As Ivo was teaching his Schleich tiger to drink milk:

Ivo: Here, I can do it for real. Because I have an unlocked face.

This morning Ivo was watering the plants...

Ivo: I have to water ALLLLLL these plants so they can grow up tall and be American.

Last night, Ivo woke up in the middle of the night, crying... He obviously had had a nightmare...

Ivo: Mama! I lost it! I lost it!
Me: What, what did you lose?
Ivo: My imagination!

?!

Ivo today, while watching polar bears swim through ice floes on BBC's "Planet Earth"... "Mama, I want this world to be fixed..."

Mee too...

Art by Ivo... Done on the Amtrak train from Oakland to Los Angeles..

I like it!

My sister had a baby! Like I said before, I am a little behind the curve with this whole blogging thing because she had a baby a LONG time ago. Like three months ago.

His name is Ian, and here he is!


It's weird that he is so small. And weird that I don't remember Ivo being that small.. and weird that I keep telling her things like, "this part is easy!", when in reality, it's not easy at all, so I don't know why I am saying that. I should just shut the hell up.

It's like going back in time to look at her with the Bjorn and the stroller and the bottles and all the stuff, and the Googling to figure out what the hell is WRONG! Why is the baby so angry?

I remember that there were a lot of rules to the care and feeding of newborns. No shellfish, peanuts, Bubbalicious, etc etc. Now I have forgotten them all, and just wonder idly to myself... could he eat an ice-cream sandwich? I see why, back then, John was always trying to get Ivo to eat food. I would yell at him that babies didn't eat food, and he would say, "It was just a molecule! On his lip!" But to me, even a singular molecule of Dorito seemed wrong. So wrong.

Now that Ivo is potty trained and drinks from a cup the only rule is... the rules keep changing. The further I get away from the newborn stage, the more it seems easy (HA HA HA! Sorry Christy, I have to stop saying that!), but also the more I think that Ivo will be an only child... With lots of friends and cousins, of course!

Welcome to the planet, Ian... I hope it's not too fucked up by the time you and Ivo are grown.

Fourth of July was a Fourth of No July. No fireworks. He went to bed 2 hours before the fireworks were going to start. Kid stopped napping a while ago, and so one of my personal missions in life is to get him to bed on time.

He woke in the middle of the night and insisted on holding onto my thumb, so the "creatures" won't get him. I always tell him that there are no creatures in this bed. None at all. But I find myself saying it so EARNESTLY... too earnestly. He might smell a RAT. Or a creature...

There are scary things in the world. I don't want to protect him too much, just enough.