Boo!

In keeping with 21st century traditions, M and I will scare the neighbors into giving us candy on Halloween. M will wear the disguise shown here. I'll be dressed up as guy with spit-up stain on shirt.

Together, we will undoubtedly cause widespread panic in the streets. Women will faint, men will shiver, and children will run away.
But that's a small price to pay for a Fun Size Snickers bar!

Happy Halloween!

Occasional barks and toothless bites

The, up until recently, dreaded unhappy hour at 7 is starting to fade into memory. Of course, there are still the occasional tears as bedtime approaches. After all, who doesn't get a little crabby when tired?! But we're nowhere near the predictable meltdowns of September.













To keep things interesting, M has instead started a habit of chewing on everything he can get his hands on. Actually, his motor control isn't all that great so he can't get his hands on much.













His own hands are most readily available. It seems the later it gets in the day, the more appealing it is to chew on stuff - and more frustrating if you can't.












Without any teeth he can't do much actual chewing on his hands though...

All drained!

Five weeks ago, M was diagnosed with fluids behind his left eardrum. Left untreated this can a) drain out on its own, or b) get infected. Market research has previously shown that 0% of the population enjoys ear infections.

The Ear/ Nose/ Throat doctor didn't seem alarmed about it but told us to come back for a re-check before taking any drastic measures, such as tubes.

Friday we went back to the doctor and - voila! - fluids are all gone!

3

In the first official triumvirate, Ceasar allied with Pompey The Great and Marcus Lucinius. After that there has been numerous famous threes... Athos had Porthos and Aramis (as in one for all and all for one), 007 has M and Q, Larry has Moe and Curly, Buddy forever has Ritchie and JP, well the list goes on.

M gets to make do with clowns to his left and jokers to his right...

Seven

Did you know...

• Supposedly, if you ask a person to name a number between one and ten, the most often mentioned answer is seven.
• There are seven heavenly bodes visible to the naked eye: the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn.
• Some astronomers believe Jesus was born in year seven BC - a very bright star passed over the Mediterranean Sea in May that year.
• In the world of mathematics, seven is a prime number (the fourth). But it is also considered a Lucky number (the second; 3 is the first) . It is also a the first happy number (not counting 1 which is, per definition, happy). And you thought scientists were boring! Who knew they spend their days trying to figure out which numbers are happier than others!?
• A ladybug has seven spots.
• After the 1973 oil crisis, leaders of the worlds largest economies met in France in the first annual meeting of the G-seven countries. It has since been expanded to the G-eight when Russia was added to the group (even though Russia is only the world's 10th largest economy and thus is cutting in line before China and Spain). The international direct calling code for Russia is seven (the US is 1 and Sweden is 46).
• The number seven is considered lucky, especially in Japan and the western world - and casinos everywhere. On the topic of casinos: if you roll two dice, the most likely number to occur is seven (it happens 16.66% of the time).
• There are seven colors in the rainbow.

And today is M's seven month birthday! Happy Happy!

Rolling

M has discovered that just because someone puts you on your back doesn't mean you have to stay that way... In a first step towards independence he's rolling over. Actually, he's rolling over halfway. When he gets to the position illustrated below his arm blocks further progress. He doesn't quite have the velocity to overcome it. Yet. Once he does, watch out!

Fall is here! II

Sunday, we introduced M to the concept of the pumpkin patch (or in its more modern form, the pumpkin farm).













The weather wasn't nearly as nice as last weekend so he was bundled up like a miniature Michelin man.













He seemed moderately enthused. But, of course, he has yet to see the final, carved, product! Or had any pumpkin pie!

Fall is here!

Sunday was a magnificent fall day in Minnesota!
Well... that is, of course, unless you were in the Twin Cities Marathon.

84 degrees (29C), sunny and a moderate breeze is terrific for, say, taking your kid to an apple orchard for the evenings adventures in pie baking. It is rather miserable if you're pounding the pavement hour after hour...

In a preemptive strike against those apple pies we took M for his first walk in the woods.













Millions of leaves are rapidly turning color and for a fleeting moment we have the fiery beauty of the vegetation, warm weather, no humidity, and no mosquitoes.


















M seemed to enjoy himself. I think the bumps of the trail along with the crunching of dry leaves were quite soothing.






What a day!