Benjamin Michael Singer -- Seventeen Months!

Benjamin is seventeen months old and is going strong. No illnesses, with ear tubes and the warm summer weather, and Benjamin has had lots of energy the past few weeks. He's been especially happy and playful and fun to be with. He's curious about everything with buttons and knobs, preferring to play with the TV remote control, our cell phones, the stove burners, and anything else that we mistakenly leave in his reach! He's grown an inch in the last few months, and puts that to good use stretching for stuff on top of counters and tables. Flipping light switches and flushing the toilet repeatedly are also great games. Benjamin is a big "reader", frequently grabbing books and bringing them to us and imploring us to read to him. We encourage that as much as we can!

Benjamin also had some plastic surgery a few weeks ago to remove his ear tag, inherited from his father, same ear, same place. He protested like Samson that we were removing the source of his strength, but we were ruthless in removing it anyway. A few hours after the operation he was back to his normal self, hungry and exploring the universe.

We are a bit behind on posting pictures so these are mostly from the weekend after the 4th of July. We had a fun trip to California, got to see lots of friends, as well as visit growing children. Pictured below is Peter, son of Jon and Beth; Alexander, son of Beth and Rob; a toddler-sized Ellie, daughter of Lynn and Bill; and Kaya, daughter of Jessica and Paul. This parenthood thing is catching, evidently. We attended Julie and Eoin's wedding, held in a beautiful San Jose backyard with great lemon trees. The Santa Cruz trip to the ocean was great, tired everyone out, too! The Bay Area is a nice place to live; perhaps one day we'll be able to move back there...