It's growing and growing.

So much. So much.

I’ll start with Ray. In the last week he’s gone from taking his first official steps to spanning impressive distances. He’s also saying “Mama,” moving his head back and forth crazily ala Stevie Wonder when he’s happy and eating almost entirely table food and no baby food. He’s still really “world oriented” and by that I mean that he’d rather explore, move, interact and take things apart rather than play with toys. And he picks up skills amazingly fast – he took to drinking out of cups overnight, both in a tip-back sippy and with a straw. I find that particularly amazing since he hadn’t drank from anything other than when he nursed. Like Noah he was never been bottle fed and yet was like “GIVE ME THAT CUP.” It took Noah quite awhile to be in to the whole cup thing. Ray’s also doing a good job of picking up the baby sign language. In the last week he started doing the sign for “No” which I do when I tell him not to do something. And he’s using it a lot – to talk back by saying “No” to me after I’ve said it to him, to ask me if something is okay by signing “No” while touching something and giving me a quizzical look, and just to voice unhappiness by signing it while crying. He’s doing so well with the few signs I’ve used that I really need to add more so he can express himself better. So Ray is really blooming.

Noah however is having a tough time. He’s physically recovered from the pink eye and the days of feverishness but he’s exhausted. His body needs extra sleep but he’s fighting it. He doesn’t nap and he’s getting up at 6 am every morning – despite being a zombie. And his behavior had really been trying. I really was at the end of the rope with him yesterday. He was being so defiant, so stubborn, so difficult, so emotional – and I’m not accustomed to having to deal with that. Over a month ago he went through like a week or so of being really difficult but then it turned around and he was back to being fairly reasonable and angelic for a 3 year old. So hopefully the evilness of the last few days will turn around quickly once he gets some more rest. He’s also on a break from school since his school year ended in mid-May and he doesn’t start the summer program until July – and I think the loss of that structure, socialization time and accountability to other authority figures has something to do with it. Friends have also commented that he seems to have gotten a lot taller and more slender in the last few weeks so maybe a growth spurt is also in the mix. Whatever the reason – things best get back to normal soon. On the upside he’s more into his music now more than ever. Constantly asking me to put on something specific and asking me to turn it up or be quiet so he can hear a certain part. He wants to share his favorites with everyone and feels disappointed when they aren’t as taken with them as he is. After his love of the drama of the Disney ride music I figured he’d like movie soundtrack music so we took a few out of the library. At the moment he is loving the soundtrack to Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. I also recently bought him a used Ipod Mini on Ebay and a docking station for his room (It’s amazing what great deals you can get on outdated technology) – all of his music was taking all the space up on the used Ipod Mini that I bought for myself last year. And he just loves having his own Ipod. On his own he also decided that we should have a fair schedule for music selection so he decided he got to pick breakfast music, I got lunch and Daddy got dinner. Unless of course if we have lunch guests and then he got to pick the music if he has something he wanted them to hear.

And what is new with me? A lot of food stuff. I’m on a quick diet for the next few weeks to see if I can drop a few more pounds before we go to the beach. I hate dieting. I’m hungry and grumpy – but since I have an end date I can just aim for the light at the end of the tunnel. On a more positive note I finally put together that gas grill that we bought about two months ago. Did I mention that? It was supposed to take 30 minutes to assemble but after three hours I shoved it in a closet for two months. Ahem… well I finished assembling it on Sunday and we’ve been grilling, grilling, grilling. Also we’re high on greens. We joined the Greensgrow CSA again this year and our shares started two weeks ago. This year we got a vegetarian share because I’m weird about certain kinds of meat and there was just too much last year that I wasn’t really interested in cooking. I think we still have two kinds of sausage and a kind of stew meat in our freezer. Plus I was jealous of the vegetarians last year “HEY! They get three other veggies/fruits and all I got was this damn whole chicken.” Anyway – I love the CSA experience. I love that it’s local. I love that it’s good for the planet and our neighborhood. I love that we are trying new veggies and exposing Noah to such a wide variety of garden food. And I love just having to be a bit imaginative in what I’m serving for dinner. It’s not the same handful of things I always cook – it’s like “What am I going to do with collard greens and turnips?” But it’s not all just weird stuff. Tomorrow I pick up strawberries, tomatoes, asparagus, kale, extra sharp cheddar cheese, spring salad mix, mushrooms, spring onions, yogurt, and herbs. YUM. I totally encourage anyone to try out a CSA in the future or at the very least to seek out local farmers markets.

Okay. I am late for watching part one of the Top Chef finale.