Lead Baby

Sorry I've been slow to post -- I was taking a summer session class which meant
a. more work crammed into a smaller amount of time
b. by the end of work and school, I am really done with the computer
c. sometimes there just isn't enough time in the day.

But here I am now with a little of this and that to report.

First -- it's my third blogserversary -- it was a little over three years ago that I was very pregnant, having had pre-term labor trying to be restful, being that I was the swollen like the girl in Willy Wonka....I wasn't moving too quickly. In blog years, I'm ready for AARP or something. I had started a blog on my observations of moving below the Mason/Dixon Line in 2004, but I did not maintain it.....so this is one I've stuck with (despite the times I don't post now and again).
Thank you dear blog readers for sticking with us -- for following our thrilling and mundane adventures.

Yuri is settling into his life in California. He has a job in Silicon Valley and it seems like it really suits him. He visits my grandparents in Sacramento a couple times a month, which everyone loves. He gets to sleep on a bed (vs. the studio apartment air mattress) and they feed him all weekend. Next weekend he's going camping in Oregon with a friend from work -- I'm glad he's connecting with the folks he's working with (considering it's a small company of 10 or so, I guess it's expected)
We keep connected via Skype and the webcam -- as much as I can get Victor to sit..still...and actually talk to him. Victor will ask about Daddy 100 times a day -- but when I get the 2 of them on the phone, Victor clams up.

The other day Victor and my mom were playing guitar -- my mom maintaining a strong strum while Victor added his little riff -- he was standing towards the closet door -- towards his audience of pants and t-shirts singing his song "I said BOOM BOOM BOOM. I said BOOM BOOM BOOM!" after singing this, dancing and bobbing his head, he would raise his hand and say
"Thank you . Thank you very much. I appreciate it" I think he listens to a lot of Elvis when he's at Erma's house, where he goes to for childcare. He loves music of all types for sure. When he's tired of listening to the headlines of the daily news -- I hear a quiet "Music on please".....wait....listen to Carl Kasell a little more....wait....a little louder now "Music On Please!" and if there is a longer musical interlude on NPR that he doesn't feel is enough music, when it finishes I hear an exasperated toddler voice "Music Please!".

Tonight he helped me make salad -- he loves to to help me cook. The lettuce, truthfully, was on it's last leg -- I picked what was edible from the pile of greens -- and Victor was in charge of the salad spinner and getting it into the bowl. He has been really into imagining he works at Papa John's Pizza, and will tell little stories of cheese, pepperoni, Diet Coke and pizza slices. So as he's telling this story, while he moves the salad from bowl to bowl, the lettuce is looking a little worse. He pulls out a spoon and starts mixing the salad -- quickly turning what was already a little rough....into a lettuce mash. We had cantaloupe for dinner instead.
Yesterday he and I made ice cream cone cupcakes for our fantablous friend Felecia's birthday -- the day should have been renamed "FingerInFrosting Day". All day long he had frosting on his face, on his shirt, on his arms -- but when I asked where he found it: HUH? was the reply. Near the end of the day, we delivered the cupcones to Felecia -- and he was really proud to deliver them.

Victor is still awake right now -- nearly 10pm. Fighting sleep by scratching his spots...asking questions (that I don't answer) and trying to read in the dark. Go to sleep little man. Tomorrow's a new day.