A metric meter

Some milestones are easy to spot and can be planned in advance - such as birthdays. Others kind of sneak up on you. When grandma asked what size clothing the boys wear nowadays we pulled out the tape measure and, it turns out, Mathais is exactly 100 cm tall.

Fellow numbers-nerds rejoice! Mathias has tripled in length in 4 1/2 years. That's a compound monthly growth rate of 2%. If he keeps it up he'll be the youngest player in the NBA by age 8!

Brothers

I'm sure many young children have been told by their parents that they are getting a sibling: Someone you can play with. It must be disappointing when your newly arrived play mate only eats and sleeps all day...

Somewhere along the way, Johan went from someone who keeps mom and dad from playing with Mathias to a potential chum.

No doubt, they have their share of moments of kicking, screaming, biting, and hitting each other. Johan for example doesn't know the rules Mathais has devised for playing demolition derby with his toy cars which causes great heartburn... Often they insist on playing with the same car at the same time (there are very few activities that do not involve cars) which doesn't work out so well.

But they are increasingly starting to play and interact. That's fun to see. And it also, occasionally, gives you a few minutes to clean up the kitchen.

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

Well... they don't hold that one any more.

But we spent the past two weekends living it up at the Wright and Carver count fairs. As always, it is a Lollapalooza of farm animals, cotton candy, carnival rides, hot dogs, tractors, deep fried cheese curds, and - the coup d'etat- the demolition derby! Ericka and I took turns taking Mathias to two different derbies - the noise level is a bit much for Johan (he'll be coming along next year with ear plugs).

We met Dawn, Charlie, Deb, and Natalie at the Carver county fair. Dawn volunteered to take Mathias on the big slide.

The monkey gene

With his second birthday a mere month away, Johan is moving up in the world. Or at least out of his crib...

It started something like this: it is 6 in the morning. You wake up from a thud followed by the pitter-patter of bare feet on the wood floor. And then "Ma-ma!, Ma-ma!, Ma-ma!" Yes, he's climbing out of his crib demanding breakfast. So we upgraded him to a big-boy bed. We're still working on getting him to sleep a little laster in the morning!

City services at work

The other night our town invited the kids to come rummage through the garage, so to speak... We got to:

• Go up in the cherry picker
• Go for a spin in a fire truck (no sirens though!)
• Tour the inside of an ambulance

Goes without saying that the boys loved it.

Where were these events when I was a kid?!

Visitors

Over the past couple of weeks, Aunt Anna and Per have been visiting from Sweden. The boys have quickly become accustomed to having more people in the house lavishing them with attention. When the two travelers took a detour to Las Vegas, Mathias was very sad to see 'our friends' disappear. It will be a tough day when we have to say goodbye for a longer timeframe!