Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The Next Bobby Fischer

Genevieve learned to play chess less than six months ago. We have been amazed at how quickly she picked it up and continues to improve. For the past month she has been going to her school's chess club once a week. Today they had a tournament. Check out the silver medal winner!


For the record, Genevieve played 6 games. She won the first 5. The sixth game was against an undefeated 3rd grader. They played to a draw.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Happy and Healthy

Look who found his thumb!
I took Aaron to the doctor yesterday for his "2 month" checkup. He's actually only 7 weeks, but who's counting? He's up to 10 lbs, 7 oz and 22 inches. Height, weight and head circumference are all 25th %ile. Seems huge to me, though, after Genevieve. The doctor was very impressed with his muscles--she says he will be turning over soon. He was very good for her--quite alert, smiley and talkative. Have I mentioned how he "talks" constantly? He's the noisiest little thing. Constantly cooing, gurgling, grunting, squeaking...

Here's an example of him trying to communicate:

And here's my first ever photo of him smiling. (He's been responding to people for a long time and smiles a lot now, but it's hard to get on camera.)


Of course, he doesn't always smile. After the checkup he got his immunizations. I hadn't heard about the new rotovirus vaccine. What a great thing! Rotovirus is that awful stomach virus that causes 2 weeks of absolute misery. Plus it's an oral vaccine that apparently tasted great. The 3 shots were not so popular. The worst thing was the look on his face when he got stabbed for the first time. He's almost never been hurt before in his life, so this was a shock! And then he turned red and screamed silently for a minute before remembering to breathe. So sad.

Here's approximately what that face looked like. I love the contrast between the two kids in this picture:


This week we finally got some decent weather and I was able to take Aaron outside more than just running between the car and a building. We went to the park with Genevieve one afternoon:And another day we took a walk on the Erie Canal path.
Like a good baby he slept through the majority of these experiences.