the parental visit

 my parents arrived very very early in the morning on may 9 - our first baby visitors! we spent a lot of time just hanging out with them holding the baby, but we also made it out to eat on the water a few times. dog watch in stonington is at a marina and the sun was setting as we ate - beautiful!

 my mom bought jakey a mini swing. it took him a few days to get used to it but now he loves it. he also loves his sophie the giraffe. (seriously this toy is amazing - an international sensation!)

on saturday mark and lanelle brought carly and ava to come a see the baby. the girls were more interested in the cats than the baby but it was a wonderful time to catch up and hang out. 

 my mom spent lots of time holding the baby, smelling the baby, rocking the baby and changing the baby.  cricket got in on some of the action too.

my first mother's day

Jeremy brought me starbucks in bed. that started the day out right! then we got all dressed up and he took jacob and me out to eat at a favorite seafood place by the water: s&p oyster. we had to wait over an hour during which i had to change his little diaper twice, but he slept other than that in his car seat. he also slept all through the meal. basically he was a perfect angel. everyone who passed by commented on how cute he was and wished me happy first mothers day.

the food was great and i got to spend time with my two favorite boys. i couldnt have asked for a more perfect first mothers day!

wanna see what we made?

Jakey is one week old today.

here's a short clip of him in the hospital at one day old:

daddy took that video while mommy was sleeping.

here is jakey hanging with me today (1 week old!) while daddy went back to work. you can hear his little snorts (the reason he is often called mr. snorty pants), his baby sneezes, and see a smile. i know it isnt a "real" smile yet, but man oh man is it still cute!!!

{i have been trying unsuccessully to upload this video since tuesday. i am going to try it in the next post. }

book review: endgame

Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall- from America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness

by Frank Brady

from the back: Endgame is acclaimed biographer Frank Brady's decades-in-the-making tracing of the meteoric ascent- and confounding descent - of enigmatic genius Bobby Fischer. Only Brady, who met Fischer when the prodigy was ten years old and shared with him some of his most dramatic triumphs, could have written this book. Drawing from Fischer family archives, recently released FBI files, and Bobby's own e-mails, this account is unique in that it limns Fischers entire life - an odessey that took the Brooklyn-raised chess champion from an impoverished childhood to the covers of Time, Life, and Newsweek to recognition as "the most famous man in the world" to notorious recluse.

Posessing a 181 IQ and remarkable powers of concentration, Bobby was only thirteen when he became the youngest chess master in US history. But his strange behavior nearly halted his Cold War championship match with Soviet star Boris Spassky, he turned down millions of dollars in sponsorship offers, and by 1992 he was an international fugitive, wanted by American law enfocrcement for having violated US sanctions.

Woven into Fischer's late-life odysset are bizarre flirtations with apocalyptic religions, Nazis, and mafiosi, and bouts of paranoia that had him traveling with gun-toting bodyguards and railing against perceived conspiracies.

Who was Bobby Fischer, and what does his life say about the flowering of genius and the distorting effects of fame? In Endgame, Frank Brady gives us the fascinating answer.

my review:

this biography was incredibly interesting to me. i am too young to know anything about bobby fischer from when the main events of the book were taking place, but reading them in this book made them real to me. the author really got inside information and explained the world of competitive chess in a way that made sense to even someone who doesnt know how to play chess (which i do, thanks to my dad and his interest in bobby fischer back in the day) without seeming condescending. if this subject appeals to you in the least i think you will enjoy this book.