9 months

James and I were sitting in a little room at the beginning of his 9-month checkup. Dr. Helton opened the door and James gave her a big, drooly grin. That's my James.

"Is he still the most content baby in the world?" she asked.

"Yep."

This boy amazes me with his easygoing nature. He's just plain happy. He lets pretty much anyone hold him, as long as I'm not too near. He eats everything we've given him so far. He even takes Robert's rough physical attention in stride. Usually. And he smiles! What a smiley, happy guy.

He's less particular about, well, everything. I don't fret over him as much as I've fretted over the other two.

He's still large for his age, but his weight is stabilizing now that he's very, very mobile and getting into everything. He creeps along furniture, stands alone long enough to get another spoonful of yogurt, and has even ventured a couple quick pivot steps to get somewhere. No speck of crud on the floor goes unnoticed. His favorite hangout is under the breakfast table by the garbage can. Ugh. No surface 0-24 inches high is safe from his moist little hands and curious mouth. We have slobbery blowfish smudges on our sliding glass window where James has tried to kiss his own reflection. He gives a good fight when you're trying to fish something out of his mouth, but won't fuss once it's out. Doesn't hold a grudge, this one.

Unfortunately, James does have a couple bad habits. 1) He grinds his teeth for fun. I had thought that we could start restricting his pacifier use to bedtime, but that grating noise of tooth on tooth is just too gut-wrenching to ignore. Gotta plug it! 2) He still wakes once or twice a night for comfort. It's annoying, but I have other things to worry about before further sleep training becomes a priority :)

People point out how much James and Alice look alike. I can see that they look more alike than either of them to Robert, but I'm just too close to all of them. Let me know where you think James' little turtle mouth comes from. Here's the "about 9 months" lineup:

Picts from California

Confession: I don't actually read those long, picture-filled blog posts about your vacations. I'm sorry. It's real life that draws me in, and travelogues don't often include the real life details and introspection that I crave. It shouldn't surprise you that I don't like to write travelogues, either, so I never end up writing about our travels...and then I forget about them.

So sad.

Where's the happy medium?!

Here is my attempt to share without overwhelming you with details. I'm also trying to leave myself clues so that when I read this again in 10 years, I'll be reminded of things that happened without having to trudge through my own boring travelogue :)

We traveled to California last week to visit friends. Actually, Bobby went to work at a conference in San Jose and I wrangled my mom into crashing with me at my friend's house for a week nearby. Three experienced mothers, eight kids, for most of every weekday. I liked those odds. We did some touristy stuff and lounged at home and attended church and shared some sort of sleeping fever sickness. I learned to play iPad games. I spent way too much time in traffic. I ate meals I didn't have to plan or shop for. My mom did the dishes. I got hours upon hours of catch-up conversation time with good friends and family. I did NOT take enough pictures. Here are a few keepers, though, mostly from our first two days there:

Muir Woods

Muir Woods

Shuttle to Muir Woods

Waiting to get on the shuttle to Muir Woods

Waiting to get on the shuttle to Muir Woods

Tilden Regional Park

Tilden Regional Park

Yes, he's playing in a sandbox in his Sunday clothes. After a day like that one, I was glad for the break.

"Mommy, take a picture of this!" Robert's freaky Cheetos after our delicious tour of the Jelly Belly Factory.

Would I do it again? You bet. Would I pack carry-on only again? Maybe not. It would have been nice to take more Jelly Bellies home ;) And herding a curious 3-year-old (burdened with his own luggage) through airports and three kinds of public transport (while burdened down yourself with luggage and car seats and a baby strapped to your chest) is not a feat for the faint-hearted. The kids handled the trip remarkably well considering the 2-hour jet lag and many, many late nights. When we got there, they wanted to go home. When it was time to go home, they didn't want to leave.

Sounds about right for my kids :)

I know Rachel has posted some pictures on Facebook, but I would like copies of any photos anyone else took of us and you while we were visiting together. Pretty, pretty please.

Peek at the "Farm" in early July

Pictures of my garden as it stands today, July 7th, 2013:

Blueberry barrels in front, raised beds just behind. You can barely see the chicken wire that's attached to the EMT conduit frames. Left to right, you see: sunflowers, corn, tomatoes, beets, green onions, parsley, the cucurbit tent, and strawberries.

Fruit orchard. Left to right as pictured: white peach, red pear, cold-tolerant peach (we actually got 1 bloom on it this spring!), green pear, honeycrisp apple, and red rome beauty apple

And of course, the ladies: Penny and Roo in the front, Spot and T.O.E in the back. We still get 3-4 eggs a day, except when 4th of July fireworks scare the girls silly. We only got one the next day.

New this year: family pots on the patio. Bobby, Susan, Alice, Robert, and James. Bobby has peppers, one rogue pea plant, and a newly transplanted fiery nasturtium. I've got pink zinnias and Mexican mint marigold. Alice has peach nasturtiums. Robert has a bushy Mexican mint marigold and a rogue cantaloupe. Poor James' pot is so little that it dries out easily and gets knocked over several times a week. That little marigold is the toughest flower I've ever raised.

What I'm not showing you is all the bare dirt. There are large swaths of raised garden that I left barren this spring because I didn't have the energy to grow big this spring. That's okay. It's saved my energy enough that I think I'll try a fall garden for the first time ever. The cucurbit tent has consistently protected my melons, zucchini, and cucumbers from their respective insect nemeses. Maybe this fall, I could actually keep the cabbage moths away from broccoli and kale!

The cucurbit tent has a major drawback, too. It excludes pretty much EVERY pollinator. My zucchini, melon, and cucumber plants are lush and loaded with flowers, but haven't produced a single fruit. I will have to hand-pollinate if I want to harvest anything this year. Next year, I can plant varieties that don't require pollination. Yes, they exist. A little biology lesson from OMFRA:

"Both watermelon and cucumber are normally monoecious, an exception being that the seedless European (greenhouse) cucumber is parthenogenic--meaning that fruit development occurs without requiring the normal process of pollination (i.e. the transfer of pollen from the male flower part to the female flower part). As well, the triploid or seedless watermelons do not require pollination."

 Now to find a parthenogenic cantaloupe...hmmmmm. I just love that word, parthenogenic.

Some of the wheat we've been throwing to the chickens has sprouted in one of our less protected garden beds. It's popular with the bunnies, however, and stays at a nice, even 2-3 inches in height :)

Once I tie up the loose ends on the squirrel exclosure, then maybe I'll tackle the bramble beast.

Faith Like a Child?

Alice was sick last week in California. We had spent the morning and afternoon at a sunny, sandy beach and she had fallen asleep in the car on the 40-minute-drive home. Then she went straight to her bed and fell asleep again for 2 hours. I woke her from her deep sleep and saw that she was suffering from a moderately high fever. I held her for a while to see if she'd perk up. Nope. She was miserable: droopy eyes, limp limbs, and a slow, constant whine. She started to cry a bit and I gave her some Tylenol. I told her to go back to bed and she headed that way, but suddenly turned around and tearfully asked for a priesthood blessing.

A thrill of joy: Alice is not one who asks for priesthood blessings, so I was glad to see her exercise that kind of faith.

My heart sank: we were miles/hours away from anyone who could perform the blessing at that moment.

Bobby was 1 hour away at a conference. Dewain, one of our good friends and generous hosts, was 1.5 hours away at work. To arrange a hands-on priesthood blessing, we would have to ask our friends to call two of their local friends away from work (who knows how far away THEY would be?) to give a priesthood blessing to Alice. For a fever.

No matter how great Alice's faith was at that moment, I cringed at the thought of inconveniencing all of those people for her. It was not a life-threatening fever. If we had been home in Illinois, I would have had a whole list of people within 10 minutes of my house who I could call (including Bobby!). And I would have called them. It's only 20 minutes, right? But to ask perfect strangers to leave their work and travel hours back and forth for a moderately high fever...I couldn't.

I lacked something. Was it faith? I just didn't think the effort of a blessing would help her any better than the meds and a good rest would.

So I told Alice the Tylenol would make her feel better in a short time and that she should just go back to bed. She did. It didn't occur to me to pray with her, or call Bobby, or even tell our hosts what was happening. I guess I was a little ashamed of denying Alice's request for a blessing.

I checked in on her now and then the rest of the day. The Tylenol did nothing for her fever. She slept and slept and slept, hot as ever. I bought some children's ibuprofen to give her if she woke up feverish during the night. About 10pm that night, the fever was gone, and she continued to sleep peacefully the rest of the night. She was especially energetic and happy the next morning, feeling quite a bit better.

I'm still a little out of shape about it all. Do I wish I had decided differently? Will I choose another response next time? Don't know yet. Alice hasn't mentioned it since. I'll have to think about this one a little longer.

This one's for you, Heidi...

...and me. I laughed, but deep down, it's all true...