Ice Ice, Baby!

The calendar may say it's Spring but the air temp and recent snow showers have Atticus focused on a more wintry landscape. Take this boy on a walk and as soon as you turn your back he'll have found a snow mound to stomp over to and on top of all the while saying "Aiyyssss. Aiyyyyssssss." No denying John's excited about Atticus' fascination with water in its frozen form. Already, he's displaying the required but odd fixation of a budding ice climber.

Atticus had his 15 month well-check with his new pediatrician this week and apparently freaked out at the site of his doctor's white coat. Her advice to Big Momma was to have us wear our white coats and use our stethoscopes on him to help de-sensitize him a bit. Already, we've failed him. Three shots later, Atticus spent the next 24 hours walking around like an arthritic old man. It was pitiful and funny all at the same time. He weighed in at 22 lbs 4 oz and measured 30 inches in length. At 16+ months, our boy has yet to triple his birth weight. Oh, well....

Firsts this week...

• first adventure ride in his "Co-Pilot" chariot tooling around the neighborhood...pulled by daddy and flanked by mama and then vice versa. the boy just sat back taking in the scenery.
• extended drum solo...at least 20 seconds by daddy's count
• signs for "all done" and "girl"
  
• sliding down the big kids' slide just like the big boys sitting up the whole way down
• climbing into his car seat without complaint
• attempting to climb stairs with alternating steps even though his body's too small...
• sayonara to the bottle (but not the booby)...he's already on his 2nd set of sippy cups as he cuts his canines. the boy's got 14 teeth!
• new foods include sardines, potato pancakes, cottage cheese, water chestnuts, red pepper, filet of sole not to mention all the sample cheeses Whole Foods had to offer (not to mention the salmon pate)
• stacking 6 plus Legos
• sharing boogers with Big Momma...nuff said.
  

Hippity Hoppity Easter and the March Hare

Woke up at six this morning, donned my ears and made my way down to the peds floor where kids from zero to seventy-two were receiving all kinds of goodies from the Easter Bunny. Last night, all the staff were given bunny ears (no tails but still the closest I'll ever get to the Playboy kind).

Scored a donated Easter basket for Atticus and then promptly forgot it. Walked through the door with rather large pink ears atop my head and the little boy did a double take before coming over to greet me. When I announced I was a bunny, he was a good sport about it and promptly responded by wrinkling his nose and performing his bunny sniff.

Big Momma and Daddy, John, Atticus and I high-tailed it over to one of our favorite local breakfast joints called Toast where they always serve a fine cup of coffee. The bunny ears brought us special treatment today.

Atticus continues to become more and more verbal and more and more assertive with his increasing verbalization. He wants what he wants when he wants it. Thankfully, he is still easy to distract and divert with a quick "I'm going to GET you!" This boy loves a good chase. This week, he's been particularly enjoying giving high five and then being too slow on the down low. Somehow missing your hand makes him chortle with glee. He's begun to say "yeah" ever so casually and may be seen simultaneously to be shaking his head "no" (a tortured youth is ahead of us, no doubt).

Firsts for the week include:

• lunch with the boys Vigo and Dagueneau (names surely complementary to Atticus) from Romp 'n Stomp
• sharing a Thomas the Tank Engine toy at the local Barnes & Noble
• riding a merry-go-round at the mall
• first exploration of his new chariot and subsequent purchase of a tandem bike (!!)
  

Perhaps the most memorable (?) first was the Danny Boy marathon at AJ's cafe in downtown Ferndale. AJ himself was featured on NPR promoting his attempt to land a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records with 50 hours of Danny Boy. We stopped by on Saturday when things were in full swing, the place was packed and the voices were mostly able to carry a tune. Big Momma and the boy made a return visit on St. Patty's Day and spent a couple long hours listening to at least a few atonal contributors (we have it on film) at least one of them toothless. When the toothless woman with a face that would stop a clock came over with a "Kiss me, I'm Irish" greeting for Atticus, he'd clearly had enough. But not before he and Big Momma were interviewed by a CBS reporter. Even Governor Granholm stopped by the festivities missing the A-team by mere minutes...

Kiss me I'm Irish!

Today, Atticus ran his first race. He actually slept through most of it. We donned our green this morning and headed to Corktown for the 26th Annual St. Patty's Day Race. With a noon start, we surely thought we'd make it without a hitch. Not so as Tigers stadium and the current ballpark in which the Tigers play (Comerica Park) are not one and the same. After running from Comerica Park to Old Tigers Stadium, we'd tacked on an extra mile to our race. Suffice it to say some were less pleased about this than others.

The race turned out to be quite a fun event after finding the actual starting line. This from John who last ran an organized race well over over 20 years ago. John paved the way for the jogger running as our blocker as people veered in front of us like they'd had their finish line beers prior to starting. The 4 mile race wound its way through the heart of downtown Detroit around Campus Martius and then back to Corktown where streams of parade onlookers cheered--heads adorned with shamrock deely-boppers and green beers in hand. Atticus was oblivious to just about all of it. It was all over in a matter of 33 minutes (not including the untimed frantic warm-up mile to the start). Slow by John's standards, respectable by mine.

After the race, we meandered back to the car and encountered some Wayne County mounties with their trusty steeds. Atticus who says "nay-nay-nay" any time you suggest the word "horsey" was entirely uninterested in the live animals before him. Perhaps now that he can climb atop his trusty steed at home (a rocking horse from Grandma and Grandpa Reyher) he doesn't need the real thing.

We entertained ourselves the rest of the afternoon by going to our home away from home, the Detroit Institute of Arts, where Atticus loves to run through the galleries yelling loudly trying to touch art while the guards aren't looking. After that, we met up with Big Momma for some Indian food on Nine Mile and then walked down to AJ's for the 50-hour Danny Boy marathon.

More on that later...

Hey, everybody!

At long last, we're going to try the blog thing for our little bitsy-witzer. Atticus and John are currently aloft alone which makes for Atticus' first flight without Mama and the benefits of breastfeeding. I dropped the boys off at the Phoenix airport this morning and, after a hike up Camelback Mtn, am sitting in the Central Library enjoying this gift of alone time. Thank you, John.

Atticus is growing up so fast and, try as we might to document his comings and goings with images, we keep forgetting to bring the blasted camera with us. Just yesterday we joined Ronnie, Haley and Cainan for a tour of the Botanical Gardens and nobody had a camera. The boys had a great time. Atticus particularly enjoyed the red dirt and had a few near misses with the local flora....yeowwch! Cainan, 6 months his senior, taught Atticus a thing or two about stirring up trouble--how to thwap the butterfly exhibit signs in such a way as to produce a most satisfying sound. And then, to top it all off, Haley's mom babysat the boys while the grown-ups (?) snuck away to celebrate Haley's birthday...a restaurant dinner without highchairs. Turns out half the night was spent talking about kids and parenting anyway. We thought we'd never...

Atticus will be sixteen months on the 21st of this month and he's into just about everything. He'll climb anything, throw almost anything and show you his belly button at the drop of a hat. My father has his working on "Go, go Sox." and he's getting closer with his "ggg--, ggghh..." followed by "sssssssahhhh." All on his own he's come up with "aiiyyyyssssss" which John is happy to prompt by asking questions like "Atticus, when water freezes it turns to _____." or "Atticus, what all worthwile climbers climb in the winter?" Any of us can prompt him though by humming the Vanilla Ice namesake single which I'll leave you to recall on your own.

My minutes are just about up here so I'll sign off for now and hope that this is the start of something that we'll be able to continue as a family.

Big hugs to everyone out there. Bye for now.