Life

Time for a little update, since the family insists, and since I don't use that phasebook site thingy everyone likes to talk about.

Life is pretty uneventful. Carrie's at her new job downtown, her commute having changed from walking through a nice park to wading through panhandlers and questionable sidewalk spills. Unless she takes the bus, which pretty much provides door to door service with no transfers; that will probably be appreciated on those cold winter days.

I've just finished up a work project that was almost keeping me up at nights, so now I can relax a little. I still work in the evenings, but daytime is now largely for leaving the house weekly, teaching my daughter DOS and HTML, and other important stay-at-home-parent activities.

Lily's chosen vocation is to point at things all day. Guessing what she's pointing at never gets old... wait, yes it does! I can't wait until she starts asking "why" about everything under the sun. She'll try to repeat words after us; she understands plenty of words and is learning more every day.

It's been quite warm out this week, so yesterday we went to the park for a picnic (if water and Crispers qualify as a picnic). The walk to the park is along the river, so Daisy gets to jump in for a quick swim/wade. The park itself is popular with dog walkers, which is fine except when any dog bigger than Daisy comes near us. Yesterday's treat was a huge gangly Doberman that was off its leash and racing toward us. Lily and I watched as Daisy went crazy and chased that thing right back to its owner. It came back a few times, but Daisy seems to know her responsibilities around Lily. She's terrified of any dogs bigger than her, but her one defense is pretending she's big and loud and scary. Works most of the time too!

Lily stands freely all the time now, but she's walked only a couple steps here and there. She's more interested in traversing stairs. Up was learned long ago, and down only recently. Not sure how it's done yet; sometimes I'll find her on a lower floor--quiet and fully intact--so she somehow gets there safely.

She was happy (for about five seconds) to pose for a stair-top photo before decided standing was no longer cool.

"I'm dropping right here, m'kay?"

This reminds of almost exactly five years ago, when I made little Daisy hang out by the stairs. The difference this time was that Lily didn't end up falling between the treads and plummeting eight feet! I deserve a parenting medal.

Life isn't complete without some sitting. Here Lily tries out a sweet Lego chair.

She loves her bike seat and, fortunately for me, doesn't insist that it be mounted on a bike.

She also loves her helmet (or eh-met). Again, no bike required.