The M&M Story

Two-year-olds don't necessarily know their letters, so eyecharts for little guys may consist of readily identified pictures like teddy bears, boats, and houses instead of E's, F's, and O's. M did fine on his routine vision screening last week, and as the pictures got smaller, he whispered. At the top, he said "House!" and by the bottom of the chart, his "house" was barely audible.

Yuletide Shenanigans Originally uploaded by Maynor . Maybe a little too much eggnog.

B Originally uploaded by Maynor . His big brother taught him that look.

B's first xmas Originally uploaded by Maynor .

Dear M & B, Sorry about last night. For some reason, those were the only song lyrics I could remember. The Apostle Paul says "Fathers, do not exasperate your children," and even the most liberal of theologians would include singing "You are the Sun" by Lionel Richie over and over as exasperating one's children. Thanks for calling me on it, M, Daddy ------- Daddy: You are the sun; you are the rain; you make my life this foolish game/ You need to know; I love you so; and I'd do it all again and again/ Uh-whoa-oh, uh-whoa-oh, uh-whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh...." M: Noooo. Sing another song, Daddy. Daddy: Like what? M: Ummm, let's see....ABCs! Daddy: You are the sun; you are the ... M: Noooo!!!

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Picture 056 Originally uploaded by emmegab . Merry Christmas to our buddy Gienapp, over with the 278th, and to his wife and five kiddos, and to all the men and women over there and left here at home. See Andy's blog here: www.blogmedic.com . When he's stateside, it's his journal as an Emergency Medical Technician. Right now, he's part of the Big Show. May God bless you and the 278th, Andy!

opening presents2 Originally uploaded by Maynor .

This morning I said the diaper contents ran the "whole gamut" and M thought that was an hilarious new turn of phrase, so he kept repeating the phrase over and over--unfortunately it sounds different from a two year old: "Oooh Dammut, Oooh Dammut."

DSC00028 Originally uploaded by Maynor . But I hadn't posted this picture here. This really is our tree--it's in the background in the Sunday Morning Series below. Five minutes later, we had the tree loaded on a wagon; five minutes after that, we took our Christmas card picture; five minutes after that, M whacked B over the head with a pine branch and everybody cried; five minutes after that, I broke the antenna off the Jetta while tying the tree on top. Not too long after that, the boys were sleeping in their car seats on the way back to the city. All in all, a normal, mostly happy day.

DSC00034 Originally uploaded by Maynor . Here's a series of photos taken this weekend--B is working on crawling, and M is working on being a Singing Cowboy.

DSC00035 Originally uploaded by Maynor .

DSC00036 Originally uploaded by Maynor .

DSC00037 Originally uploaded by Maynor .

DSC00038 Originally uploaded by Maynor .

DSC00039 Originally uploaded by Maynor .

DSC00006 Originally uploaded by Maynor .

DSC00007 Originally uploaded by Maynor .

DSC00030 Originally uploaded by Maynor . He's working on it.

Playa B Originally uploaded by Maynor . and the baby's not half bad, either. har har har.

I got stuck in a carwash the other day. I stopped to get gas at the Phillips 44 at Olive and Ballas (you know the one)--it's the only diesel-equipped filling station around that part of town, and it also has what I believe is the best carwash for your money in all of St Louis. It's an older car wash (about the oldest touch-free wash you can get), so they didn't spend their money upgrading it with all the latest carwash laser gizmos. What they did was lengthen the time of the wash. So you get a good six minutes or so--two full cycles, including undercarriage and wheel-cleaning, and they use really good soap. It has big metal garage doors that fold down behind and in front of you, and it's a bit noisy. But man, it's a good wash, and it makes my 1985 noisy diesel car feel right at home. Unless it shuts down halfway through the second cycle, leaving my car all shampooed up with nowhere to go. All the lights went off and it made that degenerating whir sound like wh

Meanwhile, B is getting really mad about the fact that he shakes and wiggles and gets up on his haunches and does forty different Pilates positions and moves about half an inch. This morning he was trying out the technique of lifting his entire body off the ground except for his hands and his tippy toes. Then grunting really loud. Not very successful in the propulsion category, I'm afraid, but it's quite a show.

1 car, 2 cars 1 deer, 2 deers 1 mouse, 2 mices I think "mices" is a huge step. Who's with me on that?

M is working on the I/me/I'm/my/mine puzzle. For a while, I was under the mistaken impression that he was just getting the "I'm" sounds backwards when he said things like "My excited!" or "My going downstairs." It's been a mystery for me why he still uses that construction. I decided that he must be working on other things right now and had put subject pronouns on the back burner. "My" gets his point across, after all. But now my theory is that he's using "My" for "I'm" because of the following exchange, which happens in one form or another about fifty times a day: M: My going downstairs. Parent: You're going downstairs? M: Yes. or M: My hungry. Parent: You're hungry? M: Yes. Our usual technique in vocabulary development is to repeat back to him what he says, but correctly articulated or pronounced. Usually, this is good. For instance, he'll say "Imeem, please,&quo

Before the boys came along, Susan and I were nightmares to accompany Christmas tree hunting. We're both first children, perfectionist freaks when it comes to these things. Peter and Melanie made the mistake of going with us one year and, having cut down and loaded up their tree, were sipping hot chocolate back in the barn for an hour and a half waiting for us to find our perfect tree. I've got an essay here somewhere on the computer. I'll link to it when I find it. But we're cured now. Mostly. Two under three will do that. M was a big part of the tree hunt last year, but two-year-olds don't remember things like that from year-to-year, so it was as if he'd never gone. He was wide-eyed the whole morning. B had never been before at all, and couldn't believe his luck--he smiled and chatted the whole time. ----- We bundled up to go cut down our Christmas tree and walked out the front door. M pointed at the 40 foot maple in the front yard. "Thi

B is up on his haunches rocking like a crazy man. He'll be moving soon! In a related development, he can now sit up by himself indefinitely. For a while he was just too active to sit up for long--he's reach for a toy and roll right over. He loves his Pig. He's a two-toother now. He loves smiling and swinging his head back and forth. Go figure. He's pretty much perfect.

M: I see a monkey over there! Daddy: Is he in your imagination? M: No, he's in my house!