Max's Second Christmas

Katie and I show our typical ability in trying to get Max to smile for a photo. This was (by far) the best take out of a dozen or so in this series.

Given his clumsy knockdown of the three-block tower at the start, I was shocked at the end of taking this video. Max was just learning how to stack blocks at this time, and I happened to be taking video while watching him build the tallest tower I'd ever seen him build to date.

For Christmas, Max got a set of Duplo blocks, but he preferred playing with the box they came in.

I was enjoined to dress Max in "something festive" for Christmas. The only thing I could find that fit that description was a silvery Halloween costume, which Max enjoyed showing off to everyone. Here, he giggles as he chases aunt Laura around the dining room table.

Max has connived aunts Missy and Tina into playing one of his favorite games. While Max sits on the top step, Missy shovels snow into a pile in front of him. Max then scoops the snow into his lap, turning to Tina when his mittens collect too much snow.

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Can You Cross Your Toes?

Katie and I had a heated discussion the night before last. We were sitting on the couch watching Jon Stewart when she noticed a large, apparently cancerous growth sticking out of the bottom of my foot. She asked what the big lump in my sock was. "That's my toe," I responded, nonplussed. I had crossed my first and second toes, causing a lump to protrude from the bottom of my sock. Katie was quite alarmed. "You can cross your toes?" "Sure, can't you? Everyone can cross their toes!" "Of course I can't cross my toes. Who can cross their toes?" And I confirmed that Katie could not, in fact, cross her toes. Even manipulating her toes with my fingers, I could not get her toes to stay crossed. She just has very short toes. That led, of course, into a discussion of who was the freak. Were my long, crossable toes abnormal, or were her stubby, uncrossable phalanges the outliers? In case you're confused, here are some pictures. First, of my v...

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A Little Night Music

I've been in Boston this week at a scientific conference. I've spent nearly all of my time at the conference, but was able to get away a couple of times to see friends. One night off I went out for pizza with Ekrem and Leanne (and their adorable kids). We went to Stone Hearth Pizza , whose head chef is the brother of Bob, one of my labmates in Minneapolis. (He wasn't at the restaurant the night we went, sadly.) Ekrem and Leanne are moving to their new house in a week, and I helped them out by consuming the remainder of a bottle of scotch that they keep at their house for me. I felt very proud of myself for accomplishing this noble task. Last night I went to see Andrea perform in Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music , one of my favorite musicals. Beforehand, I had dinner with fraternity friends Jan, Jeannie, David, Emily, and Ian. Dinner conversation was wonderful in that MIT-nerdy way that I greatly miss sometimes. At the end of the meal, for example, my fortune coo...

J. Michael Andresen

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