This is how Eleanor sleeps, roughly half the night. Thus, Melinda types one-handed very effectively.



















Eleanor's favorite place is standing as close to Ben as possible. Ben puts up with it some of the time, and wants to be left alone some of the time.

Celebration

Moments after CNN declares Obama the winner, Ben celebrates by dispensing an inordinate amount of scotch tape. Owen jumps, Palomi jumps and tootles.

Ben was a robot. When he got overwhelmed with the attention, he turtled and ate candy from the interior candy chute. Eleanor made a very fine chicken.

Trains

Eleanor crawls!

Her first crawl steps were last week, and now she gets across the living room in a few seconds...

Ben's TV Ice Cream

Ben spent yesterday laying unusual eggs. Here he serves breakfast, and explains the concept of "TV ice cream eggs".

Ben sings Take Me Out to the Ballgame

He prefers alternate tunings on the ukulele...

The surf at Point Reyes

We drove to Point Reyes National Seashore last weekend with Palomi and family to enjoy a freezing, windy beach. Ben loves the ocean, and refused to get out despite the cold.



Oh, and a giant yellow crab came out of the water and chased Ben around. He now talks about this incident as if it actually happened... Oh, and it is, of course, a flying crab.

Eleanor sits up!

Yes, that's "sits up" not "spits up". She can sit up on her own, unsupported, although when she gets excited she kicks her legs and topples.

She's just 4 months old; Ben was 6 months when he managed this feat. I will now presume that Eleanor will do everything one-third faster than Ben, and will graduate from college at 16.

Oakland Fairyland

We went to the slightly--okay, very rundown Fairyland in Oakland. It was built in 1950, and last cleaned in the late 1970s. Still, Ben had as much fun as he could while fighting a nap. The puppet show Pinnochio was great; Ben loved it.

Here Ben is in jail in the Old West, and rides the scary My Little Jim Morrison Pony.

Palomi came over today, and we went to water and weed our garden. This ended with Ben yelling "I'm a plant and I'm growing!" while watering himself and Palomi.

Santa Cruz Boardwalk

We drove down and met Matthew in Santa Cruz to ride the rides on the Boardwalk. Not visible: the massive wildfire to the south that closed Route 1.

The Fancy Airplane

Ben took a small airplane I made for him out of Knex parts and modified it. Heavily. He's been working on it for three days now, with two complete teardown rebuilds. When working on it, he's so fixated that he doesn't hear anything you say to him...

Eleanor swings

Eleanor's first time on a swing.

The Strega Nona broccoli remix

Mom had a notebook on her lap, so she wrote Ben's song down. (Sung to the tune of "A Bear Went over the Mountain, more or less.)

"Strega Nona went over the mountain, then went into the village to get some paper broccoli.

The broccoli spilled out and covered Strega Nona's town, and Big Anthony ate all the broccoli, big fat broccoli.

He got some broccoli and cooked it and didn't spill any more.

Then Strega Nona went over the mountain and they cooked pasta together again.

And that's the end. That's my Strega Nona song."

A post on boardgamegeek

It was a slow day at work, so I posted a note about Ben on the website Boardgamegeek, which became one of the more popular threads on the website today. Melinda thought I should link to it, so:

My son, the 2-year old board game designer

There are lots of inside jokes and lingo for board gamers, so beware...

Eleanor smiles

She now grabs, tracks things carefully, and smiles all the time.

Ben plays ukulele

A shorter version of Down by the Bay.

Palomi and Ben sing Raffi

Lots of moose kissing moose here.

Eleanor smiles!

Ben with Dad and little sister

Another video of Ben and Palomi

Papa Daniel has posted a short video of Ben and Palomi playing outside. It's at http://palomiblog.blogspot.com/

Ben and Palomi Read

Remember how you were supposed to be able to hear Satanic messages if you played Stairway to Heaven backwards? Well, I was shocked to find what happens if you read The Armadillo from Amarillo upside-down. (Hint: They went to the A's-Red Sox game last week.)

A greeting from Eleanor

Bunnies

Easter morning...

Ben's bike gang

Palomi, Ben, and Owen ride their bikes in the Village. Palomi and Owen have upgraded to bigger bikes, but they no longer have a storage bin in back. Also, they fall over a lot.

You'll be happy to know that Ben did NOT ride off the stairs.

Video of Eleanor at 10 days...