Opus One

Liam chose a piano duet for this musical performance.

shake it

The best thing I did today was give my children maracas.

Nine Months

in motion

Nine months old and ready for anything. As of their checkup today, both boys are the same height, have the same head size, but Liam weighs 19.5 pounds and Dash 18.5. They each have six teeth. Yet differences abound...

Liam:
- can stand as long as he's holding on to something, and spends a great deal of his time standing at baby gates shaking them like a seasoned convict.
- has decided that he no longer wants to lay down on his back for anything at all. This is especially difficult when you are changing an apocalyptic diaper in the back of the car in a parking lot. I got the job done, but it was an epic battle. His little legs are like stubby trees.
- finally is taking some interest in solid food. He prefers little puffed cracker things, or rice husk cakes. As long as he can pick it up in his hands it is fair game. Pancakes, tofu, enormous carrots to gnaw on.

reading one of his animal flashcards, a perennial favorite activity

checking things out from up on high

reading a book (and by "read" I mean "chew")

Dash:
- finally has started crawling! Sometimes his arms and legs pinwheel and he ends up spreadeagled on the floor, but for the most part he gets where he wants to go.
- loves those little yellow sunshine gears more than anything.
- has a stuffed aardvark named Aartie that he chews on, making a "gollum gollum" sound while he does it.
- has gone bonkers over cantaloupe and eats it like it's the best thing on earth.

cheesecake pose

yummy

crawling!

the dash the dash the dash is on fire

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I'm afraid my monthly quilt photos aren't working anymore. Even with Charlie wrangling we couldn't get both boys to lie still long enough to take a picture. We tried!

Mushroom Identification Challenge

So we have these mushrooms growing in our herb garden on the deck. It's a raised bed on an elevated deck, and the spores are likely from the plants we planted or the mulch we used. Charlie and I have consulted his mushroom bible "All That the Rain Promises and More" and have not found a perfect match. There is one other mushroom in the bed growing right now, and it's about a foot away from the one I picked to identify. There's no clustering going on.

Here is the path we followed:
- it has gills
- the mature gills are brown, no spores are visible
- we didn't see the young gills to observe a veil, but there is no ring on the mature stalk
- the stalk does not snap cleanly, there are some fibers. There is no milk or juice

The entire mushroom is four inches stalk and cap, and the cap is about an inch in diameter. The stalk is thinner than a pencil.


Any guesses?

Operation great-grandchildren

Has been a success! Now onto leg 2 and Minneapolis. Bye for now, mom mom!

great

The cruel gate of separation

When I was a kid, my great-grandmother was the maker of afghans and the best pancakes I've ever had. She had a crush on the pope, a very soft lap, and taught me to crochet. Though I can't remember it, she took care of me while I was an infant so that my mom could go back to work.

Liam, in the throes of yet another tooth, takes comfort in a lap and a chew toy

Yesterday my grandmother made the long flight out here so that she could meet her great-grandsons. She cannot crochet or make pancakes, but she has held babies and tickled their bellies until they laughed like crazy. While I slept, she helped Charlie feed them this morning. When Dash was crying she asked him quite pointedly what the problem was, and he stopped and started laughing instead.

Dash with his perennial sassy tongue

She has never been to Seattle, never read the newspaper on an iPad, never had polenta. And in 24 hours she has done all of these things with an inquisitive grace I can only hope to possess when I am 86 years old.

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In other baby news...

Liam is still obsessed with Charlie's cookbooks

no really, give me the cookbook.

Dash strikes hilarious playboy poses on the floor

Summer baby legs

Finally a day warm enough for shorties.

Entertained

Surrounded by entertainment, and the only thing that silences him is a cardboard coffee pod sleeve.