Humphrelia

As everyone surely knows, last Sunday was the Superbowl. The Thursday before that was my birthday.

To celebrate the birthday, Malin, Will, and I went to Taco Mac to eat burgers and a chocolate chimichanga. For my birthday last year, my sister ordered matching shirts for Will and me. The place from which she ordered them, however, had a tough time fulfilling it: they arrived about twelve months late. Luckily, she ordered a larger shirt than Will required, so, now that it arrived, it fits him perfectly:

Will and I in our matching shirts: “The Dude” from The Big Lebowski

Later that weekend, Malin took Will outside for picture-taking (a frequent occurrence here, as you have no doubt noticed). She got several shots of him holding an umbrella, but the real gem is a photo of him in his shades. His future is very bright:

Another thing to which Will has gotten hooked is the soundtrack to the Star Wars movies. I had CDs for the music from the original trilogy, and when I first played it for Will, he loved it. I figured he would enjoy it since he recognizes much of it from his favorite video game. Now, he asks to listen to it at nap-time. He will curl up in an office chair with the music playing through one of the computers, and he will fall right to sleep. When he is awake and active, he will ask to hear the music in the family room. Once it is playing, he runs around the room pretending he is in the video game – acting out as, or fighting, Jedis, Gungans, battle droids, and “bad guys.”

As you can see, he is a big fan of running around in his boots and his underwear – pantlessly defeating his evil foes.

We were originally planning to have company on Superbowl Sunday (just a few friends over, nothing like Will’s birthday party or Stephanie’s baby shower). But everyone we know got sick, so it was just the three of us. We decided that nothing would be better accompaniment to football, over-the-top halftime shows, and crazy Budweiser commercials than pigs-in-blankets and fresh, home-brewed ale:

Unfortunately, after the Superbowl, our week went downhill. We all got sick Tuesday night. I felt miserable and ended up going to bed very early. When I awoke, Malin and Will were knee-deep in a bad cold, too. Will only missed one day of school. He returned Thursday, but I stayed at home again because Malin was in such bad shape. I picked up Will from preschool that day, entertained him, and made dinner – while Malin recovered. Friday morning, I finally returned to work. Everyone was feeling better except me. But I had already missed two days (though not completely since I have the capability to work from home when I don’t feel good). So I simply armed myself with some DayQuil and a couple of handfuls of cough drops and headed into the office. We’ve been okay ever since – although Will was feeling ill at brunch this morning. Hopefully he will recover soon (I think he has a tummy ache).

We were recounting just last night to some friends all of the wonderful adventures we had last year with a sick two-year-old. Will and Malin were sick, off and on, for much of the beginning of 2007. And then in March, Will contracted a virus that ended up giving him a bad case of hives. As long as we don’t have a repeat of last year, we’ll be doing great!

And now, we’ll round out this post with a photo of a rarely-seen face around here: Malin. Actually, of course, we see her all the time. We just don’t see pictures of her that frequently since she’s always the one behind the camera. Earlier this week, she was trying to take self-portraits. Ultimately she had to ask for my assistance in the matter. Since her camera is nearly impossible to use, she had to set it up for me (i.e. flip the switches for the right shutter speed, aperture, ISO-speed, etc…). All I had to do was aim while holding the focus button and then – voila! One firm press of my right-hand index finger (click!) and out comes a photograph! It’s like magic…