going vertical and other stories

Wow, it's been a long time since I set out to update the blog! It's been Since my summer vacation started five weeks ago, in fact. One might assume (rather naturally) that since I was home nonstop, that would give me ample time to chronicle our family's happenings. And that does seem to make sense, and I'm really kind of shocked that I've gone SO long without updating. But being home all the time with two baby-toddlers does weird things to your sense of time and accomplishment. One one hand, they do cute/new/funny/horrifying things all the time, so there's lots to remember and write about. On the other hand, our day is broken up into about a million tiny segments. So by the time the 10 interesting little segments are mixed in with the 999,990 completely mundane segments, the days tend to feel pretty routine and unremarkable overall.

I recently ran across a funny column someone had re-posted on facebook. For those of you who don't have kids, and even for those who do, it's a pretty concise description of what mommies spend their days doing. Here it is. I'm going to keep it handy to read at the end of the days when I feel exhausted and yet can't quite exactly remember what I've done all day.


In the interest of everyone's time (mostly mine), I'm going to summarize our recent happenings and accomplishments...

• We didn't do a real "vacation" this year, but we visited Gemma and Granddad in Bastrop and at their house (we're there right now) and hosted a week-long visit from Grandma, which was very fun. I'm missing some pictures, but here is one with Grandma about a week ago:

• Both babies are walking, in a sense. Noah took steps almost a month ago, but has just recently gotten independent enough to walk across the room. Not to be outdone, Lily has decided she needs to walk as well. She's not very strong or coordinated, but has managed to toddle a couple steps out of sheer willpower. I think it'll be a while before I have two true toddlers, but it's not too far off.
• Lily has continued to impress us with her determination and concentration. Lately, both babies are infatuated with clothes, especially putting on their pants. One day she sat down with a pair of shorts. I saw her get one leg in, and then I got distracted with something else. Next thing I knew, I heard her clapping for herself--she'd gotten both her legs in her shorts and was apparently very proud!

• With the new walking skills, the babies have begun to discover the possibilities of climbing. We hijacked our neighbor's plastic kiddie slide while they were on vacation, and then got one for our own backyard. It is most enjoyable when mixed with suckers and hose-spraying.

Noah was determined to climb up the slide, even though it was slippery and soaking wet.

• Neither of the babies has said much yet beyond a couple of words, but their sign language is taking off like crazy. In the past two months, they've gone from using the sign for "more" sporadically to using about 30 signs... and new ones still show up every couple of days. They tell us when they see a hat or ball, or when they want their milk or water, or get hungry and want to eat. They sign for several animals--dogs, bears, frogs, ducks, fish... and for a lot of daily routine things like washing hands, bath, blanket, and sleep. It's truly incredible, and much more fun than I ever thought it would be. I'm amazed to learn what they're thinking about and what they remember--it's a lot!

Okay, I think that's most of the notable notes. We did have a couple of play dates and zoo trips, though I'm not sure whether I have many good pictures to post. Perhaps I'll tell about those later...

...and, AHA! I just found a post from Page with some more pictures. We went to visit her family last Monday and Tuesday, and it was a lot of wild and crazy fun. Mostly crazy. Here's her summary of events:

The Boyd Gang