automobile elephant

When Benjamin was born, Miss Angel gave him a wonderful mobile for his crib. It played Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach. Benjamin adored it.

Before he could walk, before he could even stand unsupported, he would pull himself upright in his crib and select his favorite composer: Mozart.

This afternoon, Benjamin started requesting his "automobile elephant." I had no idea what that meant. Eventually, we figured out that he meant "mobile" and not "automobile" and that he was missing the one seen here:

So I got it out of storage and set it up in his playroom for him. And he lay down beneath it and stared up at it.

And the way it's set up now, I could lie down with him and finally look up to see what he saw every night, three years ago.

Thanks, Miss Angel.

Welcome to the world, Jacob!

October 23, 2007

(Congrats to Susan and Philip. Susan is one of my childhood friends--one of the 3 musketeers, as my father called us. Jake joins Benjamin and Katarina to be the third musketeer of the next generation.)

15mo

Lucia and Grayson, age 2¼

Benjamin turned 15-months-old on Friday. A year and a quarter. This is a special age I've been looking forward to.

In the background of this photo you can see Lucia and Grayson, who have been Benjamin's playmates at Miss Angel's in recent months. I've cropped them in close-up to the right.

Like Benjamin, these kids were born the first week of July, but they were born in 2005, making them exactly a year older than him.

This means I've had a regular "peek ahead" in Benjamin's development, the sense that "This is what Benjamin will be up to a year from now."

Benjamin a year ago

The first time that happened, I was sitting on our back deck, looking at Miss Angel's trampoline, wherein Lucia and Grayson were walking around, comfortable on 2 feet, chasing rubber balls, and failing to say anything I recognized as words. They looked like babies to me, but they were so dramatically different from my baby boy. I asked Nathalie, "How old are those babies?" She told me they were 15 months old. Ah, so that's what Benjamin will be up to a year from now. That looks like fun. And here we are.

baby burton update

Here's Kate, entranced by the same mobile that was Benjamin's first love:

And here she is relaxing in her Boppy^®:
She had a rough go of things the first week of her life. It's wonderful to see her a couple months later looking so healthy and beautiful.

- papa

pumpkin patch

Before we knew that Benjamin would be Benjamin rather than Sophie, we called him "the Pumpkin."

So for his first Halloween, we dressed him as a pumpkin:
So pumpkins and babies go together in my brain. This photograph of Laurellyn, the daughter of a comrade of mine, taken about 3 years ago, is my new favorite pumpkin photo:

- papa

alliteration

Benjamin's new made-up word is "fwafwa," which means ice.

He had already been pointing to my ice-filled beverages and saying fwa (his pronunciation of the French word froid, meaning "cold"), but now he's decided that individual ice cubes are called fwafwa.

He's enjoying playing with repetition and alliteration in general.

The books say you shouldn't call your baby "baby" — you should always use his proper name. But while I mostly say "Benjamin," I also call him benben, bubba, bb, and baby. His mother doesn't like that I sometimes say baby. (He's a toddler now, after all.) I said, "'Baby' isn't just for babies. It's affectionate. If you call me 'baby' I promise I won't be insulted."

So I just went upstairs to gripe about something work-related, to pause a moment, and then return to work. As I left, Benjamin was repeating bye bye bye bye bye…

In response to my gripes, Nathalie said in a sympathetic voice, "I'm sorry, baby."

At which point Benjamin said BYE BYE BAY BEE! BYE BYE BAY BEE!

- papa, a.k.a. "baby"

Happy First Birthday Kat!

(Katarina taught Benjamin how to turn on this lamp. Pictures of Benjamin's visit with Kat coming soon.)

Happy Moisniversaire, Sophia & Elisabeth

(Two lucky girls born 07-07-07.)