Only human

Like the rest of us, Manny puts his pants on one leg at a time.

Unlike the rest of us, Manny puts his pants on foot-end-of-the-pants first (though still one leg at a time).

Little artist

Finger-paint project. Hee, hee, my hands are dirty.

Ha ha, really dirty!

You want me to what? Look at you? Look at the camera?

No way, lady.

Who dat?

Manny has been slow to speak, much slower than Jonah was, and with less articulation and enunciation. He tends to drop the last sound or syllable from several words, which I know can be a sign of a deeper speech pathology. When I mentioned this to our family doctor, he wrote a referral for Manny to see a speech therapist. The evaluation indicated that Manny's speech is, in fact, normal. The therapist actually recommended a session for him every week perhaps for as long as six months, which we've decided is overkill. Since the evaluation, though, we've emphasized the final sounds of words when speaking, asking Manny to repeat them if he drops them. His progress has been remarkable. On his own, he now includes the final sound of many words, especially new ones. (It's as if he's trying to unlearn some of the poor pronunciation on words that he learned longer ago.) He's also started putting together three and four word phrases and has started to ask questions using the big question words -- who what and where especially. Both of these are big steps.

As happy as I am to see this progress, though, I have to admit that I'm going to miss this "baby talk" when it's gone in too short of a time. His sweet little voice asking me, "Who dat?" of the trains in his catalogue is absolutely priceless. It took a little while to get him to say, "Who dat?" while on camera. I'm glad that I stuck with it. And there's a little extra Manny-craziness at the end to boot. "Who dat?" Dat, my friends, is my sweet Mooster.

Happy Birthday to Moo!

October 22 marked two years since our little ball of sunshine and silliness, sweet Manuel Mark, made his entrance into this world. "Ball of sunshine and silliness" really is about the best way that I know how to describe him: He loves to ham it up for anyone who will watch, and he has so many cute little quirks and habits that I find Gabriel and myself saying, "He's just so cute" far too often. I tell Manny himself that he's way too cute, which is pretty dangerous, I think. I worry that I give him the power to get away with naughtiness if he'll only just turn on the charm; I'm sure that it's already happening. We love you, our sweet little Moosy, our delicious Pumpkin Pie! Many years!

I planned to hold off on any real birthday celebration until the day after Manny's actual birthday, when Gangee visited, to avoid any confusion about birthdays lasting only one day, not several. The morning of his birthday, though, my husband scolded my energy conservation project, so I agreed to at least do something. The boys and I made oatmeal cookies to be served with our lentil and rice casserole dinner. "Lentil and rice casserole" doesn't sound like much of a birthday dinner, does it?, but Manny loved it. As I said, a little ball of sunshine.

Oatmeal cookie cake will serve in a pinch...

...as long as it's accompanied by ice cream.

This is the look of a boy who doesn't want to be interrupted while playing with his new Winterwonderland Thomas the Tank Engine and the giggling Troublesome Trucks. ("Giggling Troublesome Truck," incidentally, happens to be a great nickname for Manny, who does indeed love to giggle while making trouble. Trouble is cute! Trouble is fun!)

Here's Manny's "real" birthday cake. It's supposed to be a dinosaur. There has to be a dino that was green with blue spots and a fin on its back, right? Dinosaur, dragon, whatever; it fierce and close enough for an easy-to-please two year old boy.

Nice work on the candles, Moo.

Snip, snip

Well, it only took two years -- or about a year longer than it took with Jonah -- to decide that, yes, indeed, Manny's hair was getting a little out of control.

It took some convincing to make him see that he looked a wee bit of a mess; here he turns his head away in disbelief, or maybe shame.

Gangee was nice enough to take the Moo for his first haircut. I hear that he was a little unsure about the proceedings at first, but with his Thomas the Tank Engine book (and maybe some food?) in hand, he settled in. Afterwards, he charmed the ladies at the cuttery by pulling his shortened curls (so thankful that they survived the trim!) and proudly proclaiming, "Haircut!" And he at a sucker, of course. What's a haircut without a sucker?

Pup

Manny carelessly tossed Pup on the bathroom floor and left him there. I found the poor stray leaning on one haunch, propped on his foreleg, staring morosely at our cabinet, one ear perked up as he waited for his errant master to come back and reclaim him. Poor Pup can't actually walk by himself, you know.

Ham

This child knows when the camera is on him.

A boy's boy

Can you spot the goose-egg on Manny's head? The child stumbled (or was pushed -- we'll never know!) into the edge of our wooden toy chest -- ouch. The photos, of course, don't do it justice. The bump swelled so quickly that it split and started to ooze a little blood. Jonah did the same thing when he was about 14 months old; I guess that every child needs a bump like this during the toddler years. Right? It was probably the most traumatic thing that Manny's ever been through, but, considering that the tears and screams stopped with the application of popsicles, it was relatively non-traumatic after all. This happened five weeks ago now, and Manny still bears a visible mark and has a palpable bump on his head. Neither interfere with play and general rough-housing. Nor with book reading, as shown in Exhibit B.

We put Manny in a baseball cap awhile ago, and upon seeing him in it, Jonah exclaimed, "It's Baseball Pig!" (Pig being an endearing though potentially unflattering nickname.) Clever Jonah. Manny tries to live up to the name. (The photos and video are a month old now. Manny has vastly improved his swing and hit ability since.)

1) Pick up ball.

2) Decide that this is a job for two hands, after all.

3) Line it up.

4) Thwack!

Hammy Manny

Yes, Manny's a pretty happy kid. Why do you ask?

Franken-baby walks!

This was taken almost a week ago; Manny is much steadier now, though he still prefers crawling. He's been drinking from a cup (open top, no sippy cut) while standing for at least the past three weeks, without losing his balance. I want to say to him, "Manny, if you can do that, for heaven's sake, you can walk." But the Moo likes to do things his own way, thank-you-very-much.

We call him "Crazy M"

Manny had a very happy first birthday. It was especially happy because he received a (second) Puppy Pal, which he is waving around wildly in this video. Manny is a barrel of laughs!

Manny's second 1st birthday

The weekend following Manny's birthday, two beloved families who once lived in Chicago but have since moved away were in town for Baby Luke's baptism. To give Manny a 'real' birthday (the kind with cake and friends) and in order to make time for the womenfolk to get together and cluck like a bunch of hens, I planned a Saturday morning brunch birthday. Four women and their children ended up coming and we had a pleasantly full apartment.

All the kids got in on the gift-opening action. Left to right are Jonah, Jackson, Ezra, Auntie Lex, Jude and Manny.
Here Manny takes his new black dachshund for a walk (thanks, Deacon and Mimi!). Manny checks out the tissue paper, while Madrina Corene (in the background) checks out the cuddly blanket Auntie Lexie made for him.

At some point during the present-opening action, Jonah quietly sneaked to the dining room table and helped himself to a cupcake. I've rarely seen Jonah quieter.

Pumpkin cakes for a Pumpkin Pie.

Manny enjoyed his cupcake immensely. So much so that I had to dig half of it out of his mouth, lest he choke on it. Manny is a champion eater, though he does have a discerning palate.

Jonah had loads of fun with his friends, especially Isaac (L) and James. Sadly, James (still known informally to Jonah as "Bia") now lives in Dallas, Texas; happily, we now have an excuse to visit Dallas, Texas (though I didn't know before that we needed one).
When we asked Manny to show us how big he was, he tried to hide behind his hands.

Somebody get this kid a bed! Incidentally, this is the same shirt that Gabe was wearing in the hospital one year ago. If there is anything that makes me realize how big Manny now is, it is certainly this picture. Sweet dreams, Pumpkin Pie!