Fast times and wild living with (the former) Baby Whozit…
Posted in Family, Jessica, Little Boy on Sep 1st, 2010
Thank God it’s September. What a long, strange, miserable month August was. The very first week I attended a cousin’s wedding and watched my friend Gabriel’s family reunite. Then it all crashed around me. Sudden pet death. Anticipated pet death. Family illnesses not blogged about. Two deaths related to friends of the family. Except for [...]
Posted in Jessica, Little Boy on Aug 25th, 2010
In which our Anglophile trend continues and takes an unexpected turn.
Despite the prevalence of myriad American guitar and bass guitar magazines, Matt, perhaps not too surprisingly, found himself preferring two British titles. They cost a fortune at the newsstand and not much less when you subscribe. Can size A-4 paper really cost that much more? [...]
Posted in Jessica, KIP (Preschool), Little Boy on Aug 20th, 2010
Simon just finished his first week in the 3s class at Keneseth Israel. And whereas previous years were marked by tears, apprehension, and general difficulty acclimating to a new setting, this year has been the exact opposite.
The very first day, Simon looked a tad nervous. But we talked about it. And what with his being [...]
Posted in Jessica, Little Boy, Simon says... on Aug 18th, 2010
An early phase of language acquisition for English speaking children is the overregulation of irregular past tense verbs. In other words, kids learn that “ed” signifies the past tense in English, and before you know it they say things like “Mommy goed to the grocery.” Simon hit that phase a while ago, probably a year [...]
Posted in Jessica, KIP (Preschool), Little Boy on Aug 17th, 2010
Today was the first day of school at KIP, and Simon’s first day upstairs with the “big kids”. He awoke a bit nervous and looked shaky getting out of the car, but once he heard his friends at the top of the stairs, all was well. Then Ruby and Greta came and got him. And [...]
Posted in Jessica, Little Boy, Simon says... on Aug 16th, 2010
My mom’s cat Barret died from liver failure Saturday, and my own cat, Percival, is in renal failure and may not have much longer himself. It’s been a tough, tough week or so around here. And when I say “tough”, I mean I have cried buckets every day for a week now. (I’ve held off [...]
Posted in Jessica, KIP (Preschool), Little Boy on Aug 13th, 2010
Simon is upping it in a big, big way, egged on I think by being grouped with younger kids at camp. He hated that designation, resented it mightily in fact, and told us every day about a particular child he disliked because “she cried”. The “she” in question was the youngest of the group, and [...]
Posted in Jessica, Little Boy, Simon says... on Aug 10th, 2010
Simon has lots of plans for when he’s a grown-up, and they aren’t the dreams of blasting off into space, digging up dinosaur bones, or driving a racing car that I would have expected. Not yet, anyway. Nope, his dreams are a bit more prosaic at present.
“When I’m a grown-up,” he tells me, “I’m going [...]
Posted in Jessica, Little Boy on Aug 5th, 2010
I don’t know how he does it, but Simon is aces at being attracted to toys I can’t get. He had an entire week at camp themed “Disney” and never once asked for a Mickey or a Minnie. They had an Alvin and the Chipmunks week that also yielded no requests. Beach week resulted in [...]
Posted in Friends, Jessica, Little Boy on Aug 4th, 2010
EVERYONE has their own stories to qualify the brutality of this summer’s heat wave (hottest on record here in Kentucky). The New York Times ran a funny piece last month that measured the misery in terms of utility workers’ overtime pay, the physical toll on firefighters and police officers, and the stir-craziness of New Yorkers [...]