle, hooks her finger on my lip. Talks: "Baa Baa Baa. Baa. Baaaaaaaaaa. Baa Baa Baa. BAA."

12 noon. I let her crawl around. She does.

12:30 p.m. I give her lunch: yogurt and some blueberries. I think she's doing well with the blueberries until after I get her out of the seat and find most of them in the seat and on the floor. She does eat a lot of yogurt and some small pieces of canteloupe, though.

1:00 p.m. I bring her over to Aunt Cathy's. I have a fantasy draft for a magazine coming up and can't trust her to be OK while I'm doing it.

3:00 p.m. Cathy brings her back. Kate did OK, but she looks a little red-eyed; apparently she slept for about 20 minutes -- not enough not to be tired, but enough so that she might not nap this afternoon. A concern.

3:15 p.m. Bottle for Kate. More calisthenics. I make the final pick in my draft while giving her her bottle. Bet I'm the only guy in the league multi-tasking that way. Then again, it's a fantasy draft in the middle of the afternoon on Tuesday. Maybe everyone has a baby on their laps.

3:30 p.m. Not napping.

3:45 p.m. Take two. Still not napping. Cries indignant now. It's like she's saying to me, It's not happening. Give up.

4:00 p.m. I give up.

4:30 p.m. Kate has spent the past half hour crawling around, mostly happy, also clearly tired. I decide to go get Jack a little early, under the idea that she might sleep in the car. (Yuh.) Instead she pretty much wails in the car, wails when I put her down in Jack's room at daycare to get his lunch box, wails when I carry her back to the car (as does Jack, I might add, because it's raining and I ask him to stay just inside the door while I put Kate in the car, but he evidently doesn't understand and thinks I'm ditching him). I go back to get him and talk him down, and we're off.

4:45 p.m. Kate's still wailing in the car. I ask Jack to sing to her. He does. "Baby Cake, Baby Cake. Baby Cake....." She stops wailing.

5:00 p.m. Jack plays with Kate. Very nicely. She smiles and looks at him, in awe. Then he does something goofy with one of his toys, and she laughs. He does it again and she laughs harder. He does it 5, 10, 15 times, and she's literally gasping for breath -- she's in hysterics. Probably the fact that she's only slept 20 minutes since the morning is part of it, like in college when you'd been up all night and things seem even funnier the next morning. Anyway, he keeps on making her laugh. And Daddy can relax.

5:15 p.m. Mommy gets home. Kids happy. Daddy relaxes even more.

They Call Her Katie (sung to the tune of "Flipper")

Five fun things about Kate.

1. She can clap. Sometimes she'll spend several minutes practicing it. Sometimes she'll do something she's proud of, like crawl across the room or play something on the little piano, and she'll stop, sit up on her knees, and clap happily. As if she's applauding herself for what she's just done. Yes, I did that! Yay, me!

2. When she's hungry, she throws her mouth open wide for food. When she's not hungry, she kind of half opens her mouth and looks at me with some mild curiosity, like I'm a bug or something. I put the food to her lips and get some in, and she kind of absently smacks her lips at it. Hmm. This is OK. I guess.

3. Almost since before she could sit up, she kind of sits like a hurdler, or a cheerleader -- like she's doing a split. One leg is bent at the knee, the other is stretched out behind her. She balances like that, and I've never seen her fall from that position. It's pretty impressive.

4. She frequently disregards the toys we give her -- you know, the baby toys -- in favor of the toys we want to keep from her, Jack's toys. So I give her a big old plastic ring, and two seconds later she's tossed it aside (literally, I might add) and is making a beeline for one of Jack's tiny metal cars. Usually the tow truck, with a big metal hook extending from the back. Excellent, Katie.

5a. She's crazy about Jack. When she sees him in the morning, from her crib when he and I hear her and go in, she claps without clapping, then big smiles, then crawls quickly over to the bars to look at him up close. He puts his hands on the bars outside, then does something silly to make her laugh. She smiles from ear to ear. If he's in the living room and she's on the carpet, she crawls over to be near him. Wherever he is, and however many times he gets up and runs across the room. She seems to sigh internally, shrug, then get into crawling pose and determinedly crawl after him.

5b. Tonight I was reading them a story, and Jack stood up for some reason. She gazed up at him, eyes bright, mouth open, on the verge of laughing. It was exactly as if she was thinking, What wonderful thing is he going to do next?

Kate in Real Time

I think the best way to blog about Kate is to just write about her as she does things. So that's what I'm doing right now.

I put Kate down on the living room rug. She makes a beeline for Jack's Spider-man puzzle, that he and I just completed. She's been doing it every chance she gets the past couple of days. I don't know why.

She heads for his easel and markers. Another fascinating thing, another thing we want her away from. I pick her up and put her in the other half of the living room.

She shoots me a big smile and heads for the TiVo box. Starts hitting buttons channels change. She turns and laughs at me, then says "Da. Da."

Mommy calls from upstairs, where she's giving Jack a bath. "Did you call me?" "Nope," I say.

Kate hears Mommy's voice and abandons the TiVo and starts crawling, quickly, toward the stairs. We want to keep her out of that hallway, because there's a bathroom, and a heating grate, and it's a hard tile floor. She reaches the doorway and I say, "Kate, what are you doing?"

She looks at me. Laughs. Heads through the doorway.

I go pick her up and put her back on the rug. She crawls into the other half of the living room. Probably headed for the puzzle again, but stops when she sees the cool wooden car. She likes the car. Plays with it -- i.e., puts it in her mouth -- for a few minutes as I type on the laptop, which I'm carrying around with me.

Now she's on the move again. Headed for the kitchen. Making little gurgling, "heh-HEH" noises, which she does sometimes.

She's in the kitchen. Gotta go.

Daddy's Day

Emily came into the room after putting Jack to bed. Said,

"Jack was wondering where our clock with hands was. I said, I don't know. He said, Did it die? I said, er, no, Jack, only people and animals die. Jack said, Will Molly die? (Nana and Baba's dog.) Emily said, well, not for a long long long time. Jack said, Will you die?

Emily said, not for a long long long long long long long long long long time. Jack said, Will Daddy die? Emily said, not for a long long long long long long long long long time. Not quite as long, because you're older. (Emily's a riot.) Jack said, Daddy's old old old old old.

Then he said, I think I have the best Daddy in the whole world. Emily said, yes, I think you do. Jack said, he makes you laugh. Emily said, yes, he does. And I think one day you'll be just as funny as Daddy, and you'll make me laugh too. Jack smiled.

The Neighbors

Our neighbors have a son about Jack's age, so they play together every so often. They also have an enclosed yard, whereas ours connects with a yard belonging to bigger kids, who as I've mentioned in the past Jack is fascinated with and wants to play with, even though he really can't/shouldn't and it usually ends badly. In short, we usually play over in Max's yard.

Max's 3rd birthday gift was a little house structure, which is basically a child-size plastic house with a front porch, kitchen area, and windows he can peek out. ("And a doorbell!" Jack said to Grandma; apparently it made quite an impression on him after his first visit.) Jack likes it a lot; I think he could quite happily go over there and play in it for a while on a daily basis.

So today we were over there and Max's Dad, Mike, who's fairly tall, crawled into it to entice Max and Jack into playing with it rather than whatever it was they were doing, which appeared to be throwing small rocks into a hole in the dirt and laughing hysterically. Or something similar. Then they moved on to throwing small rocks into a hole in a ladder leaning against the house. Next time Mike needs the ladder, it's going to rattle. Anyway, Jack came over -- Max continued to throw rocks, apparently because playing with Mike and the house didn't have the same novelty for him as it did for Jack -- and walked into the house like he owned the place. Mike crawled out, because it was pretty crowded.

"So Jackie (he calls him Jackie), what are you doing?" Jack: "I'm going to make dinner." "What are you going to make?" Jack: "Potatoes with apple sauce, with some sugar on the side." "Okay......." Jack busied himself in the tiny kitchen. Then: Mike rang the doorbell. Jack ignored it. Mike: "I'm at the door." Jack: "Oh, come in!" Mike: "No, you're supposed to say, who is it?" Jack: "Oh. Who is it?" Mike: "My car broke down, may I use your phone?" Jack: "Okay, come in!" Mike (mock exasperated): "No, you can't just let me in! I could be anybody." Jack: "Oh." Mike: "Can I come in and use your phone?" Jack: "Okay!" Mike: "(sigh)"

(I should mention that while Jack was playing with Max, Max's Mommy, Lisa, was crawling around in the grass shooting pictures of Kate with her camera. I think she just likes having new subjects to take pictures of, or she likes taking pictures, but regardless, she's taken some absolutely outstanding pictures of both Kate and Jack, and one day we're going to schedule her to take Kate's 6 month old picture. Er, Kate will be 8 months old in less than two weeks.)

Later that night, Emily and Jack were looking at houses online. Emily does that sometimes. At one point Jack got really sad. and he said in his quiet, sad voice: "We're not going to move away from Max, are we?"

Emily (long pause): "Er...well, maybe one day, but not for a long time."

And really, who knows.

Oscar

A year ago my sister visited for the Academy Awards, also known, of course, as The Oscars. She had a bunch of presents/prizes sent in advance of her visit from Amazon, including one for Jack: A stuffed Oscar the Grouch, looming out of his trashcan. Funny.

Jack was kind of ambivalent at first, but as he's been with most toys, it gradually has grown on him. Or he suddenly rediscovered it. In any case, in the last week or so, Oscar has become his favorite toy. He's been carrying him around, wrapping him in a blanket every now and then (so Oscar can sleep, obviously). Tonight, when I was putting him to bed, he asked for Oscar for the first time.

So I went downstairs to get Oscar, and came back with him. I had him peek around the door at Jack, because you know, I do silly stuff like that. Jack smiled. I gave him Oscar, kissed them both good night, and left the room.

Jack only came out of his room once this evening; it was a good night. He doesn't like the "you can't come into bed with Mommy and Daddy in the morning if you don't stay in your bed at night" rule, so he's been trying. But that doesn't mean he goes right to sleep.

After waiting in our room a few minutes to make sure he was staying in his bed, I headed downstairs. I paused outside our room, though, because I heard him through his door. Talking to Oscar.

"Do you want fish, or guinea pigs?" This is a game he's been playing lately, remembering the pet store. He then presents you with your invisible choice. "Okay, fish. Here you go."

Then: "Do you want coffee, Oscar?" Pause. "Okay, here."

Pause. "Sipppppppppppppppp. Ahhhh! Thank you."

I headed downstairs.

"Are you happy at me?"

We've pretty much reached our limit with Jack getting out of bed. Almost always, we have upwards of half an hour of him getting out of bed between when we finish reading stories and close the door and he finally sleeps. You might think we would just put him to bed later, but it's pretty much that same half hour or so regardless. I put him to bed later, and he's up half an hour later.

Then there are the mornings, and the odd thing is that if he goes to bed later, he seems to wake up earlier. So at 5:15, or 5:30, or (this morning!) even earlier, there's Jack. Sometimes Kate probably wakes him up, sometimes it's those dang early birds outside our windows, whatever. And he loves getting into bed with us, which might be OK if he actually SLEPT, but he doesn't. So, I put him back in his bed. And of course he can't tell time, so he doesn't know when it's OK to come in, and if he doesn't go back to sleep, for whatever reason, there he is again 10 or 15 minutes later. Standing there hopefully at the side of the bed, ready to light up and jump into bed (being sure to put his knee(s) into my ribs or groin on the way over me to the middle of us), or let his face crumple as I get up to indicate he needs to return to his own room. This continues for a while, with the result that none of us (or at least, neither I nor Jack) get any sleep the last hour of the morning, and we all feel the effects later on.

So last night, the first time he came out, Emily said that if he came out again, he couldn't get into bed with us the next morning. He came out again (something about such and such hurting or needing another stuffed friend or whatever) and I said, well, I guess you don't want to get into bed with us tomorrow morning. He reacted with dismay, and I said, well, Mommy told you that if you got out of bed.... He wailed and so forth, and I left the room. And he got out of bed again 5 minutes later, some story about some other nonsense. And I put him back in his bed and said, Jack, one more time and you're not going to be able to get into bed with us the next morning, either. And if you keep getting out of bed, we're going to keep taking things away.

This was a mistake, since I meant it in a figurative sense (taking away privileges), and he took it (naturally, since he's 3, and was tired besides, and I was pretty cranky at this point) literally. "Don't take my things away!!!!!!" he wailed and cried. And since I couldn't correctly explain, I just pressed on. "Well, don't get out of bed anymore. When Mommy and Daddy put you into bed and close the door, it's bedtime, and you need to stay. in. your. bed." More wailing. Pretty sure he cried himself to sleep. Which is always really awesome for a parent, I think.

He woke up around midnight, wailing or crying about somesuch. Not really sure. Maybe his pillow was wet, or he remembered I'd said I was going to take things away, or he remembered he couldn't get into bed with us, or wanted to get out of bed but knew he'd get in more trouble. I don't know. After 5-10 minutes, which Kate remarkably slept through, Emily went in, and I guess she was kind of angry and spoke sharply to him, because he continued crying, and she came back feeling all guilty. Jack continued crying, but it was muffled. Pretty rough, really. Like I said, though, we'd had it.

This morning Jack came in around 6:15, which is a fine time to wake up (particularly comparatively). Emily was already in feeding Kate. He stood by the side of the bed looking at me uncertainly. Knew he wasn't supposed to get in. I got up, and he turned and headed back to his room. I went in after him, then asked, Jack, it's morning. Do you want to sleep more or do you want to get up? "I want to get up." So he did.

We went into the bathroom for his morning potty. He sat there doing his thing while I sat on the step stool next to the sink, as is tradition, with me rubbing my eyes and shaking the cobwebs out.

After about a minute or two of silence (I didn't know what to say - "How'd you sleep?" I knew the answer was not well.), Jack said, mournfully,

"Are you happy at me?"

I sat there for a moment, absorbing it, not sure how to respond (and of course touched by his little misspoken phrase, too). "Jack....I'm not NOT happy at you, but, I'm tired. You got out of bed a lot last night. It needs to stop."

Jack (as if he hadn't heard): "Why can't I get into bed with you and Mommy?"

"Mommy told you last night: if you get out of bed after we put you to bed, we're not going to let you into bed with us in the morning. Maybe tonight you'll stay in your bed after we say good night."

Jack, in agreement: "Yes."

So, we'll see.

Swimming, Drawing, and Dancing

Swimming

Jack started swimming class at the YMCA today. It's through his daycare; kids who sign up (whose parents pay for them) all ride a bus a few miles to the Y, and then go in the pool and apparently get some instruction. (We'll be going to a future class to peer from the observation booth.) I'd talked to one of his little friend's Mom, and his teachers, and they all spoke well of it, so what the heck.

Jack was very excited. We dressed him in his swimsuit this morning, with sweat pants over it, and gave him his superheroes backpack with underwear and a towel in it. Right after breakfast, Jack said, "I want to go in to school now." This was rare, plus it was half an hour before he normally went in. "Er, OK. Let me get dressed," I said. When I came down, Jack had his shoes on and backpack slung over his shoulder. Aside from not wearing a jacket, he was ready to go.

Between 10:30 and 11 (when the class was), we fretted, worried that the phone would ring. (He and I hadn't actually been swimming since briefly taking group lessons there a year earlier, which Jack seldom enjoyed, it being cold and all.) It didn't. Emily picked him up at the end of the day, and Jack, apparently, had done great. The teachers said they weren't sure how he'd do his first time. (Emily: "We thought he could go either way." Liz, the teacher: "Exactly!" They know him pretty well.) But he jumped in and was apparently a-OK.

Jack's version: "We rode on a bus like that one ... I was a little scared to jump in the water, but I jumped in, and then I was in the water swimming, and there was a big shark." "There was?" "Yeah! And he swum up and bit my toe!" "Now, I don't believe that." "Yeah!" "Really?" "No. Daddy, I was just making a joke." Then: "Do you know the Buddy system?" "Er, sure. Where you keep close to somebody else and they do with you?" "Yeah. My buddy was Casey. There was a swimming teacher, but he didn't get in the water. Just Miss Ruthie and Miss Lizzie."

Later, Jack showed us swimming on the living room rug. "C'mon, swim with me." And so we did.

Drawing

Jack's been drawing a lot lately, and it's starting to actually look like stuff. What was once random scrawls or dots now has shape. He drew something the other day that looked kind of like a tree. Emily was looking at it thinking that when Jack said, "It's a tree." I drew The Jungle Book characters on his board. Jack drew the elephant. It had kind of a triangular head, an eye, a bump for a nose. "I drew the elephant," he said.

Dancing

Jack dances around naked before and after his bath. Sometimes he does it before his bath, only wearing socks. Not so much dancing as just running around. I don't know when kids develop modesty or self-consciousness about their bodies. I hope for Jack that it doesn't happen for a long time.

Cinema Jackadiso

A rainy Friday afternoon. What better time to take Jack to his first ever movie? Horton Hears a Who was playing at the Port Chester cinema at 12:30, so off he and I went.

As we got ready to go, I told Jack he had to use his quiet voice in the theater. We practiced talking softly to each other and for Mommy. On the way there, I explained, OK Jack, if you have any questions, just make sure you ask me quietly. He whispered, "Okay." He was pretty eager to do the right thing.

Walking into the lobby was funny. It was one of these big 14-cinema Loews things -- a huge sprawl of carpet, lengthy candy counter, ropes showing you where to walk to get tickets. Jack walked a little ahead of me, slowly. I'm guessing the size of the place awed him a little; it did me. Since there was no one in line, I taught Jack his first subversive action: going under the ropes up to the counter. Granted, he didn't even have to duck, but it still felt brave. Ha!

After we got tickets, I asked Jack if he wanted popcorn. Jack loves popcorn, but as we were waiting in line, he started to get nervous about something or other, and said he didn't. I ignored him and we got popcorn. His nervousness, though, was a sign of things to come.

We headed into the movie. As we walked up the little ramp, the huge screen slowly came into view. Jack walked slower. His eyes, I'm guessing, got wider. For the next several minutes, everything was a nod. The place was nearly empty, which was nice; we wouldn't have to sit near anyone. I considered going to the far side of the theater, where there were fewer people, but didn't know whether being a long way from the door would be a good idea.

We walked up a few rows to a nearly empty aisle. "Do you want to sit here?" I asked. Jack nodded solemnly and sat down on the step. "Er, no, Jack, come here." I got him up and into the seat. Put him in it (they had booster seats, but I hadn't grabbed one on the way in, so I thought we'd try the seat). I sat next to him and offered him the popcorn. He dug in, but his eyes were glued to the big screen.

The previews started: other kids' movies. Something called "WallE" about a robot by Pixar. Another Ice Age movie. More previews. Now, I'm an adult, and I've seen a lot of movies, and even I was having my world rocked a little bit here by the yelling, the close-ups of various animals, the loud music, and the rapid cuts from image to image. So you can imagine that a 3-year-old at his first-ever movie was having a hard time with it. "I want to go home now," said Jack. A couple minutes later: "I just want to go home." I patted his shoulder reassuringly, sure it would be OK once we got through this preview. Another preview started. "I want to go home," he said again, hiding his eyes and starting to get upset. I started to worry.

Another preview. "I'm sure THIS will be the last one," I said nervously. "Popcorn?" "I just want to go home," he said, but he reached for the popcorn.

You never realize how loud and annoying previews can be until you see them through the eyes, or at least empathically, with a 3-year-old. Of course, I'll now probably end up seeing all of these movies, with Jack, but anyway. Pretty jarring stuff.

Finally the movie started. Opening credits, music. That was all nice. The the elephant showed up. And his friends, who were all yelling. Then the elephant -- voiced, I must add, by Jim Carrey, for whom yelling is kind of a staple -- fell into some water, and got attacked by some leaf bugs, and .... well, it was pretty loud, jarring, and headache-inducing. "I just want to go home now," observed Jack.

I decided -- 10 minutes too late, but better late than never -- that we were sitting too close. I picked up Jack, our popcorn, and my jacket, and headed to the back. We sat in the next to last row, on the side. At the same time, the movie settled down. Things improved.

Jack asked lots of questions. "Who's he?" "Where's the elephant?" "Is that Balloo?" "Where did the elephant go?" "Why is he doing that?" "Why is he the mayor?" "What's that?" Every other question was in his quiet voice. The rest were at normal speaking voice. Which was fine, because the movie was really loud. Which I suspect was largely for that reason. I'm guessing kids movies are played louder than other movies. Just a guess, though.

When the vulture showed up -- because all kids' movies have to have a "villain" and conflict and stuff, just like every other movie I suppose -- Jack gaped for a few seconds, then turned away from the screen and sort of curled his head down into his arm and reiterated a desire to go home. This continued for several minutes, while I silently pleaded for the scary scene to end. Then I said, "Oh, no, he's a NICE vulture. Yes, you see, he wants to play with Horton." Cautiously, Jack watched. Although he still didn't like the vulture, and I admit, the thing was kind of scary at times. Er, for a 3-year-old, I mean.

When the vulture attacked Horton, I said to Jack, well, the vulture just doesn't understand...he doesn't know that there's a whole world of Who's on that clover. This will become important later.

The last half hour of the film, Jack was glued to the screen. His mouth was slightly open, his eyes were wide, he was like me during The Usual Suspects or something, the first time I saw it. Fascinated. Anxious to see what would happen. And at the end, when everything worked out all right and the vulture smiled and cried because he was touched and stuff, Jack turned to me and said "He LEARNED!"

The movie ended, and Jack got right up. I said, well, that's your first movie. Jack kind of nodded, and started down the steps. He seemed pleased with himself, or happy from the movie, one of the two. We walked out of the theater and Jack splashed through every puddle. Got in the car, drove home.

Emily asked him how he liked it. Jack proceeded to go on a 5-minute monologue, most of which I don't recall. "The vulture got him!" was one of them. And "He LEARNED." (Jack sort of has a love-hate relationship with scary figures in movies - Sher-Kahn in Jungle Book, for example.) I'm pretty sure he said something along the lines of wanting to see it again right now.

And that was Jack's first movie.

Dah Dah

Kate says DaDa. Kind of. The other day I smiled at her and she said "Dah. Dah." She seemed to be talking to me. She said it again the next day when I peered over the crib in the morning. "Dah. Dah." Now, I can't guarantee she doesn't say it at other times -- when she's thinking about eating, or getting tired, or waking up, or making a messy diaper. But I'm going to tell myself that she's saying "DaDa." And, I might be right.

Fortunately, despite my working most of the day until the wee hours of the morning during her first three months of existence, and then working in an office all day during two of the next three, she likes me, and knows who I am. That's kind of cool.

KATE'S TOYS

One of the great things about Kate right now is that virtually all of her toys -- possibly all of them -- have identical charm. No matter what it is, she basically wants to grab it with her hands and put it in her mouth. This can be bad (today I had to keep a metal, musical "kittie in the box" away from her), or it can be good. I was reading Jack a book on the couch, and I noticed that she was sitting on the floor with no toys within reach, gazing up at us. A stuffed penguin, that Nana and Baba gave Jack, was on the couch near me. Without missing a line in the book, I tossed the penguin near her. She looked at it for a few seconds. Reached for it, just like all her various plastic rings and teething toys. And put it in her mouth. Jack didn't notice.

Jack's Fish

Emily and I have really been missing having a pet, so we decided to get Jack a fish. Neither of us had ever had one before, but we figured it's sort of like a pet, without all the walks. Jack seemed into the idea, so much that when Emily mentioned it Saturday morning, he got sort of quiet and nodded, eyes wide, a happy smile on his face.

Little did we know that in order to get a fish, you need to prep the tank/aquarium for 24 hours before. Try explaining that to a 3-year-old, especially when you go out to get a fish and come back with an empty tank in a box. So, he helped me fill the new tank Saturday afternoon, and after each container full of water, said, "NOW do we get the fish?" No, I explained, the tank isn't ready yet. "Why?" Well, it needs to wait a day, or it would be bad for the fish. We got the tank at 2 o'clock, so we'll get the fish at 2 o'clock tomorrow. Jack probably still didn't understand, but at least he stopped asking.

When he woke up Sunday morning, the first thing he said was "Do we get a fish today?" Yes, Jack, we get the fish today. "When?" Well, we'll go out after lunch, probably. When he saw Emily, he said, "At 2 o'clock we get my fish?" Emily said, well, probably sooner than that. He mentioned it once or twice during breakfast, and then we headed out to get the fish.

At the store, we gazed at the same wall of fish we'd seen the previous day. The guy was a little more helpful, steering us away from the goldfish ("They get big and they're dirty") and toward the fish that stay small and don't eat as much. I pulled the receipt out of my pocket just now in order to write down the type: red Danio and a couple of Danio-white cloud. (For all I know, Danio means "small fish.")

I should mention at this point that Jack was a lot more interested in the guinea pig at one side of the store than the fish. At no point did we present guinea pig as an option, so no worries there (at least not this week), but Jack made a point to bend down and talk to the little feller through its cage: "Hi! Hi!" In kind of a quiet, breathy voice. It was cute.

Anyway, we loaded our three fish into the bag, dropped another 30 bucks on, I dunno, some sort of cleaning thing ("You gotta have this...") and some food, and left the store. As we got into the car, we asked Jack what he was going to call them. I don't know if he'd been thinking about it for a while or not, but he didn't hesitate.

"Doh-doh, Tiki, and Tiki Two." OK then.

According to the guy, we were supposed to float the bag for 20 minutes, and then gradually add water to the bag from the tank. We put the bag in. Told Jack we had to wait 20 minutes. There were a few "Why?s" We went into the office, while Jack crawled up on the bed and I sat at the computer.

Jack: "Has it been 20 minute?"
No, Jack, it's been about 2 minutes.
Time passes.
"NOW has it been 20 minutes?"
No, Jack, it's only been 3 minutes.
"These many minutes?" He holds up three fingers, awkwardly.
That's right.

Gradually it became time, and we transitioned the fish. Inwardly, I worried about smothering them somehow. But, they made it. And we fed them, and wondered if we'd fed them enough. Or too much. Watched them swim around. Jack: "Do we give them dinner?" No, only once a day. "I think there are FOUR of them!" he said. No, only three. "No, see?" Er, I think that's a reflection. Hey Jack, which one's which? He pointed: "That's Doh-doh, that's Tiki.....and that's Tiki Two."

It's nighttime now, and I peeked into Jack's room. I was at least partly checking on Jack, who was asleep.

I couldn't really see our new pets. Do fish sleep? Are they afraid of the dark? Were they hungry?

I'd like to think they're doing OK.

Watching Jack

Sometimes he frustrates me more than I can even believe. Of late, there are two areas this manifests. The first is going to bed. I put him to bed, or Emily puts him to bed, and we say good night. We leave the room when he's half asleep. I go into our bedroom, or downstairs.

And 5 minutes later, there's Jack. Sometimes he says he has to pee (but doesn't really). Or he's thirsty. Or cold. Or warm. Or lonely. Or one of his stuffed animals said "no" to him, or woke him up, or some other equally unlikely scenario. Sometimes he says nothing at all, and when I stand up with my angry or exasperated face on, he turns on his heel and heads back to bed. For the next 5 minutes, anyway.

The second is with going to the bathroom, or rather his reluctance to go. At certain set times -- when he gets up in the morning, before his bath, before we go out on an errand -- he's perfectly obliging. Other times (most notably times when he obviously needs to go) he'd sooner eat all his potatoes (a side dish he inexplicably refuses to eat, I can't figure it out) than admit he has to pee. Forcing him is useless; he wails, cries, screams, insists he doesn't have to, even if we put him on his little potty seat. So, we get him up, and then some 10-15 minutes later he runs to the bathroom, doesn't quite make it, and says, "Well...I went a little bit in my underwear. And on my leg." And then we clean him up and get him into clean clothes and we say, "See, that's why you need to go as soon as you feel you might have to." And he nods solemnly and agrees and then it's the same story two days later.

Both frustrations occurred yesterday, which by the end of the day -- and the fifth or sixth time putting him back in his bed -- had me in kind of a surly mood. So much so that the evening ended in tears after I put him back in bed for the umpteenth time and didn't stick around to tuck him in. Plus I scattered his stuffed animals when I wrenched the covers down. Oh yeah, plus he walked into the door as I opened it -- strangely, though, that bothered him a lot less than the stuffed animals, although it bothered me considerably more. He finally slept, and I paced around angry and frustrated and guilty for the next hour or so.

So this morning I was sort of anxious to see him, to make sure things were OK with us and stuff. I was downstairs making coffee when I heard his footsteps upstairs, so I headed up. I was just at the top of the stairs, expecting to see him heading into our room, as usual, when I paused. He instead was headed for the bathroom. I stopped and watched, out of sight, as he ran into the bathroom and fumbled to pull down his little pajama bottoms and Pull-Ups. He did a little careful, tip-toeing dance, got them down, and sat down on his little potty seat. A big sigh (for such a little person) of relief from him, then I could hear him peeing. It's possible he started singing softly, some little tune; he does that sometimes.

I waited until he was done before going in to wish him a good morning.

The Artist

Jack's been drawing a lot, and it's fun to see. He fills page after page with circles and broad, slashing lines, in different colors of crayons. The other day he drew a sun, an honest to goodness circle with squiggly lines coming off it. I was pretty impressed, and still am.

But if I get too close to Jack when he's drawing, his interest in drawing is generally replaced by his interest in ME drawing. For a while it was us: "Draw Mommy....Now draw Daddy....now Jack. Where's Kate? Now Grandpa..." Then it was Backyardigans characters, over and over again. Then it was airplanes. Lately, although he hasn't actually watched "The Jungle Book" in several weeks, it's been Jungle Book characters: "Draw Magheera." (I know it's Bagheera, he calls him Magheera. I try and correct him, and he says, "Well. I call him Magheera.") "Draw Mowgli. Is that Mowgli? Mowgli doesn't have that much hair. Draw Sher-Kahn..." Recently it's also expanded into characters who only exist in the Jungle Book of his mind. "Draw Sher-Kahn's Daddy. Now his Mommy." Pause. "Now, over there. Draw Sher-Kahn's grandpa...."

The pictures typically end up a wild mishmash, with no blank space left. "Draw my puppy......draw my other puppy.....draw my Teddy bears.....Draw their babies....."

When they're done, he wants to hang them on his wall over his bed. There was an anxious moment a couple of days ago when we ran out of tape. He says, "Can we get tape and go put it on my wall?" So we get the tape and head upstairs, and he jumps onto his bed and picks a spot -- among the ever-dwindling free space -- and we tape the picture up there. It's quite a collection right now. They make him happy; I think I might have caught him saying good night to them one night.

On a totally unrelated note, Jack came running into Kate's room tonight when I was putting her in her sleeper. He was wearing his pajama pants and nothing else. He made some comment about how we have muscles, and while he did so he kind of flexed his arms and legs. I looked at him, laughed, and repeated what he said, flexing back. "Muscles?" I said, still laughing.

"Yeah, muscles!" he said, laughing back, then giving an even more exaggerated flex, and raising both arms high over his head. "GRRRRR!"

Perhaps we've been playing with the superhero action figures a little too much lately.

6 Months Today!

Kate, who's 6 months old today, is a lot closer to her Mommy than her Daddy, for reasons too numerous to mention. Whereas Emily has been home for Kate's entire life (plus, she's her Mommy!), I spent her first few months swamped with football-season related work, and the past six weeks working in an office at my current temp assignment. Some progress in getting to know her was made during the six weeks between the two, but still -- she's Mommy's girl. The fact that about 95 percent of her sleeping still comes through nursing, and that she doesn't particularly care for pacifiers or bottles -- and totally rejects formula -- just increases Mommy's importance in Kate's world. And hey, it's only fair: Jack was certainly Daddy's boy for most of his first two years, when he saw a lot more of me than Mommy.

Anyway, the time I spent with Kate in January at least ensures that she no longer blinks in confusion when I pick her up after naps and such, or looks at me with fear (or at least concern) in the mornings. Indeed, she seems happy to see me most of the time, even eager to be held by Daddy every now and again, or turning to my voice; that kind of thing.

The best three elements of our relationship:

1. Diaper changing: I think I've mentioned this before, but whenever I'm having a hard time making Kate smile, changing her diaper seems to work. It's almost as if she gets a kick out of Daddy struggling to fasten the thing while she stiffens her legs, or puts her foot in her mouth, or maybe she just likes the air down there, who knows. Anyway, I tend to get lots of big smiles from this, even before I play This Little Piggy with her toes and peekabo and stuff. Although that helps too.

2. Morning: When she wakes up from naps, or in the middle of the night (not that I get many of those, naturally, since she wants nothing to do with me at those times), she's often hungry, or confused, and thus she cries and wails. A lot. But in the mornings, she's generally in a good mood. Much better than me, really. I open the door and look over the side of the crib, and her face lights up, she does a big grin, and sometimes she laughs or gurgles. Her little hands in fists, little feet stretching out her sleeper, she almost looks like she's running in place, pumping her arms and legs a little. As I said, I usually wake up in a cranky mood ("GGrrrr....woke up too much...Jack came in too often...stayed up too late....COFFEEEEEE!"), but after seeing her I don't stay that way for long.

3. Making her laugh: This happens at a variety of times, but usually when she's being held by Mommy. I look up and suddenly see her glancing my way with some minor interest, perhaps a little smile, as though waiting for me to do something. So, I play peekabo0. Or (usually) I just make faces. Big grins, stick out my tongue at her, whatever. And sometimes, this is hilarious to her. And so I make more faces, and then we're off and running.

Six months old today!

Jack Tales

Jack is into telling stories these days, and having us tell him stories. Tonight he told a bunch, we did too.

Mine are usually just from my past. "Once upon a time, Daddy had a job raking rocks outside a nice hotel...." "Daddy and Mommy had a dog named Max, and Max loved to run at the park, and we'd let him off his leash and he'd run down into the water, come out, shake all over, grin at us, and run back in..." Jack can't get enough of these stories: "FIVE more stories!" he says.

Jack's stories tend to be short and sweet. "Once upon a time, Jack drew a picture. And he showed it to Mommy, and Mommy said, Oh, Jack, that's a very nice picture. And I said Thank you. And then Jack drew a picture and showed it to Daddy. And Daddy said, Wow, Jack, that's a great picture. And I said, Oh! Thank you."

Tonight I told him, I dunno, five stories. The last one ended with "...and Jack went to bed. Good night, Jack."

Babe

Jack has gotten into the movie "Babe," about a lovable pig who herds sheep. It's one of those films we can enjoy together, even though I suspect he typically has no idea what's going on. He knows that the cats are bad, that's about it. And he recognizes the characters from the movie poster of it that has been on the wall of his room since he was born. Now he stands below the poster in the morning and says, "That's the sheep and that's the horse and that's BABE and that's...."

We drove up to Nana and Baba's for the weekend; my parents, who are just known as Nana and Baba to Jack, because they are also known that way to his Irish cousins. We were sitting at the table eating dinner when Jack noticed one of Nana's refrigerator magnets: "BABE!" he said. Or, "Hey, my movie pig!" or something similar. And we noticed it too, and said, oh yeah, it's a Babe refrigerator magnet....A Babe magnet. And the adults laughed at the joke.

Nana said, "You know Jack, when your Daddy was younger, he was one of those." I smirked. Emily snorted, politely I'm sure.

Jack, confused, said: "A pig?"

Criss Cross Applesauce ... Please.

Something I've learned from Jack recently is that sitting cross-legged, in what I imagine to be the current daycare vernacular, is called "criss cross applesauce." I have no idea how it came about, but Jack not only uses it but conjugates the thing: "Daddy, are you crissing crossing applesaucing?" I look down to see that I am in fact sitting cross-legged, which when I was a kid was called sitting Indian-style -- not anymore, obviously. Anyway, it's always disturbing to hear my three-year-old son using expressions that I'm unfamiliar with.

So today Jack got home and ran over to play with his new stuffed toy, Curious George, and his longtime favorite, a stuffed dog my parents gave us before he was even born, which has a fleecy white coat and he calls it his "sheep." He sat down on the rug and I sat down with him, and sometime during it he decided I could sit more comfortably than I was. "Daddy, will you criss cross applesauce. Please." And so I did.

What followed was a 10-minute conversation between Curious George (voiced by Jack) and his sheep (voiced by me). It went something like this.

Sheep: "Hi, Curious George."
Curious George: "Hi!"
S: "How was your day?"
CG: "Oh. Good."
S: "What did you do?"
CG: "Oh, I just played."
S: "That's a nice shirt you're wearing."
CG: "Oh. Thank you."
S: "It says Curious George on it."
CG: "What does yours say?"
S: "Mine says 'Boston Red Sox - World Champions - see, there's a picture of a 'B' on it."
CG: "Oh, that's nice. OK - let's go to a party."
S: "A party?"
CG: "Yes. Come on. Over there."
Jack walked Curious George across the rug to near his shelves of toys. "See, I have all these toys." I walked the sheep over to the shelves. "I see. Very nice toys, Jac--er, I mean, Curious George."
I know, not the most fascinating stuff. It was funny, though, because it reminded me of being a kid and playing with my brother, with our little "adventure people," who, I dunno, hiked, and rode in jeeps, and fought sharks and whatever else little action people did back in the day. Having conversations while voicing toys/stuffed animals -- I hadn't done it in a long, long time.

Just another thing Jack's teaching me, I guess.

"Are you the Daddy today?"

For most of Jack's life, Daddy has worked from home and Mommy has gone into the office. This has never struck Jack as odd; what is unusual for most families, in this case, is normal for Jack.

The past few weeks, things have changed. Emily's department was eliminated at her employer (while she was on maternity leave, nice), while I've been doing some contract work in an office setting. Jack didn't notice when he was still going to daycare, but it's closed this week so he's been home. And every morning I get showered and haul myself off to work, while Emily sticks around and handles the young'uns. And since in Jack's eyes the "standard" is Daddy being home and Mommy going into an office, it's messing his world up a little bit. The other day he said to Emily, "Are you the Daddy today?"

It's hard to be sure, but the change seems to be troubling Jack a little bit. Emily says he's missed me, which is clear in some ways (yesterday he babbled to me non-stop for about 15 minutes when I got home, all about the monsters in his car and how I was in the car and that we had all the paper in the car and the toys in the car and would I close the car doors please? And watch this Daddy - he jumped on one foot for a minute -- and on and on), and less obvious, but apparent, in others.

1. When I put him to bed the other night, he didn't want to fall asleep or let me leave. This is a routine occurrence on days when he napped, because he's generally wakeful, but unprecedented on days when he didn't nap, like that day.

2. Last night, he woke me up several times, moaning. This was a change from how he normally wakes me up, by coming into the room and (if I don't immediately wake up) shaking me. Tough to ignore when the moans steadily build in intensity and I'd like to either go back to sleep or keep him from waking Kate up, neither of which happened last night. I went in to figure out what was bugging him, but could never get a straight answer, either because he was half asleep or didn't really have a reason -- odds are he just wanted me to come in.

This morning, I asked him why he was moaning last night. "Well....." That was pretty much his initial answer. When I kept pressing, suggesting he had a bad dream, that sounded like a pretty good answer to him, whether it was true or not. "Yeah....I had a bad dream." "About?" "Um....polar bears." "Polar bears?" "Yeah. Polar bears. And my puppies woke me up."

3. He wanted me to get into bed with him this morning before we went downstairs. So, we did that.

4. Finally, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep and then near-groggy from getting back into bed with him for 10 minutes, we made it to the door of his room, about to go downstairs. At which point he did something he hadn't done for, oh, about a year or two.

He turned to me and lifted his arms up in the air. "Carry?"

Live, or Memorex?

At the dinner table the other night, Jack made Kate laugh. Really laugh, the bust-a-gut, peals of laughter exploding out 0f her little face kind of laugh. I don't remember what it was; I think he was probably just babbling away about something, remembering something funny in The Jungle Book, or maybe reacting to something Emily or I said. Anyway, he reacted, and Kate cracked up. And he noticed, and responded, and she laughed even more. And he kept taking it up a notch, and her laughter did the same.

I was sitting there watching this and wondering if I should run to get the video camera in the next room. If I had the camera, I could record it, show it to our family and friends, immortalize it to watch for years to come. Then again, if I ran to get it, the moment might end while I was locating it, opening the lens, turning it on, adjusting the light and distance, and starting the tape. I'd get the recorder running and I'd suddenly be immortalizing two kids staring at me wondering what the hell I was doing.

Before I'd definitely decided one way or the other, the moment ended the laughter had dissolved into Jack asking for dessert and Kate's eyes drifting toward some vague spot on the ceiling. Immortal only in my memory. I hope.

Jack and Kate

Our kids are named Jack and Kate, but it's not because we're huge fans of the show "Lost." (Although putting Jack, Kate, and Lost in the same sentence like that will probably have this blog turning up in more online searches. I'm Sawyer, er, sorry about that.) We decided on "Jack" before the show even aired. I think our decision on "Kate" came down to just wanting to have a strong female name that went well (but not too well, so no "Jane" or "Jill") with Jack. And there you go.

One of our major early worries was Jack's treatment of Kate. While we were doting over her, how would he react? Would he be terribly resentful? Jealous? Play too rough with her, intentionally or accidentally? The first few weeks, when all she did was sleep while we passed her around like a little burrito from relative to relative, he wanted to be in the mix, always wanting to hold her. We went along with that by making him wash his hands, positioning him on the couch with huge pillows (or one of us) on either side of him, then placing her gently into his arms like she was made of glass. Jack was funny (probably feeding off our exaggerated caution and nervousness) -- he went stiff as a board, with legs and arms outstretched as she lay, blinking, in his arms. After about 10 seconds, Jack said "I all done...." And we gratefully plucked her out of his arms and reassured him about how well he did. In retrospect, we went a bit overboard.

The thrill of holding Kate gradually wore off, at which point Jack's interaction with Kate primarily involved singing to her. When he was younger, his cousins sang "Bay-bee Jack, Bay-bee Jack, Bay-bee Jack, we love you." Jack remembered that well enough that when Kate was crying or upset, he'd sing "Bay-bee Kate....Bay-BEE Kate....Baby Kate....How much is today." Or something similar which was part lullaby and part gibberish. Other times he'd speak to her, try to engage her, say, "What's the MATTER, baby?" Sometimes it would soothe her, and sometimes she'd cry even harder. Jack generally responded to that by singing louder, shouting "BABY KATE! How much is to DAY!" Good times on a long car ride.

Now Kate's 5 months old, and over the past month their relationship has changed yet again. She's fascinated by him. Unless Kate's starving, it's useless for Emily to try and nurse her with Jack in the room. She cranes her neck around to see where he is and what he's doing, even if we're only doing a puzzle or pushing one of his cars around. Jack, for his part, now recognizes this, and has started playing to the audience. He comes up close to her and talks to her, chattering away in a goofy voice, and singing. And at last, Kate reacts, bubbling over with laughter and fixing her eyes on him as he dances back and forth. Jack gradually loses interest (as he does with everything, gradually; he's 3) and wanders off, and her eyes follow him across the room. I'm probably only imagining her being disappointed, and hoping he turns around and comes back.

The other day we went to the Stepping Stones Museum in Norwalk, where little kids can run and play with various science-themed gadgets and devices. For Jack, this meant picking plastic balls out of one pool of water and putting them into another one, where they'd be swept into a whirlpool and carried down into another one -- at which point Jack would grab them and the process would start all over again. I think he did this for approximately 2 hours, give or take. Kate, meanwhile, spent most of the morning in the Baby Bjorn on my chest, watching Jack, smiling, momentarily concentrating, reaching out toward him, reacting to him.

Really, not so much different than us.