By Popular Demand

More pictures of Alex, who is one month old today.* Hopefully I'll get some newer ones soon.






I hold this baby most of the day. Meanwhile, James has become basically feral. I'm really glad he goes back to school tomorrow morning! Two weeks off has nearly done us in.



*Why is the time going by so quickly? Someone please make it stand still - while I hold my baby.

Grandma Knows Best

I have a near-perfect mother. It is therefore unsurprising that my boys have an unbelievably awesome grandma. A grandma who was prescient enough to arrive in London from Florida on the very day her grandson, Alex, was born. She arrived bearing gifts, including a quiet book for James and two baby blankets for Alex of her own making (one of which is in the above photo of Grandma and Alex).

In the ten short days of her visit, she was able to do no less than the following:

• wash, dry, fold, and put away approximately 17, 259 loads of laundry
• cook several yummy dinners
• hold baby Alex for hours (while pacifying him more quickly and effectively than I could)
• watch James while Micah and I were at the hospital
  
• take James to the movies
• take James to the dinosaur museum (a.k.a. the Museum of Natural History)
• win James' heart and capture his imagination by tirelessly playing make-believe with him
  
• teach me my first knitting lesson
• visit a few tourist sites, like the British Museum, the National Gallery, and the London Eye

I talk to my mom a lot on the phone, but it took a visit to remind me just how lucky I am to have her and how much I still have to learn about being a mother. A day or two after she flew home, James asked Micah wistfully, "Did Grandma Cindy come back?" We all wish she would.

No One Is Going to Believe Me

On Tuesday, when Alex was 18 days old, I left him sleeping on his back on my bed for a few minutes. When I came back into the room, he was on his stomach.

!!?!

Is it even possible for a two-and-a-half-week old baby to roll over? Anybody have a precedent for this? Not in our family - James was three-and-a-half MONTHS old when he rolled over for the first time. I looked it up.

James was in the room with him at the time, and I asked him (James) if he had touched him (Alex). He said no. I will concede that it is possible that James did it, but I think that would have been strange behavior, even for James. He usually just likes to kiss and hug Alex and bring him toys.