Jessica writes:

Lewis, like most second children, gets the short-end of the milestone
celebration stick. I’ve written about this before, but it is mostly
because Art’s milestones were also our parental milestones. Baby
grabbing my keys? I already had that first in my life. But
nonetheless, Lewis impresses us and impresses his personality upon us
everyday.For instance, right now Lewis is playing in the basement by himself
with animals. They are doing all kinds of things that require him to
use a falsetto voice. Things like, “Walk!” and “Talk!….Hi!” Lewis
is also building with blocks these days, something that totally
engrossing him. He will work and work to build a tower and during
that time he is so focused it’s as if the world around him does not
exist. I took a nice little video of that which Ben will likely post
soon.Lewis is also showing signs of his music involvement. Now that I
teach Music Together (only once a week, but it’s a start) he goes to
class with me, sometimes twice in a week, and we sing and listen to
songs all week long. He can match pitches and sing back two note
patterns with ease. In fact, the other day the boys were watching
Dinosaur Train and the Hungry Hungry Herbivore song was playing. At
the end of each phrase Lewis sang the last note. “Wahoooooo!” and
he’d oooooooooh, “We love to chew!” and he’d sing choooo, “Cause
that’s our fooood”, fooooood. “If it’s green it’s,” gooooooood.Here he comes! I think he has a truck, from the sound of it. Let’s
see. Yep. A bulldozer and a tractor.He’s really into things with wheels and animals. We have a book
called My Friends in which each animal teaches the girl how to do
something. The gorilla teaches her to kick! And yesterday we were
playing with cookie cutters. He saw the gorilla and said, “Kick!”
Everything just goes in there and sticks. I love this age.

This is a fascinating project by some smart people at MIT. Punch in your name and see what the internet knows about you:

http://personas.media.mit.edu/personasWeb.html

This is an unfinished post from Jessica in November 2008 I just found lingering on the blog.
————–

The food journalist, Michael Pollan (of whom I am a great fan) says one can eat whatever junkfood one desires, as long as one makes it one’s self. Well, he says it in a more fluid way, but Art and I just had our homamade junk food tonight. We made our own ice cream! Turned the crank with our very own arms. It was an ice cream maker I borrowed from Uncle Josh and a recipe invented by me (loosely based on real ice cream recipes but mostly inspired by the ingredients on the back of Breyer’s containers). Art and I turned the crank for over twenty minutes before scooping it out. It was still kind of soft and after two bites Art looked at me with a scrunched up face and surprised sounding voice, “I don’t really like this ice cream. It’s too squishy!” Oh, Art. More for me.

The other night Art accidentally rammed into Lewis, knocking him over. This has happened before, and Art was immediately apologetic, but while Lewis screamed and cried Art got down to Lewis’s level and showed him what had happened (a tactic Ben has always used to distract the kids from their distress) and then, as I have also suggested before, Art offered Lewis a hug but THIS time Lewis said yes! So Art gave a crying Lewis a lovely, long hug. And since then they have been hugging up a storm. Here’s a pic of a mobile hug Lewis requested in the kitchen. It went all the way into the dining room.

This from ECFE class Saturday.

Adria helped drop off Art at school the other day. She loved the space and especially all the simple wooden toys and creative things. “Are you looking for anything in particular?” she asked Ms. Jen hopefully. Adria is one of the most prolific and productive thrifters in all of the Twin Cities. Simply mention you’re need a sweater or your child needs a long sleeve shirt and, voila, a week later you have lots. As I always like to remember, one time we drove past a Salvation Army store and she said, “Oh, that’s no a very good store. I only go there once a week.”

(photos from jess)

Art’s friend Si came over to play (and drink hot cocoa after ‘shoveling’) for a couple hours Friday.