"Looks like we got ourselves a reader..."

We've created a monster. I no longer have to actually read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? as I can now recite it from memory. ("I see a red bird looking at me.")

Favorites include Good Night Gorilla, anything by Eric Carle or Sandra Boyton and counting books.

Happy Birthday Malcolm!

One year of life was celebrated in high fashion with family and a few select friends present. Malcolm received lots of toys and clothes (the latter following a primarily Steeler theme).




To commemorate his (premature) birth, we also bought him a March of Dimes band. If anyone wants to make a donation to the March of Dimes in his name, they can click on the link to the right that says "Malcolm's March of Dimes Band."

Posting Comments

There's been some question as to how to post comments or responses, so here are some instructions as to how to go about it.

You don't have to be a blogger to comment. Click right at the bottom of an entry where it says "0 comments" (or "1 comment" or 2 comments" or however many comments there already are). Click on the actual words "0 comments." This will take you to a comment page. Here you can read all the comments already left about that entry. On the right-hand side of that screen there's a little box titled "Leave a Comment." Type whatever you want to say in this box. For "Choose an Identity" click "Other." It will then present you with a spot to type your name. You can pick "Preview" to see how your comment will look. When you click "Publish your Comment" it will add your comment to the blog.

Please comment and let us know you've stopped by!

Updates

It's been a while since we've updated the blog. The first two months of school are always hectic.

There's a service you can sign up for to receive email notification whenever we update the blog. That way you can save yourself from checking in only to find out there's nothing new. The website is www.weblogs.com.

Do you know this bear?

Malcolm has two little Carebears. One is Funshine Bear, which he got from Dawne at his baby shower. We know that the yellow bear is Funshine Bear because it says so on his tag. He also has a big picture of a sun on his belly.

The other Carebear was given to Malcolm by Natalie one weekend when he was visiting. It's a green Carebear from her personal collection of stuffed animals and you'd think that she'd know his name after living with him for a while, but she wasn't sure. On his belly is a picture of a rainbow. According to his tag (if we use the same method we did for finding out the name of Funshine Bear), the name of the green Carebear is "Surface Washable Only" Bear. Or, at least that's what we're calling him here at our house, until we find out his real name.

The Tourist

We spent Thursday and Friday of last week in Washington, D.C. with Dawne & Steve, Natalie & Tucker. Dawne came up with the (brilliant) idea of staying near a Metro station so we didn't have to drive in D.C. and worry about parking. This plan worked out fabulously. There was a stop near everywhere we wanted to go and the kids loved riding the Metro.

There's so much to do in D.C. and both Scott and I hadn't been there for years, but we tried to cram in as much as possible. We walked the mall on Thurday evening after we arrived and visited the Washington Monument, the new WWII Memorial (which we had never seen before), the Vietnam Wall and the Lincoln Memorial. Friday was a non-stop day that started in Arlington to see the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, then to lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe followed by a stop at Ford's Theater next door. We wrapped the day up with a fairly lengthy visit of the National Air and Space Museum and a stop to see the White House (from beyond the fence, that is).

Malcolm was a real trooper. He was tolerant of being up past his bedtime on Thursday. He also showed a remarkable degree of good humor throughout the day on Saturday, taking his first nap in the stroller at Arlington and his second nap in the Ergo babycarrier (started in Ford's Theater, slept on the Metro and woke just as we entered Air and Space).

Trying To Beat The Heat

It's been hot this week. Very hot. When we haven't stayed inside to enjoy the air conditioning, we've gone swimming. Heidi invited us to swim in her mom's pool with Alex and Max several times this week (okay, we may have dropped hints a couple of those times), where Malcolm got to try out his new pool float. He also thinks that the poolside rocks look mighty delicious, but no one will let him have a taste.

On Saturday, Malcolm enjoyed swimming with Dawne, Tucker, Natalie and Grammie (I swear the Clarks shout-out was completely unintentional, but after proofreading this, I just had to link it!).

In other news, Malcolm had his first paid babysitters this week (on separate occasions): Charity and Shannon. He did very well with them and they with him. This is exciting for us, because it adds a new level of freedom to our social life. Well..."freedom" at $5 an hour.

Upgrade

Ever since Malcolm figured how to sit unsupported (and decided that playing with toys while sitting beat laying on his back under the Baby Einstein playmat of his younger days), we've been trying to figure out a safe way for him to sit and play, but not bash his brains out on our hardwood floors.

The first solution was a combination Boppy/quilt construction (the Boppy being a Top Ten baby item in this house). It worked reasonably well, but had several drawbacks. First, it was an ugly combination. Next, the Boppy has a place-it-is-supposed-to-be-at-all-times and that's the bedroom, not the great room floor. Few things are more irritating than needing the Boppy at 4 a.m. only to realize it isn't where it's supposed to be. And lastly, the Boppy/quilt combo wasn't really big enough to allow Malcolm to do anything other that just sit. And if he's going to learn to crawl, he needs to be able to flop over, roll around and play on his tummy.

So, the solution came as an (unreasonably) large foam mat, found and purchased on the glorious internet...where anything you can dream of, you can find.

Go Wild Things!

Last Thursday was Malcolm's first baseball game, the Washington Wild Things vs. Kalamazoo Kings (minor league). His first tailgating, too (if you don't include the drive-in movie we went to last month). Dawne, Tucker and Natalie bought him a Wildthings baseball hat to get him into the spirit and overall he was a good sport about being up past his bedtime (the game started at 7:00 p.m.)

When the time came for his bedtime snack, Malcolm and I were invited by the general manager to use his office, although we didn't know who he was at the time (Thank you, Ross Vecchio).

Oh... and the Wild Things won.

A Name at Last

We've been brainstorming for weeks trying to come up with an easily remembered url/title for our blog that hadn't already been taken. In front of me I have a list of at least fifteen titles, all of which were taken, but many of which were not, in my opinion, put to good use.

Visit, for example, thefamilyblog.blogspot.com. I though this was a cute, punny and easily remembered title. Someone who doesn't know how to spell "family" did, too. Oh, well.