lowercase marcus

Lutèce, RIP

2008-07-17T10:18:00.000-07:00

Today we lost our beloved Lutèce to kidney failure. Here are a few pictures of her. Benjamin will miss his brief (and rare) "câlins" (cuddles) with "LuTess."

BenTub

2008-07-13T22:39:00.000-07:00

tricycle

2008-07-11T14:46:00.000-07:00

2 years old

2008-07-08T16:51:00.001-07:00

Thanks grandma and Jerry for this great photo of the ~~boy~~tiger 2 days before his birthday:

- papa

PS Sammy asks what Benjamin is doing with the stick. Maman informs me that it was his trumpet.

His 2 strongest themes right now are tigers and trumpets.

Why trumpets? Because of Trotro, of course:

Benben se deguise

2008-07-03T08:43:00.000-07:00

Benjamin doesn't watch TV on a TV set, but we do let him watch short videos originally from French television that we can download from the Internet. His favorite by far is L'Ane Trotro and right now his favorite episode is "Trotro se déguise" where Trotro dresses up as a tiger and announces "Je suis un tigre!"

Benben has been announcing the same to us for the past few days, in French and English.

When he was pretending to vacuum last night, I said, "I thought you said you were a tiger. Tiger's don't vacuum!"

He replied, "I'm a tiger vacuum!"

Benjamin's lion

2008-06-28T18:23:00.000-07:00

One of the first gifts newborn Benjamin received was his toy lion skin:
Almost 2 years later:Benjamin sleeps fine in his bed at night, but recently he's begun taking his afternoon nap on the floor. Fortunately, his lion is there for him.

- papa

snow cone

2008-06-18T19:13:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Mr. Josh for this great photo:

chevalier

2008-06-05T09:15:00.000-07:00

Today, Benjamin is 1 month shy of being 2 years old. Miss Angel took him, Lucia (who is today 1 month shy of being 3 years old), and a couple of babies to the merry-go-round.

I'm sensing an equine theme.

- papa

Camel Bisous

2008-06-04T21:53:00.000-07:00

landlocked gondola

2008-06-04T08:48:00.000-07:00

Petting Farm

2008-05-30T20:02:00.000-07:00

a ben's-eye view

2008-05-21T16:06:00.000-07:00

Benjamin was looking at pictures on my blog today and asking me what everything was called.

He looked at this picture of Mr. Burns from The Simpsons and learned his name, repeated it to me to make sure he had it right, then pointed to it and called out to his mother,

"Maman, c'est un oiseau debout!"

(Mom, it's a bird standing up!)

- papa

the shrine of Benjamin

2008-05-04T08:35:00.000-07:00

Fire Station

2008-04-25T19:42:00.000-07:00

This morning, Benjamin took his first tour of Charlottesville's main fire station. He was most interested in the giant wheels of the fire engine.

no more crib

2008-04-19T16:33:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday, Benjamin and Nathalie returned from Kentucky quite tired. They both looked groggy and had apparently both slept throughout the flight back.

Benjamin had slept in a borrowed pack-n-play while there, and Saturday night was his first time back in his own crib in almost a week. But rather than sleeping in Sunday morning, he awakened around 5 or 6 AM and cried endlessly. When his mother tried to calm him down, he did something he'd never done before. He climbed out of his crib.

There's the inevitable feeling of pride mixed in with all the other sources of ambivalence as I report that. Any step up the ladder of childhood development is an opportunity to celebrate, but this was one of the scariest ones for a couple of reasons:

climbing out of the crib does not mean climbing down safely;
to be candid, I'll admit that the crib is a handy sort of prison cell, and our beloved inmate could now escape.

What both reasons have in common is that we were very worried for Benjamin's safety and had lost the one place we could put him and relax knowing that he couldn't hurt himself.

When Benjamin climbed out of his crib, he started to topple head first to the hardwood floor. Fortunately Nathalie caught him. It occurred to me that the sides of his pack-n-play (see photo to the right) might be taller than the sides of his crib, but no such luck. He immediately climbed out and began to fall, head first, to the floor. This time I caught him.

We took him into bed with us, and he did sleep for maybe 45 minutes, but then it was time to get up and play, which his overwrought mother acceded to. His father, with more sleep than the rest of the family, spent the day researching options, none of which could apply to Sunday night. I ordered a crib tent (see photo to the left) but it wouldn't arrive until midweek and we needed a solution — at least a temporary solution — within the next few hours.

This is where the narrative gets told out of sequence. Back in January, I wondered when Benjamin would start to climb out of his crib. I had read not to worry about it until he was 2 years old, but I decided to be prepared. When we selected his crib 2 years ago, we picked a "3-in-1" model — one that could be converted from crib to toddler bed with an in-between stage for transition. To go from crib to bed requires only that we remove one of the sides. To do the in-between configuration, we'd have to order an extra part, a guard rail to keep baby/toddler from rolling out of bed. What I discovered in January was that our model of crib had been discontinued, and with it, the matching guard rail. So I corresponded with the parent company of the crib maker and then with a retail outlet of a sibling brand of cribs, then back and forth between them for a while to get their stories straight, since the model numbers differed between company and store, and finally paid for the guard rail (and shipping) for a different-but-similar line of cribs. Only problem was the current cribs didn't come in natural blond wood, just white or dark wood. We ordered white to go with the white accents in Benjamin's mostly blue room. Then in March (yes, 2 months later!) the store called me back and said that white had also been discontinued (!) and that all they had was dark wood. Fine, fine. Just send it along.

The piece arrived the week Benjamin and Nathalie were in Kentucky. I had stored it in the back of his closet, figuring we wouldn't need it until this summer at the earliest. What good timing that it was there.

So I spent Sunday evening converting his bed and then attaching safety locks to all his drawers. If he's going to be free to roam his room at night, we don't want him to be able to climb up onto anything he could fall off of, or to pull anything heavy over onto himself. His new prison is bigger, but (we hope) just as safe as the old one.

The first few nights, he'd come and cry at the locked door of his nursery (which is a screen door I put in 2 years ago so that we could always look in on him — and, later, so that he could look out), but now he seems to be adjusting. I suspect we'll return the crib tent, unopened.

Here are some photos of Benjamin sleeping in his new big-boy bed:

free time

2008-04-19T15:37:00.000-07:00

Update:

friends & family plan

2008-04-11T20:21:00.000-07:00

Benjamin is in Kentucky visiting friends and family.

Benjamin and Sebastian

Benjamin and Katarina

petit crapaud

2008-04-06T11:22:00.001-07:00

At 21 months, Benjamin meets his first toad.

the turtle standard

2008-04-05T14:42:00.000-07:00

The giant wooden turtle at Cville Coffee will probably remain a good place to take Benjamin's picture, so it may well become our standard for showing his growth over time. Here are a couple of photos of the boy and the turtle, one taken when he (the boy, not the turtle) was around 12 months old, and one taken when he was closer to 21 months (which, by the way, he turned today).

- papa

Benjamin's first Easter egg hunt

2008-03-27T18:54:00.001-07:00

Happy...

2008-03-23T12:23:00.000-07:00

Today Benjamin started to say "Happy Easter!" He's been hearing the phrase a lot—people have been saying it to him, both friends and strangers. This morning we chose Easter e-cards for his grandparents, and all the cards talked, so he began to repeat "Happy Easter!" (though perhaps it sounds more like "'appy Easser!").

Then, while we were trying to decide on a card, he suddenly said, with a big smile, "Happy Zut Alors!"

I laughed so hard I cried. He thought it was really funny to see me laugh so hard, so he kept repeating (between peals of laughter) "Happy Zut Alors!" I'll try and get a video clip of him saying it to add to the zut alors video I am preparing (at Isis's request).

So, happy Easter everyone. And happy Zut Alors!

Lutece

2008-03-15T17:39:00.001-07:00

first time on the trampoline

2008-03-15T17:34:00.000-07:00

Trampoline by Miss Angel. Photos by Miss Angel.

Puddle Dance

2008-03-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

I have many videos to edit and upload. Here is one from last month when we were having oddly warm weather for February. Benjamin loves the park and usually likes to slide, but recently he has been much more interested in the basketball court... and its puddles.

climbing and waving

2008-03-12T14:27:00.000-07:00

The latest photos from Miss Angel: