I chose this one of Simon because he’s already exploring his world. We really need a video camera to do justice to Simon’s waking. He goes from fast asleep to happily chattering in an instant.

And, well, Jason in the morning is pretty self-explanatory.

P.S. This concludes the morning series. You won’t be seeing a picture of my lovely bedhead.

Last week Jason was asked to go on a semi-last-minute business trip to Minneapolis. He said he’d talk it over with me and get back to them. I’ve lost track of the exact timeline, but whatever day this came up was day 2 of both boys being sick. So did I think I would be up for three nights and four days of the boys by myself? Um, No to the Way to the Jose. (Even on my best days that’s not appealing. I know I’m wimpy that way. I can live with that.) So instead of Jason just not going, I proposed that the family tag along, and he went for it! So next week we’re headed up to visit Joie. Yay!

This also means that we have about seven hours plus stops in the car. I think it’s unrealistic to hope to get a quiet book done (I did get supplies, though), but I do have two projects that I’m pretty sure I can complete before we leave. I forget where I got the idea (clicking from this blog to that one), so I am sorry to say I can’t give credit where it’s due. The plan is to make two books—a letters book and a numbers book—by taking pictures of things that are familiar to Simon. The numbers book is pretty straightforward—1 bottle of bubbles, 2 boots, 3 trains, and so on.

The letters book is a little harder. I am finding that the things that fill our days are clustered on a few letters: B, for example, is for bubbles and beans and Baby and bus and boots and bowl; D is for Daddy and Dude and dinosaurs and dirt and dump truck; S is for slides and swings and snake and Simon. I could go on. But what about Q? Quilt is all I’ve got. And X? X is for xnothing-Simon-is-familiar with.

I’ve also decided to take pictures of all the letters and numbers themselves, but I’m not going to knock myself out. Hard to find ones may just get drawn with sidewalk chalk.

Celebrating my wonderful dad’s birthday today. He’s 60!

Thinking I really need to detox from all the Easter candy sugar (but not really planning to do so until all the candy is gone, let’s be honest).
(Obsessively) gathering ideas for quiet books. I really want to make one for Simon before we go on a roadtrip this summer.
Helping Simon learn to “embroider.” We used burlap and embroidery floss. He really liked pulling the needle through (and I liked it too once I tied a knot so that I wouldn’t have to rethread the needle each time). I think his/our first attempt was a success.

Researching local CSAs and deciding what to plant in our garden. Yes, that’s right, we’re going to attempt a (small!) garden this year.
Reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver, and a whole buncha books on creative storage solutions (I’m still on my decluttering rampage).
Snuggling little Ian, since he won’t take a nap in his crib today.
Delighting in Simon’s ever-expanding vocabulary. (I need to catch him on video because it is so stinking cute how he tries so valiantly to communicate.)
Finishing this entry on Thursday morning because I got interrupted yesterday.
Wishing for more time to blog (‘cause I actually have some thoughts brewing).