Calvin: now with new ROLLING OVER action!

A friend of mine was watching Calvin play with toys on the floor the other evening and observed that he is at that stage where a baby apparently unable to hold his own head up for longer than a minute is somehow able to move several feet across the carpet through some combination of wriggling, grunting and will-power. How do they do that? And how are they so cagey about this locomotion, doing it only when you aren't looking, crossing the living room in the time that it takes to read one column of a newspaper article? And when you spot them at it they look at you with the most casual expression, "Oh, hey, I just happen to see a cuff-link under the couch, no big deal. Keep reading your New Yorker."

And then, this Sunday morning as another friend and I were chatting and drinking coffee, Calvin rolled from back to front while neither of us was looking! So now he rolls. And soon, if we are to believe the fiery look in his eyes, he will also crawl, walk, read and drive.

I'm posting this photo of Audrey holding Calvin because it has been one of the joys in our exhausting life to see how much Audrey truly loves her baby brother. Going on five months and she's still excited to see him every morning, still wants to hold him, still has "conversation" (her word of the week) with him. And he wants nothing more than to watch the Audrey channel, all day long.

It is a quieting thought that these two will have a relationship that long outlasts their parents, and they will be their own tribe to one another and keep each other company in bad times and good. And they will call each other up on weekends and say, "Mom is making me crazy. She's doing that thing again. You know?" And the other one will be able to say, as no one else on earth can, "Yes. I do. I know exactly what you mean."

No offense, Mom. Janna and I never say this to each other, I swear.