What we've been up to

Tallulah has been drawing a lot, and by "a lot" I mean I have to push her to do other things, like eat dinner or leave school. Current artistic theme: cats with 2-9 legs*, extended claws, eyebrows, and open, smiling mouths, often with attached speech balloons with the word "Hi" in them. She will fill a page with cats doing various things: sleeping, eating, pooping, taking someone's order (as if working at the Krusty Krab), playing at the playground, etc. Some cats will be thickly scribbled over; those are "blankets." Some cats will be circled; those are the cats' beds. When she is finished she folds the paper in half and then writes on the outside portion. Usually it is something like this: "MAMA THE CAT TREE TALLULAH CAT" (which means For Mama: The Cat Tree, by Tallulah Cat.**)

And Tallulah has also been reading. I mean she can actually, really, for real, fluently read. She's been reading a bit for months but recently she's gotten very good at it and has been reading books to herself, for fun. She just turned four. I am bragging, or something, but I am so proud of her and kind of freaked out by how smart she is that I can't help myself. She can also write, as I mentioned above, and has drawn/written actual comic-style situations, like a beaver tickling a cat while waiting for the potty, and the beaver is saying "tickle" and the cat is saying "hee hee."

I can't help but think that the next two years of schooling are going to be tragically boring for her.

Nate has been working on things in the physical realm. He's still not quite walking yet, but he's got the crawling and cruising down to a science. He can now stand unaided and cruise while holding on with only one hand. So he's close. He's been climbing stairs, which he loves. And today at the playground he discovered the Fun of Slides. He crawled up the stairs and then slid down the slide, head/arms first, giggling madly, over and over. Until the time I got distracted and he slid right off the end of the slide and face-planted on the thankfully cushy playground surface. Oh, the guilt!

Nate also discovered the sandbox today. His response to being placed in the sandbox? NO THANK YOU WTF IS THIS STUFF PICK ME UP UP UP. He did sleep through the night last night for the third time ever. EVER. So let's optimistically call that a mini-trend.

Meanwhile he isn't saying any words yet. A couple of weeks ago he seemed to be saying "Mama" and "Dada" with purpose, but he's stopped doing that recently. Maybe his brain is just working on these walking and sleeping projects right now, and the language project is being shelved for the time being. He is very interested in figuring stuff out, in a physical way; he will pick something up and pull it and push it and try to take it apart and basically test all of its properties. So that reassures me that he's not PROFOUNDLY retarded, at least.

Scott has ended his 9-year employment at The Nation and has started a new job at a non-profit stand-up up-start start-up. He wears a suit every work day now. It is a change.

And I have been taking care of everyone, sort of. I've been having a hard time of it, though things are getting better. It is spring. Flowers are here, and leaves are coming. The playground and the park beckon.

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Bonus entertainment: That Phone Guy, who talks into things that are not phones, got a new model a few months back. This video will show you.
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* She adds as many legs as the body's circumference allows.
** Because she likes cats so much that "cat" is part of her name now.