Gratuitous Cute Cooper pic ...

We interrupt what will prove to be a heavily-weighted series of Jake-centric posts with this photo of Cooper clutching his "Blue's Clues" NOTEBOOK that he immediately bonded with a week or two ago.

He wandered around yelling "NOTEBOOK" for most of the first day, holding it up triumphantly as he did so, then would settle down to thread a crayon through the spiral binding at the top, as his idol, Steve, and much-lesser-idol, Joe do on the (apparently now canceled, but don't tell him) TV show every day.

Party Pics I: Cake ...

I'll fan these birthday party photos into a series of posts, starting with the end product of Tammy's master cake-making skills:


Below, Jake samples a scrap from the production line and pronounces it ...

"Myufflesummm."

Presented without snarky commentary ...

And you know it pains me:

The hand ... it hurts

This is all a bit out of order, because this injury occurred about a week or so before Jake turned four, but ... yes ... Jake fell off the couch and ... yes ... he broke his right hand.

The original place we took him told us it wasn't broken, but our pediatrician, who is awesome, was dubious and had new x-rays taken.


Yep. There was a broken bone in there.

Good news: It was a very minor break, and nowhere near anyplace critical. No cast was necessary and he was mostly healed up by the time his birthday party came around.

Bad news: Everybody who thought the kid would reach the age of four before I broke him ... you just missed it by that much.

Shaving ...

I've recently gone facial hair-free for the first time in who knows how long.

Jake's fascinated with the concept of shaving, and here experiments with my shaving gel and Cooper's comb.

Clearly, he's pleased with the results.

Riding his bike ... y'know, for sick kids

Jake took part in his second annual Trike/Bikeathon at his preschool the other day, raising money for "sick kids ... to get them medicine."

Not to be outdone, Cooper quickly raced to his trike and ...


Well, actually, Cooper WAS outdone, and pretty quickly, too, as he decided to abandon the wheeled life for one of wandering around, looking at stuff ...


We're sure the sick kids appreciate his efforts, nonetheless.

Late Update: I'm sorry, did I say "looking at stuff"?


I should've said, "looking at girls."

We regret the error.