We're feeling like full Berkeley residents and parents. We have library cards, gym cards, family memberships to the Lawrence Hall of Science and to the Habitot Children Museum, and we went to our first parent-teacher conference. (Felix is doing fine at school, thank you.) We bump into people we know on the street and at the playgrounds; and we've had neighbors over for supper.

Felix is starting to have fun with language. Some of the things he's introduced in the last few weeks:

• Made-up words. Example verb: "splooshing" (to hit with a towel). Example noun: "haha" (what he calls something when he doesn't want to use its real name). Also, he makes up new concepts and names them, like a "dump train": a train onto which an excavator loads dirt.
• Frequent jokes. At this stage it's misnaming things. He'll say he's Dean, or the lion is a giraffe.Also, he'll say phrases he knows crack us up, like "Oh yeah, baby!"
• Degrees of meaning. He's now using "I wish...", "I hope...", probably, and actually. It's so cute to hear him say "I wish I had a puppy. How can we make my wish come true?"
• French vs. English. When Lucie asks him what the French word for something is, he'll spit it out. Also, he's picked up some Spanish words from school and TV.
• Lies. He gets to wear underwear if he pees in the potty. Once he just hissed a "pshhhhhh" and told Lucie he peed. Also, when asking one parent for a cookie, he'll say that the other parent said it was okay.

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