I took Art, Lewis and Art’s friend Evva to a park yesterday after school.  Evva and Art have known each other since ECFE (baby class) when they were just over one year old.  They are friends.

It was nice because Lewis and I could hang out while Evva and Art busied themselves.  At one point they just dashed out to the huge field adjoining the park and chased some Canadian Geese around.  I was nervous that the geese might get aggressive and then I realized that they would hiss and beat their wings before they would bite (the geese, that is) which would undoubtedly scare at least Art away.  Probably Evva, too.

We had snacktime at a picnic table.  I brought raisins, crackers, apples, clementines, granola bars and water. Before I got the camera out for this picture Art was hugging Lewis and giving him a kiss.

This is another hug.  Ben said over and over as he got this picture ready for the blog, “This picture is so weird!  What are they doing?”  It’s hard to navigate a hug when you’re barely four years old.

Did I mention that Lewis says Gackoo (Parker/Garvin for pacifier), cheese, boo-boo and today he added a very important one. Hot Cocoa! However he skimps on the consonants. He says, “Ha co-oh”.

The other day I took dictation from Art.  For the life of me I can not remember the context.  I know he was composing either a letter or a message or an email or… I can't remember exactly, but I wrote it down for him word for word and here it is:

Yesterday Jessica took the kids on a nature walk while I stayed in bed (was sorta sick). This photo below is how Arthur arrived, asleep with his animals in the bike trailer. I transferred him to his bed and he woke up and was excited to tell me about all the things they found on the nature walk. Paraphrased: “Papa, we, we, we saw a centipede! It had a LOTTA legs. And we lifted a log up and a lotta beetles came out of holes.”

And this is how Lewis arrived after Jess and I returned from a run this morning:

Yesterday I took Art into work with me. He loves going there. I’m not entirely sure why, but as soon as I told him he was clearly extremely happy. We saw some of my work friends, went to the coffee shop for a cookie, and listened to really loud ‘booming music’ in the car (also known as Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky, Art’s very favorite music). While in the office he peed in the potty. After he finished he studied the bubbles. “Look, Papa,” he said. “That looks like a giraffe!” I know this might be too much information, but his pee bubbles did look like a giraffe. And then as they dwindled he said, “now it looks like a snake.” I just loved that.

On Sunday I had my first signing. Not nearly as impressive as it sounds, but still pretty fun. Especially since my brother Josh showed up, whom I love. Did you know that josh!? Norton, my publisher, also showed up. As did three friends from the paper which was a fun. I sold eight books! The staff of Borders treated us like important people and made us some free fancy mocha’s. It was really fun. I have one more scheduled for this Friday, Nov 20th at the Borders in Roseville from 7-9, please stop by and say hello!

Josh reading a book. Look at him go.

I just get a little tickled when I set the table for Art, Lewis and myself. Three levels of fork.

Lewis had his 18 month check up last week. He handled himself very well – sat on the scale, got measured, ears and eyes checked and belly squished. All is normal and well!

He was measured for height on the paper first, which gave him an extra 1 1/2″!!!  So at first we got this for his percentile:

Taller than 100% of other kids his age!?!?! They remeasured him standing up and he was just over 34″, 98th percentile. Ben said, “Where’s that extra 2%? I wanna take ’em out! Then my kid can be 100th again!!!” Lewis didn’t mind either way. He had a fine time at the doctor’s office.

It should also be known that he is quickly adding words to his vocabulary. He says banana (nanna), apple, bubbles, stool, Mama, Papa, owl, baby, tree, ball and maybe another. Oh! He says, “Uh-oh!” and “No”, too. In fact, he was pointing to something and saying it was an owl and I said, “Is that the owl?” and at first he said, “Uh-huh,” and then he paused and corrected himself and me with a clear, “Nooooo.” He’s finding that saying words is a lot faster than eh-eh-eh.