The Great Roll

Sahara is looking smart and relaxed as she works on holding her head up. It's been a good workout.

Mesmerized by the shenanigans of her big brother, the "lean" inadvertently begins. Her curiosity is peaked. She decides to push the envelope and take said leanage to its wobbly extremes.
Uh-oh!!!

Sahara finds herself upside down, legs and arms pumping like the legs of an overturned turtle.

Having righted herself once again, she realizes with a sense of awe, yet solemnity, that she has crossed a significant kinesthetic/spacial threshold.

Thanksgiving Day

Sahara out of doors

Bath Time

Sunday Night Serenity

Four and a half months after moving in, the last of the boxes is gone! The living room feels spacious; the walls and windows bare but peaceful.

Snapshot of the moment: Danny's reading The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton for the third time. Sahara is practicing her new skills---grasping fabric fish from her work station on the floor. Sammy's in the dinning room doing absolutely nothing... well, staring into the middle distance and twirling his hair. He's contemplating his next move. We are all listening to gospel music that Danny put on. "Victory in Jesus" is over and now this gem wafts through the house:

’Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
And to take him at his Word;
Just to rest upon his promise,
And to know, “Thus says the Lord!”

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him.
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus.
O for grace to trust him more!

Yes, ’tis sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just from sin and self to cease;
Just from Jesus simply taking
Life and rest, and joy and peace.

I’m so glad I learned to trust Thee,
Precious Jesus, Savior, Friend;
And I know that Thou art with me,
Wilt be with me to the end.

Sahara laughed!

Sahara laughed for the very first time tonight! It was more than a coo or gurgle. It was a bona fide, multi-second giggle. Spontaneous. Joyful. It took my breath away.

Sputtering to a Start

Wow, I've MISSED YOU! A little bity thing happened while I was away: Sam got a baby sister, Sahara. Oh yes, and another little thing, we moved house. Oh, oh, and Danny closed our mortgage company (panic, panic) and then got a job at a bank (hurray!) the day before I went into labor (what the…?). It was chaos. All that catapulted me out of blog land for 3 whole months. I think I might be back now. Might.

I can’t possibly update you on 3 months worth of unlikely, disgusting, mundane, sweet, exasperating and, on the best of days, miraculous happenings. The thought of all that update-age makes me want to go shoot myself in the head. Instead, I’m going to do one of those lame, clunky transitions used in badly written paperback novels that people who are not me buy at travel stops: “And then a long time later Joe and Delilah were eating clams back at the farm." Just watch me do it. ha! I don’t even care. haha!

And then a long time later it was 11 PM at the Plueddemann Pad…

Sahara is emitting gassy noises from her swing which might mean I have to go pick her up soon. Sam is sitting on our big bed engrossed in a lift-the-flap book about work vehicles. (He enjoys a killer bedtime for a two year old.) He is testing himself: "Tow tuck? Nooooo. Cement tuck!" On the floor is a 60-piece jigsaw puzzle which he’s completed several times. Typically those who chug juicy-juice from sippy cups do not complete jigsaw puzzles. He's a genius.

What I have accomplished this evening--you will be excited to learn--is finish off a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough all by myself. I would have baked the cookies, but then Danny and Sam would have smelled them, followed swiftly by desiring them. One thing leads to another. I did what I had to do.

From my computer desk vantage point, I can see 3 dirty sippy cups under the dining room table. I think they mate under there at night and breed more sippy cups. This happens to binkies under the crib, legos under the rug, and squirty toys in the tub. We have a horny house.

Danny is in the living room watching his fish because I can see the harsh bluey light glowing against the darkness. I know he is sitting in the banana-leaf chair with his face tilted like a satellite dish towards the tank. His expression will be one of deep serenity, his sea-green eyes gliding back and forth with the fish. For whatever reason, the occasional cockroach scuttles across our floors (I mean ‘occasional’ in the sense of ‘always;’ still no shoe molding). Danny stuns them with a wack of his magazine, pinches them in a paper towel, and feeds them live to his Jack Dempseys and Convicts. An orgy blossoms around this horrifying bug as it sinks into its watery grave. Danny and I are now vegetarians (should’ve put that in paragraph 1) because we want to live more peaceful lives. Meanwhile we keep pets that are uber-carnivores. I offer no explanation for this.

Oh, listen. The dishwasher is hum-swooshing. And country music is twanging softly in the kitchen because I forgot to turn off the radio. I could sooo nod off to sleep right now, except for the frostbite. Did I mention the frostbite? Synopsis: the Doberman, whom I requested live under the house when we moved here last summer, tore up our new duct work. Hot air is now wafting pleasantly into the crawl space giving the dog a toasty evening. I AM SO HAPPY FOR THE DOG%*#. The good news (yeah!) is that we can repair it (yeah!) using all the money (yeah!) which we grow on trees.

The cookie dough no longer makes me feel happy.

Yup, here we are, back in blog land. Ta-da!