Month 28, or Trips and Falls

Dear Corbin,

This has been the month of major trips and minor injuries. You went up to the Cottage with the Grandparents Lam just before Memorial Day. Originally the plan was for all of us to spend the long weekend up north, but the weather forecast was rain all weekend, so we sent you up during the week instead. You came home on Saturday, and it was nice to have the long weekend at home, even though it did rain much of the time.

The next weekend, you fell down the top part of the stairs at the house. It was Saturday morning, and you and Dad were heading downstairs to play. Arrow was laying on the floor with his feet pointed at the stairs, and you stopped to pet him with your back to the staircase. Then next thing Dad knew, you were falling down the stairs and he was chasing after you. Fortunately, you didn't fall head over heels, but instead down on your belly. I heard it happen and came out of our bedroom in time to see Dad picking you up. We all sat on the steps and you cried for a few minutes, but your only injury was a bruise on your cheekbone that quickly went through the stages of being a black eye. During the week, you had managed to skin up both of your knees, and so you suddenly looked like you had joined a rugby team. Here is the lovely progression from "just a little bruised" to "technicolor glam rock eyeshadow":

You can see that it disturbed you greatly.

The rest of the month has been only normally injury prone. A bumped head on the table, or a finger pinched in a belt buckle. Oh, and I did clonk you on the head with the handle of the shovel when I was digging up some tiger lilies and didn't realize you were right behind me. We do a lot of kissing bumps to make them better, although I also stocked up on band-aids again the other day. But I know that for the amount of running and climbing and jumping that you do, we are incredibly lucky that kisses and band-aids are all that we have needed so far.

Your verbal skills continue to develop. You are pronouncing sounds better, and you really make an effort to pronounce words the way that you hear us say them. Sometimes when we're reading, especially the ABC type books, I'll make you look at me and mimic how I move my mouth. I'm not at all concerned about your progress, but I know that's a helpful trick, and you get a kick out of imitating us. You've also started helping us tell your favorite stories when we read them. Before I turn the page, I'll ask you, "What happens next?" and you will either tell me what you think, or give me this funny grin-and-bounce which I think means, "I don't know."

It was the summer solstice this past Monday, but it hasn't felt like summer at all. It's been cold and rainy instead. We had two days that was hot: the first day was about 85 degrees, and the next day it was freakishly hot at 103 degrees. But that seems to have used up our entire summer's worth of heat so far. We put the air conditioners in the windows in preparation for the super hot day, but we haven't needed them since. I flew out to DC for work on weekend, and it was 55 degrees when I got on the plane at MSP and 85 and humid when I got off of the place at DCA. The whole weekend it was a toss up as to what would kill me first: the heat or the walking.

But it's hard to complain about being in DC--it's such an amazing city to visit. I love feeling surrounded by the history of our country. We are fortunate to live here, and I believe very strongly that we must continue the work that so many amazing Americans have done to make the people of this country more free, more equal, and move us closer to the ideals under which the nation was begun. Don't ever let anyone tell you that our country is perfect (or any other country, or anything at all under the sun for that matter), but neither is it worthless or even so terrible. We should not forget that something of quality is only created through hard work. It is easy to help our friends, but it is important to help our neighbors and communities, too. The people of this country have made beautiful, powerful, impressive things. But those things should always serve as reminders of how important we the people truly are.



Right now, you are on another trip with your Grandparents Lam. You left for Madison on Monday, and you spent Tuesday night in Indianapolis with your Grandparents Thorne. We got some cute photos of you and your cousins from Grandpa Thorne already. You should arrive in Norfolk today, for a weekend of visiting with Uncle Alex and Aunt Lena. We miss you very much, so we've been occupying ourselves with trips to the hardware store and eating out at restaurants. Our project while you're gone is redecorating the south wall of the living room, and perhaps moving all of the furniture around if we get that far. We've already to the wallpaper down, but stripping and refinishing the woodwork is what will take the longest, even though we've done it before in the dining room. It feels good to be doing something useful around the house, but it also underscores how much time we have when you're not here. I hope you're having fun, and I'll be glad when you're home to have fun with us again.

Love,
Mom

Month 27

Dear Corbin,

Yesterday, you napped for about three hours, which was long enough to sleep through a tornado hitting North Minneapolis. Three houses of friends were damaged, either from trees falling or roof damage or worse. Heidi and Garry lost their whole garage. But nobody was hurt, not even pets, and so we have plenty for which to be thankful.

It amazes me what you sleep through sometimes. Thunder storms, fireworks, sirens, bad kung fu flicks. We are in quite the bed time rut these days. Bath, snack and books, and then we just turn your fan on, sing you a couple of songs, and leave you to put yourself to sleep. Sometimes we hear you talking, although we don't know you're saying or how you're entertaining yourself. If often makes me want a video camera in your room because I'm terribly curious. But you don't seem to stay awake too long, which is good. And then in the morning, it's always interesting to see where your stuffed animals have ended up. They seem to move around quite a bit.

When it's not pouring rain, it's finally nice enough to be outside after dinner. Sometimes that makes going up for bath time a little harder, but that's okay. One of the funny things you've been doing outside is trying to fit Dad though one of the holes in the side of your climber. You push on his back as if you're actually going to put him through a hole barely the size of his head. It's quite funny to watch. We had to find a carabiner to use on the gate latch, because you learned how to open the gate, and as soon as the gate is open you are off and down the sidewalk. You still love to run everywhere, and chase us, and have us chase you. When you run, you hold your arms stiff at your sides, and it gives you this kind of penguin waddle. It's both endearing and entertaining.

You've started really enjoying stacking things and making towers. We stacked up all of the buckets in the bathtub one night, and now you stack all kinds of things. You stack up tall towers of Mega Bloks. You stack your stuffed animals. I stacked your sippy cup on top of a covered tupperware dish the other day, and now you stack your sippy cup on all of your dishes. But you've also figured out that the real fun of stacking things is in knocking them over.

Other than severe weather, it's been a good month. We bought a different car this month. We traded the SER in for a Mazda3 hatchback. It's been the first little car that you've ever driven around in, between our minivan and Grandma and Bapa's big van. It's nice to have a car that is more reliable and gets better gas mileage. I was always nervous driving the SER; I never trusted that it wouldn't strand me somewhere. So it's nice to go back to only driving the minivan when we really need the cargo space, or when we're traveling. It would be very nice to see the amount of money that we spend on gas go down. Bapa and I were talking the other day about how I remember stopping at O'Malley's gas station on the way to the Cottage, and gas was less than a dollar a gallon. Yesterday, I got excited when I saw gas for less than $3.75 a gallon.

On one hand, it would be easy to lament that times change, and seemingly not for the better. Gas never seems to get cheaper, and O'Malley's doesn't exist any more because the highway moved, and that's a part of my childhood that's just...gone. And yet, I don't lament the passing of time. I like my life and my self now, and it was sometimes a hard process to get to this point. It's painful to learn certain lessons about life, like how to tell if someone is a real friend, or how to choose an apartment well, or how to take criticism from a teacher or boss. I hope that you will see the passage of years as something to respect without feeling dismayed by what may or may not have happened during those years. Life will never happen exactly the way that you plan it, not even when you plan it as obsessively as I do. It is still hard for me to look at choices I have made and to be truly at peace with them. I'm much more likely to think, "I should have done that differently," and to feel some regret. But it helps to think that every single choice I made was leading me here, where I get to be with you and your Dad and our whole family. There is nothing that I would change about that.

Love,
Mom

Month 26

Dear Corbin,

You are 26 months old now. You are not necessarily learning more skills, as much as you are expressing them in bigger and louder ways. More and more you play games that take your whole body being active. You love to run. We were coming home from Grandma and Bapa's the other day, and you ran the whole way, saying, "Run run run." You love it when we chase you, and when you chase us. You made up a game that you call Pin Ball: you take a long-handled plastic cooking spoon in either hand, and then hit one of your round plastic foods (usually the apple, but sometimes the lemon) around the house. It works best in the kitchen where it can't go under anything. And you'll play this for a long time, until you make yourself all sweaty. I got you a plastic oversized golf club and ball from the grocery store, so you could play Pin Ball outside, but it doesn't work nearly as well.

It's funny to me that you're such a stereotypical boy some times. You turn anything into a ball, or into a vehicle. You love games that involve hitting things. When you get frustrated, you are quick to throw or kick things. But my favorite example so far is when we sat around the other day playing with your train engines in your doll house, especially when Thomas used the potty.

My Aunt Irene and cousin David Soong were here to visit all last week. It was nice to see them. They were in CA with us for your uncle Alex's wedding but this time we really got to talk and visit. They were able to come down to the museum, which was really fun. You climbed all over the kiddie ride and the replica coach, and crawled under the big horses. You also got to visit their hotel and swim in the pool. It was funny to see them here in MN, since I had just been in NJ the week before for work, and I would have seen Aunt Irene then if they hadn't already been traveling. I traveled twice this month, and it looks like I'll be traveling more in the next couple of months. You don't seem to mind my absences very much, which is good, since I'll be doing more of it. We're already planning some trips as a family, too. Mainly up to the Cottage this summer, but we also found out that Alex and Lena are planning on coming to Madison for Christmas this year, which will be really great.

The weather is finally starting to act like spring. We broke out your set of yard tools and got the yard raked. We made it out to the dog park, where the dogs proceded to get covered in mud. We even managed to grill out for dinner last night with Chris and Mony. We made moose steaks, which were good, but a little tough. You mostly ate chips and fruit and then made everyone take turns chasing you around the yard and wrestling with you. You tried to convince me that my beer was juice, so that you could have a drink, but you can't fool me, kid. I'm wise to your ways.

Otherwise, it was a fairly quiet month. Although, with how much you talk now, I suppose I can't really call it quiet. We noticed a few weeks ago that when we were driving down the alley, you would say, "Bye, house! Bye, house! Bye, dirty house! Bye, dirty house! Bye, dirty house! Bye, dirty house! Bye, dirty house!" I thought it was cute that you were saying goodbye to our house, although I could have done without the editorializing on how clean it was. But then one morning you said, "Bye, house! Bye, house! Bye, dirty house! Bye, green house! Bye, dirty house! Bye, dirty house! Bye, dirty house!" and we realized that you were saying goodbye to all of the garages we passed in the alley, most of which are white and in need of a paint job but one of which is green. Which made me feel better about both my housekeeping and your powers of observation.

Love,
Mom

Did the video load here for you? There should be a video here.

Month 25

Dear Corbin,

You are two years and one month old. Your last two teeth are almost all the way in, which has improved both your mood and your toothbrushing. You've been sleeping until after 7am in the mornings, and it seems like you fall asleep every time we're in the car, so I'm wondering you're going to have a growth spurt soon. It would be nice if you would grow into whatever shape means that pants fit you. You look one of two ways in pants, right now. Either the waist fits you but the legs are too short, or the legs fit you and we have a pin the waistline to keep them from falling off of your butt. I'm looking forward to this summer when you're in shorts. Then we'll only have one measurement to worry about.

The snow is melted from most of the yard, except where it was piled up. Dad was outside this weekend trying to get some yardwork done. He fixed the spot in the fence where Arrow kept sneaking into the front yard, and he's halfway through fixing the latch on the back gate. It's time to start thinking about our summer project list, which is always distressingly long. Your summer project list so far contains things like, "play with the RC car," and "get the sidewalk chalk back out." Our project list has things like, "redecorate the living room," and "paint the railing on the mudroom roof," and "win the lottery."

You were around guns for the first time in your life, this month. We went to the UP for the annual family black powder shoot. It was also the baby shower for my cousin Laura, because nothing goes together better than muzzle-loaders and babies. Dad and I were both on shooting teams, and you watched from the sidelines with Grandma and Grandpa. You had your ear plugs in, and you would jump a little bit when someone fired a shot, but you were never scared. You said, "Bang bang!" and "Loud!" and you clapped when I hit one of the targets. You were your normal reserved self when we arrived at the camp, but by the time Laura and Nick had opened all their presents, you were having all sorts of fun with all the relatives. One of these trips, you'll be out of diapers, and then we'll have the fun of teaching you all about outhouses. Try to contain your excitement, please.

While we were in the UP, we stayed at the AmericInn. We swam in the pool both days that we were there, and I was talking to Grandma about a trip that we took when I was a little girl. We were visiting the southwest--New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada--and I remember that we would only stop for the night at a hotel that had a pool. You love playing in puddles and the sprinkler, and swimming in pools. I can see lots of hotel pools in our future. I wish that the lake at the Cottage was up to the beach, like it was when I was a kid. Hopefully we'll be able to stay at the Cottage a couple of times this summer (assuming gas isn't $78 a gallon) and go out in the canoe. We'll have to remember to bring the little paddle that Uncle Russ made for you. I suppose a life-vest would be a good idea, too. Or maybe we'll just strap your high-chair onto one of the seats.

I was happy to have the chance to see many of my cousins that weekend. I hope that we are able to give you a lot of time at the Cottage and in the UP. It's important to us that you grow up around family as much as possible. I hope that we are able to spend time with our friends and their kids here, too, of course. But I think that there's something very special about being able to be friends with your cousins, and I value my relationships with mine. You can tell by how many pictures of them appear below.

Love,
Mom







PS: Umm...no, really. I like my cousins a lot. For reals.

Month 24 - Corbin's 2nd Birthday!

Dear Corbin,

Happy birthday, sweetheart! It is hard to believe that you are already two year old. Two years ago today, we were snuggling you in the hospital, getting used to changing diapers and learning how to swaddle. You were so small and uncoordinated. Now you run and jump and climb. I'm looking forward to this summer, when we can play outside and watch your skills develop even more.

You're using more and more words these days. Mostly you repeat what we're saying, but we've run into a couple of instances when you said a word that we didn't recognize. I anticipate that happening more often, until your enunciation gets better. You talk a lot when you're playing--you'll sit and play with your trains for half an hour, saying "train, train, train" the entire time. You have started using words for a couple of your signs, like Bye and Down and Fish, but other signs have stayed silent, like More and Please. You know all kinds of colors, and you can count up to five. You like to count off, "One, two, three, jump!" You have the painful honesty of a small child. We were looking out of your window the other night, to say goodnight to the stars, and instead you said goodnight to the dog poop that you could see in the yard.


You have two more teeth coming in--your canines. It's been making you a little whiney, which might be a little annoying for us, but is good for the tantrum researchers. We discovered that the video equipment had failed to record anything for a while, so we had essentially started over with the study. Then you were in Madison for a week with the Lams, and the two weeks after that you were in a good mood all the time. The researchers actually called us to say that they were going to come and pick up their equipment, but then they decided to give us more time. I thought it was pretty darn funny--you failed the temper tantrum study! But last night we managed to record you being unhappy when I wanted to eat dinner instead of come play with you. So hopefully we'll be useful to science yet.

We had a few weeks of very cold weather, which was exactly the time that you started swimming lessons again. You love swimming lessons. You like being in the water, and playing with all of their toys. You're learning how to kick your feet and move your arms in the right way. You're also learning to blow bubbles, which Grandma Lam encouraged so that you could blow out your candles on your birthday cake.

You did that very successfully, by the way. All five times that you made us light them for you. Dad and I gave you a little train station for your train tracks. It makes three different train sounds, and it's pretty cool. Dad also bought you the biggest balloon he could find, which was a huge fire engine as big as you are. Grandma and Bapa Lam gave you a train of letters that spell out your name. Grandma and Grandpa Thorne sent a set of kid-sized yard tools, which I am saving for the summer for you. I think you'll really like them; you always want to help us rake and dig and whatever, and now you'll have tools that are just the right size. I'm also saving a really cool RC car that Aunt Erin and Uncle Scott gave you. I think that's going to be an awesome summer toy.

We get to see Grandma and Grandpa Thorne this weekend. They're going to be in the Madison area, so we're taking the chance to get to see them after only driving six hours instead of twelve. A friend of mine asked if we were going to take you to your first political protest down at the state capital. I think we'll take a pass, but it is interesting to think about how much the world has changed, just in your life time. Changes always happen, and I hope that you are never frightened by that. I hope you will take the opportunities that arise around you to make the world always more peaceful, more fair, and to make life better for every person. Your father and I grew up watching space shuttles fly men and women to moon. You watched the last lauch of the space shuttle Discovery the other day, and while you mainly liked it because of Curious George, I hope that you will grow up watching science and exploration continue to improve life here on Earth.

But I promise you, no matter what you grow up to be or do, we will always love you, just for being who you are: our sweet, helpful, smart, funny boy.

Love,
Mom

Month 23

Dear Corbin,

You are 23 months old--just one more month until you turn two! It's hard to believe that two years have gone by so quickly.

It's been crazy cold here lately, and we're all pretty much ready for summer. Your Dad and I were talking about looking forward to being able to invite other families over, so you can have some play time with other kids. Grandma Lam was already getting flower catalogs in the mail, so we'll have some new flowers to plant in the raspberry patch. We'll get the croquette set out and watch you and the other children learn how to share, and then how to check for concussion. Useful life skills, that's what being around other kids teaches you. That, and how to dodge.

You are saying more and more words now. You know lots of colors, and can say most of them. You like to count up to five, because "five" is the number that you will say. You have even said two word phrases: big ball and big balloon. You are still totally obsessed with balloons, but now you've discovered hot air balloons, which you call, "ha bawoon." You've also added a new love: trains.

At the beginning of the month, we went down to Indiana to have Christmas with the Thornes and the Spencers. While we were in IN, we got to meet your new cousin, Raymond Thorne Spencer, who is a cute little baby. We took lots of your old clothes down for him, which I can see being a theme in the future. I hope he likes to wear lots of orange shirts, because I was looking through the shirts that I've been collecting for next fall (whenever I see one on sale) and there are about 4 orange shirts and an orange and brown sweater. I've been trying not to collect too much clothing for this coming summer, but it's just so easy to buy clothes for you right now: you don't have any opinions on it yet!

That trip is when your love of trains took over. You discovered the train table in Charlotte's play room, and you didn't leave it the rest of the day. We were happily opening gifts in the living room, and you did open two or three with me. But you had only come out to the living room to get me or Dad to come back and play trains with you. When we finally left for dinner, you cried and cried. So, after we got back home to MN, we got you one last Christmas present: your very own train set. Yesterday we had lunch with Heidi and Garry, and Garry showed you videos of steam trains on his iphone, and you loved it.

Speaking of videos, you've been getting more screen time lately, both as a viewer and as a star. Grandpa Lam has been taking videos of you and Grandma at your swimming lessons. He's learned how to zoom, now, so Grandma has been reminding him to zoom in on you and not on her. Dad put the videos from our CA trip onto a DVD, so it'll be interesting to see what we can do with other videos. You still love watching Pooh tapes with Grandpa Lam. You watched the first 25 minutes of Black Beauty with me the other day. And then yesterday we found this video of a hot air balloon ride at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, which we watched about four times, I think. That music is still stuck in my head.

You're also starring in videos for a study on temper tantrums. We have a couple of video cameras in the living room right now, waiting for you to be in a cranky mood. The study is being done by a professor at the U of M, who is studying why children have tantrums. It kind of makes me laugh; I think it's pretty obvious why you get upset, when it happens. But that's okay--someone's got to be in the studies, and it might as well be us. The funny part was that you were in such a good mood the couple of days after they set up the cameras that we wondered just how long it would take to record three tantrums. But then you had two in two days, so I guess we'll make their six weeks deadline with no problem. You are, after all, my kid.

But for all that you're able to throw a first-class tantrum, you make us laugh all the time. Playing with you is tiring, often repetitive, sometimes stressful, and I absolutely love it. I'm so grateful that you're our kid.

Love,

Mom

Christmas with the Lams in Madison:



Christmas with Charlotte and Baby Ray:


Your new train set, which you obviously love:



Playing in your money, a la Scrooge McDuck:


Macaroni and cheese for lunch: