I didn't know where to begin

We were at the toy store today for a story time that didn't happen (the lady was on vacation). Blaise and I were at the train table with a little boy a few months younger and his mom. The kids were having fun vrooming the trains and watching them go down hills, when Blaise suddenly turned toward the little boy, lifted up her shirt, pointed to her belly and proudly declared, "My sar!"

The look on the other mom's face was pretty priceless. All I could think to say was "It's a long story, but everything's okay now."

Maybe that plan to convey positive messages about Blaise's scars is working a little too well.

Final clinic visit (fingers crossed)

Blaise modelling her corduroy "ova-aws." She *loves* them.

Barring some actual concern, Thursday marked our final visit to the short gut clinic at CHB. Sort of an odd feeling. I'm not going to say we'll miss clinic, but checking in with people who really know Blaise and really know short gut is always nice. (I think the new fellow didn't quite believe Blaise's medical history. Sometimes, I don't either.) At weight check, we discovered that, although she is longer and has gained a little weight, she's fallen behind the weight curve again. Frustrating, especially now that we don't have the tube to fall back on. That somewhat disheartening news was followed by a visit to say hello/goodbye to our favorite nurses and the world's greatest child life person (We love LaKeisha!) on 10East, which perked us up. Unfortunately, that was followed by a very long blood draw, made all the worse by Blaise's ability to scream for Mama the whole time, and then a drive home that was 3 times the usual duration. So, yeah, not really going to miss clinic, but still strange to think we likely won't go again. What do you say to the GI doc and nutritionist who have been so helpful for so long? "Thank you" seems inadequate.

Blaise is herself: cute, quick, crazy, smart and ornery. Not doing so well with the eating, especially of calorie dense food. She only really digs in for homemade mac-n-cheese and "tikka-sala rice" (she asks for tikka masala for breakfast). Otherwise, it's cheerios and grapes. We think it's just typical toddler disinterest in sitting still for any but the most awesome foods; we're trying to stay patient. Trying is the operative word.

order from chaos

"With great power comes great responsibility." - Ben Parker

"Blaise, I know you CAN stand on that, but please don't." -Ben Balas

Blaise is a lot better at a lot of things these days. She can run like mad at a goodclip, usually yelling "Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah..." as she storms down the sidewalk. She can climb more things than I really want to consider, and she can use forks, spoons, crayons, and my laptop with increasing ease. At first, this meant that you could spot where Blaise had been by following the swath of wreckage across the house. Stuff could (and did) wind up almost anywhere. Where's the camera? Under the sofa. Where's my left shoe? On the windowsill. Where's the cat? Possibly moved out for good this time.

Lately, however, Blaise has taken a turn towards the more orderly. Witness Exhibit A below:

Blaise's animal friends had mostly been ending up strewn across the floor post-nap...of late, this quasi-orderly stuffed animal tower is a not-uncommon occurrence. I like it, it's structural, but contemporary. The next photos are Blaise's real masterpiece, though:

Why do I like this one so much? Just two towers of blocks...what's the big deal? Well, first, notice that they're the same color pattern. Yellow, red, blue, black. Kinda neat that she decided to copy herself here - sort of a Warhol-esque maneuver. Lest you think this is Blaise moving into a period of non-representational art, however, check out what (I think) may be the inspiration for this showcase:

Neat, eh? I'm not sure this is what she was going for, but it was a little hard not to notice that she built these and then gave Madeline a big hug. There's a lot of developmental reasons that she's probably not quite capable of abstracting away her doll's appearance in Duplo blocks, but I guess you never know. She does love that doll, after all.

Anyway, we're all having a fun autumnal weekend here in Cambridge and probably heading out for some more romping around a playground soon. Hope you're all enjoying yourselves this weekend, and stay tuned for more large-scale construction projects headed up by B.

So much to do!

We were informed recently that we do not update the blog often enough. We apologize to the Blaise fans who have been missing their regular dose and we'll try to make it up.

Blaise is a busy, busy girl. She has many things to do and she is going pretty much constantly. There are books to read, stuffed animals to be fed, new words to say, songs to sing, jumping to be attempted and so much more. She only stops moving when she falls asleep or when we strap her into her seat for meals. This afternoon, she opened her favorite game on Ben's iPod; we didn't show her how to do that. We can barely keep up. The only recent difficulty has been that she's not very interested in eating at day care, which is a little tough. We don't think it's affecting her weight gain because she comes home and eats everything in sight. Still, we'd rather spread the calories out over the day. We'll figure something out.

Favorite things these days include: Madeline, duplo, They Might Be Giants, puzzles, Indian food (seriously), books, playing with water and walks. You'll notice among these many of the tendencies of an engineer, which suggests that indoctrination is going well. We're working on teaching her the MIT cheer. She thinks it's very funny, but we're not sure if she's laughing at us or with us.

Why the snowman bib? I don't know, but she really wanted to wear it. Questionable fashion choices are also big among engineers.