Getting His Gloves On.

It's the darnedest thing.

You put them to bed, looking like an angel...

and they wake up...

looking like Mike Tyson.

Who knew?

His Gratitude Knows No (Geopolitical) Bounds.

Every night, before bed, Colin says a prayer. I provide the template ("Heavenly Father, we're grateful for...") and he does the rest. Sometimes, it's sweet. Sometimes, it's jibberish. But it's always funny.

On Saturday night, Colin's prayer went like this:

Heavenly Father, we're grateful for...

• Mama (the woman who nurtures and cuddles him)


• Mom (the woman who lets him jump on the couch like a trampoline)


• a bone that glows in the dark (referring to his glow-in-the-dark skeleton pajamas)


• bones that glow in the dark (again, the pajamas, but how's that for subject-verb agreement?)


• that Mama has 31 years


• Greenland


• Baby Pierce


• Teeth

So, there you have it. In the Wiltbank house, there's a lot to be thankful for. And at least two of us are grateful for teeth (Colin as he uses them; Brad as he preps and fills them). And at least one of us (me) is grateful that Pierce doesn't have any... yet.

Pierce: Quality over Quantity.

I am a youngest child. And, when I had my first child, my mom sent me every baby photo of me. To oldest children, this probably sounds like an onerous task. But not for my mom. Because, remember, I'm the youngest. I think there were about 25 photos, which represented my first five years.*

* Which was totally fine by me because, in reality, these were not my finest five years.

So, I was afraid I would do to Pierce what happens to all subsequent children - that fewer photos would be taken of him than were taken of Colin. And that's probably true. Probably, we do have fewer photos of Pierce than of Colin.

But, woo boy, what Pierce lacks in quantity, he makes up for in quality. Look at this kid!

Oops! We did it again.

Meet Pierce. He arrived safely in May and has been lighting up our lives ever since. He's sweet and funny and, in an effort to stay competitive, just as chubby as his brother. His hobbies include eating, sitting up, rolling over, blowing spit bubbles, and coo-ing. His dislikes include being alone and the crib.

Colin likes to speak on Pierce's behalf, but the ventriloquist act is pretty limited. It usually goes something like this:

Me: "Colin, what does Pierce say?"

Colin: "I want some milk, Mom."

How is Colin handling being a big brother? Here's the scene from last night. I asked Colin if he wanted another little brother or little sister. Colin firmly, emphatically, and loudly rejected my offer. I asked him why he was was so against another sibling, and he said, "Coco doesn't want another brother. Coco wants Pierce!" So, there it is: all three of us really like having Pierce around. Welcome to the team, Pierce!

VH-1: The Early Years.

Here's Colin - playing with this favorite toy:

And here's Colin - getting ready for his very own "Behind the Music":

Get your DVRs ready!

Monkey Suit.

I like that Colin is a baby. I like that he only has two teeth, I like that he kicks his legs when he's excited, and I like that he can get away with wearing pajamas all day. But every once in a while, it's good to break the monotony of hanging-out in pajamas and get a little dressed up. Wearing uncomfortable-but-cool clothes teaches Colin an important lesson: fashion over function.

Take hats. Hats are often made from yarn, and yarn isn't always soft. In fact, it's often itchy. So, this winter, Colin had to endure a bit of an itchy head in an effort to stay warm. That is, till he grew into this gem:

It's soft, it's warm, and it looks like a sock monkey. Hats don't get cooler than this.

We owe a lot of Colin's warmth on walks to Lorraine, who stayed up all night, knitting him this hat. It's entirely her own creation. Based on the compliments this hat generates, if Lorraine ever gets tired of lawyer jokes, she could start mass-producing these bad boys. When Vera Wang asks for a Lorraine Hoffman monkey hat for her little Josephine, Lorraine will know she's arrived. By then, Colin's monkey hat will be vintage, and he can sell it to pay for college.

The Host with the Most.

While I was pregnant, I did what other pregnant women do - I attended classes. Lots and lots of classes. Classes about me, classes about the kid living in my studio apartment, classes about how to evict the kid, all kinds of classes. They covered all kinds of different topics, but they all had one thing in common - they were epicly long and very, very boring.

I decided that the only antidote to these odious classes was a friend. Since I wouldn't have any friends left if I took one of my existing, not-pregnant friends, I knew I had to make a friend in the class. I thought it would be tough. Until I got to the first class, and I spotted Johanna. She was adorable, funny, and signed up for all the same classes I was. We signed a friendship agreement, settled ourselves in for the long haul of learning exactly what we got ourselves into, and compared vital statistics. We were both having boys, were due within 2 weeks of each other, and we both knew the pain of moving mid-way through a pregnancy. Unfortunately, I had just moved, and Johanna was getting ready to move.  

Nonetheless, Johanna and I keep in touch, and, while she was visiting Seattle recently, our little boys got to meet each other.  I don't mean to oversimplify the complexity that is a personality, but our boys can be summed up thusly:

Edison: adept in all things physical; good at rolling over and crawling

Colin: perfectly content to sit around and watch basketball; enjoys food

But when they met, it was like mother, like son: Colin clearly wanted to be Edison's friend. How do I know? Because as soon as he saw him, Colin grabbed Edison's cheeks and gave him a kiss.  

You can't teach skills like that.