Dear reader, I must confess to being a sucker for clothes. Not my own, not anymore, but Graham's. It's an illness, I admit. Imagine, for instance, that you live in a city with many, many swanky kiddie boutiques and you must walk BY them on the way to get a haircut and much of what they sell is ON SALE right now. So you just stop in to Petit Bateau and then 30 minutes later you have two shirts that cost maybe more than is totally reasonable. In my defense, I submit the resulting uber-cuteness.

Graham wrinkles his nose at you, poor babies without French sailor shirts.

Graham has discovered sunglasses.

There's a great picture of Graham with his honorary Auntie Gabrielle up on her blog. I love seeing them together: she's been a dear friend since high school.

I had totally forgotten how to play, but, boy howdy, is Graham interested in refreshing my memory. What I love about young kids is that they're just as happy with a storage container or a weird plastic thing as an actual toy. He is, however, totally enamored of the alligator pull toy, though his pulling technique is a little, well, non-linear.

Happy weekend, everyone. Hope you all get time to play.

Not long ago I was talking to Dorothy on the phone and she asked how I could possibly get Graham to let me take so many pictures of him. I joked that he was well-conditioned and egotistical, a good combination in a model. Now, however, I think I understand what she meant (since Adele is 6 months older than G): toddlers are more interested in the camera than in whatever prompted you to get the camera out. Look at Graham with his pull toy- Quick, get the camera. Wait, Graham, go back to your toy, not the camera. No, No, No. Sigh. The above is a good example of where we're at these days (though I think kind of a cool picture).

A Toddler's Philosophy: Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

We have entered the dark, cold night of repetitionland, gentle reader, and from what I hear, we won't see the other side until 3 (years old, not p.m.). The routine of books before bed has become a forced march of the same book as many times as he can get it. If I try to interest G in another one, he screeches. Same with any activity- you know he liked it when he requests (via la screech) to do it over. And over. Witness my brain atrophy as I read "The Seals on the Bus" for the 10th time in one day. All through the town.

Today's Portraits

I'm still in love with my new camera (A Nikon D40, if you're curious). I was messing around with some nice light in our house today and caught a couple of good shots of G.

The pout. Oh lordie, the pout. Even with the drool, it's gorgeous.


A good eyebrow shot, further proof that that gene will live on.

Sigh. Another snow day today, prompting my (never before felt) burning desire to return to California. I'm just about done with the winter, and it's JANUARY.

In other news, Jen's recovering from a 24 hour food poisoning/stomach flu episode. Yesterday, Graham and I stayed out of the house as much as we could, going to the children's museum for a couple of hours by ourselves. We had a good time, but Jen did not.

Here are some recent snaps of the Graham, capturing new stuff:

One of a series of expressions that look almost, well, human. Let's call this one amused/skeptical.

Excited playing, with headless Mom in the background


Documented proof that the kid has some hair. It's both coarse and straight, and somewhere between red and blonde.

The One

Now that Graham is busy figuring out what things are called, our mom names are becoming more of an issue. You see, most mom variants start with m (while dads can be papa or father). So, if I'm Mom and Jen is Momma, or whatever, the 1 year old will not quite get the difference. Weirdly, up until the past day or so, if I said, "where's mom?", Graham would be a little confused, even though he could point to light, Elliott, Molly, window, toy, etc. I started working with him on it, and he now identifies Jen as Mom. Me? Still nothing. Jen has decided that I am such a sacred being to Graham that it is anathema to point to me at all. Therefore, my new mom name is: The One. Though excellent balm for my ego, I can't imagine that title lasting long.

Dailies

Why buy toys when a box of tampons will do?



Jen challenged me to post this one. So, yes, I resort to accessories to make Graham laugh. (The hat is his, by the way.)


Pantoufles


Yogurt. Everywhere.

Children's Museum

We splurged on a membership for the new year, only partly because there's a really amazing bakery down the street from the museum. It's mostly a big kid place (the museum, not the bakery), but there's a whole section of the second floor dedicated to toddlers. Graham was in heaven. I was too, because I had brought my camera.

It's been a busy week, what with the raucous New Year's celebration (asleep by 9pm, up at 1130pm to crying kid, sleep again at 1230pm.) and Jen's return to work. No matter what anyone tells you, being a stay at home mom is serious, debilitating work. Especially now that the Sprout is walking (read: destroying), I do a lot of chasing.

Graham has been busy figuring out his holiday toys. He got the hammering toy on the third day. Now he's figured out how to stack his Little People parts. He showed off for the visitors we had over the weekend: Gabrielle was in town from Uganda on her way to Maine,  Auntie Filipa was up from Phillie (and brought the Little People, along with the dreaded battery-powered color stick),  and Amber and Marlon came over to share some pastries.

Lastly, G had his 12 month appointment today (actually 13 months; remember, he was sick the week of his birthday). He's still enormous, though slightly less so in comparison to other kids his age. So, he might not be 5 feet tall and 50 pounds by his second birthday after all (sadly. We were looking forward to hiring him out as a circus freak.).

     Hammer (toy) of the gods


   Little People!