"Dad, are there people stronger than us?" Kaden said to me this evening.
"Yes."
"Dad, are there people faster than us?"
"Yes."
"Dad, are there people more gorgeous than us."
"Definitely."
"Even more gorgeous than Kate?" (our next door neighbor)
"Yes."

"...But nobody can try harder than me."

Tyler Durden is my bladder

"Momma, my bladder is angry."

"Really?"

"And it likes to pee in my underwear"

"Umm. Can you just tell it to hold on."

"Okay momma, I'll tell it to calm down."

we're going to have to rename the blog

IMG_0991

New photos of Liam Hadid Hyatt, born June 10th, 2008 are here.

keeping regular

muffin, originally uploaded by Nabeel H.

When you find a balance between structure and choice with a kid, it can be a wonderful thing. For us, on Saturday's we wake up, he happily says goodbye to mama and we rush up the street to get to the bus "before it runs away."

As the bus comes into view he screams, "it's 72 dada, 72!" The #72 MBTA bus stops, he jumps on board, sprints to the back of the bus and hurries me to sit down to hold his hand before the bus starts going.

As an aside, the public bus system is absolutely responsible for my son's mastery of numbers above 20. Has anyone else noticed that no kids books go above 20? Isn't the whole point of inventing zero that it makes large number sets as easy to understand as small number sets? Did no one explain this to childens book authors?

Anyway, I digress. We were enjoying a happy Sunday morning in Cambridge.

When we get to Harvard Square and he climbs off the bus I always look at him and say, "you want to take the escalator up or the elevator?"

I think one of the things he really loves about these trips is that it is incredibly structured with a good set of discrete choices. It reminds me a lot of when a start-up feels right and when it feels wrong. If it is total chaos and no structure you're never sure if you are in rhythm, but once all the questions have been answered and you are smooth sailing, then it gets pretty boring.

"Elevator or Escalator?" "Muffin first or Curious George bookstore?" "Which muffin do you want?" "Which book do you want to read?" Our trips to Harvard Sq are the same basic rhythm, with a bunch of choices that he gets along the way. And it's our own private ritual for dad and son.

And then there were three

Kaden turned three not long ago, and we've just gotten the photos up on Flickr. My parents visited and got a chance to see his outgoing nature in action. He took control of the birthday party, getting games of chasing, hiding, and attack of the birthday blowouts.

"Trick or Treat Time"

Here on Standish St we are blessed with a capacity crowd on Halloween every year. It is quite a sight to see, so much so that one family I spoke to had driven 30 mins to come trick or treating on our street. So after Kaden was done with his short trip around the block collecting candy, I set him up on our front stoop to hand out the goodies to everyone.

Kaden took this responsibility very seriously, greeting nearly everyone with "Trick or Treat Time" and dutifully handed each kid their allotment. When there was no one around he would pull the hood of his bear costume up and practice his "GRRR." But make no mistake, as soon as anyone got close he would pull his hood off quickly to show that he meant serious candy-giving business.

We've got a little video and photos below. Happy Halloween everyone.



Click on the photos for a the Flickr photoset:

kaden turns two

his favorite birthday present was the bubbles.




photos here. more to come.