The Slow Life

Just a little photo journal of sorts on life as of late. Things have been pretty slow lately. Actually, very slow. We shed all our commitments (i.e., friends) with the move, and being that we live so out of the way now, it's been easy to keep our calendar free of volunteer and social commitments. We are a good 25 minutes from base and church is 25 minutes in the opposite direction. We live in a very small community and haven't met many of our neighbors yet. 

I don't hate it. Not one bit. We've grown to love and depend on our weekday routine of getting out of the house before it gets too hot—either running outside with the duallie or going to the gym where the kids get some socialization—coming home for lunch and long afternoon naps, and spending what's left of our little afternoons playing, reading, and watching movies. 

Our new house has a bay window in the dining area that looks out to a most panoramic view of . . . a privacy fence. Naturally, it was deemed the perfect "dancin' spot" for underwear-clad hip-hop routines. As one does.

If only the neighbors could see. Damn privacy fence.

Zelie watches on in amusement.

Or is that the face one makes when teasing a mother after another failed attempt at sweet potato puree?

I have complied an extensive list of solid foods Zelie will eat:

• Dog food
• Paper
• Chalk

Slowly, but surely, we are making progress with solids. 

Solid foods that is. Human foods. She will sit down and eat a couple ounces of pureed food now without total mess. She loves Puffs, too. I don't think she'll be an early weaner like her bro. I kind of think I'll be nursing her until she hits college at this point, but hopefully that's the irrational side of me . . . 

Z is SO CLOSE to walking. She stands up on her own in the middle of the room and the other day she took her first step before carefully lowering her bottom to the ground. She seems pretty motivated. Little Will was taking his first steps at 9 months and truly took off walking at 10 months, so I'm excited to see whether she'll beat him.

SIBLING RIVALRY Y'ALL. Girls rule, boys . . .

I don't even know what to call that.

But he's a fun, sanguine kid, who can be just as naughty as the sweetness those photographs exude. 

He's lacked blog attention as of late, so aside from his weeknight serenades from the bay window, here is a little more about our little guy: He always skips H through P when he sings the alphabet. He always skips the number 4 when counting to 6 (his current max). He still pronounces Zelie "WEH-EE!" even though he can pronounce Zs. "Say Zzzz-ELLIE…" "Zzzzz WEH-EE!" He can identify all his colors and knows the letters W, M (upside down W, naturally), O, B. And Z for Weh-ee, of course. He loves all things machines, and knows the difference between a fighter jet from a cargo plane, a tug boat from a ferry, a van from a race car, an excavator from a dump truck. 

He's been repeating things we adults say in the most hilarious ways. He calls me "babe" and "dear" - "Thanks for makin' dinner, babe!" He'll ask a question and upon hearing the answer, he'll exclaim "WHAT!" as adults do patronizingly to kids. He's started repeating me saying, "No, no, no, no, no!" in a gentle tone, something I've been using to admonish Zelie when she crawls to our hallway night light or the dog food bowls like a moth to a flame.

Ask him what he wants to be when he grows up and he'll say "a happy priest!" And yet he can NOT for the life of him keep his hands folded during grace or not flail his body around during nightly prayers. Skip a prayer though (sometimes Will forgets we added the St. Michael prayer, apparently) and you will quickly and forcefully be admonished.

Getting so big. And yet . . .

Every time I get out the baby food to sit down and try and force feed his sister, he immediately comes up begging, asking for some. "I'm a baby, too! Can I have a bite?"

No.