Routine...

Our normal routine's been a bit up in the air lately, which has been stressful. Night wakings continue as "normal" and he's now waking up after an hour or less of napping, which equals grouchy baby and grouchy me.

B and I have been enjoying the tail end of summer's long days by eating dinner in the garden and using the barbecue. He also took E to a "Daddy Rhyme Time" singalong at the library, and came back with some funny anecdotes.

Apparently, at least 4 different babies stole E's toy, usually while he was involved in trying to cruise/toddle his way to a very appealing sippy cup, which of course belonged to another toddler. The grass is always greener :)

During the singing of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" the oldest child in the group, a 2 year old, followed E as he crawled around, pointing to the embroidered star on his romper with great excitement.

A baby "pile-up" occurred, where at least four daddies were poised and ready to extricate their crawlers/toddlers from each other. Somehow, with much wide-eyed staring and a bit of poking, all the youngsters managed to untangle themselves and move on.

Old Macdonald has a SAUSAGE and both a COW and a MOO COW on his farm. B claims he forgets what sound effect the sausage does but perhaps he's blocked it out.

So... that's what's been going on. Life's been busy, not with groundshaking events, but with all the little mundane things that need attending to. It's nice when the weekend rolls in and B and I are able to spend some time together.

We both feel fortunate that we live in a good area and can do a lot of cool local things. It's nice to be able to pop out, do something, and go home right away and relax.

Speaking of weekends, in a few days, B and I are visiting a museum and brunching with friends at the restaurant up the hill. And catching up on sleep. Hopefully.

Oh yeah, but you came for the pics. Here ya go!

This food is soooo yummy. Why don't we have barbecues every night?

Practicing his fish face for Daddy. The syringe is one we use for his acid reflux medicine. Somehow, he's decided it's actually a great teething implement.


Pinning the wild child after his bath this evening. Lying down to be dressed is just so 8 months old. Totally not in vogue. Silly parents, don't you know anything?

And I'm off for as much shuteye as I can get.

Quick Update

-Still finding random bits and bobs to unpack and squirrel away/display
-Tons of laundry
-Some good weather and lots of outside play/finding new parks
-50k+ on the novel
-Visiting friends in the country at their child-proofed house. We wound up staying quite some time because it was such bliss to let the baby roam around without dragging him out of a fireplace every 3 minutes! He was very entertained by the ball pit and all their toys, too.


-Last, but not least, a certain young gentleman is slowly getting the hang of this "walking" thing. B and I don't think he knows how to stop once he gets started, however, thus lots of tiny tangling limbs, butt-landings, and random sprawlings are occurring these days. His record stands at something like 9-10 steps in a row, but the last steps are always hurried, desperate little dance-moves as he strains to cover the last 6 inches from couch-to-couch, or chair-to-footrest!

First Steps!

B and I have been fairly lucky thus far in being able to observe milestones together. We both witnessed his first real attempts at crawling and pulling himself up, we were there (along with my dad) when he said his first word (banana!) and today we both saw him take his first steps!

Just to clarify, they weren't very firm steps. He went from holding onto the couch over to me, a distance of about 2.5-3 feet, but B and I both agree that they were actual steps, even if E did rather ingloriously fall into my arms at the end.

And... here he is after having gleefully eaten his share of chocolate-and-raspberry birthday cake. I haven't been taking many photos lately - it's been warm, but gray and dismal here, and sometimes quite humid. The sun is very intermittent, despite it being August. Not very inspiring picture-taking weather, really.

Birthday Boy

I meant to do a long post about our nice barbecue and everyone who came, but given time constraints it's going to have to be a short one.

On Sunday we held a little party for E combined with a late housewarming party. It ended up being a medium to large party. The weather was great and our new garden is excellent. Lots of people (especially the kids) enjoyed the hammock.




No, E didn't really pinch the flame out.

The cake icing, by the way, was made with melted Belgian chocolate (very low heat in a saucepan) mixed with sour cream. After I made the cake and icing, B hand-whipped some cream and cut the cake in half and filled with with cream and fresh raspberries. Yes. It was really good.


Now, if you'll excuse me, he's pulling books off the shelves again.