A Cerney Periodical

We have a windup toy snail. It's fun and slow, and Brock likes to chase it around. He also picks it up and throws it sometimes. One of those throws somehow altered its internal mechanics and transformed it into a turbo-charged snail on steroids. Brock was delighted by his work.

Brock has loved stackers for some time. He never stacks them, but he loves spinning the rings on the floor and watching them slowly come to a stop. That all changed yesterday when Brock finally figured out that the rings fit on the stick. The following videos are a bit long, but they tell the entire story of Brock learning how to stack. The story begins with me noticing across the room that Brock had successfully put a ring on the stacker twice! I pulled out my phone, confident that I would capture a third success. That's when we ran into some serious coordination frustration. See for yourself.... By the end of two minutes, I felt that perhaps I was pushing him a little too hard. We would forget about the rings and come back later. But Brock was determined, obsessed. Less than a minute after I had put the camera away, he was back at it. His first attempt of this second session was an instant success that, of course, occurred off-camera.  I immediately fired up the camera

Brock is piling up new abilities at a pretty alarming rate. On the communication front, he can reliably tell you what the snake says if you ask him, or even if he just sees a snake and feels like it. It's not only adorable, it also makes me pretty confident he won't have a lisp until he's seven like his daddy did. He yells, "MA MA MA," when he wants more of something he's eating, but I don't think I'm allowed to count that as words until he stops yelling it completely random times as well. By far his greatest feat of communication was a few days ago when he became quite hungry nearly an hour before dinner. Brock grabbed The Very Hungry Caterpillar  and brought it over to me. He waved it in my face as he always does when he wants me to read to him. But this time he would not let me read it. He kept trying to flip pages before I could finish them and grew quite angry at my insistence that we read the book. When I relented, he flipped furiously and quic

Brock is officially a stair-lover. He had dabbled before depending on mood, but now he's confident that the best way to go is always up, and the best time to go there is now. This last weekend he climbed to the highest part of the playground: a arched bridge that crossed between two towers. As he raced across the bridge I thought for sure he would delight in exploration of the foreign side of the bridge. He looked around briefly, and immediately realized that the higher ground was from whence he had just come.  And that's the story of how Brock did ten laps of the playground bridge.  Here's a video of Brock climbing the stairs to the roof. It's kinda long, but mommy's in Poland, so deal with it. (if you get bored of the stairs, ff to the end for some top-notch waving goodbye)

 As many of you know, Holly is spending a month in Poland with her theatre company rehearsing at the Witkiewicz Theatre under the tutelage of one of its brilliant directors. Brock and I will be flying out to join them in a couple weeks, but for now it's single daddy time!  So far Brock has been a real champ about the whole situation. He's used to being with just me for long stretches while mom is at work, and most of the time it's been exactly that smooth. I think the saddest I've seen him was while reading a poorly-chosen library book about baby animals. Every other page introduced the baby animals' mommies and asked lots of mommy-related questions. Brock kept looking towards the front door and looking sad. I decided that wasn't a very good book for me to read to him. A couple days later I realized that Brock can not read, so now it's a book about baby animals and their daddies. It's not his favorite book for sure, but it doesn't mak

That's all.  

We decided that our one free weekend till Halloween was in some desperate need of plans!  Every summer disc/golf camping expeditions become top leisure priorities.  Last year I managed to complete the arduous and amazing Justin Trails course in Sparta WI and sleep out in the rain at a healthy 6.5 months along.  How could we deny Brock an equally marvelous experience?  It had been far too long since we had visited two of our  most beloved courses in the brewery infested region of Michigan.  Game on!  Gathered experience from our St. Louis excursion brought us to the conclusion that the Mini is, indeed, a rather small vehicle.  We deduced that there would not be room for Brock, Brockstuffs, camping gear, and both parents.  So we compromised on the camping and found a fully-equipped no-frills cabin rental on a lovely little lake located somewhere between the courses we wanted to play.  The cabin came with a fishing boat, temperate lake water grand for plunging, a slide,

 We had a lovely and relaxing 4th of July weekend that most consisted of some form of eating or drinking.  Matt started out with brewing and bottling.  On the menu: Matt's first barley wine... very promising wort.  Brock was there to help. There is a warning on the side of bucket that depicts baby drowning... already showing signs of rebel risk-taking, Brock is defying the odds. Friday the 4th proper we had a romantic rooftop meal under Chicago's gloriously illegal pyrotechnic theater.  We listened to the neighbors hoot and holler and reminisced about 12 months earlier.  What changes!  We threw a party on Saturday, much more low key than in July 4th's of old, but with baby and a bathroom in demolition, it was appropriate.  Such a lovely group of ten dear friends and unprecedented weather.   Sunday followed with the most perfect lunch.  Pastrami sandwiches (I can't believe I just wrote that) smoked all day previously, a kale salad fresh from the g

This weekend we made a mini-vacation to St. Louis.  We went with our trip buddies, the Hoangs,  the Narwanis and the Focklers plus Phuc's sister Lucky and her son; nine boys and one girl (Emma can play at boy stuff no problem) between all of us.  Just 4.5 hrs away (less without bridge work) St. Louis is an awesome place!  The highlight of the trip was the City Museum.    A crazy mix of art/playground/fantasy/architecture this place was a fun land for kids and adults alike.  I think we will make this an annual trip, as the older Brock gets, the more fun it will be.  Anyone want to join us one year?  St. Louis is a fabulously accessible place that is not too pricey, very accommodating to parents, and loaded with fun surprises.  Let's go! Here is Matt taking Brock down the big slide on the rooftop.  Again, we'll be back when Brock is older.  Some of it was more for me and Matt.  We took turns watching little man.  Luckily we were able to take beer anywhere.