Things I am Loving

This July I am loving:

• Squirmy’s squishy baby cheeks that I know will soon disappear slowly over time.  They happen to be the only squishy, pudgy part of his body.  He’s such a lanky thing.  But aren’t those cheeks round and full and lovely in every way?
• The Banana’s incredible enthusiasm for the piano.  She is obsessed with practicing “real songs” and her creative songs, and I just love hearing that piano getting used all the time without any prompting whatsoever.  I am amazed each time we sit down together at her focus, determination, and desire to get to the next new thing.
• Visiting the ducks and geese at the cemetery duck pond and watching those babies grow bigger and bigger.  I’ve always loved poultry.  Last time we were there a mother duck totally dive bombed a seagull who was getting in the way of her babies and their bread crumbs.  The poor seagull was so shocked it ended up playing dead in the water and floating face down.  For a bit we thought it really might be dead, but it was just a wise, intelligent seagull.  You don’t mess with those mama ducks and especially those mama geese.
• Wildflowers!  Wildflowers!  Wildflowers!  They are everywhere
• Squirmy’s new favorite past time of playing a simple version of hide and seek.  He crawls around to the other side of the activity table where he can’t see me, and hides until I call, “Where are you?”  Then he comes bursting around the corner of the table as fast as his knees can carry him with an exuberant grin and a big happy laugh.  It goes on and on.
• Our outside chalkboard.  It is so fun to draw pictures and messages out on the deck every day with fun brilliant colored sidewalk chalk.
• Naps with a book every day.  I love that everyone reads/sleeps after lunch, and since Squirmy has taken to randomly and unpredictably waking up in the middle of the night to scream and scream for no reason, I have been reading myself to sleep at nap too.  I can’t say I mind the “waste of time” because nap takes place at the hottest part of the day anyway.
• My husband spent the last three days completing my long “Not-nagging” list!  He took a load of junk to the dump, figured out how to hang pictures in the entryway from the crown molding, dismantled the ugly curtain rods in my bedroom, installed hooks for the bike helmets in the shed, and all sorts of other projects I had lined up for him.  He’s so good to me that he even sent me out to lunch with a friend today.
• Hanging diapers, swimsuits, wet towels from the sprinkler, rugs, sheets and blankets out to dry on my Amish drying rack on the hot and sunny deck to drip dry in the warm midday.