Weekend Musings

This weekend was quite full. It can be separated into two, admittedly mama-biased, categories:

1. WV said his first legit word.
2. Everything else.

First word: DADA!!!
Oh laws, I can not, I can not! I’m just busting with pride.

We say, “Walter, can you say ‘dada’?”
He smiles. “DADA!”
We say, “Walter, can you say mama?”
He gives a coy look, “DADA!”

So, erm, we know he’s responding, and it’s technically a word. Buuut, I don’t think it’s attached to dada yet. The thing that really differentiates it from other babblings and cooings and gushings is that he is doing it on purpose, after we ask and he knows he’s repeating something we specifically say to him. We’ve had “back-and-forths” before, but it was more of the “gah, gah, snort, burble” ilk – cute, fun, he’s learning, but no real words. I’d had tried a while back doing vowel sounds to see if he’d mimic them back. Nope. Oh well. This time, he’s repeatedly repeating back the word. So. Dang. Proud.

And onto “everything else.”

It’s been a quiet, productive, cozy weekend.

W’s been working hard on his thesis – every now and then he’ll emerge from his office to rant about test-grids and phi-lines merging with Cartesian coordinates while pointing to a blow-up globe I gave him.

It was raining hard when I woke up on both Saturday and Sunday, which has been less than delightful. But later during Saturday morning the rain did pause and I quick found a garage sale on line that started at 10am. Perfect! I left the boys sleeping in bed, made a few wrong turns, but found it. Spent exactly $1 on a Daffodil Festival poster, which I am pleased to own – the Daffodil Festival is a Gloucester springtime tradition. Gloucester, didn’t you know, is the daffodil capital of the US! There’s a craft fair, zillions of daffodils sold in bunches and an accompanying 5k that my best friend and I have run several times. The posters are always wicked expensive so I never buy one, but now I have a happy souvenir to remind me of all the Daffodil Fest 5ks we’ve done. I think maybe I’ll sign me and The Walters up for this year’s 5k come to think of it. We have to break in our Bob running stroller!

Despite the dreary rain, there are some signs of spring just making me itch to go outside! Our yard is one perpetual soggy mess; I would love it to be dry enough to sit outside on the ground with WV, but alas. However, the garden is in progress in our bedroom instead – W rigged up a grow lamp and it has accelerated the process of seedlings peeping their shy first leaves out from beneath the soil. I think our March dual-post will be all things garden-starting, so I won’t say more. The spring peepers have started their cliche-ing-ly incessant crepuscular chatter, too, which is exciting and makes me think of balmy nights! And we’ve left the porch door open to let in the outside (and vice versa) and turned off the heaters a few times. I even sat with WV in the rocker out on the porch for almost an hour talking to an old VIMS friend, whom I hadn’t spoken with in a while! So great to catch up and breath fresh air.

We took a few dog walks, picking between the rain drops, and we (mostly WV) took several naps. He’s getting so big.

Of course, no weekend is a weekend unless replete with too many cooking endeavors: an insanely tasty apple chicken salad (from a fellow foodie friend – I’ll check with her to see if she’s cool with me broadcasting the recipe), whole wheat pancakes, 8 pizza doughs (to be pizza’d this week), to name a few. WV also had his first pork – I smashed it up with apples (he now eats them incorporated with other flavors) and breast milk and added avocados once and another time, carrots. I also made mushed (boiled, then finely shredded) chicken with broccoli and bananas for him. I kind of want to eat baby food from now on – it was all delish!

Hrm…some other housey things I did in my “free” time? I’m trying to keep up with my book group book, Einstein Never Used Flashcards, by reading while BFing. We drooled over a silly posh-farmer catalogue that showed up in our mail box and agreed we could make everything ourselves. For our farm. I also sorted out a bunch of baby items to consign and then proceeded to miss the deadline to sign up for the local kids’ consignment sale (in my defense, they don’t appear to state the deadline on their website). I bought a mini-tube of super glue and went about the house a-gluin’ all the things I had made a mental note to mend over the past, say, 2 years. It may sound mundane, but small but attainable goals run this household. On my list: a milk-glass (love!) candlestick my Aunt gave me that had cracked in half when the candle burned too low, a magnet that had lost it’s magnet with a picture of my sister spitting water (she’d kill me if I showed the actual pic), the ceramic knob that informatively says “shower” and turns the shower on and off which was broken exactly in half, and a large chunk of a plant pot’s drainage dish that I kept propping up and would continually get knocked off by an animal.

Tonight, we stayed in, missing a sure-to-be awesome concert in Richmond that our friend’s band, Handsome Molly, was playing. But tomorrow I may go to Richmond to have brunch with her and mah BF! Looking forward to it!