Spring Waters

Spring is finally sort of here, and the world is huge and wonderful and full of dogs and squirrels and sticks to taste and tree roots to trip over. Alex and Anya would spend all day outside if they could, and if we had some way to fence in our land, I might let them, but for now they both want to play with a large not-friendly dogs behind and invisible fence next door, or go run across the street to play with the other pack of large dogs owned by a not-friendly neighbor, or run down the street to see their best friend Finn's very very friendly dog Casey.
Notice a theme? We're thinking about when we could get a dog of our own. I've been waiting since I was 19 to get one, waiting till I thought I could provide a good home, till I could be the kind of dog owner that I wanted to be. I'm so close I can taste it!




Luke has become the sun and the moon and the shining stars in Alex's world. When Luke calls during the day, I hold the phone to Alex's ear and a look of pure joy sweeps across his face, he turns to look into the speaker and caresses it lovingly, sometimes planting a kiss on it, and says in an awe-filled voice, "Hi, Dada!"








Anya is fearless as ever, and crinkles her nose when she smiles, and smiles when she finally scales the dining room table, the stack of crates designed to thwart her, every chair in the house, the bookcase. She belly laughs and giggles and tickles her brother and bowls people and pets over with her enthusiastic hugs and kisses. She amazes me.

And Luke. Luke makes me happier and stronger every single day. I don't think I even imagined that someone as strong and amazing and loving could exist till I knew him. I am so very lucky.

I'm the Osirus of this shit!

My greatest victory of the day was besting Luke in Rock, Paper, Scissors when changing Alex's rank diaper was at stake.

Go me!

Full of lightning victories

My main man took his very first step yesterday, and mastered a whole several feet of pure upright motion today.



He's got these crazy curls on his head, little ringlets that bobble near his ears. And he gets overwhelmed with excitement to see people sometimes, just laughs hysterically while rolling his face across whatever body part of yours he can get to while making this funny open-mouthed, "Aaaaaahhhhhhhh!", and if you smile or make funny noises back at him he will look up and beam then lean down and give you a little nip, like a cat who's butt has been scratched just right for a moment too long. He's pretty rad, if I do say so myself.

The Lone Ranger, code red, danger!

We got a rad new video camera thanks to my always tech-savvy dad. I took this:



on the same day that Anya:
1. Busted through the babyproofing to get into the forbidden closet.
2. Put not one but two quarter-sized tokens in her mouth within 2 seconds of entering the forbidden closet.
3. Climbed over different babyproofing surrounding a planter and put a fistful of potting soil in her mouth.
4. Called 911, which I discovered when the village polics showed up at my door.

Demonstrate walkin on hot coal, in rituals

My baby girl can walk!




She started about three weeks ago, because she is badass. Alex finally started crawling about a week before that, so, you know, she had to move on to something new.

Rough turbulence, the waveburst, split the megahertz

Sleep is like a swift spirit, easily chased away. We've got mad sleep rituals in our house.

I take Alex into the bathroom if he's having trouble dropping off. Turn the lights out and the tap on high, hold him nestled to my shoulder sway back and forth and sing to him. I sing Suzanne, because I love it, because my father sang it, because I know all the words, because I sang it to myself in the shower while I was pregnant, because I never knew what it was about and experienced a moment of pure magical coincidence-glee when my beloved English teacher Mary Redclay passed out the lyrics in class during a poetry section; a glee that turned to frustrated bewilderment when I told her excitedly that I had always wondered what it meant and she turned her steady eyes to me and told me to tell the class what it meant. As with many things Redclay, I was left thinking, "Why does she do that?" And, know what? I still don't know what the hell solemn old Leonard was writing about in Suzanne or any of his songs. My sister thinks they are all about the intensity and depravity and agony of heroin addiction, but she's been known to project just a tad. I sing Suzanne to Alex knowing that someday he will ask me what it means, and I will have no answer for him, and I wonder how my father answered me or if I ever asked, or if I just knew not to ask questions that would make him uncomfortable, even at an early age, or if I did ask and he leaned in smelling of cigarettes and Drambuie and slurred, "Love, my dear, it's all about love."

Alex lets his head fall against me as soon as the first notes are out of my throat, but occasionally, midway through the Jesus verse, he will start a funny, tonal babbling; he's a talkative little dude, and sometimes his own babbling can get him excited, and destroy all my work at lulling him to sleep. So I shush him gently and tell him, "Time for sleep now, Alex" which are our sleep key words. Aren't we fancy, reading the books by the experts and such? Recently he has become more consistent, often continuing his vocalizations as soon as I stop shushing and start singing.

Last week, after the third time I had to stop singing to quiet him, a little nubbin of a thought occurred to me. I started singing, waited for his plaintive little voice, then stopped, but did not shush, and a moment later he stopped. I started singing again and he chirped away. I stopped and he stopped. I spoke in a normal voice and he remained silent. I began to sing, and my son sang with me.

Back in the days of eight now, makin a tape now...

Flickr is cramping my videographer style with their 90 second limit, so for those bored and adventurous few, check out the babies on You Tube, and favorite us for future updates!