Simian Farmer

His oeuvre is monochromatic

Dex, bending his hotdog in half at the dinner table:

"Hey look!  A rainbow!  Hmmm, but it's only just one colour."

Dex-isms

The firstborn's language skills are progressing at an amusing pace:

*****

[In a bathroom stall at a restaurant, glancing sideways at the grout lines on the tile floor]

"Look, Daddy, a letter X!"

[Sitting on the counter, helping me make spaghetti, snapping an uncooked noodle in half]

"Hey!  I made a letter T."

*****

[Training by adults and kids' literature]

"Dex, what does Mommy say?"
"I love you."

"Dex, what does Uncle Buster say?"
"Scram!"
[re: the dog]

[In the clinic waiting room, before Tavish's one-year check-up and shots]

"Dex, what does the doctor say?"
"No more monkeys jumpin' onna bed!"

Inflated hilarity

Hot on the heels of the previous picture post, here's a little video snippet of some of the birthday action from Saturday.

Tavish is pretty well composed, and Dex finds balloons an unending source of amusement -- it was just as funny watching him watch the video as it was to watch the video.  Which will make sense in a moment.

My wife, as usual, gets the last word.

Birthday party

It went off with a suitable amount of fanfare and a single flaming sparkler in the smiley face birthday cake.

I had originally suggested that our invitations request best wishes only, since Dex got such a windfall of presents for his first birthday.  Tavish wouldn't be any the wiser.  Amy quickly disabused me of that notion, citing one instance where she attended a baby's birthday for which the invitation had similarly suggested frugal attendance, and she was the ONLY ONE not to bring a present.  If it's a kid's party, there are going to be presents; the parents have no say.

So Tavish presided over the day in a state of chubby, blissful indolence, and seemed to take the maelstrom of people and things and food and noise pretty much in stride.

Here are a few pictures.

Monologue amuck

Do you have a favourite sound?

Dunno.  Never thought about it before.  I like some more than others, I suppose.  Why?

Then it stands to reason that one of those you like more than others could possibly be liked more than all the others?

Yeah, sure.  But I need to think about it.  Why, what's yours?

12 months

Tomorrow, Saturday, marks a full year since our second son's birth.  I remember thinking, before it all happened, how it could possibly come close to producing the same visceral emotions and sense of wonder I experienced at the birth of our first boy.  Then, I stood at the foot of the portable scale while a nurse swabbed the newborn boy clean, recorded his birth weight, and measured his length.  Tears ran unchecked down my face and a second nurse gave me a small smile and briefly clasped my shoulder.

I didn't have to worry, in the end.  The emotions with Tavish were different, more frenetic, but certainly no less memorable.  The calm, familiar, controlled, safe environment of the hospital was replaced with the charged and terrifying prospect of an unexpected home delivery just half an hour after being discharged from the hospital.  (You're in early labour.  Go home.  Have a hot shower.  Maybe come back tonight.)

Instead of being a spectator whose only job was to hold my wife's hand and look on in amazement, I had to DO SOMETHING when she was bent over our bed, unable to move after her water broke, her mind focused only on one thing, mine frantically trying to think of anything.  Maybe I should call 9-1-1?  Genius!

What stunned me after the fact was how quickly everything happened.  The paramedics arrived less than five minutes before Tavish was born, and they whisked the new son and mom out the door to the hospital not much more than five minutes after.  During that time, my strongest memories, now, are of sprinting up and down the stairs ferrying heated towels from the laundry room to the bedroom.  The last trip I made was punctuated by the squall of a new babe and I wondered what the sex was, sorry to have missed the moment; I ran into the bedroom to be confronted by a scalpel-wielding paramedic.  "Wanna cut the cord?" 

It was a boy.

I realised it the first time at the hospital, but it really struck home the second time: birthing is messy business.  We lost an expensive (new) mattress, sheet set, and numerous towels.  I spent the next hour alone in the preternatural quiet of the house, first making the requisite phone calls, and then cleaning up as much as I could.  I didn't stop shaking the entire time. I had to wonder if my mother-in-law understood much of what I was saying.  We were both a little frustrated -- me at home, five minutes away from the hospital, and her at home, five hours away.

I was still very jittery on the drive to the hospital to meet the new addition.  I had to remind myself to slow down.  Parking was an inconvenience.  The walk through the corridors to the maternity ward interminable.  Crossing the threshold of my wife's room and espying my new son a joy.

I should never have feared that the second birth would be any less memorable than the first.  I can hardly believe it's been a year already.