We went to our church Memorial Day cookout today, and it was alternately fun and miserable, depending on when you talked to Edie and Marty. Marty wore a hat.
He was right to do it, too. The sun was out, and it was plenty humid besides. He spent a lot of the day sitting in his stroller, squirming around until someone picked him up, at which point he would squawk that it was too hot to be held and demand to be put back down. He fell asleep for about an hour, which was a small slice of heaven. (I was eating several small slices of pie at the time, so maybe I'm thinking of those.) Marty's getting better and better at standing, though he still doesn't have the balance to stand on his own. He climbs on everything, and he only has several dozen bumps and bruises to show for the resulting falls. He's not quite eight months old, but it feels like he'll be walking any day now, which is exciting and terrifying all at the same time. Edie didn't wear a hat today, but she did go down a slide.
She mostly had a good time at the cookout, as long as no one tried to remove her from the playground. She sobbed endlessly when we first got there until I realized that she didn't want a hot dog, she didn't want chips, she didn't want watermelon, she just wanted slice after slice of cheese. She loved the swings and slides, though. Edie continues to get better at talking, but she's graduated to the point where she's learning phrases that have stock responses to them, only she doesn't know those stock responses. Here's a sample exchange that she and I have about fifty times a day. EDIE: Hey, daddy? ME: What's up? EDIE: Yes. (four second pause) EDIE: Hey, daddy? The really frustrating thing isn't that she gives a nonsensical response, it's that I fall for it literally every time. I always forget that she's not actually asking me anything, and I always respond as though she is. I recorded her singing again. You can listen to it if you want to, I dunno, whatever.
Edie has a brush and a comb for her, but she doesn't really like to use them, because she's a vigorous brusher, and they always get caught in her hair. She doesn't mind doing that to Tamsen, though, although Tamsen has similar complaints. I don't have long enough hair to get tangles, so I offered to let Edie brush mine. Except that since it's so short, she finished in about ten seconds and went to bother Tamsen again. So I had to get a little, creative.
She brushed my face, and then my arms, and then my legs, and then my face again, and then her own face. She had a great time doing it, although her beard isn't nearly as impressive as mine. Yet. Marty continues to be focused on standing up, which comes at the cost of his continuing to sustain head injuries as he topples onto the floor. He's getting pretty good at it, though. (The standing, but also the head injuries, sadly.) He's a champion crawler, and Edie continues to encourage him. The two of them were racing across our kitchen floor tonight, with Edie shouting, "Come on, Marty!" and Marty responding with a spirited "Mmmmmpf!", since he hadn't bothered to spit his binky out yet.
They're both pretty well-behaved lately and reasonably comfortable with people who aren't us, enough so that we left them with a babysitter on Friday so we could go to the temple. (It's an hour drive each way, so it's a significant undertaking.) They were both wonderful and even went to bed on time, so I think I'm justified in saying that my children are better than yours, no matter who you are.
Every year in May, our electric company has a free hot dog day, so when it rolled around this week, Tamsen packed up the kids and came to my work to pick me up so we could all get our hot dogs. Since they were all there, we brought everyone inside to say hello to my co-workers. They all loved Edie and Marty, and the kids loved them right back. We took about a thousand pictures, especially when both kids crawled up in my lap.
(Yes, Tamsen made that onesie, and yes, it's my company's logo.) Edie, who is normally shy and quiet around people she doesn't know well, was chatty and vivacious, which was wonderful to see. Speech therapy has made a world of difference for her. She kept walking around saying things like, "I love your black shoes!" Marty was charming and adorable, although he burst into tears whenever she saw any of my Asian co-workers. Way to be racist, little guy. Last week, I worked with Edie on recognizing my siblings and parents. We took a video, which maybe isn't the greatest or most interesting, but here it is, just the same.
Marty's gotten much more mobile this week. He can pretty reliably sit up on his own, as long as it interests him to do so. He can move around freely by crawling, so he prefers to do that, although, sometimes he's content to crawl around our living room sobbing uncontrollably for no reason at all.
He's a champ. He's also improving when it comes to sleeping at night, although now that I've said that out loud, he'll wake up five times tonight, puke down my shirt, and give me a black eye. This is a full week ago now, but Edie and I went strawberry picking last Saturday. She picked out these clothes herself.
I recognize that she looks thoroughly unimpressed in this picture, but she was beyond thrilled to pick all of these strawberries. Every time she saw one, no matter how big, what color, or how rotten, she would point at it and shout, "WHOA!" She eagerly picked the strawberries and put them in the bucket. All of the ladies at the patch loved her "strawberry suit." And she found the one mud puddle in the entire patch (about one square foot) and jumped right in, which meant we had to take off her shoes and socks before getting in the car and endure 25 minutes of screams of "CLEAN SOCKS, CLEAN SOCKS" from the back seat. Remember how I told you last week that Edie is singing now? Of course you do, there's no reason to suspect that you think about anything other than my children. I recorded her, and you can listen to her sing in the clip below. (DISCLAIMER: you have to listen to me sing, too)
Edie and Marty are both very excited about food and eating things lately, although they're on different ends of the spectrum, as you can imagine. Marty is just discovering the wide word of quasi-solids. Last night, he explored what pureed carrots have to offer him.
This picture really doesn't do it justice, but let me tell you, dawg can put those carrots away. He ate with the zeal and table manners of a ravenous shark. You can sort of see here, but as soon as I got the carrots on the spoon, he would lunge for them, even if they were nowhere near him. I have honestly never seen anyone so wildly enthusiastic for mashed carrots. You may be wondering what sort of effect an all-carrot diet has on one's constitution. Wonder no more! It, uh, comes out in pretty much the same condition. Edie loves to eat, the same as anyone else, but lately, she's discovered the joy of helping to make the food. On Friday night, Tamsen was making cookies when Edie walked up to her and said, "Can I do that?"
Yes, little girl, you sure can! She helped to add ingredients to the mixer, and she even managed to do a terrible job of rolling the dough into "balls" all by herself. She had a great time helping out. She really enjoys lending a helping hand, no matter what the task is. She likes carrying things to the garbage, bringing in groceries, bringing Marty his bottle, you name it. She was even helping me sing the theme to Malcolm in the Middle tonight, and let me tell you, a toddler singing "you're not the boss of me now, and you're not so big" is so adorable it should be a federal crime. These are pretty good kids.
