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Art playing with a train at Barnes and Noble.

Today we had a LOT of people over for brunch. 18 people! 21 in all, if you count Ben, Art and me. 22 if Lewis counts as a person, even though he is very small. It was 100% Minnesota-dwelling Parker and Garvin attendance, plus two boyfriends and one Chicago-dwelling Parker. Not bad! Ben made eggs for everyone, including two Poblano and Cheese quiches (homemade crust, too!) and an enormous spinach and three cheese egg scramble that my aunt Nance said were the best scramble eggs she ever ate. I set the table and nursed Lew.

Having Lewis home has been great, but it's also been hard on Arthur at times. He doesn't know how to say how he feels so he shows us in the only ways he knows how. Like throwing a tantrum over a lost marble. Or wanting to be cuddle more with Mama. Or, as in the above photo, refusing to put on (or take off) clothes. Tonight we tried to get some pajamas on him but he just refused. So we let him sleep in just a diaper. He woke up chilly an hour later and asked for clothes. It was a good lesson for us to just go with his flow, and a good lesson for him that it can be cold sleeping without pajamas.

For anyone out there who's wondering, the Garvin boys are all doing well.  Lewis has been having bouts of fussiness, but a lactation consultant diagnosed the potential cause of his gassiness over the phone and I will try some things this weekend to help him.  Art is slowly adjusting to the new house dynamic.  He is dealing with disappointment a little better each day - fewer meltdowns over things like changing clothes or food falling apart - and he is always coming up with the funniest things.  He's a comedian!  He sings the ABC's and sticks in a "Papa!" here and there ('A b c d e f g, h i j k l o n o PAPA!') and is just funny.  Yesterday I was reading a magazine on the couch and he came over to me with a 30" window blind box saying, "I'm going to read this big, loooooong book!  It's a Eiffel Tower!" The oldest of our family's Garvin boys, Ben, is also doing really well.  As many of our friends and family know, Ben was named Min...

Lew had an especially cranky day and needed to be held for most of it.

This is an old tree stump in our backyard that Art loves to go and sit on. It reached 75-degrees today. "I'm hiding!"

So, Ben and I went to our neighborhood bakery/cafe, Turtle Bread, yesterday with Baby Boy and brought a couple baby name books to work on this name thing in earnest. One name kept coming back as a favorite and now we are sure. And so here it is: Lewis Parker Garvin That's his name! Arthur is down with it, too. He even came upstairs with Ben this morning saying, "I want to see Lewis!" While we were at the cafe a gaggle of grandmas were admiring our week-old baby (who was sleeping in a blanket on the table top) and one woman saw that Ben had Louis and Lewis starred on his list. She suggested that he might have to correct people's pronunciation his whole life if we spelled it with the O-U, but she thought it was a great choice. Another young couple also stopped by our table to chat. They were glad to see we were a week out with a nameless baby because the woman's due date was the next day and they had no ideas for names. Hope this message finds you all well. L...

We went to the park today as a family. Our neighbor Becca actually drove jess the 7 blocks and art and I and the baby walked with our new 2-seater stroller (jess is still supposed to keep down her walking after the c-section). Anyway, there was this delightful woman named Marlene in a wheelchair. She couldn't talk or communicate at all, but her caretaker was there and asked if Marlene could hold the baby. She lit up with a huge smile when she held our week old baby, looking up and jess and down at the baby over and over. Having a brand new little life to share with people is a real joy. and here's jess and art playing with sticks.

The other day Arthur and his friend Evva (who's an entire week older than him) rode in a bike carriage thing to the May Day Cafe for breakfast, played in the park, and then fed the ducks.

Correction! this is not Art's brother. It's Evva's brother Oscar. Minor details.

This is Bubbe (Jessica's mama) holding the bug. These are wonderful little animals Uncle Mike gave Art for being a new big brother. Art's smooched on Uncle Josh's lap. Joanna holds the bug.