Sticker Fun

Hello Malcolm Fans!

Were you starting to think I'd never post again?  I've been AFK (away from my keyboard) for the last week or so, enjoying the company of our dear friends, Angela & Nate, who were so kind as to come visit us!

Now I'm catching up on a backlog of cute Malcolm photos.  Here is Malcolm exploring a new favorite toy -- stickers!  It turns out that paper was far to boring a medium for the new craft, and much like finger paint, was best applied directly to the skin.

His skin, my skin . . . the dogs bolted from the room.  Hmm, can't imagine why . . . .

I plan to take full advantage of this delightfully silent toy for our plane ride home to New York in December.  I think about 487 stickers should see us safely entertained for the duration of the flight!

I Got It!!!

It's official!  I got the internship!

In the generous words of my Uncle Lew:

SFX: [Loud applause, whistling, stomping of boots on floor.  Large display of fireworks.  Raucous cheering.  (Optional: skies open and chorus of angels appears.)]

To celebrate, Matthew fed me Mexican food, and taught Malcolm to say "Woo Hoo!"

A Moment of Grace

(So this evening's blog-entry has no pictures to go with it, but I hope you will take the time to read it, nonetheless, because it shares one of the sweetest moments in my life since Malcolm first slept in my arms.)

As many of you may know: tomorrow is a very big day for me.  I will have my final interview for the Child Life Internship position.  There were over 100 applicants for this session, and they usually take about 3 interns.  Yikes!  But I've made it to the final round, so tomorrow's interview will decide it.  Besides being a wonderful chance to learn hands on skills, this internship is a mandatory step to becoming certified, and being able to work in the field.

So, on to tonight's sweet moment.

Malcolm's bedtime routine is the same every night: we brush our teeth, put on our jammies, then we have 2 books, 2 songs, and a prayer.  We finish up with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Malcolm turns out the light, and we tuck him into his crib, where he drifts sweetly off to sleep.   We have a few prayers we choose from each night, and tend to go with whatever Malcolm's recent favorite has been.  For a long time, it was the drumming prayer, which Malcolm could drum out the rhythm for, much to all our delights.

For the last several nights, we've chosen one of our favorite Baha'i prayers.  Malcolm sits in my lap (or Daddy's) and I sing the prayer:

"O God, guide me, protect me,

make of me a shining lamp and a brilliant star.

Thou art the Mighty and the Powerful."

Tonight, before I sang the prayer, I said to Malcolm, "Tomorrow is a very special day for Mommy.  When we say our prayer tonight, we can ask God to help me do well at my interview."  Then I began to sing.

And so did Malcolm.

His sweet voice joined with mine, perfectly in tune, though with only a few of the words.  I've never been very good at praying.  It's not a skill that comes to me naturally.  I struggle to feel that connection to the Divine that so many others seem to find so easily in prayer.  But tonight, as Malcolm raised his voice to pray with me, I felt it.  I also felt a sense of awe, humility, gratitude and joy.  My son, not quite yet two years old, is helping me learn to pray.  And that is an amazing thing.

Rock Band!

So, last year for Ayyam'i'Ha (a Baha'i Celebration) my brother, Darin, bought us a fabulously fun game, called Rock Band.  There's a guitar, microphone and full set of drums.  You use these instruments as your controllers to play the video game.

To the right, you'll see our band's new lead drummer - Big Mal!

Seen here, on lead guitar, is Daddy-O.  Wielding the camera (so not in the shot) is our lead vocalist, the T (that's me!)  Counting the two dogs on back up vocals, that is our complete band!

For this jam session, we were jamming out to "Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi.

Rock on!

Yellow & Blue Make . . . . .

 . . . A really fun mess!

We tried finger painting for the first time a few months ago, but discovered that Malcolm mostly tried to eat the paints.  So we put such explorations on hold, until recently.

In an attempt to convince Malcolm that we did not put him the bath to torture him (an erroneous belief of which he was, until recently, entirely convinced!), we decided to put him in the empty tub with some finger paints.  

Yellow and blue, to be specific.  Well!  Turns out this is more fun then sneezing!  (Also a Malcolm favorite!)  As you can see by the picture, he quickly discovered that mixing them together would produce green.  And that green paint could go all sorts of fun places!

The best thing to do with green paint turned out to be smearing it thickly on his hands, then clapping in delight!  If you look carefully at the first picture, you'll see the excellent paint splatter all over his face (and mine, and Matthew's, and the bathroom floor, and walls, and ceiling . . . )

Well, when green turned out to be such fun, we had to add some more colors!  He mixed and explored to his heart's content. And our delight!

He decided that his hair could use a bit of conditioning, so gave himself a "purple rinse."  The best part of it - while he rubbed paint into his hair, he kept saying "Nice, Nice!"  He learned this phrase long ago.  After bathtime, we rub oil into his hair and scalp (more on Black hair care in a later post).  At first he would wiggle and struggle to get away, until we started letting him put the oil in his own hair, and wield the comb/brush himself.  He loved that!  He'd oil his hair, brush it, then pat it, saying "Nice, Nice!" We always tell him how handsome he is, and how nice his hair is.  I guess he latched onto the phrase! 

So, there he was, rubbing in the paint, "Nice, Nice!"

To finish off the grand adventure, we celebrated with a few High-Fives!

Hooray for our little Picasso!

Chattanooga Aquarium

A couple weeks ago, we enjoyed the wonderful opportunity to meet up with some friends at the Chattanooga Aquarium.

There, Malcolm explored many amazing things  . . . .  like flowers . . . . 

 . . .  and butterflies!

(but he showed no interest in the fish.  Go figure.)

We shared lots of giggles and hugs, and rediscovered the world around us through the wonderment in our child's eyes.

Want to know what the best part was?  So do I!  But Malcolm and Dada insist that it's a secret!

Matthew's Blog

Good Morning, All.

No pictures today, but more soon, I promise.  Just wanted to let all our readers know that Matthew has started a companion blog to this one.  (For those not blog-savvy, that means Matthew's made a webpage like this one!)  He loves to talk about all sorts of stuff from politics to gaming.  Check it out by visiting:  http://www.docmage.blogspot.com