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:

Month 22, or Would you like some snow with that?

Dear Corbin,

You are 22 months old, and that's about how many inches of snow we got two weeks ago. We spent a while outside that Saturday shoveling, and then we spent a long time outside on Sunday shoveling. You were okay outside and you really wanted to help use the snow thrower, but then your dad took you down in the sled to Grandma and Grandpa's apartment to shovel the snow away from their doors, and he shoveled it right onto you. After that, you were happy to stay inside for a while.

You've been learning many new skills lately. You and Dad were playing balloon tennis, using your plastic frying pan as a racket. You love to climb up on things just to jump off of them. You learned that the dinosaur tub toys can squirt water all over the bathroom. You're getting better at brushing your teeth, which is good because your first set of molars have come in. But the most surprising thing is that you've been experimenting with potty training. It all started when Dad was home alone with you and needed to use the potty. That night, before your bath, you pulled your usual imitation of adult life and peed in the potty. So we got you a potty chair, which I didn't mean to leave in the dining room, but I put it down there when I brought it home and then you discovered it and now I guess it's just going to stay in the dining room. How very...unappetizing. So now when we change your diaper, you like to sit on the potty chair. Normally, nothing happens, but the other day you peed in the potty chair! Okay, you peed both in the chair and all over the floor, but it was a good effort. I'm really fine with the fact that you want to potty train about a year earlier than I was planning on, but I'd just like to warn you that it may come up someday that you owe us for cleaning up after you peeing on the floor for a whole extra year, and so no, you may not have the car tonight.

In other family news, you have a brand new cousin. Baby Ray was born yesterday, about 7bls and 21 inches long. Everyone is healthy and happy. We'll get to see him when we go to Indiana in January to visit. We'll be taking your infant wardrobe with us, because it's never too early to get your cousins used to wearing your hand-me-downs.

You are in Madison right now with Grandma and Grandpa Lam. You were fascinated by putting the Christmas tree in the van, and you're a hit as usual with the hometown breakfast joint. Dad and I took the opportunity of nights without you to see a movie, but not together. I'm not sure if that says we've got a really good relationship or not, but we each had fun seeing the same movie on different nights with different friends. Tonight we'll be finishing up the Christmas shopping, and tomorrow we'll be heading down to join you all in Madison. Yay, presents!

Love,
Mom


This is the snow that we had on Dec 3:

This is the blizzard on Dec 11:
This is you goofing around in the kitchen:

Month 21

Dear Corbin,


You are 21 months old this month. This has been the month of sickness in the family, which wasn't any fun. You got a cold at the beginning of the month, and then you went to Madison with the Lams. While you were there, you got a little stomach bug and I came down with a cold. Then Grandma Lam got the stomach bug. Then you all came home and both me and Dad had the stomach bug. You still had your cold, and then you had a cough for a couple of weeks. Everyone seems to be healthy now, and hopefully we'll all stay that way.


Other than illnesses, it's been a quiet month. It's definitely winter now. After a nice spell of Indian Summer, we had our first snow fall a couple of weeks ago. I was in Denver for a conference, and I was lucky that my flight home wasn't cancelled or delayed. That snow was followed by a couple of days last week of freezing rain, and we're supposed to get more of that this week. Which is a bummer for everyone traveling for Thanksgiving.


We will be at home for Thanksgiving, with a couple of friends coming over. Your father put together the menu for dinner, which is going to be interesting. My whole life, Thanksgiving dinner was always a capon, mashed potatos and gravy, cream style corn and some other frozen veggie, cranberry sauce and rolls. This year, we're having Cornish Hens, squash soup, stuffing, applesauce and maybe even asperagus! I made Dad keep the potatos and creamed style corn and cranberry sauce, just because.


Your table manners have reached a state where you love to eat off of everyone else's plate. You'll eat part of your meal, then want to get down from your high chair. You used to go and play, then, but now you'll get up into someone's lap and happily eat their food. We were out to breakfast with the Chapmans last weekend, and you thought that you should get to eat whatever Baby Sofia was eating. Lucky for you, Ms Becky thinks you're the cutest boy ever, and gave you handfuls of blueberries and yogurt drops. Of course, that's what I do, too, so I can't really blame her. It's a good example of how much I love you, that I let you have any of my food. I've had several friends, including your dad, who would trade bites of their dinners with people. I think that's weird, and I only put up with it from you because, well, you're my kid and you're 21 months old. But someday, you'll be older, and then you'll just have to trade food with your dad and not with me.

We celebrated Grandpa Lam's birthday on Sunday the 21st. Grandma had bought a giant Happy Birthday balloon, which you loved. You made Grandpa blow out his candles twice. We gave you some cake and ice cream, and then you wanted to sit and watch Winnie-the-Pooh. Maybe on Thanksgiving we can watch some of the Macy's parade and show you those huge balloons.

We have also started making video calls with Grandma and Grandpa Thorne, so that's been fun. We still have some technical aspects to work out, but they had fun watching you play while talking to us on Sunday. I'm glad we're able to do things like that. Only seeing each other once or twice a year just isn't enough. Hopefully we'll be able to do that once a week, and they'll really be able to watch you growing up. Of course, that also meant they got to watch you be mad when it was time for your bath, but I guess that's all part of the fun!

Love,
Mom

Month 20

Dear Corbin,

You are 20 months old this month. You're getting at least two more teeth. You love music and singing and dancing. We had a very eventful month: your Uncle Alex and Aunt Lena got married, and then we spent a week seeing Kings Canyon, Sequoia National Park, and Death Valley.

On Sunday October 3rd, you left for California with G&G Lam. You drove for four days to San Diego, and by then you were very ready to stop being in your car seat all day. But you did really well on the drive--you played with stickers and you colored and played with balloons that Grandma blew up for you--and you did manage to sleep pretty well each night.

On Thursday the 7th, Dad and I flew out to San Diego to meet up with everyone. On Friday we had the wedding rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner, at which you charmed everyone like you always do. Saturday was the wedding, which went very well and was a lot of fun. You enjoyed yourself at the reception, especially after you and I sampled a bit too much of the chocolate fountain. Of course, that was exactly when the wedding party got up to give their speeches, so we had to go and have our sugar highs somewhere else for a while until that was done.

Sunday was a fun day, when Dad and I went kayaking with my Aunt Cele and Uncle Russ. We saw sea lions and tiger sharks and got to kayak into some caves. Then we had dinner with the Lam relatives and said goodbye to everyone since that was our last night in San Diego. On Monday morning, we headed north to KC/SNP. It was a much longer drive than we expected, mainly because the road into the park is so twisty and turn-y that we could only drive about 30mph. The best part was that we saw three bears driving into the park--exciting!

We spent the next two days walking around in the Giant Forest and the Grant Grove of sequoias. Those are some really big trees. Really. They're big. And old. They're about 24 thousand months older than you are right now. It's really impressive to stand next to one of those trees and contemplate the idea of life on earth. We all agreed that Dad's idea to see the big trees was a winner. Dad and I also hiked up to the top of a peak called Big Baldy, which had some pretty incredible views. And then I got really excited about seeing a crow, and your dad laughed at me a lot.

On Thursday the 14th we left KC/SNP and drove east to Death Valley. We stayed just outside of Death Valley National Park, in Beatty, Nevada. You made your first foray into a casino, because there are very few restaurants in Nevada that are not in casinos. I don't think anyone let you gamble, but if you did, you lost. Let that be a lesson to you.

Death Valley is actually a very interesting place. It seems to have something of a chip on its shoulder about being named Death Valley. Its museum is a bit strident about the fact that lots of people have lived in Death Valley, and that even though immigrants to CA named it Death Valley, only one immigrant actually died there. There were some interesting exhibits about the mineral mining there, but you really liked the giant dinosaur skull that they had. After driving to the place with the lowest elevation in the US (minus 282 feet), we turned east again and drove to Las Vegas.

We stayed the night in a very nice hotel outside of Vegas, and then on Saturday morning you got on a place with Dad and I back to Minneapolis. You did really well on the flight, which was a blessing because Dad ended up not feeling well so it was up to me to entertain you. It was really nice to get home and see our dogs and sleep in our own beds! But with the Lams driving back, you had to go to day care this week, which made for a few rocky moments but seemed to end up all right. Thankfully, we'll all be able to get back into our regular routine now. At least, until the Lams take you off to Madison again.

It was a lot of fun to see so many family members that we haven't seen in a long time. It's a good thing that there are so many fun things to do in this country, since we have family living all over the place. I hope that you don't pass up chances to visit and explore. Traveling can be hard in so many ways, and yet there are so many things that you cannot learn any other way. When I was younger and traveled alone, I learned a lot about getting along with strange people. Now that I travel with you and your father, I'm learning a lot about getting along with strange people.

Love,
Mom