London vs. dinosaurs

I'm sure I'll be accused of brainwashing if I tell you that London loves dinosaurs. But ask yourself this: what kid doesn't love dinosaurs? Every kid goes through a dinosaur phase. Some phases last longer than others. Mine happens to be in its 29th year, but my point stands. This is perfectly normal (for him, and for me).

Aaaaanyway, it all started when I put up the tyrannosaur bust that Vicki got me for Christmas. Well, she didn't really mean to get it for me for Christmas. She ordered something smaller and much less imposing, but the company send this instead. I'm not complaining.


I wanted to put it up in the entryway, so the first thing you would see on entering Casa Wedel was a tyrannosaur about to bite your face off. But Vicki said no. The only place she would let me put it up was over the aquarium. I put it up one day a couple of weeks ago while London was in daycare.

When he came home, he noticed immediately. I mean, it ain't hard, the thing is pretty awesome. London ran over, stood underneath it, pointed up, and said "Guh! Guuuuh!"

The second thing he did was run to his toybox and pull out the little plush T-rex I picked up for him at the Field Museum (on the right in the next picture down). One smart cookie, my little 20-month-old is.

So then I realized that London needed a big plastic dinosaur. Heck, every kid does. So I started canvassing the local toy stores, looking for your basic five dollar plastic tyrannosaur. We've all seen about a zillion of them. They're always on the bottom shelf, near the rubber snakes and the jars of bubbles and the travel games.

I couldn't find one anywhere. Finally I went to this toystore right down the street from the house and struck gold: a foot-tall scaly green red-eyed prehistoric monster, for $7.95.


Of course London immediately understood that this dinosaur was the same sort of thing as the big one that hangs on the wall. At first, he was a little leery of it. He'd sneak out and touch it with one finger, as if it might bite him. But I showed him that he could knock it down with a swipe of his hand, and pretty soon he was wrestling it into submission. Now if he's playing and I say "Bad dinosaur!" he'll give it a slap and knock it over and laugh and laugh.



Finally, no post is complete without a shot of London crashed out at the end of the day.

A quiet day with a sick boy

Our household has been visited by Dave this weekend. That's D.A.V.E., the Diarrhea And Vomiting Epidemic. I am the only one functional today, so I've been puttering around putting things on shelves and taking care of my angels. Vicki's been in bed all day and London has been napping on the living room floor. At his pediatrician's recommendation, I've been giving him a couple of squirts of Gatorade with a dropper ever half hour. About an hour ago he woke up enough to eat a saltine and have some more Gatorade. As soon as the cracker was gone, he tucked his pacifier back in his mouth and went straight back to sleep.

London has always been good about calming himself down with pacifiers, but when he's sick I guess he think he needs extra ammo. Right now he has one in his mouth and another one in each hand. He's got that pacifier supply problem covered.

I've gotten a lot of good pictures of him sleeping since we moved, and since he's been sleeping all day, this seems like a good time to post them.



This is one from the other night. London put himself to sleep. That's a good day in my book. You can see that he's got a death grip on a little racecar from his first Happy Meal.


Other dads stick their thumbs in pictures. Me, I go for toes.


Here's the little man this afternoon, feeling puny. His godmother, Sarah, made the awesome blanket for him. So far--fingers crossed--he hasn't barfed on it. I had a long talk with London's pediatrician this afternoon. He's not worried. London isn't dehydrated, and I've been making sure he gets enough fluids. He just needs some rest. I'm sure he'll back to terrorizing the household very soon.

London with Grandma and Grandpa

My mom and dad came out to help us move--and we wouldn't have gotten moved without them. Mom watched London while Vicki packed boxes and Dad and I loaded the truck. It was a marathon, and it was gross. When we moved out here, we had the luxury of a two-day gap between loading and unloading the truck. This time, the gap was about two hours. By the time we were done, we were flattened.

But we did get done, and then we had some time to explore Berkeley. I took Mom and Dad to the Berkeley Botanical Garden. Dad carried London in the backpack, and then we turned him loose for our picnic lunch in the redwood grove. London's new favorite sport is climbing stairs, and he got to indulge himself in the amphitheater (under Daddy's watchful eye and steadying hand, of course).

Oh, and Mom hates having her picture taken, so these are all the pictures we got of her from the move. I count it as an unusually successful visit, in terms of photographing the rare and elusive Grandma.

More pictures of Anna Ruth

As promised.

For those of you who haven't met the whole clan, the smiling bearded guy is my younger brother, Todd, and the smiling non-bearded guy is my youngest brother, Ryan. I assume you can figure out that the smiling redhead is Rebecca.

And just look at that tiny baby! The sight of her makes me miss my own little baby even more than usual. Congratulations to the new family!

Pictures from the move

Todd sent more pictures of Anna Ruth, but I have a rule about London's blogs: London must be in at least every other post! And I've got a big backlog of pictures from the past three weeks, as moving did not allow much time for blogging. So here are some pix.

These things are water noodles. We sold them in the garage sale. But London had a fun evening with them before we got rid of them. If you think it was cruel to do away with something that obviously brought him a lot of pleasure, just think of the damage a toddler with a five-foot reach could do.



Yeah, like that.


Oh, and please ignore the fact that our apartment is a Pit of Despair in these photos. We don't normally live like junk traders, but, you know, we were moving.


And after some hard playing, there's nothing like a relaxing read on the sofa with Dad.


Or total hibernation in bed.


More of the same.

London has a new cousin

My brother Todd and his wife Becca are adopting a baby girl. Her name is Anna Ruth and she was born yesterday at 1:11. Vital stats are 5 lbs, 11 oz, and 18 inches long. She is London's first cousin on the Wedel side. Vicki's sister Sarah and her husband Dan have two daughters, Abby and Caty.

We can't wait to see her in person!