weekend family fun

The weather was extraordinary this past weekend—sunny and warm, but always with a nice breeze and cooler at night. Daddy and I have been working very hard in the back yard, trying to regain control of the overgrown, bug-infested fence row. (We have a bit of a black widow problem, an infestation really.) But we’ve been making great headway on their elimination and general yard improvement during your afternoon naps. You’ve been sleeping hard at naptime, requiring a 2+-3hour siesta after running yourself ragged all morning. You’ve also been struggling with a cold, allergies, teething or a combination thereof. Your nose runs down your face to the edge of your lip all day long, and while you act like you don’t like the taste, you lick it or slurp it off anyway. Though I have tissues within an easy reach in nearly every room of the house (and in the car and the diaper bag and my pocket and the stroller), I can’t seem to keep up with your snot. Poor lil guy…

Saturday we went to the Indian Festival. Again, you napped hard and long, so by the time we got there, they were out of food. We did get a swath of colorful fabric, a tour of the temple, and I got a henna tattoo on my hand. As we waited for Daddy to help Amelia haul TIRRC voter registration materials to the car, I shoveled snacks to you, and we visited with an Indian family. Two of the women and one of the little boys pinched your chubby cheeks several times. They thought you were precious… and you are. I was amazed at how authentic an Indian experience the interaction was. I was squatting to feed you, and one of the women, in a gold and red sari, offered me the chair she was sitting in. The women were inquisitive and the kids curious, and they all certainly had more of an Indian sensibility of personal space than an American one. You were mesmerized and entertained, serene even, and I was charmed. Then there was the 2-hour diversion of Amelia’s car being towed…

Later that night we went to a neighborhood gathering of small and local artists who played on a humble but adequate stage in Micah’s backyard (good friend of our neighbors and all-around nice guy). You were HI-LARIOUS! You jammed to the music, danced, threw your head around, waved your arms over your head (if you’d only had a lighter and that was not dangerous ), watched the musicians on stage with fixed gaze. There was no doubt to anyone present that you were having a great time. You might be our lil rock-and-roller.

On Sunday we walked at Centennial Park, so I could get in my 45 minutes of cardio, then we tooled around the TACA craft fair. We bought you a hand-carved box truck made of walnut, cherry and elm which was sealed with linseed and flax oils to protect the wood. It is–hands down–the safest toy you own. You were drawn to a banjo being played at one booth and walked in and started dancing. The fella was very nice and let you strum on the strings for as long as you wanted. You wandered, picked up leaves, played with dogs and charmed almost every passerby with a smile and a wave, as if you were the official craft fair greeter. You and Daddy even went for a gallop on a giant handmade rockng horse. It was a great weekend.

squash buddy

You have discovered the basket shelves in the kitchen that usually store onions and potatoes and currently, the one butternut squash our garden yielded this year. You love to pull the baskets out, empty the contents onto the floor (usually by throwing them), and then you try to get into the basket. You recently befriended the squash and toted it around as if it were a revered pet or favorite stuffed animal. I love that you love your veggies!

daddy shoulder kisses

You get so excited when Daddy hoists you up on his shoulders. You hang on to his hands and lean over and give him sweet, slobbery kisses… on each cheek.

Loving goodness…

catching up on everydays

Our days are framed and then filled with simple, usually ordinary happenings—dirty diapers, lots of eating, playing, more eating and then, of course, more dirty diapers. Some days your take on those everyday happenings frustrate the heck outta me; most days, they crack me up. I have been crazy busyrecently—what with jump-starting my work-out routine again with a boot-camp and plans to chair a committee for the National Service Learning Conference next spring. While you and I have been spending endless hours together playing and having fun, I’ve been a bit slack in my obligation to document them for you. So here goes: an attempt to catch you up on recent moments in your life that fall into both the “crack me up” and “frustrate me” categories:
–blueberry half: I wasn’t sure you were goning to take to blueberries. They are notoriously hit-or-miss sweet and sour, and you were not a big fan of the sour. I wasn’t going to give up though ad kept cutting them in half and putting them on your tray for days on end. Finally, you found a sweet run and a technique to eating them: you poke your finger in the squishy part of one half and pop it in your mouth on fingertip. So clever, you are. Some land on your head, but no matter.

–bonk: Papa taught you how to lean in gently and bonk foreheads with someone else. You don’t always lean in gently, but you do love this show of affection almost as much as mouth opened wide and slobbery kisses.
–pee pee: There are moments that drive home the point that you are undeniably a little boy (not that there’s anything wrong with that ) One of those moments was when I saw you take your first-ever pee standing up in the tub right before bath. My lil man…
–dancing: You have found your rhythm, lil man, and you will dance to anything with even a slight beat to it You even dance to the hum of the dishwasher! Your approach is to stop. Feel it. Concentrate… then move. You bounce up and down whether anyone is looking or not, but you really love it when Daddy and I dance with you.
–snuggles: It is rare that you slow down, much less stop and sit down, but you recently did both with Mammy and Papa. You were tired and had not gotten all of your sleepies out. You are so sweet when you are groggy. Right before bedtime is when you give Daddy and me the best wet and sweet kisses. You love to gum us and rub your face into us as sleepiness takes over.

–confidants: You are attached and dependent upon Lambie (Sleepy) and G-raffe as your snuggle buddies. You never put your thumb in your mouth without one of them, but as soon as you see them, you pop your thumb in your mouth and you slow down and get all sweet. I can see the temptation in letting you lug it around all day, but we have restricted Lambie to the crib during the day. You only get her at naptime and bedtime. It is a game now that you throw her back in your bed in the morning when we get you up. G-raffe has become our helper in the car, since you are still not so fond of your time strapped in a carseat, and he stays there.
–smoothie uni-brow: You are a big fan of my morning smoothies. You like the independence and novelty of sucking from a straw, and it gives me a little freedom to get some things done while you slurp away. That only lasts for a short while though, because you cannot resist pulling the straw out and then get very frustrated when you can’t put it back in by yourself. One morning I look over, and you had given yourself a smoothie uni-brow. I must say, I’m pretty glad that wiped off; you don’t look like you with a uni-brow.

i just made you say under where

You crack me up! You spotted something under the stove and could not look away. To be as solid as you are, you are also quite limber. I need to get you in some yoga classes. The item you spotted under there? The tag on the cord that warns of death by electric shock. Nice… You are in a 2T long-sleeved t-shirt because I haven’t been able to find any 18-month long-sleeve onesies, and it was chilly last night—58. You look so cute in the baggy, worn gray, and you were hilarious to watch as you marveled at the sleeves on your arms. You looked at them as if to say, “What are these and why are they here?”