Fun in the Sun

It was gorgeous out this week. We had lots of picnics in the parks and time in the sun.

I "hosted" play group in the park.

We had a girls night out on Friday. It was much needed!

Today we ventured out for some beach time at Clayton Beach. The water was pretty cold but still fun to play around in the sand and mud.

I will post a walking video soon. We have one of a good amount of steps but it needs some editing. He is getting pretty good and correcting his balance.

He has also learned to purposefully say "dada" and he knows where his toes are!

Tonight

I'd have video for you, too, if Erin hadn't taken the camera to record for posterity her "Girls Night."

I turned around while fixing Corbin's dinner to see him walking across the kitchen floor. I counted six steps that time, but he might have had a few before I turned around. I cheered and clapped and he got excited and crawled really fast and poked himself with the canning magnet stick he had in his mouth.

Also: 8:05 pm and still babbling.

As Erin has mentioned, he's been taking a step or two, and then realizes he's an expert crawler and dispenses with this stumbling, step-by-step nonsense and hits the floor with all four.

But tonight.

After we ate I tried to see if I could get him to walk a bit more. He managed several four or five step wobblies, and it was very, very clear that he had shifted his ideas about what might be the most efficient or interesting mode of travel. These were clearly intentional, focused, brain driven steps, his whole body moving and adjusting and trying to find the best way to balance and move at the same time.

Super exciting.

11 months

Corbin turned 11 months while we were in North Carolina. Crazy. In less than a month he will be one!!!! He took his first steps on the 17th. I wonder if he will walk before he turns one?

Here are a few updates of what he is doing currently.

He free stands without holding onto anything for long periods of time. He can bend down and pick things up and then go back to standing. Last weekend he stood up on his own without using anything. He waves and claps while standing and plays with toys. He loves to walk holding our one hand. He just walks all around. He will take a few steps and then bend down and crawl though because it's faster, if we let go. I can't get a video yet because sometimes he will do it on command and others when you aren't expecting it.

He is signing more words. He now has "more" down. He uses if for more everything. Or "I want" since sometimes he hasn't even had it yet. I am trying to get him to point to what he wants or show me. He will sign more and I say "more what?" and he points. The other day he saw a jar of dill beans and signed "more" and pointed. I had no idea what he would think of them but he gobbled them up! He has also been saying more for nurse and then pulling on my shirt. So even though I have been using the nurse sign for a long time, now I am waiting till he uses it before he can nurse. I don't like him just pulling on my shirt. And trying to only let him nurse when it's time to nurse instead of just snack all day. He never used to snack but now that he knows more, I think he realizes he can get his point across. I need to now work on "eat" so he can use that along with more. Because sometimes he just wants to see something when he signs more, not eat it. He also signs "all done" and "dog" and is always waving at all kinds of things. We used "airplane" a lot while traveling, so now he will see something in the sky and point or kind of do "airplane". I will try to get a video soon.

He shakes his head all the time now. He knows when I either say "no" or "careful" or "Corbin" in the tone of voice that is a warning, he will look at me and shake his head like he knows he is not supposed to do it. It's pretty cute. Sometimes he stops and sometimes he needs to be redirected.

We think he has learned how to "woof" like a dog. We ask him what a dog says and he says "huuh" and sticks out his tongue. It's pretty cute! He can also point to a dog in a book when we ask where the dog is. Sometimes horses are also dogs though :-)

We read before he takes a nap and bed and have allowed him to pick the books. The other day he went over to his books and picked on up and brought it to me and put it on my lap. It was his dog counting book. He turns the pages for every book. Most of the time he turns the pages too fast to even read it, so we just look at the pictures. Fast. And then read it again.

He takes two naps a day and sleeps for 11-12 hours straight through at night. I am lucky to have a pretty good sleeper. He slept great while traveling too. Blue softy is essential for sleep though.

He has 8 teeth. The four main top teeth. Two middle bottom teeth and a tooth next to the bottom ones and then a molar on the same side. So his bottom is a little lopsided! His other molars are bulging and I think bothering him a lot. He will often hold his hand to his ear/cheek and cry. I know it's not an ear infection so I think his teeth hurt. He will also bang his head on the ground sometimes. I am not sure what to do about that.

He loves balls, cars, and phones right now for toys. He will pick up the phone and put it next to his ear and then give it to you. It's pretty cute too. We got him his own play phone that makes beeping noises so he isn't using ours. He has always pushed toys around on the floor while crawling and then one day he picked up a car and pushed it and started saying "vroom" or a version of that. It was amazing. I don't ever remember doing that with him, but he must have picked it up somewhere. Now when he sees a car, he does that. I am so curious to see how gender plays a role in his play. It's fascinating to me.

He climbs the stairs. Plays in the grass. Likes the sand and dirt now. Loves to swing. Mostly wears his hat without taking it off. Likes to go on walks. Likes baths but not getting water dumped on his head. Likes to take things out of things and then put them back. Likes to try to figure out how things work and look under things. LOVES strawberries and blueberries.

I think that about sums it up. Wow. Every day is something new. It's pretty cool to see him learn.

Hoop hoop, hooray!

Among the many things we've found ourselves busy with lately, we've spent a good deal of time in the garden. All that dirt we had turned out to be a heckuva lot of dirt, and we're just now getting to the end of it, after covering the whole garden, filling a new bed, and cardboarding and covering some rather annoying weed patches. While Erin was gone last week I set up soaker hoses, which are doing OK, except for a tendency to create rivers out of aisles.

This weekend the potatoes popped, and are growing like crazy. Also, I learned that moving the potato patch and putting onions where the pots used to be results in one thing: Potatoes in the onions. So there's that. I'm picking out the ones in the beds, but leaving the one in the aisle and a couple on the edge of the beds.

Our starts that sat too long (peas, salad, spinach, chard) have failed, except for the chard, which I think will end up OK. We were manacled by our dirt project, and they just sat in their pots for too long. So no peas for us this year, and we'll have to wait for salad and spinach (the seeds are just now sprouting).

I've been aphid hunting every couple days or so on our back plum tree. In past years it has been the neighborhood aphid headquarters. It's never had a plum, and we were set to cut it down if it didn't produce this year. It must have heard us talking about it, because it was loaded with blossoms, and now seems quite well-endowed with little green fruits. Anyway, I've been aphid hunting, just smushing them when I find them. And I've been smushing some eggs, too. And then today I decided to Google aphid eggs, and found I'd been smushing ladybug eggs. Damn! I haven't destroyed too too many, but I've definitely squished over a hundred eggs, I'd guess. I'm very depressed about this, since these eggs are set to hatch pest-munching larvae right in the heart of aphidland. I'll be more careful next time, I promise. Augh! I felt feel like an idiot. Probably because I was am one. Lesson learned.

This weekend we're picking up some basil starts, now that the hoop house is up. We'll put in a nice long row. The hoop house is very tall--maybe nine feet--and is both longer and wider than last year. And rotated ninety degrees. I'll have plenty of room to walk around and keep those tomatoes under control. Since it's so big, I'm wondering if I should put plastic on the ends so less heat escapes, but I'm worried about wind picking the whole thing up and dropping it in the lake. We'll see how things seem to progress. Maybe I'll add ends at a later date if the temp seems low inside.

Good earthing to ye.

North Carolina Part II- New and Old Friends

Another highlight of my trip was getting to meet Lilikoi and see Kelcey. Kelcey and I have been friends since 2nd grade. She is one of my oldest and best friends from home. We have seen each other grow into the women we have become. We both left home and have made our lives in other places, which makes visiting harder. I miss her so much sometimes and wish that our lives were physically connected instead of only through cyberspace. Our blogs have been life savers though. Even though it has been 2 1/2 years since I have seen her and had not yet met her lovely daughter, Lili, I feel that I knew Lili from reading her blog and get to stay connected to her every day life.

Kelcey lives outside of Asheville in an amazing nook in the Appalachian Mountains. She and her husband Alex have built their own small home and live right next to her brother and sister in-law. They have a great little farm going with chickens, goats, pigs, a huge garden, and a wonderful array of pets. Corbin was so excited by the animals. I think the chickens, dog, and cats reminded him of home!

Lili has the best shoes!

Watching a little Corn Hole at Jed's party.

Lili LOVES accessories.

This is one of my favorites! Just look at Lili's face! Ha! Corbin for some reason had an absolute fascination with her pacifiers. He doesn't use them but wanted one the whole time we were with her. This was his first invasion of her space.
Lili has just learned the word "mine". And Corbin required her to use it A LOT! It was cute to me, but I am sure it will change when Corbin decides it's also his favorite word. I was SO impressed with seeing my friend be a parent, especially during this hard time of the almost 2's. Parenting is hard. And Kelcey was amazing. It was a joy to see her in a mothering role. And know I can go to her for questions.

Lili showed Corbin how to shake the baby gate.

The weather was amazing up at her house. We hung outside a lot. Kelcey's house is very small, so we tried to be outside when nap-time was happening. The two babies were on different and alternating nap schedules, so Lili got some alone time without Corbin "stealing" her toys, and Corbin got to check out her cool sandbox (we are thinking a sandbox is in Corbin's summer future:-). The whole sleeping thing worked out amazingly! I was so impressed with everyone. Kelc's upstairs is all one room and we had my blow up mattress, Corbin's pack and play, their bed, and Lili's crib all together. It was like one big bed! And we ALL slept up there! I was curious to know how Corbin would do, because usually when he sleeps so close to me in the pack and play he wakes up sees me and wants out. This time I was on one side and Kelcey's bed was on the other, with no space in-between! And he talkes or cries himself to sleep and Lili nurses to sleep. So we put Corbin down first, let him talk or cry himself to sleep and then Kelcey came up and nursed Lili. And it worked! The second night Corbin came into my bed at 4:30 am, but that was pretty good!

Naked babies are the cutest!

Sometimes I still can't believe we are moms. Almost 22 years of friendship!

In the end, she knew she couldn't get enough of him! I can only imagine being 18 months and having to share my space with a little baby who can't understand everything. She was amazing!

I miss them already! I can't wait till the next time we meet again! Thank you to Kelcey, Alex, and Lili for showing me a piece of you life and sharing it with me. You are amazing. I love you!

North Carolina Part I- Graduation

Ah, we are home from NC. It was a great trip both with family and old friends. I am glad to be home as this was just the first trip of many this summer. We flew from Seattle to Charlotte NC, Corbin's longest flight yet. He was a trooper. But I was tired. It's hard to keep that little guy in one small place for 5 hours. And by myself. I was really glad to see my parents in Houston for the second flight and have some help. The whole trip Corbin did so awesome going with the flow. Some days he hardly got any naps, or one nap, and even 2 on some days! We met my grandparents in Charlotte and drove to Asheville. The family that Jed and Kara nanny for have this amazing apartment/office/meditation center right in downtown Asheville that they let us stay in. It was amazing! Corbin and I had our own room with a master bath that became his bedroom :-), a balcony on the street where we could listen to music being played down the street, and some great people watching. And fans in every room. Corbin was in heaven!

We spent Friday hanging out, letting Corbin nap, and going to the UNCA Botanical Gardens. Corbin had fun crawling around in the grass and mud.

Then on Friday night Jed raced in the Town Mt. Climb. We went and cheered him on. He ended up finishing 4th.

On Saturday, Jed walked in the graduation ceremony. He graduated from University of North Carolina Asheville, Summa Cum Laude, in Health and Wellness. He just got accepted into Teach For America in Denver. So in July he and Kara are moving to Denver. He still has to get a job in a specifc school but the hardest part was getting into the super competetive Teach for America program! The graduation was pretty cool as far as college graduations go. Doc Watson got an honorary degree and sang three songs! It was pretty cool. He was one of the first people Jed and I saw in concert when Jed was 5! And the key note speaker was from Evergreen State College and sang the fighting song about the Gooey Duck! Ha! And it was outside and gorgeous out. Corbin and I played on the grass and walked around while it was all going on.

We of course missed Adam while we were gone. But we got to Skype with him a few times. Corbin just lit up when he saw him and waved! It was so cute.

Jed and Kara had a wedding to go to on Saturday night, so we had his party on Sunday at our friend Becca's house. Becca is also from Andover, and is Kelcey's sister. So it's kinda cool that we got to see her too.

Jed and Alex in a game of Corn Hole.

Becca has a whole basket full of dog dress up clothes. She thought it would be fun to show it to Corbin...

It was great to see my parents and grandparents. And celebrate Jed's graduation. Even though I went to Asheville to visit Kelcey a long time ago, I hadn't been since Jed has lived there. It was fun to see where he lives, meet some of his friends, and hang out in a pretty cool city.

Corbin turned 11 months while we were there. He also took his first steps on his own. Three of them!!! They were mini steps but they were steps. At some point I will write an 11 month post too.

Next up, Part II- visiting Lili and the Loomer gang!