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.

Holidays

We had a lovely Christmas with Aunt Connie and Uncle Bill, who drove up from Chicago for the afternoon, and presented Logan with an actual guitar with which he is currently obsessed. So far the guitar has also been a substitute for a dobro, a mandolin and a bassoon - imagination reigns!

Insult

Logan loves playing with words. For about the last year or so, he's been getting a big kick out of replacing the first letter of various words with the letter G (why G has this honor, I have no idea). For example, he'll say, "How are you, Gommy?" and then start laughing hysterically. People's names are frequently converted – Uncle Guss, Aunt Geidi – or nouns that accompany his game of "Where Does the Diaper Go?" (no, he's not potty-trained yet. Not even close. He will be the only teenager in the world who still wears diapers).

"Where Does the Diaper Go?" is a game he invented that we play before he takes his bath. He takes off his diaper (which obviously goes in the trash) and asks me, "Does it go in the gash? Does it go in the gub? Does it go in the sink? Does it go in the laundry? Does it go in the gotty?" etc. etc, until he finally inquires, "Does it go in the trash?" – to which I respond with a resounding, "Yes!" whereupon he dumps the diaper and climbs into the tub.

He also has a knack for remembering things, most especially phrases out of his favorite books (of which there are many). Usually this is delightful, especially when he starts talking to himself saying things like, "Go, dog, go," or "Mr. Plimpton out of bed, cream in coffee, egg on bread." However the other day, he looked at me and rather gleefully said, "Hi, fatso!" – and I responded by dropping my jaw and getting red in the face and wondering just what it is he's learning at this new preschool, before I remembered his book My Sister Gracie, where a plump dog is teased by other dogs.

Clearly we have to start warning him about the nature of an insult.

Santa

Back

So the blogging took a small hiatus while I finished my book and sent it off to my agent—I love saying that—yes, to my agent for a second perusal. She’s promised to get back to me after the holidays (hopefully with only minor rewrites, if any at all) and then she plans to submit it to the Big Editors. I can’t believe this is the first time I don’t actually have to write query letters and submit the work myself. The wait promises to be just as nerve-wracking, however.

Shay is awesome—sparkly and giggly and occasionally crotchety, but then she does take after her old mom. When we first brought her home from the hospital, we thought she was ever so different from Logan because she seemed to actually sleep (and our memories of our early days with Logan are dimmed beneath a haze of exhaustion so profound we felt like we were mired in molasses). Turns out she’s not so different—she’ll sleep if we’re holding her, but she doesn’t like being put down and she nurses a lot and sleeps restlessly at night. A replica of her brother. Who still doesn’t sleep through the night. At almost three years of age.

But we’re handling it much better, if for no other reason than we’ve accrued some tactical coping mechanisms. And we foresee another few years of poor sleeping among our children (clearly the love of sleep is not a genetically inherited trait), so we’ll just have to muddle through.

Sleep issues aside, Logan also continues to surprise, delight, frustrate and occasionally mystify, but then he does take after his old dad. The guitar continues to be his instrument of choice, and for some reason he keeps saying, “My name is Casey and I have a purple guitar pick.” Casey being the name of one of his preschool teachers who plays a mean guitar and is, no doubt, in possession of a purple guitar pick.

Logan’s enjoyment of Legos has disappated a bit—he used to build (or rather demand that we build) little guitars and fiddles and stand-up basses out of Legos, but now he uses his xylophone as a guitar instead. His other favorite pasttime of late is requesting crayons (five is the maximum I will dispense at any one time), then peeling the paper off the cylinders, breaking the crayons into two or three pieces and then proclaiming them “M&Ms”. Does he ever actually COLOR with the crayons? Rarely. Do we know why not? We have no clue.

Logan’s never been much into coloring, although he does like pens and makes little “scrubbing” marks almost like letters. He knows how to spell his name, and can actually make a pretty decent L and O, but the G thus far continues to thwart him. He continues to be fascinated by numbers and especially the thrill of putting up his fingers to indicate one, two, three, etc. He also knows that his birthday is on January 25^th, that he’ll be three years old, and that cake is somehow involved—although he also expects candy canes.

Speaking of which, we had a very successful visit with Santa on Tuesday (picture to come). I’d thought Santa might freak Logan out, but he went with the flow really well. When Santa asked what he wanted for Christmas, Logan replied, “A present.” Nice of the kid to leave the field wide open for us like that.