Birds and Babies

Nib has recently become ridiculously smiley and talkative. Its sooo fun! I forget how completely enchanting this stage is. I get really enthralled with making him grin and coo and find it hard to keep my mind on much or work very hard on anything useful. (not that I was particularly driven before...heh) He's right on the verge of those heartbreaking, deep belly laughs and the anticipation is killing me. Every time his wee eyes crinkle into a a face splitting grin and he gurgles I wonder if this will be it. Maddening, addictive sweetness.

The roadside wildflowers are giving way to Queen Anne's Lace....last of the scattered weed blossoms and today as a result I caught a most breathtaking sight. There was an enormous flock of male goldfinches feasting on seeding chickory. I've never seen so many spontaneously gathered, brightly colored birds all in one spot before, there must have been 30 of them or so. So pretty! I wish I had a better shot but I'm afraid I scared them all off before I got any really lovely shots. See if you can squint and pick out the five finches in the photo.

And at last I have a water baby! I swear Nib is a baby of legend.  He smiles and coos, puts himself to sleep, wakes once or twice a night, only really fusses when he needs changing, food or a rest and is inordinately happy to be passed around to any obliging friend who wants to hold him for a spell....and he loves his bath! This little snap is a glimpse of him in his first real immersion bath in the big tub. I've only sponge bathed him before this. He loved the water and just placidly kicked and "floated" (with my hands underneath of course) and bath time ended up taking much more time than I allowed as it was so very fun to let him wiggle and splash and watch him grinning in the drink. What a change from Dee's painfully tearful baths which just finally became less wrought with blood curdling screams this year! *sigh*

Bits of Lovely

Everything is okay again....because I found mushrooms. Heh. I do like foraging a lot and boy do I instantly feel like all is well with the world after running into a giant cluster of wild food accidentally. This particular mushroom is most often called Chicken-of-the-Woods but when I was growing up I was taught to call them Sulphur Mushrooms because of the particular shade of yellow on the underside of the caps.

And our farmer's market opened....well it opened last week but I was just days from delivering and not quite up to attending so, we went for the first time this week and caught the strawberries debuting. Mmm....am so happy to be back at the market. It was very fun to have some of the farmer's recognize us and be excited about the baby....one of my favorite vendors gave me two peonies to take home as a baby gift! People are so nice. (And you all know how I feel about peonies!)

We had a two week check-up with the babe and he's even bigger....up to 9 lbs and 12 oz. now from his birth weight of 8lbs 14oz. I feel like a very good mommy. 

And then...our incredible neighbor came over and brought a picnic lunch for children, a grown-up mommy lunch just for me and dinner and then took my boys out to the yard for playing with a giant kick-ball, bubble blowing with huge wands, fed them and her own daughter with the picnic she brought and then read them all a storybook as a wind down so I could take them right in and tuck them in for naps. Why am I not friends with this neighbor? I must get to know her. Seriously folks, people are so nice sometimes that it hurts.

*grin* My giant iris bloomed for the first time! Isn't it pretty? I've always wanted to grow one of these and this is my first blossom. Am very proud.

This is what happens when your mommy is a blogger. Your splash sessions in the bath with your kid brother get all paparazzi'd. Heh.

And here was the crowning bit of lovely. This afternoon Ru comes up to me....

"Mommy. I have an idea. Lets write a book. We are such good helpers to you that we should make a book about it and call it "We Help Mommy" and then we can send it to all our friends and aunts and uncles and we can be in it and we can make words inside."

Awesome. We're authors! Just like that.

"What do you say Mommy?"

I think we may have a book project in our future. Heh. Stay tuned. I am envisioning a really fun rainy day project.