Lisa n Tom (n James n Joseph)

Lisa writes: At James's school this morning, the entire teaching staff was outfitted like this: James was Mr. Incredible for the 2nd year running. (He chickened out of the inflatable dinosaur costume, which was probably just as well because Joseph bursts into tears whenever he sees it.) Joseph was a baby skunk. I was a last-minute-cat again. The single scariest thing in our house is this mini-pumpkin craft project Joseph brought home from Miss Sandy's house.  

Lisa writes: It was a sporty weekend for James. On Friday and Monday, he had his first ski lessons. They were at an indoor ski center on a carpeted ramp and a bizarre, carpeted inclined treadmill. Bizarre, carpeted, WET indoor treadmill. He loved it.  On Sunday, we went to an after-baptism open house for neighbor Miriam and James played football with the guys in the backyard for the first time. The most spectacular moment was when he took a pass to the face, but he shook it off.  Monday, he played lacrosse for the first time with William and his sister Madelyn next door. It's a tricky sport, and he mostly just waved the stick around.

Lisa writes: First ski on! Miss Kate was awesome.

Lisa writes: This happened last night: Neighbors two doors down had a tree land on their bedroom at about midnight. Luckily, they were still downstairs at the time.

Mrs. Miranda wrote:  We weren't able to play on the playground today due to new mulch being laid, however we took this opportunity to learn about what a "tool" is, which tools these men were using  (rakes, shovels and wheel barrows), and about the process they were using to remove the old mulch and lay new.   The class was fascinated! [That's James in the green jacket.]

Lisa writes: Thursday, we caught the last dregs of hurricane Michael. It was only rain and thunder. It has rained and rained and rained this whole summer. Friday, autumn finally arrived. Boom. Where did we put all the jackets? Joseph had a genetics appointment. They took a long health history, a cheek swab, and a hand x-ray (to look at bone growth). The reason we met with a geneticist was because our PCP wondered if Joseph's combination of physical problems could be related to some sort of a syndrome. The heart, the kidney, the tinyness. We'll hear what they think in a couple of weeks. But the doctor did definitely recommend speech therapy, so I made that phone call and here we are, off on another adventure. Saturday, the fence repair guys arrived while the boys and I were still in our jammies and very efficiently reset all the leaning poles in our backyard chain link fence, put the long pole across the top again (after I'd excavated it from under a few years' growth...

Lisa writes: Blue steel.

Lisa writes: Yesterday, James ate his first crab cake. And then five more crab cakes. (They were tiny, appetizers, but still. That's a lot of crab cakes.) He likes to watch fishing shows on Netflix like Monster Fish . In one of them, the narrator was describing how delicious some giant crab were and James has been asking to eat crab ever since. He brings it up at the table all of the time. "This chicken is delicious, but do you know what's even MORE delicious? Crab! Can we have crab?" Sadly for him, I don't like seafood. Lucky for him, the caterers did. This morning, Joseph said, "Lalabee, por favor ?" or something with three syllables that sounded a lot like por favor . Driving back from New Jersey yesterday, I bribed him with M&Ms over and over to try to get him to say por favor . He wouldn't do it. But today, when all hope had been abandoned, he popped right out with it.

Lisa writes: Joseph turns two years old in 23 days. He chatters constantly and is very expressive. Here is his current spoken vocabulary: Words clearly spoken:  Dada Baba No "nah" Lala (Elmo) Lalabee (Book or video of Elmo) Dog Stuck Duck Duck Turtle "terrrr-dō" Words we think he's trying to say:  Asia  James  Ceci and Tessa (daycare friends)  Shoe