Shannon Phillips

I’m still not completely recovered from the day’s earlier excitement, but I managed to pull it together long enough to make a birthday dinner for my baby. (We had garlic-rosemary roast chicken and potatoes, and strawberry-rhubarb pie.)

Yes, he’s a year old today! Go Davy! It’s your birthday!

We were invited to a pool party this weekend, and Robin, I must say, was stylin’.

He didn’t start out with all that gear on. Considering that he was only willing to stand on the first step leading down into the pool, we figured he could get away with a simple pair of floaties on his arms. However, as other people went in and out of the pool, Robin scavenged their cast-off gear and brought it to us, insisting that he “needed” it. Soon he was wearing the full ensemble that you see here—and he was perfectly happy with himself, too.

Davy helps load the dishwasher, while Robin sweeps the floor…

(Not really. But they like to try to help, and that’s worth encouraging, I think!)

Robin loves to paint. He would do it every day, but I don’t let him, because the clean-up time involved afterwards is serious. He doesn’t like crayons or colored pencils nearly so much—it’s paints and brushes that really do it for him.

Here’s my favorite of his recent compositions:

The key to getting eye-pleasing works out of him is to provide him with harmonious colors, and to take the page away before it gets completely filled up. It’s also fun to ask him what the paintings are. “A yellow robot!” “A monkey-whale!” “Ants!”

My mom sent me a bunch of photos from her visit, mostly of Davy, because as she notes: “Most of the ones I took of Robin are a bit blurry because he always seemed to be moving.” She did get a nice one of Robin though:

Star Trek onesie + epic combover = one absurd little doofus. But he’s got food in his paws so he’s happy.

Look at him smiling for his Nanita!

“I’m totally standing up! I’m totally standing up! Woooo!”

“What’s the weather like up there? Hey, got any food?”

And this one’s from a previous visit, when Davy was a bit younger. We’re at Chicken and Waffles, which is the place near Jack London Square where you go when you want to eat chicken and/or waffles. If it has another name I don’t know it.

Oh, okay, I ruined my own fun by Googling it. It’s actually the Home of Chicken and Waffles, technically, I guess. I guarantee you Davy ate some waffles, and some chicken, and was happy about it.

Quick update for the grandparents: Davy is a couple weeks past nine months. He had a check-up and is doing great. The doctor actually printed that on a sheet of paper, “doing great,” and gave it to us to take home. The same sheet of paper also has his height—29 inches, which is 60th percentile for his age—and weight: 18 lbs 13 oz, which is only 15th percentile, and hard to believe since he’s such a solid little ball of baby chub. He eats basically every waking moment, he’s like a hummingbird or something. The doctor’s print-out also says “General appearance: well nourished infant.” I think for a mom that’s like getting a gold star from your teacher.

Davy is fully mobile now: he still scootches rather than properly crawling, but he can scootch really fast. He’s also just starting to pull himself up on what Sam calls “his hind legs” (or, you know, as humans call them, “legs”). He’s enormously proud of himself when he succeeds, and will stand there clinging to the ottoman or the washing-machine rack or whatever, chortling at his own cleverness. His other tricks include playing peek-a-boo, waving, and occasionally busting out with a “dada” or “mama” that a fond ear can plausibly imagine to be directed at the appropriate target.

Less charmingly, he’s also developed the habit of emitting ear-splitting, high-register shrieks whenever he senses that he is not the center of attention, or if a real crisis develops, such as a situation where someone is eating something and not sharing it with him. This makes it nearly impossible for us to go restaurants. It’s sad because Robin has just hit a stage where he can be relied upon to remain in his seat for the duration of a restaurant meal.

Speaking of Robin, he’s now three and three quarters, which seems to be a delightful age. He’s fully engaged in imaginative play, and will regularly come up to me to announce that he’s now a kangaroo/pterodactyl/ballerina/Jackie Chan. Or one of a hundred other things. The correct response is “Hi, Robin [kangaroo/pterodactyl/ballerina/Jackie Chan], show me how you can [jump/fly/dance/do kung fu].” He had his first “observation day” at the preschool last week, after which he came home and announced “I’m a doggie. Doggies love school.” He’ll have another observation day at the school next month, but won’t start until the fall. The observation days are sort of the last chance between school and parents to call the whole thing off, but there’s no danger of that happening—Robin fits in great there. In fact after his first day there he was invited to a birthday party for one of the other children, which we went to last Saturday; he had a great time and it was really nice for us to get to chat with the other parents. So I’m still super happy about the school thing.

I hope all the moms I know are having a wonderful Mother’s Day morning. Mine’s been…exciting, so far. I woke up to Robin’s screams, and the sound of Sam’s running feet, as he shouted “Oh shit, oh shit.” Well, that got me out of bed pretty quickly, and the first thing I saw as I rounding the corner out of the bedroom was Robin’s face covered in blood.

Turns out the kid had hit his head on a corner of our TV cabinet, and produced one of those very shallow forehead cuts that isn’t at all serious, but bleeds profusely. Anyway, Sam wiped up Robin in the bathroom while I got down the first aid kit and found a Band-Aid, and that was about when Sam said, “Oh shit, I left the baby on the couch.”

So then I went running for the living room just in time to catch Davy from taking a swan dive headfirst onto the floor.

Anyway, after that, everything settled down a bit, there was less shouting and profanity, and Sam made me a cup of coffee. Here’s a picture of Robin (with his band-aid) so you can see his sleek new haircut:

Oh, and Sam gave me a pot of tulips (awww), and I was also excited to get roses delivered—but there was no card or slip inside to tell me who they were from! Could the person who sent the lovely pink roses please raise your hand?

I made pumpkin muffins for breakfast, and Robin was very gratifyingly thrilled. He ran around the kitchen shouting “Cookies! Cookies!”

“No,” I said, “muffins,” but it didn’t faze him.

He was even still happy once he had one on his plate, and I thought he was cute so I snapped a photo. Doesn’t he have a sort of Jedi-apprentice thing going on?

He’s getting a haircut today, though.

I hope everyone who celebrated Easter yesterday had an excellent holiday; that those who are observing Passover are in the midst of similar excellence; and that those who are merely in a mood to celebrate spring weather are managing to endure the grey and wet with patience.

We hosted Pappy and Nonna over the weekend, which was delightful as always, especially for the kids. We dyed eggs:

and Robin had a great time hunting them in the backyard:

while Davy cheered from the warmth of his Pappy’s lap:

Then we had Easter dinner! At the store I got the very last leg of local lamb, and we roasted it along with snap peas and carrots from our veggie box, and a strawberry pie for dessert. The strawberries were from our veggie box too, and even the herbs were snipped from our front yard (we planted two rosemary shrubs flanking the front steps a few weeks ago). I didn’t take a picture of the food, but I did snap a photo of the flower arrangement, of which I am unreasonably proud:

I dunno, it just came out in a particularly satisfactory fashion somehow. Lilacs, pink-shaded calla lillies, and pussy willows. Even though it’s drippy and chill outside, having pretty flowers makes me happy about Spring.

Sam took this picture with his cellphone, so it’s a bit grainy, but I had to share:

Also, by popular demand, here is a picture of the ratty sock puppet that Robin still loves. It looked much better back when it had its yarn hair.