Bruiser the StrongMan

Though still cuter than a bug’s ear, Olie is now working on his 2nd black eye of the month. He gave himself his first black eye by crashing against the corner of the coffee table about a week ago. The gash on his cheek quickly spread to become a fine yellow shiner under his left eye. The 2nd shiner is still in the works, but was a self-inflicted poke in the other eye this weekend. Not content with that, he also head-butted a display sign in the Human Development Exhibit (note the irony) at the Museum of Natural History this weekend and thus has a fine goose egg on his noggin as well. Further down his body, his shins are covered in fine bruises from running into who knows what objects. We’re starting to worry that we’ll be accused of child abuse given his terrible outward state. "No, Officer, he really does do all this to himself.” Neither free-flowing tears, nor repeat soft tissue injuries seem to phase him and certainly don’t deter him in the least from launching into his next death defying stunt the moment it occurs to him.

Olie also has a new trick, perhaps not unrelated to the above. When you ask him how strong he is, he’ll clench his fists in front of him and grunt. If you were to guess, I'm certain you would bet that his mother taught him this fine trick. Now, assuming we can keep him from beating himself to a pulp, we can begin looking forward to catching his circus act some day. Come one, come all to witness The Unbelievable, The Infamous, The Notorious Bruiser the StrongMan!

On other fronts, we had a lovely visit from Justine's dad & Lisa this weekend to help J celebrate another fine b-day...Happy Birthday to Justine today!

My Morning with Olie

The Calm After the Storm

My Dad used to call me "Baby Entropy" when I was a toddler. Well, I 'm here to tell you Dad that you don't know the half of it. Because no one could be busier than Olie, "Our Berserker." While preparing breakfast this morning, I had to pause several times to extract him from a chair on which he was standing, or off the dog on which he was sitting, or to put away all the shirts he had just pulled out of his wardrobe. After breakfast, I was watching him out of the corner of my eye as I tried to clean up. Suddenly I heard the rustling of loose papers. Loose papers in his bed room? I rush in to find him having pried open his file boxes, surrounded by his medical records. As I'm cleaning these up, I notice as he drops a toy in to the diaper pail. I open the bottom and discover several toys amongst the dirty diapers. As I'm excavating and washing the now six (!) toys from the pail, Olie charges into the bathroom and throws his cream into the toilet. I remove the cream from his hand and begin to wash it, when I notice he's in the bath, fully clothed, about the turn the water on! Finally, I wised up and gave him an old cell phone to play with while I got ready for dance class. I now live for meal times when he's strapped down. Dad is coming this weekend for a visit. I wonder what the Latin is for "Extreme Baby Entropy"!

Creative Expressions

Monkeys at the Mus of Nat Hist

Got Milkshake? (Olie now smiles for the camera)

Reading on Sunday morning

Many colorful toys make for happy boys

A cold walk on the Cape

Over the past few weeks, our little son has gone all mushy on us. He’s now so liberal with the hugs and kisses that, well actually we just eat it up. O is often seen kissing Bella or hugging his singing lion. He blows kisses to Chad and Anita whenever they leave. (I still get crying :( ). Two days ago I taught him “Eskimo kisses,” rubbing noses, which is now his favorite. My favorite is the back hug. When crouched down Oliver will often ambush me with a big hug from behind. I don’t know what inspired these bursts of affection, but I’m not complaining.

As many of you witnessed in the video I sent out last week, Olie can also yawn on command. Chad and I were sitting with him one Friday night kind of hoping he was getting ready for bed so we could watch a movie. Olie sighed, and Chad asked optimistically, “Was that a yawn”? At which point Oliver opened his mouth to mimic a yawn. Chad and I nearly fell over and wondered, where does he learn these things?! A true actor, Olie doesn’t just open his mouth, he pointedly relaxes his whole jaw, for a very authentic performance.

Besides acting and dancing, Olie has added visual art to his list of creative expressions. For Valentine’s Day I received my first Olie drawing. He now churns out several abstracts a week. And whenever he hears music, Olie now singings, “ahhhhhh,” and rocks to the rhythm. Walnut Hill here we come!

Olie abstract