fresh air

Lately it's been cool enough here to sit outside, in fact cool enough in the mornings to require sweaters and blankets. So we sweater up (right over our pajamas) and head out into the back yard. I really love that Joseph is old enough now to have fun exploring outside. He plays with sticks, eats some dirt and marvels over the magic that is grass, while I cozy up in a chair with some tea and some knitting. Indiana, defying all expectations, seems fonder of the baby every day, and really is glad to have a playmate his size. Freckles, meanwhile, is more than happy to ignore the rest of us and pee in the vegetable garden, hunt lizards, tear through the lawn with the baby's discarded socks, and just take a nap (thank you, Xanax).


This is so peaceful, mellow, and right. Inside, it can be hard to sit still and enjoy the moment, but outside there is no laundry to fold or dinner to make or anything else to distract me from the present. I've decided that I'm just not going to worry about how dirty or dangerous it might be outside: as long as no choking hazards are in his mouth and he isn't too near anything sharp or poky, the baby is fine. Dirt is fine. Six baths a day are fine, too, because he likes baths also.

plants! and other good news

My garden has plants! Despite the fact that the dogs have frolicked through it a few times. I planted salad seeds two weeks ago and they germinated almost immediately. This weekend we'll plant more vegetables in the other bed.

I think our spate of bad luck may be over, if the growing list of fixed and unbroken things around the house is any indication. (I just realized after I wrote that sentence that we had been counting things that work instead of things that don't work, which is probably not what most people do.) My parents have been here for two weeks, so my father has been fixing things and my mother has been playing with the baby big boy so I can do things like take apart the entire sewing machine and put it back together so the bobbin stops jamming, instead of throwing the entire machine through the window and checking myself into a mental hospital.

In other very good news, Freckles is now on Xanax (we knew we couldn't get through another few weeks like we've been having without somebody in the house being medicated, we just didn't know who it would be). We knew the weather had been making her a little crazy so we had been keeping her away from the baby when we aren't right there, but we didn't think to keep her away from Indiana. So when we found Indiana trotting around the house with two tooth-sized wounds in his side, we connected the dots (we don't have any wild cougars, stray bullets, etc., but we do have a large neurotic dog) and brought Freckles to a vet who sent us right home with Xanax. She's been in a much better mood since she's been taking it (we're jealous): she tears through the yard like she used to at our old house and only occasionally looks at Indiana like he would be delicious. This is a major improvement. Indiana, of course, is unfazed by all of this.

So, hooray for sane(r) dogs and salad and fixed appliances. Now, what will break next week?

This is what crazy looks like

I've been exploiting Indiana's neurosis. He has this stuffed giraffe that he guards and obsesses over. He hides it under the desk and in the hall bathroom, two places that he knows Freckles will not visit. Freckles, for the record, does not care about the giraffe and probably has no idea that it has this strange power over Indiana. We usually don't let Indiana have the toy for too long because it's too pathetic to see him furtively moving it from room to room, like it's the one true ring and he is a demented hobbit. However, after Indiana woke the baby up about four hundred times last week by barking at the construction workers across the street, I've decided that Indiana can permanently have his stupid toy because at least it keeps him quiet. Whenever he starts to growl I say "Indiana, where's your toy" and he grabs it and runs to another room to admire his precious. I feel slightly guilty but mainly proud that I've outwitted the dog. The current score is Indiana 400,000, me 1.