It's a grayish day. The sun almost shines through but the clouds persist. The cold, cold winter has ceased to trouble us for awhile. I love the warmer air! It makes me think of life. The cold is like death.
Sitting here, holding a sleeping baby, I will write while I have the opportunity. What else is Google docs for?
My days feel unproductive many times. The to-do list remains undone. But baby care wasn't on the list. Yet it is the most important thing I could be doing.
Diana enjoys "helping me" do whatever I'm doing. She is very interactive, very sociable, most content to be with someone.
But it must be someone she's comfortable with. If you respect her, she'll warm up to you pretty soon. If you try to force yourself on her, you're a marked person.
All that to say, she sticks quite closely to Mama during the day. I try not to carry her around too much, though she begs to be held. She's a solid chunk and my back protests the abuse.
She's using more words. She loves to eat. When she has eaten up her portion, she'll hold up her bowl and say, "Mo". When I'm preparing a snack for her, cheese slices, apple slices, or whatever, she'll ask to have it in a bowl by just saying, "Bowl."
She loves I Spy books and will let you know she wants to look at one by saying/asking, "By?" (“Spy?”) Coming near the woodstove or oven, seeing steaming food or drink, she says, "Hot!" For some reason, she loves to find pictures of owls in books. Often when she's looking at a book she'll be asking "owl?" It's amazing how many books actually do have at least one picture of an owl.
Thomas has been suffering this past week from wounds received when a garage door spring let loose unexpectedly. He got a nasty whack and cut on his hand/ arm. His chest also got a beating and he's been dealing with bruises. His left hand has not been very useful, though only bruised as far as we know. Not broken. Matthew, Melvin, and Christopher have been doing the door work while Thomas supervises.
On the days when Melvin is at home, he spends a lot of time pruning trees. It’s one of his favorite things to do! He's experimenting with grafting fruit trees this year. A number of citrus and avocado trees are growing in our house, which he started from seeds. I think he needs to build a conservatory.
Speaking of citrus, we've been enjoying delicious oranges and grapefruit from California this winter. We just got our second order of two cases of grapefruit and one case of oranges. Hearing one of the ladies at church say she makes concentrate from lemons and freezes it, I also ordered a case of those. Fresh tasting lemonade in the summer will be awesome.
That is as far as my musings went on this Saturday afternoon. I'll be back at a later date.
