2/1/06

No,No,No! (again) Well, Orion seems to have a favorite word, and if it's the same thing you are saying in your head when you come to this page and see this overload of parental gush. Better leave quick!

Orion WALKS! Yes, he took is own sweet time about it, but at almost 16 months, the little boy is walking. I hope we catch a video of the way he so carefully plods along with tiny steps.

Ember on Death: "Our Volvo car is old, it's going to die." It turns out that though she may have only been complaining about the dark at 2 years, when I thought I heard her say "I don't want to die," when she was just saying "I don't want it dark." She has been somewhat fixated on the death of the dinosaurs and on death in general as she approaches her 3rd birthday. A recent trip to the MFA where we unfortunately walked through the grand gallery and had to wonder at all the tortured saints etc. "He's dead." (It was Jesus) "Why is he dead?" (I gave a quick and uplifting explaination of Christianity.) "That man is dead." (It was Jesus again.) "Why is he dead?" and "What is she doing to that man's [decapitated] head?" (It was the queen who killed some king who had killed her son. ((No, I shouldn't have read the caption.))) Ctd. Below:

Orion has his own page of pictures! Click on Orion!
This year's Official New Year's Card Photo - this really seems to capture their two personalities - if you received one, you will know it came with a border Kodak calls "Winterberry" - are the berries actually bittersweet? This picture was taken on the awesome couch at a party at Krishna and Vala's wonderful home in Somerville, MA. Some of you have the caption "Peace" beneath, while others have "SOX PAX" written on the sock. I wanted to say something more to the effect of Peace between Brothers, or Peace Happens, but then I started to feel so discouraged actually thinking about how poorly we are trying to promote peace around the world that I couldn't bring myself to include peace in the caption space below the image.

Ctd.: Which elicited. "I don't want Orion to die." This is what pangs my heart the most, is when she said at the dinner table yesterday: "Is my Orion going to die?"So, we left the Museum of Fine Art to see the Science Museum and something that would cheer Ember up. Nothing is more dear to her heart than the Tyrannosaurus at the Museum of Science. "I love him and he loves me." (Yes, he would have loved to have eaten you, but I digress.) Ember then turns to me at her beloved Coelophysis exhibit and says "The dinosaurs died from a big rock that hit the Earth because they were bad." Ugh! Where did THAT come from? But this is where I had my own big learning moment. "Ember, the Dinosaurs died because they had been on the earth for millions and millions of years. It was time for them to share the Earth so that other animals could come along and enjoy it." I suddenly realized that this really is one of the lessons of life: We are here to enjoy and share the world, and then we make room for others to come along to do the same. So, why is our government so focused on turning what should be a beautiful world into a hellride? Having all the toys won't make the rich happier - didn't they learn this is preschool? What makes you happy is helping others and seeing how happy they are. Jesus gave up his place on earth to try to prove something. Is this the same thing the dolphins who are beaching themselves on Cape Cod are trying to remind us of? That we need to love each other and love the earth if we are to be happy?

Ember is still infatuated with her cousin Kathy who lives in Italy.

The picture below is from the Children Home opener weekend 2004 - can you believe, the year the Redsox Won the World Series I ran Ember around the bases and tripped at third base?

I know few people ever read this so I'm leaving this picture up below and Carol's important Comment as it makes me happy thinking baseball season is coming soon. I used the redsox trading of Johnny Damon to explain to Ember that sometimes change is good. He is moving to a better job etc. and someday we might move, too. (You know he's going to play terribly when he shaves his beard and cuts his long powerful locks!)

Carol had the great suggestion that dunkin donuts should change the K in dunkin to a backwards strikeout K!