Logan: Spokesman for the ADA

This morning I was trying to get Logan to brush his teeth after breakfast.

"No, first I want to play with my trains" (the trains in question are really one train -- Thomas -- and an assortment of other toys chosen by color to represent the other trains on the island of Sodor, but that's another story for another time).

"Logan," I said, raising my voice. "Logan, you HAVE to brush your teeth, or they'll fall out. You don't want that to happen, do you? If they fall out, you won't be able to eat any yummy food like french toast or bacon." I was confident this would get him. He loves french toast and bacon.

But, being Logan, he thought about it a moment and said. "I'll just keep my mouth closed."

"What?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'll keep my mouth closed and then my teeth can't fall out."

Well, problem solved, I guess! (But he still had to brush his teeth.)

Hiatus

So I haven't posted in quite a while -- certainly not from lack of things to write about but because I've been trying hard to direct all my writing energy towards fiction (which also explains why I am so lousy about replying to emails). Logan and Shay are respectively in preschool and daycare MWF, which means I drop them off, get home by 8:30 and spend the day writing writing and writing some more. Discipline rules those three days. Chaos rules the other four days, but I suppose that's par for the course (I have no idea exactly what that even means).

Anyway, it's been both bittersweet and wonderful watching Shay grow and change. She walks fast, runs faster, jabbers endlessly ("Hi!" being her only really distinguishable word, which was also Logan's first word), and has an extraordinary facility for pointing at things with her index finger. She points to the window ("Sky!" we say with enthusiasm. "Bird! Tree! Yes, those are leaves!"), to the buttons on the elevator, to her mouth when we ask "Eat? Eat?", and to pretty much anything else to which she wishes to draw our attention. It's actually quite an elegant little gesture, and it will serve her well for "shushing" purposes should she choose to become a librarian one day. Or a mother. Ahem.

As for Logan, he is crazy about her. He follows her around, copies her when she crawls, runs, jabbers, points, and drops her food on the floor. We are not thrilled with that last one. I actually had a tough time with Logan over the summer since for at least five months, he was downright mean with Shay -- hitting her, kicking her and knocking her over so frequently that my blood was in serious boil mode. It was kind of a weird response -- I was SO angry every time he bullied her, and my anger sprang from the undeniable fact that I will let no one hurt my baby, not even my other baby. I'm not entirely sure I handled that whole period very well considering I did a lot of snapping and time-out-ing at Logan. I read some parenting books and tried a few different techniques, but I wasn't consistent and my frustration always came to the surface. I was also so upset because it was hard to see Logan -- who has always been a good, non-confrontational type of kid -- all of a sudden turn around and start bulling.

The good thing is that as Shay got older and more interact-able, Logan outgrew the bullying phase and their relationship now is far more one of brother and sister rather than bully and victim. He still sometimes "accidentally" knocks her over (an event followed by a wholly insincere "Sorry, Shay!"), but she also knows that a loud screech will garner her some attention. So the pattern is -- Logan knocks Shay over, she screeches and looks imploringly at either me or Will, Logan apologizes and we go on our way. It's typical sibling behavior (unlike what occured this summer), and for the most part anticipated and even somewhat acceptable.

Beyond Shay, Logan is thriving in his own multiple ways. He loves to rhyme, even if the rhymes make no sense ("Hey Mommy! Ban shran. Post jost!") and especially when they do ("Hey Mommy! Pan can! Shoe true!"). My personal favorite is "Taught apricot!" I don't think even I could've come up with that one.

He also continues to love music and plays the guitar and piano with a preschooler's aplomb. Neil Young's "Sugar Mountain" is a new favorite, though we can't convince him that the words are "Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain with the barkers and the colored balloons." He continues to sing "Oh, to live on Sugar Mountain with the barkers and the colored bloogs!" Never let it be said he doesn't know how to make a song his own.

He loves to "do art," which at home consists of pasting stickers onto colored paper and then coloring the stickers black. He remains as athletic and active as ever, waking up at 5am on full throttle and staying there for the rest of the day. He's taking swimming lessons and can swim about 10 feet, jump into the pool and swim back to the edge, and he's learning to dive for rings on the bottom of the pool.

He's enjoying the game "Zingo" at preschool (a Bingo variation) and especially likes to "do the machine" that spits out the Zingo markers. His love of books is never-ending -- recent favorites include the Berenstain Bears and Clorinda the cow. He tells Shay what to do ("Shay, we don't throw our food on the floor. No, no, no!" "Shay, you can only have books with pages you can't tear.")

In addition to "Little Wild," Logan calls Shay "Little Baby" -- as in, "I want to see Little Baby." Or after they've had baths and I'm getting Shay dressed, he says, "She's Little Naked and I'm Big Clean." That one cracks me up. My favorite is "my baby." "My baby's name is Shay," he tells people, or "My baby is one year old."

Melts my heart. Every time. They both do. Every day.

the future medical capitalist

This past weekend we had a "playdate" for Logan at the home of one of his friends, and one of the favored sets of toys was a rather complete set of surgical and dignostic apparatus. Syringes (plastic with blunt needles, of course), Scalpels (dull), tongue depressors (not so depressing to look at, really) and even a sphygnomanomometer. The latter is known to most of us as a blood-pressure taker thingy. Logan decided he needed to take my blood pressure. He tried to wrap it around my upper arm but found it wouldn't fit, tried to wrap it around my wrist but couldn't get it to fasten, so at last I had to hold the ends together while he pushed on the bulb and made the little needle whir round and round. He did this for maybe five seconds. Then said nothing. "That's not being a very good doctor," I said. "You have to tell me what my blood pressure is." Still nothing. "What's my blood pressure?" I asked more directly. He considered his response carefully, staring into space for emphasis, then looked me straight in the eyes: "Fifty cents!"

your election wrap-up with correspondent Logan

Here we are at the scene of last night's amazing, astounding, never-to-be-believed election result. Change is coming. Change we can believe in. Change we need. We have a new president. You can believe that, can't you? By constitutional amendment, a president is limited to to two full terms, so we needed to choose a new one. You can believe that, too, yes? Well then, Obama has thus fulfilled his promises! In order to celebrate, I give you a selection of Logan's election thoughts from the past few days.

At dinner the night before the election:

Logan said "Is 'rack Obama nice?"
I said "I don't know, I never met him."
Logan said "Is John McCain nice?"
I said "I don't know, I never met him."
Logan said "Oh" and resumed eating.

The morning of the election, at the polling station:

Someone said (referring to Logan) "He's too young to vote!"
I said "We're taking him down to Chicago for that."
I heard a few laughs and felt a few cold, silent stares.
Logan said "What are we doing here?"
Nina said "We're hear to vote for president."
Logan said "Maybe it's 'rack Obama and John McCain! Where are 'rack Obama and John McCain?"

The night of the election, watching returns on TV:

Logan said "That's 'rack Obama, and that's John McCain."
I said "Yep."
Logan said "First John McCain is going to win, and then 'rack Obama is going to win."
I said "Somehow I don't think that's going to happen. Though this is 2008 and most anything is possible."

The morning after the election:

Logan said "We're going to visit the president."
I said "Do you know where the president lives?"
Logan said "No, but we're going to take an airplane."
I said "The president lives in Washington DC."
Logan said "That's far away."
I said "Never far enough."
Logan said "I like fire engines!"

The Pizza Set

Since we went into a toy store to find a birthday present for a friend of Logan's, he has been enamored with a particular pizza set. The other day we had some time to kill before picking Shay up, so we stopped at the same toy store, "just to look around."

Well, of course the minute we walked in Logan made a bee-line for the pizza set and picked it up. The conversation ensued:

LOGAN: I want this pizza set.

ME: We're not getting the pizza set.

LOGAN: But I want it.

ME: I'm sorry. I told you weren't not buying anything today.

LOGAN: But I want it.

ME: I know you want it, but we're not getting it.

LOGAN: (tucking the pizza set under his arm) Well, I'll just go ahead and get it, then.

ME: (slightly dumbfounded) Uh, I said we're not getting it.

LOGAN: (marching towards the cash register with the pizza set still under his arm) I'm just going to go ahead and get it anyway.

ME: How are you going to pay for it? You can't just walk out with it. You need money.

LOGAN: I'm just going to give them some pretend money.

ME: I don't think they'll take pretend money.

LOGAN: Maybe you can give me some of YOUR money.

ME: Sorry, I'm not giving you any of my money.

LOGAN: Well, I'll just go ahead and get it anyway.

After some gentle cajoling and talking, I managed to get Logan to put the pizza set back on the shelf, and we left the store without the remotest hint of a tantrum.

However, I have a feeling that there had better be a pizza set under the tree on Christmas morning, or Santa's going to have some serious explaining to do.

Letters BIG and letters small

Last night I was reading to Logan.... ah, no. We have to change that. From now on, it must be "...Logan and I were reading..." because that's what it has become. A cooperative effort. Last night Logan and I were reading Richard Scarry's ABC book and after we finished and before I could slam the book closed, he noticed that on the endpapers are the letters of the alphabet in their capital and lowercase versions. I was explaining to Logan that "A" and "a" were the same letter, just written differently for different reasons that I didn't even want to try to get into, but he kept asking why and so I started talking about sentences and proper nouns and then Logan, tired of my ineffectual attempts summarized for me: oh, the "A" is the mommy A and the "a" is the baby a. The "B" is the mommy B and the "b" is the baby b, and .... all the way to Z and z, and then I bid him good night with a kiss and wished him many, many ZZZZZZZZZZ and zzzzzzzzzzz on his way to dreamland.

Cookers: the growing menace

Recently a very good friend of ours visited from Miami and, since she had a craving for Indian food, we were happy to indulge her with a trip to our favorite local Indian buffet (which we rarely get to frequent these days). We had a pleasant meal, enjoying curry and conversation and even the overcooked, cold gulab jamun which Logan quickly identified as "bald ice cream." After we paid and while we were waiting for our friend to return from the restroom, Logan caught sight of the bowl of after-meal seeds that aficionados chew to cleanse their palates. He saw his mommy partake and so, of course, he had to as well. In the process he spilled a spoonful on the table. I walked over all cool and calm and said, "I wonder who made that mess?" Logan dropped his eyes for a moment, lost in thought; after a few moments, he met my gaze once more and said: "Maybe it was the cookers!*"

* cooker (noun): in Loganese, this refers to one who cooks (not to be confused with the standard english 'cooker' which refers to a piece of hardware used in the cooking process), i.e. a cook or chef.

"What am I doing??!"

That could well be my motto since becoming a father (and I'm guessing that Nina would confess to asking that question at least once since becoming a mother), but what I'm thinking of right now is something Logan used to say. He used to jump around and shake back and forth like a flounder flung up on dry land (except that, unlike the flounder, Logan would do so on his feet). To top it all off, he'd have this curious grin on his face and ask "What am I doing?!!" Nina and I could never figure out the origin of that charming dance, but we got LOTS of laughs out of it. Now, within the last couple of days, Shay has taken to doing something similar. Just last night, for example, while Nina and I were watching some fine NBC Olympics' coverage, Shay pulled up on the coffee table, directly between the television and N and I. She looked at us coyly and then commenced to bobbing up and down and swaying back and forth. Very Loganesque (though with not quite the same 2-year old boy's intensity). So now I'm wondering: is she aping something she's seen N or I do? (and did Logan do the same?) Or did she learn it from Logan (they do look at one another quite frequently at mealtimes, and Logan has been known to make some noise and motion while eating), leaving Logan's acquisition the only remaining mystery. Everyone loves a good mystery, I guess. And as long as I can ask "What am I doing??!" there's guaranteed to be some in all our lives.

Where the (little) wild things are

Anyone who has had the manifold blessing (and by manifold I mean what sometimes seems like equal parts blessing and curse) of raising two children will recoil in fear when I dare to write the two words that must be uttered in hushed, sibilant tones: sibling rivalry. Yes indeed, how the words do inspire dread in the hearts of the initiated. And so, too, for Nina and I (it just struck me that I had been calling her "my wife" in the earlier posts, as I imagined for some reason that this was all in some sense anonymous -- until I remarked upon the subtitle of our blog, just another example, as Nina would say, of me being me). As I was saying, so, too for Nina and I. We've been struggling mightily of late with this sibling rivalry thing, and at times it's threatened to beat us. But the beauty and wonder and outright pride we have in Shay and Logan always saves us. And just the other day, a ray of hope split the leaden skies of another difficult day. Logan was in his high chair and Shay, enraptured by his sing-songing laughing presence as she usually is (he's her big brother after all, and until he starts hitting her the spell is unbroken), enraptured she turns from what she's doing and starts crawling toward him. Logan's eyes turn and fix on her, eyes that sometimes fill with a stormy, thundering desire to push or hit or knock down. His eyes fix on her and fill with sunshine, filled like twin fountains by that unquenchable ray of hope; he looks at her and says, "Here comes the Little Wild!"

Nina and I look at each other, our own eyes feeling the warmth of the words. I'm not sure who said it first, but there was an "Awww!" and then a "how cute!" and then the clouds, the scaly armor of the leaden day, began to fall and disappear. There was hope in the Roy-Lewis household, and Logan himself was leading the charge.

You're Bothering Me!

This morning I was alternately reading to, and being read to by, my son. Cars and Trucks and Things that Go. After about 5 minutes, what my son wanted to go was me. "Daddy, you're bothering me!" he said and got out of my lap and sat down beside me. A few minutes later: "Daddy, move! You're bothering me!" Since when is sitting there, listening proudly, bothersome?! I'm sure something I was doing was bothering him, but for the life of me I haven't yet been able to figure out what. One thing's for sure, his reading doesn't bother me. Far from it. Sure he's just getting the hang of figuring out how letters go together to recapture the sounds of speech, but give him time. Of his desire and his skill, I'm prouder than I can say. His love for books is something that his mom began to nurture almost from the moment of conception, and we have a wonderful picture of him with a book in his lap when he's WAY too young to know what's going on. Or was he? I think my wife had it right when she got those books out early. You just never know when Goldbug might enchant the ear for a lifetime.

Not so fantastic....

....when you're called upon to collaborate in causing your child pain. Your almost-11-month old daughter can't understand why you're squeezing her, hugging her as tight as you can, all so that someone else can put a needle in her arm. Aren't hugs and squeezes meant to protect from pain? or, as a last resort, to force that unwelcome interloper away? "Because the doctor said so" and the trusty cliche "It's for your own good" -- I'm glad she can't understand such things yet, because even thinking of saying them clarifies for me just how hollow they must sound to a child who CAN understand. 'What could be better for me than NOT being hurt' is how I think I'd respond if told it was for my own good. 'And who is this Doctor you prate on about? She doesn't make my breakfast or my lunch or my supper. She doesn't change my diapers or read me stories. No, I think it's because YOU said so, because you're always going on and on about how great it is to do what you say.' And were she to say these things, my beautiful daughter, were she to listen to my empty rhetoric and say such things, she would be right. None of it could have happened without me. An accessory before, during and even after the fact. I am, in a single, heavy, suffocating word: guilty.

But maybe she does understand. If I've learned anything in my time as a father, it's that children often do understand more than we imagine. Not only that, they sometimes understand more, period. And if she does, this magical creature who lit upon our existence nearly a year ago and who has ever since made of our lives a fuller nest, if she closes her bright eyes to nap and in a moment of dream-towed insight understands why, I hope she forgives me.

Humor

The two words, when spoken in conjunction, guaranteed to make Logan dissolve into a fit of giggles:

"Fruit barber."

Snack

You'd think I would learn. I have spent a lot of time out with Logan. We've gone to many, many parks, playgrounds, play-groups, play-dates. We've gone multiple times to the zoo, the children's museum, the mall, this store, that store, restaurants, bookstores, train-table-places—in other words, we have lived among the world, people. We are out there.

And I'm a good mom. I am. I pay attention to my children. I (usually) listen when Logan is talking. I read books to him. Sometimes I yell, but at least I always feel badly about it. I praise him when he accomplishes something. I try and let him figure things out for himself. I make sure he gets exercise, nutritious foods, no TV, etc.

And yet there is one thing with which I am still not up to speed. Picture it: We are at the zoo. The day is bright, sunny, a few clouds drifting lazily overhead, a light breeze coming in off the lake. The animals are meandering about, Logan is energized and ready to run—all is as it should be.

And then it hits. Usually about 10:00-10:30am. They come from the hills, bearing Tupperware containers and juice boxes. They drag out insulated lunch boxes and individual packages of crackers. They have fruits and vegetables all cut up into perfect bite-sized portions. They have organic granola bars, string cheese, trail mix with raisins. They are the Snack Moms.

And...there's me. Holding Logan's sippy cup of plain water while he gazes longingly at the lucky, lucky children sitting on benches as their mothers lavish upon them animal crackers and veggie puffs.

My friend Suzanne is an amazing Snack Mom. When we are out, she always has something healthy and plentiful in her bag - dried cherries, almonds, clementines, crackers. When we go to her house, it's a veritable cornucopia of elegant snacks - croissants, cinnamon buns, chocolate cookies from the bakery. Logan adores her.

But me? I am...I confess...a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad Snack Mom.

It's not that I don't want to give him snacks. I don't mind snacks (as long as they're nutritious and not consumed too close to lunch or dinner). It's just that it's not one of the things at the forefront of my mind when we go out—it's way behind water, hats, sunscreen, wallet, keys. I just forget. He's always eaten more than enough at breakfast and lunch that I figure a snack isn't really necessary.

And yet—oh, the joy it brings him when he actually DOES get a snack. Usually from another mom. Because I forgot. So when we joined a new Moms group for a play-group at the park, about halfway through the morning out came the drinks and snacks. And my beloved only son looked up at me with his luminous dark eyes and said plaintively, "Mommy, I want a snack."

I gulped, remembering that I'd even managed to leave his water in the car. "Uh, I don't have a snack."

"But I want one."

I patted his head and whispered, "We'll go home and have lunch soon."

"But I'm hungry."

I could feel the stares. I was frantically trying to think of another way to placate him when another mom took pity on me and said sweetly, "Would Logan like a fruit bar?"

Would Logan like a fruit bar? Is winter in Wisconsin cold?

"Logan," I said before he could lunge for the fruit bar box like a tackling football player. "Would you like a fruit bar?"

"Yes," he said, and I swear I heard foreshadowing of a teenager's "what do you think" tone of voice.

The other mom handed over the fruit bar, to my profuse thanks and Logan's endless relief. I will go to sleep at nights thinking must bring snack, must bring snack, good lord, don't forget the kid's snack.

My new aspiration, in addition to best-selling author – Outstanding Snack Mom.

Generosity

ME: Logan, Saturday is Miranda's birthday party.

LOGAN: Yeah.

ME: We have a book for her, but should we stop and get something to add to her present?

LOGAN: Yeah.

ME: What would you like to get her?

LOGAN: Maybe a guitar!

ME: That might be a little big. Can you think of something else we can get for her?

LOGAN: Maybe some kind of garbage or something like that.

Hurricanes

En route to the mall the other day:

LOGAN: Daddy, see that big building? That's where you go to work.

WILL: Right, Logan. What do I do there?

LOGAN: You work on the hard problem.

WILL: The hard problem on what?

LOGAN: Hurricanes.

WILL: Do you know what a hurricane is?

LOGAN: A hurricane is made of candy.

Huh? Part 2

Logan after eating a free ice-cream from Ben and Jerry's:

"I forgot to nurse my baby this morning. My baby's name was Tree. Tree Book Center. Your baby is still here. But my baby blew away."

What exactly do they put in that ice-cream?

Morning

It was apparent to me a long time ago that my son is a morning person. He is cheerful in the morning. Like, CHEERful. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, he bounds out of bed with a smile on his lips and a song in his heart. Or the other way around. Whatever.

Now that Logan is actually sleeping through the night on a regular basis, Will gets up with him around six (actually, more like Logan runs in and wakes Will up) and they "hang out" before starting breakfast. I usually stagger out of the bedroom between six-thirty and seven, and Logan yells, "Hi, Mommy! Good morning, Mommy! You wanna come play wif me? You wanna do Play-Doh wif me? You wanna come get on the airplane wif me? I have two suitcases!"

My response falls between a bleary-eyed grunt and a muttered, "Why don't I smell coffee yet?" Needless to say—and call me Mommie Dearest, if you must—no, my beloved son, I really don't want to play. I could care less about Play-Doh. I don't want to get on an airplane. I want a shower and breakfast, and I want it now.

Given Logan's and my wildly divergent strains of thought where morning is concerned, I was rather dreading Will attending a conference these past few days because it meant I was on morning duty. My nights with Shay are still not great and involve a lot of waking up, so while I feel pretty good, I'm not exactly getting eight hours of soul-soothing sleep here. So I went to bed kind of dreading what was to come.

And sure enough, right at six, in comes Mr. Sunshine, tugging at the bedcovers and loudly announcing, "Mommy, it's time to get up! It's turning into daytime! You gotta wake up! It's turning into daytime!" My hasty, "Shh!!" went totally ignored, so I had to haul myself out of bed while trying to keep Shay asleep since trying to "get on an airplane" with the two of them at six AM is not my idea of a good time.

The good news is, and I'll say it again because it's been VERY big around here, Logan is actually sleeping through the night (not waking up ONCE), which is really a blessing all around. If you can get past the six AM Play-Doh and airplanes.

On Crying

Conversation on the way home from preschool:

LOGAN: Mommy, sometimes babies cry.

ME: Yes, they do.

LOGAN: Sometimes babies cry and sometimes children cry. And sometimes Rainbow Room children cry.

ME: Yes, they do. And you know what? Sometimes even mommies and daddies cry.

LOGAN: (in a "you're so joking" tone) No.

ME: Yes, they do.

LOGAN: No, Mommy. Mommies and daddies don't cry. They only talk.

ME: They do?

LOGAN: Yeah, mommies and daddies only talk. Only babies and people cry.

Huh?

Logan in the backseat of the car en route to the mall yesterday:

"Mommy, sometimes when I was an animal I ate a lot sometimes."

Logan's Take

Logan on the way home from preschool this afternoon:

"Mommy, sometimes I like blueberries. Sometimes I like blueberries on cottage cheese cuzzin I ate it. I ate it and then someone gave me a haircut. It got all over my hair. Silly Logan!"

Quiet

This is one of my favorite times of the day – post-lunch with a cup of hot tea in front of me, Shay asleep and Logan playing and reading quietly in the other room. Not that I don't count time spent with my awake-and-lively children as "favorite times," but frankly when you've spent 5+ hours herding around a 3-year old and a 6-month old, an hour after lunch spent in the company of a cup of tea is a welcome respite indeed.

In a switcheroo here at the RL Castle, Logan is now sleeping through the night (I whisper in case the Sleep Gods hear and yank away this blessed turn of events while cackling with evil glee), and Shay is – well, not sleeping through much of anything at all. But she's doing much better sleep-wise than Logan did at her age. Yesterday I actually put her down in her Pack n'Play wide awake (her, not me), and she fell asleep on her own. First. Time. Ever. Of course, we tried it again last night and today and she refused a repeat performance, but it was heartening nonetheless.

Meanwhile she sleeps for about ½ an hour in the morning around nine, then again around 12:30 or so, but I try to get her back to sleep in the afternoon so we can keep her up until 7. Then both she and Logan go to sleep between 7-7:30, and after the flurry of activity that consitutes our evenings (bath, cooking and eating dinner, dishes, milk, diapers, PJs, teeth-brushing, stories, these projection-lullaby things that Logan is now fixated on, several rounds of songs) once they're both sleeping, Will and I sit on the sofa looking shell-shocked and thinking, "Wow, is this what quiet sounds like?"

Logan is on spring break from preschool this week, so we've actually been venturing out after the snowiest Madison winter on record, and we even made it out to the park yesterday. But now it's snowing again (8-10 inches expected), so we joined our new friends Kim and her daughters Lily and Iris in the apartment community room for a playgroup they host. Only one other mom and her son showed up, but it was nice to have company nonetheless. Tomorrow we have a birthday party for one of Logan's preschool classmates, so hopefully the roads will be plowed. Come on, Spring!

Viewing of the Lambs

This morning Will had to go in to work, so March being lambing season and all (you'd think I was raised on a farm, wouldn't you?), I took Logan and Shay to A-Z Farm to see lots of lambs and pregnant sheep. They were all in a large pen in a barn along with a few baby goats, pigs, rabbits and chicks, and there were several farmhands holding the baby animals so the kids could pet them.

It was crowded. REALLY crowded. But because this is Wisconsin, people were all very polite about being shuffled and jostled about ("Oh, excuse me." "No, that's all right." "No, excuse me."). Logan was quite taken with the sheep, although he startled with the sheep baa-ed right in his face, and then he had his picture professionally taken holding a baby lamb—while wearing his boots and overalls, no less. SO cute. I will post it as soon as it's mailed to us.

We petted baby lambs, chicks, goats and a full-size rabbit, then went into another area of the barn where people were demonstrating how to spin wool on various looms. Logan had a heart painted on his face at the face-painting station, and then was entranced by the man using a spinning wheel—I herded him out of the room about three times, and each time he said, "I want to go back in." Since I am nothing if not accommodating, we maneuvered our way back in—did I mention three times?—and he stood there just staring at the spinning wheel. After finally announcing, "I'm done with this," we went back to look at the lambs again and he proceeded to pitch handfuls of hay from the floor into the lamb pen "because I wanna give them something to eat."

Just as we were leaving, a big "ahh" rose from the crowd, and we hurried back to try and see a lamb actually being born, but the big event was taking place too far away from where we were standing. So we didn't get to see that, but we had a very nice morning nonetheless. Oh, and Shay just hung out quietly in the sling and was the recipient of several exclamations of, "Oh, look at her! Look at those blue eyes!" Meanwhile I stood there all bursting with pride.

Man, do I love my children.

Shay

Stuff

It should come as no surprise that I am crazy about my children—head over heels, ga-ga, loop-de-loop. Every time I look at Logan, I get little fluttering thoughts about how intelligent, handsome, funny, kind and creative he is. Every time I look at Shay (and I could stare at her puffy little baby face for hours on end), I think about how pretty her eyes are, how good-natured she generally is, how I adore every last one of her myriad facial expressions from smiling and cooing to scowling and frowning. I can't even form a coherent thought about how much I love them—every time I try to grasp it, the thought flits away into this vast wellspring of awe and wonderment over how fortunate we are.

So. We are lucky and busy. Logan started swimming lessons yesterday, which he's taken to like a...uh, like a duck to water (lack of sleep does not good metaphors make). He's already ducking his head underwater, jumping in and doing a substantial amount of kicking. Will took him into the pool last week to get him used to it, and the kid didn't stop smiling the whole time they were in the water. After these lessons are over, I'm going to take him to our apartment pool to keep his practice up. He's always been athletic, and as it's turning out, being in the water is just another venue for him to express that ability.

Sleep continues to be an issue around here—since we made the daylight savings time switch last Sunday, Logan has been averaging three or four wake-ups per night (which means he gets up to find Will, who is sleeping in the living room through no fault of his own), and then Will has to take him back to bed and sing to him before Logan will fall asleep again. Now I remain somewhat blissfully unaware of Logan's nocturne wanderings (until the inevitable morning discussion) since Shay and I sleep in the bedroom with the door very firmly closed. While she wakes me up at least five or six times a night, at least I don't have to get out of bed to deal with it.

I don't know why Logan has always been such a poor sleeper. Of course, two years ago we were certain he'd be sleeping through the night by age three (or two), but it hasn't happened with any real consistency. A woman who was once in one of my aerobics classes told me her daughter didn't start sleeping through the night until FIRST GRADE. What the—?!

Our pediatrician told us that children often sleep better when sharing a room with a sibling, which Logan and Shay will eventually do. I'm a little concerned about doing it NOW though, since Logan is still rambunctious around his sister, and I could easily picture him trying to climb into the Pack n'Play with her or tossing toys inside to her. When she's out of a crib and into a bed of her own seems like the right time, but obviously that won't happen for awhile.

In the meantime, we continue to live in the grand State of Sleep Deprivation, but I, at least, am managing well. (I can't speak for my other half, but he hasn't yet started hallucinating. Not to my knowledge, anyway). When I start feeling a little rough around the edges, I try to remember everything I wrote in the first paragraph, and somehow it all seems much more bearable. And blessed.

More Music

We took Logan and Shay to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens on Sunday afternoon where they have free concerts in their common room. This week it was the Calico Drifters, a three-person folk band. We arrived early and secured seats in the front row as the band was warming up for the 2pm performance. The lead singer had a beautiful silver dobro, which of course immediately caught Logan's attention, and whenever the singer wandered back out from the backstage area, Logan screeched, "Here comes the dobroman!" – much to everyone's amusement. He enjoyed the band for about half an hour, intermittantly pointing out to everyone in the near vicinity what the musicians were doing next ("Now he's getting his guitar!") before we took a quick stroll through the garden's conservatory.

I find Logan's love of music to be quite fascinating, especially considering we never made a conscious effort to nurture it aside from playing CDs often and taking Logan to see a few live bands. It hasn't been like reading, which I've been determined that Logan WILL LOVE, come hell or high water. I've been reading to him since he was an infant and he continues to adore books—one of my greatest pleasures is seeing him take a book from his shelf and sit down to look at it by himself.

So the music thing is cool because it comes from him rather than us—he let us know after seeing that bluegrass band that he wanted to know more. His latest venture is playing "marching band" where he wears his drum around his neck and marches around the apartment playing it. A true joy at 6 in the morning, oh yes. But far be it from me to stifle my child's marching band inclinations.

Siblings

In many ways Shay is a replica of Logan-as-infant. Their sleeping patterns are similar (which is to say "bad"), but overall they are/were very agreeable infants. Logan was, however, quite a bit more active. He had a little workout that he did involving a lot of kicking and arm thrusting, as if he was so anxious to start moving that he had to find some outlet to get his endorphins going. He did his workout at least once, if not twice, a day and of course once he actually started to walk, there was no stopping him.

Shay is somewhat mellower – she's been active in the sense that she likes being in her play-gym and exersaucer, but when she started rolling over about a month ago, it seemed to freak her out. She's getting used to it now, but at first she'd roll onto her stomach and start wailing within about fifteen seconds because she couldn't figure out how to roll back again. But now she has learned to start scooting herself backwards using her arms as leverage, and makes her way with increasing regularity across the floor. Needless to say this has been causing her brother great delight."Mommy, she rolled over! You wanna come see?"

Logan is officially over his transition months in getting accustomed to having a little sister. For awhile there, he was getting pretty hyper in a bid for attention whenever Shay was around, but now he's calmed down significantly and loves being around her. He does the teeth-gritting, scrunched-face thing that many adults do when confronted with an adorable baby, and he grabs her feet and says in a sing-song voice, "Oh, little piggies," and "Hi, sweet!" – which then makes him laugh. He likes holding her hands, helping her play with toys by making them spin or play music, and talking to her. When I bring her out of the bedroom in the morning he says, "I want to say good-morning to Shay," and I have to bring her over to him so he can.

For her part, Shay is generally riveted by Logan. She watches him constantly, especially when he is running around (which is to say "all the time"), and she's learning how to stand up for herself with ear-piercing shrieks when he grabs her arm too hard or gets in her way. She turns her head to look at him when he's near, and is captivated when he sings or plays the guitar.

They are learning how to be brother and sister, but they are also learning how to be friends.

Musician

This morning Logan was playing his electronic keyboard and singing a song that he made up - something he's been doing with increasing frequency these days. One of his favorite compositions is "I am a Pizza, that's right." This morning, he came up with this little ditty:

"Ice cream and penis. It's cold! Ice cream and penis. It's hot!"

A musician in the making. No question.

Three

In some ways, I can't believe Logan is three. In other ways, I can believe it because yes, it does feel as if three years have passed. It's been three years of the most dramatic changes I've ever experienced - I lost my mother and I gained two children. Everything is forever different.

Three is a cool year. It's the first year Logan actually "got" his birthday - he understood what was going on, that he was having a party, that his friends would come for cake and bring presents, and that it was all about HIM. He was so excited the day of the party as he helped me set up the room and he did an admirable job of restraining himself where the cake was concerned. He's started telling people that he's "three" - and he seems to understand what that means. While I loved the twos, "three" seems to be a major turning point for a child. In the past year, Logan's vocabulary has exploded, his sense of humor has become sharper with every passing day, and his sensitivity to the world around him is frequently apparent.

He's also realized that Shay is here to stay, and while he still can't wait for her to be able to actually play, he's often quite protective of her. He's also still rambunctious as a circus clown, but also very sweet. He's taken to saying, "It's okay, Shay" whenever she cries, he brings her toys to play with and loudly annouces, "She spit up!" when circumstances warrant.

If year three is as good as years one and two were, we're in for a treat.

The Rainbow Room

We had our first parent-teacher conference with Logan's preschool teachers yesterday. While it's clear that he absolutely loves preschool (evidenced by the fact that he talks about the other kids and his teachers ALL the time and often purports to be them—as in, "Logan, get your shoes on." "No, my name is Casey!"), it was a sheer delight to receive rave reviews about his presence in the Rainbow Room.

While I'm sure a number of children receive rave reviews, there is a certain kind of pride that erupts when a teacher says, "Logan is so smart and creative," and "Logan is just a treat for a teacher." Although he started three months later than the other children, he fit right in. And while it took him awhile to step out of his comfort zone (read: guitar), he now assuredly plays well with others. He's doing more pretend play, which we also notice at home, and is especially fond of the instruments (no surprise there) and the train table. He doesn't wander over to the art area much on his own (which the teachers think is because it's a more solitary activity), but he loves going to art class and "exploring the world around him."

He's thriving in preschool. We couldn't have asked for more.

Click on the photo to see more preschool pictures!

Sleep

When we first brought Shay home from the hospital, we thought that she was a vastly different type of baby than Logan was. "Oh, she's a good sleeper," we'd say smugly to whomever happened to be listening—our friends, the mailman, the apartment manager, the lady in the check-out line at the grocery store. "Yes, yes," we'd repeat, in case they missed our smugness the first time, "She's a good sleeper. Yep, good. Not like her brother. Ha ha. He was a lousy sleeper. Still is, as a matter of fact. But not Shay. She's a good one. Ha ha."

Ha ha, indeed. Turns out she's not so different than her brother after all. Like him, she sleeps best when she is being held. Like him, it's been hard to actually put her down because she wakes up almost immediately. Like him, if we are able to put her in her crib without incident, she only sleeps for 30 minutes at a time before waking. Like him, she sleeps fitfully, flailing her arms around and waking up to nurse A LOT during the night. Like him, she's a light sleeper who wakes at the merest sudden noise – like a cough or the beep of the microwave.

Yeah. Not so different after all. We're handling it much better, though. We were mired in a quicksand puddle of exhaustion when Logan was born, which—combined with the fact that we had little clue what to do with a newborn—made everything more difficult. Now we think we know what we're doing, or at least we've added some steel to our armor. We're still tired, but we've been tired for so long that it's becoming second nature now.

Overall Shay is an easy baby—not much of a crier unless she's hungry or tired or in the car. At least Logan used to sleep in the car most of the time, but Shay just wails—although I have to say she's getting better about it now. Either it's age or because we bought one of those lights-and-noise mirrors to put in front of her seat as a distraction.

The funny thing about having two children (I mean, aside from the fact that we have two children) is how time becomes even more distorted. With Logan, we were so out of it that it seemed as if his first year went by verrrrry slowly. It took a long time for him to reach four months of age. But Shay's months are zipping by—she is already four months, twice her birth weight, and very close to turning over. She'll be a year old before we can blink. Let's hope she's sleeping through the night by then because chances are that Logan still won't be.

Music Man

Logan's love of music started on July 4^th, 2007 when we stopped at the farmer's market to pick up some basil and bread. A band called Red, White and Bluegrass was playing on a small stage, and he sat in his stroller and watched them for a good half-hour, utterly captivated. Will explained the names of the different instruments, and for at least a month afterwards, Logan would randomly say, "Remember the guitar? Remember the dobro? Remember the bluegrass? Remember the mandolin?" (Yes, I remember, if for no other reason than it was the first time I figured out what the heck a 'dobro' even is.)

Like Old Man River his love of music keeps rollin' along. His Christmas guitar from Aunt Connie and Uncle Bill has become the fifth member of our family. His Music book from Will is his new favorite, and one of his most engrossing pasttimes is looking at all the pictures and naming the instruments from harp to timpani to contrabassoon.

He's starting to learn the difference between string, woodwind and brass and he'll often point to a French horn or a harpsichord and ask, "Shall we talk about these instruments?" (I have no idea how he ended up all British with the "Shall we...?", but whatever. It's cute. The other day he asked, "Shall we make some chocolate chip cookies?" as if it were an everyday occurance around here).

He also recently has started asking to watch music videos on the computer in the most charming manner he can muster – "Mommy, shall we watch some bluegrass on the computer for a couple of few minutes?" – which is a veritable onslaught of child adorableness that is difficult to resist. So although he doesn't watch TV, we do on occasion let him watch YouTube videos of various musicians – and in the process discovered something called a contrabass saxophone, which, as Logan keeps reminding us, is quite large – "That contrabass saxophone is HUGE!"

So it continues. He plays drums with his spoon and bowl after he's done eating, and our friend Amanda gave him a Piano Horn that has alternately been his flute and his clarinet. What's so fascinating about watching Logan's interest in music develop is that it has been almost entirely instigated by him – all we did was take him to see a Bluegrass band, and he decided THAT was what he liked. He gets a lot of reinforcement from his preschool (they don't call it Preschool of the Arts for nothing), but he appears to be less interested in singing and dancing than he is in playing all the instruments they have available.

So we're listening. And learning – all of us, all the time.

Logan

Logan is a neat kid. Yes, I'm biased but I'd also really like him if he weren't my son. He's curious, funny, intelligent, sensitive and kind. He loves books and music and both putting things together and taking them apart. He's as strong as a little bull. He has a rock-solid memory that continues to baffles his parents on occasion.

Just last night as I was making dinner and he was meandering around peeling crayons and drawing on the refrigerator (hey, you pick and choose your battles, right?), he said, "Not today, dear. I've spent too much already." At first I had no idea what he was talking about before realizing that he was reciting from the book Corduroy. Totally random.

He's learning the difference between a "whiny voice" and a "big voice," although he's particular about when and where he chooses to employ both. He knows that a big voice gives him a better shot at an affirmative response, but he sometimes can't help trying to sell the whine before it's time. His giggle is awesome, and just try turning down a kid who looks at you with a hopeful expression and asks, "Mommy, shall we do some being silly?"

He's never been very prone to temper-tantrums, although he does sometimes lose his composure when he doesn't get what he wants. He's only had a public tantrum once at a check-out line at Target (or, as he calls it, "Guitarget") when he saw the rows of candy and started begging, "Please, can I have one treat?" (Curse you, Halloween). When denied, he started crying and pleading, but thankfully didn't have a nuclear meltdown. He gets kind of shell-shocked when he witnesses other kids getting upset—it bothers him and he doesn't seem to quite know what to do about it, so he freezes up a little. When he gets upset himself—even if he's mad at me—he always wants to be held while he cries. He's also learning to calm himself down by taking deep breaths and when the crying jag trails off, he usually announces, "I'm better now."

He's great with his little sister, whom he alternately calls "Shay May," "Baby Shay" and "my little sister Shay" – like yesterday when she was fussing in the car and he said, "Stop crying, my little sister Shay." He kisses her head before he goes to bed at night, tries to give her Legos, helps her "beat" a tambourine, tickles her and often wants to hold her. After settling with her on the sofa, he asks with great expectation, "Shall we take some pictures and some video?"

He's just an awesome kid, my little boy Logan.