Available: Good Home to Good Folks

It looks like we have buyers for our home. The "for sale" sign was barely in the ground yesterday before people were inquiring about it. Anyway, the offers were in today, and we are going to accept one first thing in the morning. Because it isn't technically a done deal, we won't say any more about it right now. Suffice it to say that though it seems impossible, this is going to be a situation in which everyone (except maybe the losing bidders) is going to be very happy.

That consumed most of our time, energy, and thought today, but Gabriel, having no understanding of the importance of this subject, continued to do his own thing. That "own thing" involved spreading books over as much of the floor of our apartment as he could until he ran out of books, wiping what little of the floor remained uncovered with his belly, sticking to his mommy like white on rice for much of the day despite her efforts to get him to take a nap, and getting up and walking around on his walker all by himself.

After living extremely frugally these past few weeks, we decided to celebrate our house decision by going to Starbucks for a treat. We went over all of the paperwork for the offers, while Gabriel flirted with the co-eds at the next table. The attention inspired him to be very vocal in the cafë, and we loved hearing the happy talk and laughter.

Dad A called and said that Gabriel's high chair should be arriving tomorrow, so we are very excited about that. It's the one that we picked out at Ikea but was out of stock. He and Gail found it last week and have sent it to us. It will be very nice to be able to sit up straight while we feed him. We have been sitting on the floor with him in his walker, and when we do sit in a seat, we have to bend over and get a backache. We are also excited to put his little velour cover on the seat for le petit prince.

A Nice Night for a Walk

The most notable thing that we did today was to go for a nice long walk through Midtown. We walked up to Piedmont Park and through it, and went through the neighborhood between there and our apartment, as opposed to going down the main streets. It was probably about 3 miles total. The weather was beautiful - probably about 65°F.

The house was listed today, although we don't have the heart to look it up on realtor.com. We know that we are doing the right thing, but it's still difficult. On the bright side, as soon as we sell the house, we can find a new one down here, and we think that will be really fun.

Gabriel actually crawled into his toy box today, and he nearly crawled out of his bed. Fortunately, we were right there to rescue him both times. We have started an exhausting nighttime routine where we put him in bed lying down, he stands up, we lay him back down, he stands up, we lay him back down... you get the idea. Oh, the ways he learns to push our endurance! So far, we're staying patient and remembering that he needs lots of repetition to learn anything, but he's seriously cutting into our nightcap time!

Gabe Cruises and Happy Birthday, Billy!!

We found ourselves without any obligations today, for once, so we decided to take it slow. Gabe is still a bit under the weather, so we thought this would be a good opportunity for him to rest up. He seems to have a very low grade temperature that goes away when we give him Tylenol and his nose is running constantly. He took a super-long nap today and hasn’t been eating quite as much, things that he will only do when he’s not feeling quite right. Clearly, this is playgroup’s fault. He’s handling it well though and isn’t complaining at all. He is his usual gregarious self.

That fact was demonstrated to us today as Gabriel did something for the first time. This morning he was crawling around on the floor as he often does. He crawled over to his walker and pulled himself to a standing position. This isn’t unusual for him anymore, even though we still think it’s pretty amazing, standing while holding on to something is old hat for our little almost-ten month old. After standing for a few seconds while grabbing onto the walker, Gabriel started pushing it around!! This is the first time that Gabe has taken steps while not in a walker (at least as far as we know, who knows what the Chipster does when we’re not looking). He cruised all the way from the living room through the kitchen and into the bedroom. He seemed pretty stable and he seemed to really be enjoying himself. We think that it won’t be long before he’s walking unassisted.

Patty thought it was time that Matt started baking some bread of his own since there is plenty of flour to go around. The experienced baker walked Matt through the steps of making Alton Brown’s Very Basic Bread, the very first bread Patty made. It came out pretty tasty if we do say so ourselves. Here’s the picture evidence to prove that Matt can make more than white chocolate pudding:

We managed to watch Raging Bull in only three sessions, as opposed to the 10 or 11 that it took for us to watch Ray. We gave a very solid 54 (out of 64, natch) to this early Scorsese work. We thought the acting was outstanding, DeNiro good as always but also an impressive debut for everybody’s favorite Goodfella Joe Pesci. The movie could have scored higher, but it really was a downer. Jake LaMotta was not a nice man, nor was he a very good comedian, apparently. Kid could box, though, couldn’t he? We’re not sure we’ve seen Detroit mentioned so often in a movie since Robocop.

We want to wish Billy a very happy 18th birthday. It’s really hard for us to believe he’s a real, live adult now and could realistically go to jail if he ever did something wrong. Not that he would. We hope he has a great birthday and forgets for a moment the responsibilities that come with the age. Now get out there and vote, Billy!

War and Baptism

Today went quickly. Our friends Camille and Paul baptised their daughter, Morgan, today, so we went out to Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers to get a present. Normally, it's a place where we want to spend a lot of time, but we didn't have much time today. We bought a little rosary bracelet and prayer card at the Abbey Store for Morgan and browsed the bonsai garden but didn't buy one. They are very well known for their bonsai (is that plural?) and have a beautiful collection of trees that aren't for sale but are very inspiring and make one want to learn the art.

We stopped at the apartment to change our clothes, and Jack called. He said that he's been volunteering for missions occasionally, to break the monotony because it gets quite boring, even though he's always busy. He hasn't shot anyone yet, but he's been close when they charge the checkpoint in their cars. They have a routine of procedures to go through when a car is approaching, including signs, hand signals, flashing lights, and shooting out the tires, but sometimes none of that works and they have to shoot the people. There have been attempted suicide bombers at the checkpoints, so there is good reason why they should stop the cars. They also occasionally find IEDs (improvised explosive devices) but have thus far disarmed them before they've exploded.

He said that morale is mostly good and that he's fine. They have everything they need there and have a building where they can go to play darts or get baby wipes or other necessities. They stock that building with things that are sent to “any soldier” or “any Marine,” which, by the way, are not the same thing.

Everything we’ve read says that letters and packages to “any” aren’t allowed, but Jack said that there are two ways that you can actually do it. The first is to send a postcard so that it can be read before delivery. The other is to address it to the attention of a specific person but to address it to “any Marine.” That way, there is a specific name on it, and they can tell that it’s legitimate.

Jack’s gotten a bunch of postcards and had been writing back some middle schoolers from Colorado before he called. He said that a lot of them say to write back, so he does. We think they must be soooo excited to get a response! He said that they are really cute and that one said something like, “I would like a career in music because I have really good skills in hip-hop.” By the way, we asked him if the party stores in Iraq are owned by white guys there. He laughed.

Monsignor Kenny did the baptism, and the mass was very nice despite the fussy baby we had to take outside the sanctuary 3 times. Even though he was very vocal, lots of people told us that he is beautiful. We think so too, and we think that his beauty starts on the inside.

The reception at the Keslers’ was nice. We knew a few people there and met lots of others. It’s very easy to be someplace where we don’t know anyone, because Gabriel always provides a topic for conversation. We ate dinner there and left around 9:00 pm.

Mom and Dad K, Mom A and Nick, Grandpa, and Roy went over to the house to help clean and clean out some boxes so that it will show better. Dad K went back to spend the night and do some painting. We are so grateful for everything everyone is doing. We are also filled with anxiety about putting it on the market and hope that this all works out for the best. We’re certain that things happen for a reason and that we will be happy in our new home, wherever that happens to be.

An Afternoon in the Garden

We decided to meet after work at the Botanical Garden, since it was a nice day. To get a workout, she used the baby carrier instead of the stroller. The new sunshade worked nicely, and Gabriel was in the shade the entire time.

There were lots of bullfrogs outside in a little pond, and we got to watch them "talking," swimming, and watching us. It was a treat, because we've never seen actual bullfrogs before. We've heard them, but they usually hop away before we can see them on our hikes.

After years of trying, we finally found poison dart frogs in the conservatory. There are always some in terraria, but there are also many that roam freely. From the sound of their chirping, there are lots of them, but we've never been able to find one. Today, we found 4 or 5 of them.

We also found a new hallway called the "orangerie," which literally means a greenhouse for orange trees but in this case is a place for all types of foodish trees. There was star anise, coffee, yerba maté, climbing oleander, curaré (a poison/medicine), cinnamon, ginger, vanilla vine, cocoa, curry leaf, bay leaf, annatto (has substance that is used to make cheese orange), and a few others.

By the time we were finished walking around the gardens, the Chipster was fast asleep in his daddy's arms. We had trouble looking at the plants, because we just wanted to watch him sleep. We think he's far more interesting than just about everything, even when he's doing nothing but snoozing.

Later, Gabriel was playing quietly in the living room - a definite clue that he was up to something. We snuck in and found him pulling tissues out of the box one by one and ripping them to shreds.

He's also been picking his nose a lot lately. He seems to really enjoy it. And that's not all - he has been biting, too. He left a nice marking of 4 teeth on his mommy's leg today at the botanical garden while they were playing in the grass and waiting for Daddy. We think that this just the beginning of many bad habits with which is will be torturing us in the coming years.