Roan at 7

Dear Roan,

On the night of your seventh birthday I read you a book you bought at your school book fair earlier that day called Drones. You were very interested in the book and asked a lot of questions, but a few short chapters in you said, "this seems like a great book for boys who like fighting. Like Ninja Turtles and superheroes. Seems like there are a lot of boys who like that stuff."

This is not a new observation. On Halloween you observed that Power Ranger costumes were very popular.

"Seems like everyone wants to be a blue or green Power Ranger," you said, practically rolling your eyes. And, "that stuff is so popular," only you pronounce the word popular as poplier, a mispronunciation that I love.

On the night of the Drone book I asked, "do you like that stuff?"

"It's really poplier with boys, but not so interesting to me."

"Okay, so what do you like?"

After a long pause you said, "I don't know yet. I like to build. But I don't know what kind of boy I am."

Fair enough Roan. After all, you just turned seven. You've got time to figure it out.

Though in some ways you already think you've got it sorted. You told me you want to be an electrical engineer and your schedule will be to work 4 days a week and have 3 days off. You'll work Monday through Thursday, and have Friday, Saturday, and Sundays off.

Tonight you wanted to tell the bedtime story. It was a Super Dogs adventure, which is an idea for a multi media franchise that you made up - there will be a TV show, a movie, a book, and toys based on the characters. There are three main characters, all dogs, named Woofler, Balacko, and Bark.

The story was really long. Lani was on the edge of the bed, rapt with attention, but I'll be honest, I was having trouble staying focused. Bark got lost on a snowy mountain side, because his sled had some sort of derailment, and there was a lot of attention paid to all the logistics of who got where via which method of transportation, and which vehicles required maintenance, and which maps were inaccurate. I'll just come out and say it: your story was full of pointless subplots. Finally the Super Dogs came to the climax of this story, which was finding a treasure buried deep in the snow. What was the treasure? Super long lasting batteries that would power their ATVs for at least a year.

Roan, this is your idea of treasure at 7-years-old.

All Dressed Up

Roan and Ilan on the cruise ship, wearing bow ties created and gifted by Jenna

Finn in the park, wearing a tribal outfit from Laos gifted by Danilanh (pictured, wearing my PS 10 T-shirt)

Holding the baby

Lani loves to hold the baby. It's all he wants to do. He holds him and tells him, "Baby Finn you are!" And he looks at me and says, "I think he likes it!" When Finn is nursing Lani gives him hugs. When he is getting a diaper change Lani gives him hugs. He even tries to hug him while he's napping. If I tell Lani not to hug Finn he sulks and cries. He has so much love to give and nothing can stifle it, though occasionally I can redirect it.

Lani asked, "can I pinch his cheek?"

No Lani, pinch your own cheek.

Grandmas and Grandpas hold the baby

Jay holds the baby. Here he is holding Finn not even an hour after he was born. Finn is naked and wrapped in a towel without even his first diaper on. He hasn't had a proper wash. Turns out we wouldn't get around to bathing him until he was 2 or 3 days old.

Jay holds Finn on our porch, exposing him to the sun to fight off jaundice

Finn, like Ilan before him, likes to sleep in or near Jay's armpit

Roan likes to hold the baby, but not as incessantly as Ilan. He's already got the hang of this big brother thing.

And I hold the baby. But no ones takes any pictures of me doing it, so I have to take them myself.

Cry Babies

Ilan - February 2012

Finn - June 2015

17 Faces of Finn Ben

This was fun. I took these 17 photos over the course of just a minute or two, as Finn lay on our bed and woke up from a nap. He is 4 days old here. It's amazing how expressive a newborn baby can be.

Which one is your favorite?

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Moosie Moments

Here are a few things that Lani says that I don't want to forget -

He calls his pants "pantses."

He says, "let I try" instead of "let me try."

He loves to walk in the snow. Until the snow melted it took forever to walk anywhere with him, because he must always walk in the deepest snow available. And there were always mounds of snow piled up on the edge of the sidewalk, and he climbs them, and falls down, and climbs them again. He steps inside planters to walk in snow. It's cute, but very frustrating.

When Lani gets impatient he says, "it's taking for long!"

"Stuff" is "tuff". Like, "Hey, hey, I got some yellow tuff!"

When Roan and Lani fight Lani tells me, "he tarted it."

The other day, we were sipping smoothies through a straw, and we got to the bottom and the straw made that burbly sound Moosie said, "hey, that sounds like outer space!" Except he said "outer pace." Then he asked to watch a video about "outer pace" on the computer.

Both Lani and Roan have taken to calling me Robot Fat Baby, and they just began calling Jay Robot No Hair. We aren't sure whether or not to be offended by this.

Lani's First Bike Ride

Today it was finally warm enough to take a family bike ride. It was Ilan's first time riding his balance bike to Prospect Park! He's had a lot of practice riding it in circles around our kitchen this winter, but when asked which he liked better he said, "I like to ride my bike in the big outside the best."