Seven months

At seven months, Lauren is scooching all around the house. Her three sibling make her very happy and excited. She just recently discovered Cheerios. "Sleeping through the night" isn't exactly how to describe her night time routine, but she's close. Sort of. She charms everyone with her big brown eyes and her toothless grin. Fun times!









Lauren actually fell asleep out in the swing.

Lauren loves her Mama

She REALLY loves me! Even Lauren's daddy can't hold a candle to me. It's good to be so loved. It's exhausting, but good.

Boston

Jack and I were feeling antsy last weekend. We wanted to get out of town. Where to go? At 6pm on Friday night, Jack said, "We could go to Boston." By 7:15 we were packed and on our way.

It was a great weekend. With all of our family living far away, we don't often travel to locations other than their houses and we hardly ever go anywhere "by-the-six-of-us". The opportunity to do those things was nice. We did the typical Boston touristy stuff: Paul Revere's house, the Old North Church, the New England Aquarium (including the IMAX movie), street performers near Quincy Market, and a trip on the swan boats in the Public Garden made famous (or at least made familiar to us) by Robert McCloskey in Make Way for Ducklings. We did about as much as four kids age 8 and under could do in 40 hours in Boston. The kids were exhausted. And happy. The spontaneous sprint served to cure our wanderlust and to empty our travel budget. Now, with a sigh of contentment, we can begin fall and all that goes with it. School. Soccer. And, for this year, building a house. Just one question... Can anyone tell me where we pahked the cah? Was it on Chahles Street?



"Too much Boston!"





Boston was wicked hot last Saturday. We picked up real pepperoni, some funky Italian cheese and a baguette in a North end deli and ate it outside while the kids ran around in the fountains. It was sublime. Hot and sticky, but sublime.

Looking back

I was scrolling through the 8,000 pictures I have stored in iPhoto this evening and was struck by this one. This was Jakin's first Christmas play at our old church in December 2004. Almost five years ago. Jakin looks so young compared to the boy he is now. December 2004. We had two kids. Jack still worked for the Navigators and had few thoughts of ever doing anything else. Neither Jack nor I had gray hairs. Now here we are with four kids, a second post-Nav career change and more than one gray hair on each of our heads. Looking at the picture is confusing. It makes me feel old. Well, oldish. Many many MANY people with hair grayer than mine have clucked the familiar admonition at me, "Oh, enjoy this time with your young children! It goes so fast!" Time doesn't always feel like it's going fast when, for example, I'm in the middle of rinsing out puke-laden sheets at 4:30am (as I did just last night). But, I guess I have enough gray up there to acknowledge that all of those folks really do know what they are talking about. Five years ago! Are you kidding me? Just one more bit of whimsy while I'm at it... I really enjoy walking this road with Jack.

Wordless Wednesday

More crawling

The previous post was descriptive video of how Lauren crawls, but it doesn't show anything of her sweet little face. And I know that at the very least Lauren's grandma will want to see that sweet little face, so here's some more crawling footage. Maybe it's a bit of a stretch to call this movement "crawling". Any suggestions?

First video attempts

Lauren has ditched the traditional method of crawling - up on hands and knees - in favor of a belly on the ground, slither, propel herself forward version of transportation. It gets her where she wants to go. And there's a lot out there for a 6 1/2 month old to explore.

This is my first attempt at video.... I'm skeptical...