Autumn installment

I have a sore throat and am feeling generally run-down, so I came home early from work today. I've come off a recent stretch of working an awful lot, and I'm grateful, in a way, for the little bug I'm fighting off: I think I need the down time.

I wrote what follows in an email to a good friend of mine; I think it does a nice job of crystallizing what's up with me of late. Enjoy the cheater's blog entry!

I think I am approaching a point in this crazy world of social work at which I might be able to begin to synthesize the experience into a few words, so this is my best effort -- fingers crossed for an arrow into the heart of the truth of the experience ... or at least in the vicinity of the bull's eye.

The experience of now a year of working at social work is crazy and comical and tragic on multiple levels simultaneously. First, there's the Greek tragedy that is working for a small government bureaucracy, full of procedural quirks, the monotony of the death-by-a-thousand-paper-cuts of governmental red tape that takes about as much time as my actual work (and this ratio is a definite improvement over my first six months, when I struggled to manage the myriad stupid tasks in something approximating a 40-hour week); the sense of rubbing shoulders, six degrees apart, from small-time elected officials; the insane personalities and cliques endemic to a mid-size government agency.

Then there's the tragedy of the work itself, which is just full immersion in every "social ill" imaginable. Substance abuse, mental illness, criminality, domestic violence, and most of all, grinding, bone-crushing poverty, have been the most common of the lenses through which to view the clients I've worked with. (Oh, and the custody battles that make me want to rip my eyelashes out, one at a time.) The actual work with clients is harder to try to explain, because learning to manage the multiple levels of the job, and having done well at it so far (I've just recently broken through to a new level of feeling competent on a number of fronts), means that the job is actually treating me well, personally. Which is a crazy thing to say, when in a certain sense, I guess you could say I'm benefitting by others' misfortunes. But that's not really what's going on, of course: my goal always is to try to help, and it does affect me deeply when I have to walk away from a situation that I know is awful, but it's not awful enough for me to justify escalating the intervention, which obviously would have its own negative consequences. Above and beyond "do no harm," I'm cultivating the mentality of "leave no trace," which also is not entirely accurate, but it's helpful in terms of a check on my "good intentions."

I feel like a cliche sometimes: the well-meaning middle-aged middle-class white lady who just wants to help. I guess the part of the stereotype that doesn't fit is the idea that the well-meaning white lady is often sort of stupid. I'm not. I try to be as transparent as possible with my clients, especially regarding the legal or technical stuff, which often means I'm talking over their heads. I haven't yet figured out how to translate it into regular talk. But at the same time, I am smart, dammit, and I think sometimes complex concepts just can't be oversimplified, and I don't want to find myself in a situation where I'm talking down to people and, by doing so, misleading or misinforming them.

Yet another level of the work to be mastered, which I've come a long way at in the past three weeks, is the court report writing that I do on a very regular basis. In Emergency Response, we are the first line of direct contact, after the hotline screeners. What this means is that our unit does the least writing of court reports (later on in the life of a case, there are status review reports that are due at least every six months; when you have 25 kids on a caseload, this means workers are probably writing at a minimum 1-2 reports a month, with heavier months when the report-writing schedule gets bunched up). In ER, we only have to write court reports when we need to initiate a CPS case with a family; in those cases, we write the initial court report that gets the ball rolling. So my co-workers in ER write these reports ("petitions") here and there, some workers just write more petitions than others, due to a variety of factors, and sometimes it comes in waves. Bottom line: ER workers don't, as a rule, write a lot of court reports. And when they do, they tend to be on the shorter side. So, in addition to investigating referrals (which may or may not lead to court cases), I also have two other major job functions: I investigate non-relative guardianship applications heard in probate court, and I investigate the teens who have gotten into some trouble with delinquency court, in the event that the court requests that we assess in conjunction with Probation to see which agency would best serve the kid and family. Having these two other functions as part of my job means that every time I'm assigned either of these types of investigations, I am automatically writing a court report. I've just finished a 2 1/2 week period of writing 6 court reports. And Veteran's Day was thrown in there, so I lost a day. I was writing 2 or 3 reports a week; over the week of Veteran's Day, I wrote about one report a day. And the craziest part was that it sort of catapulted me to this Zen place, where I knew everything would get done, and I wasn't worried about it, and I had this clarity, like, I can handle this. I don't really know how or why it happened, but it was true, I did get everything done, and I didn't work on the holiday or on the weekends, and I didn't work overtime, and all my court reports were turned in on time.

After the reports were all turned in, I thought, I wish I could just write all the time for my job. And then it took me a few more days and I realized, oh, that is what I do! I like my job a lot. The county I work for is about to lay off a bunch of people in the position below mine, and it sucks. I think they're using the economy to restructure the organization and lay off people they view as dead weight. It totally sucks, I have all this survivors' guilt about walking in with no seniority, and in effect displacing people with fewer credentials but way more experience. At the same time, I'm just grateful to have a job, and that it's a job, as I say, that I like a lot.

There are several other things that are treating me well these days, primarily our new house (which I love) and my Kid (ditto). Kid A is doing just great -- she blew past walking and is running practically everywhere now. She understands just about everything we say, and has just started learning words at a frightening pace (time for us to cut out the salty sailor talk!); she now knows, in addition to "no" and "shoe," "light," "leaves," "car" (a favorite), "cat," "dog," "duck," "water," "cracker," and just this morning, said "flor" ("flower" in Spanish). She's just come out of a particularly fussy phase (I think it preceded the new developmental leap of learning to talk), but still has moments where she's easily and thoroughly frustrated by knowing what she wants to have or to do, and not being able to get the thing, or to express what she wants. Fortunately, she's fairly easily distractable, as well, so she can often redirect well. She's just so much fun, and she makes us laugh a lot. She's also starting to find things funny, and she loves to "talk" in full Audrey-language sentences that nobody but Audrey understands, but boy is she emphatic about whatever it is she thinks she's saying! She's got inflection mastered.

Our new house is just perfect for us: not too big, not small at all (for us), tons and tons of yard, and all of us have settled in super easily. It feels like home, and it has made a huge difference in my overall quality of life. The cats adjusted almost instantaneously (the only stress in their lives now is the large toddler that chases after them and shrieks with delight when she sees them. They are not fond of this). I feel frustrated a lot of the time, when I think about how I want the house and yard to look, and how little time and money I have to make the place live up to its potential, but I'm trying to take the longer view, and think of it as a marathon rather than a sprint, but it's hard sometimes. And sometimes, it's just great and perfectly fine, because it's a great house.

And now, some pictures:

Taken a few days after her 1st birthday, in mid-July. She was not yet walking on her own.

A few weeks later (early August). Just beginning to walk. Doesn't she look so proud?

Her first hair bow! This hair clip only worked once or twice -- it was waaaay too easy for her to take out herself. We've moved on to teeny tiny hair elastics that she can't pull out. Ask me in a few months if I'm still trying to let her bangs grow out.

Does it get any better than that face?
This was an amazing late summer/early fall afternoon: sunny, windy and cool. Wood chips and climbing on the play structure at the park.

SPAGHETTI!!!

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Probably a little incoherent

This post has all the potential for either being rambling or shockingly brief, but almost undoubtedly will be a mess. But the house is quiet, and I should digest the homemade bean-and-cheese burrito I just devoured before I fall into bed and pass out from utter exhaustion, so here's a new post. Enjoy!

In the past two weeks, I have racked up over 13 hours of overtime. That's almost two whole work days. I know that some people work that much, and more, on a regular basis, but this is new to me. Or at least it has been a very long time. Although I honestly can't remember a job I've had where I've worked this much. Of course, as I've pointed out in recent posts, the work is also quite demanding (obviously). I do enjoy it, but I am very much looking forward to a reprieve. It's hard to imagine, at the moment, exactly how I am going to get caught up. That's the most daunting part. I wish that there were some way for the documentation and paperwork to just get done without my having to enter all my contacts, etc., etc. I need a secretary! Too bad that will never happen.

Sharp departure, and abrupt change of subject! We're buying a house! Escrow will close in 10 days' time; the sellers will move out the day after we close, and I'm taking the week of October 12th off in order to coordinate and orchestrate the move. Woo hoo! It's all very exciting, but I wish I had more time not working lately in order to start lining up bids for some minor cosmetic work on the new place, getting estimates for movers, that sort of thing. TM says just a couple of hours on the weekend making calls and scheduling appointments should do it; we'll see.

Kid A has been amazing. I got her some teeny tiny hair elastics, to keep her bangs out of her face, and I've been putting in these adorable little samurai top-of-the-head ponytails ... OMG, too cute. I'll have to take some photos and post them. It's enough to make a person die of too-much-cuteness. She's still not really talking, but she is going through an intense imitative phase. We feed her graham crackers with cream cheese for breakfast, and if we give her a cheese-less cracker, she'll break it into pieces like she sees us do for her. Last week, TM said she opened the kitchen cabinet where we keep the garbage and recycling, and threw away a paper towel. We never even realized she was watching us throw things away until she did it herself that day. Wow, that sounds like such a trivial thing, and I cannot fully describe it appropriately, but having this kid just blows my mind sometimes. The things that kids learn, just by watching and living with other people -- it makes me realize how much of parenting is accidental, and at the same time, makes me want to be so much more intentional in what I teach her, which translates into wanting to be much more intentional and deliberate about who I am, and what I do.

This corresponds with some major lessons I have been taking away from a current family I've been working with, as well as something super interesting I was reading about during my lunch break today (read the book excerpt). In a nutshell, there are things I want Kid A to learn from me and her dad -- practical skills (laundry, cooking, managing money) that will help her succeed in adulthood, as well as concept stuff like the value of effort and determination -- that so freakin' many kids just don't get. Kids on both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum, as I was reminded in the above-linked article today. And the family I'm nearly finished working with is the absolute poorest end of that spectrum; this family is not the noble, downtrodden poor, with a quiet dignity of bearing that suggests finer things are in store for them someday. No, this family embraces a specific culture, one that is completely foreign, even anathema, to me. If there is an antonym for "industrious," I don't know it, but I wish I did, for that would be the word which best applies. I have such little compassion for the members of this family, and I know it, and I hate that I have insufficient compassion. I get angry that people like these are the beneficiaries of heroes of mine, those who have fought tirelessly and suffered greatly to promote civil rights and social justice, and people like my clients just spit on the memories of my heroes. I mean, 14-year-old kids who tell me that they want their education, but can't go to school because their hair's not done, or they haven't been taught how to wash their clothes out in the sink in order to have clean clothes to wear? Intellectually, theoretically, I know that this family is the product of lots of problematic forces in our society, and that mostly, it's not really their fault -- they're just casualties of a messed-up set of institutions and systems (mine included!) that oppress and disempower the poor, the uneducated, and those with little to no economic opportunities. And yet, at some point in time, every person has to make a decision that they're going to live and act like a grown-up, and stop blaming everything around them for their own problems. I want insight, I want ownership, I want some goddam responsibility every now and then.

If you've made it through my ranting and raving, congratulations. You now have a greater insight into the early stages of my transformation into a more conservative creature. We shall see, over time, how this plays out.

And now, after a very very long day, I am going to bed, as I am nearing the point where I can no longer see straight. Sweet dreams!

Major developments

Yes, it's true, it's been a while. Life has been a bit fuller of late, so the updates, they have been not so regular. I hope what is to follow makes up for it, a little bit.

Work has been very full over the past month. I began working with a family in mid-July that consumed much of my time, culminating in a placement into foster care, complete with a petition and report to the court, at the end of August. For six weeks, I spent I don't know how many hours working with the mother to try to remedy the chronic problems she's been struggling with for decades: mental illness, substance abuse, and homelessness. After four weeks, it was clear that she was going to need a bit more, um, authoritative intervention, and we planned to go to court to see if the court would order Family Maintenance services. After I wrote the court documents, one week before the scheduled hearing, things got a bit out of control, and law enforcement ended up placing the kids into protective custody, and we removed them from mom and placed them in foster care, and moved up the hearing a few days.

Having spent so much of my working life with one family that consumed my time, it has been disorienting and strange to shift gears and begin moving at the different pace of more typical investigations. I still think about them often, but it does seem to be subsiding. I feel proud of the work that I did, and I feel good about the outcome. I hope that the mom is able to pull things together and reunify with her kids, because she loves them and they love her, and of course they all miss each other. But there were -- are -- serious problems that need to be addressed, and the outcome for the kids would have been worse, I think, if we had not taken the actions we took. Ultimately, my goal with every family I work with is to leave as few traces as possible that I was there; when that is not possible, I strive to leave the situation a little better than when I came on the scene. I think I did that over the six weeks with this family. I'm looking forward to a time when weeks will go by without thinking about them.

The other thing that has been disorienting and strange is that we made an offer on a house, and it was accepted! My goodness, I can hardly believe how fast it's all happened. It's not far from where we live now, and I feel pretty good (in theory) about the schools we'll be in if the whole thing goes through. Escrow is expected to close on October 9, and our contingency/inspection period ends next Sunday (September 13). It's an older home, built in 1954, and very small -- just 2 bedrooms and 1 bath -- but the lot is huge, with tons of room for gardens and for Kid A to play. It's on a quiet street that dead-ends; we're in about the middle of the street. We've had a number of preliminary inspections this week, and things are looking great, so our full home inspection will be next Saturday, at which point we should be full steam ahead!

It's crazy, because we only went house-hunting on two consecutive weekends, and this was the first house we saw on our second outing. Everybody's said that "when you know, you know," and several people have compared it to finding the perfect wedding dress (an apt analogy). TM and I spent a lot of time in it the first time we saw it, and have gone back twice (with my mom, and with his parents), and have liked it just as much each time we've seen it. I spent about three hours there yesterday with my realtor, for the inspection of the septic tank, and it felt just great to hang out there. I haven't been sleeping very well, because I'm thinking about it all the time, and it has definitely affected my ability to fully focus at work. But I think once the inspections are done and the lending has been secured, I'll be able to focus on other things again.

I'm 36 years old, and just entering the world of home-ownership for the first time. It's funny: for having spent my teens and twenties being so parentified and mature, I'm certainly a late bloomer in many respects: just starting my grown-up career, first-time mom of a toddler, and first-time homeowner. I wouldn't trade it for anything, though (well, maybe more traveling during my teens and twenties); I did get to do so much as a result of being somewhat fancy-free for all those years. And TM and I really got a long time to get to know each other and work out the kinks before throwing all these stressful and highly-charged components into the mix. Seriously, how do newlyweds go through all these things together, while they still hardly know themselves and each other? I feel so very grateful, and lucky, that these transitions have been so manageable, and I attribute that in large part to having this super solid foundation with the spouse.

Speaking of, our 11-year wedding anniversary is this month. Eleven years. That means we've been together now for 15 years. (That anniversary came and went with both of us forgetting about it! It was last month. We both just acknowledged it and kind of did a little "Wow!" thing, and now we're both back to doing what we were doing just seconds before.) We don't have anything planned, and if the house is going to go through, it's probable we won't do anything beyond toast one another over dinner on the night of the anniversary. But that's kind of my favorite way to celebrate, anyway.

Now for the Kid A developments. She's walking! It started for real the week before last, although for months she'd been walking well with assistance. She's getting to be a real pro at it. I bought her shoes last weekend, and "shoe" is one of the three or four words she can say, which is hysterically funny to me. Dear god, I hope I don't have a Carrie Bradshaw-type shoe nut on my hands. Her other words are "dog" (actually, "doh") and "duck" (see "dog"). Occasionally, she'll make some "mama" sounds, that these days do seem to be aimed in my direction, but usually only when she's super tired and about to go down for a nap. She's also lately saying something that sounds like "H" or "itch," and I have no idea what she's trying to say. She babbles beautifully, and often, and I would love to know what she's trying to tell us. I'm super surprised that it's taking her so long to talk, because we talk and sing and read to her all the time. I attribute it to the steady stream of Spanish she gets, as well.

I'm trying to speak Spanish with her at home, in addition to the full-time Spanish she gets at Carmen's during the week. I went to a bookstore last weekend, in our old neighborhood in Oakland, that carries a great selection of Spanish-language children's books, and bought six. I've been reading to her in Spanish at home, and it's helping my Spanish improve. I also regularly practice my Spanish with some of my co-workers, and of course with Carmen. I'm hoping to raise Kid A to be fluent in both languages. I think that might take some work as she gets older, but I hope that she and I can help each other improve our understanding of Spanish together. When you're born and raised in California, there's no excuse for not being bilingual, and I wish the public schools in our area had Spanish-immersion options for grade school. Anyway, I think it's taking her longer to speak because she's busy processing two languages.

Unfortunately, I don't have any recent pictures uploaded. Maybe I'll get a chance before my next post ... but frankly, I doubt it! Wish us happy escrow, and happy moving!!

Warning: From Icky to Sappy

We survived a parenting rite of passage last night: Kid A threw up (repeatedly) for the first time. We're not sure if it was something she ate, too much pool water (followed by too much milk) combined with lots of throwing and splashing and dunking in the pool, or if perhaps she ate a teensy bit of bar soap at the end of her bath. Or a combination of all of the above. Whatever the cause, we put her to bed at just before 7 pm yesterday (so very tired), and she slept well for about an hour. Then we heard her wake up and start to cry instantly. We both figured that she was still hungry, as she hadn't finished her bottle, but had pushed it away after a few ounces, so I took that upstairs and went in thinking I would sit with her while she finished it, and put her back down. Instead, when I opened the door, I found my poor little pumpkin sitting up in her crib, with an ungodly mess in her lap, on her hands, etc. I think my exact words were, "Tom, I need you," and he came upstairs with a quickness. Meanwhile, the poor thing was screaming at the top of her lungs.

I took her into the bathroom and put her in the tub while I stripped off her pajamas and diaper, then ran some water and got her cleaned up; Kid A screaming all the while (and by the end, she had started to shake, which really freaked me out). The whole tub ordeal couldn't have taken more than a couple of minutes, but it felt like an eternity. I wrapped her up in some towels and took her back into her bedroom, where I tried to rock her and calm her down, but she was beside herself. Finally, I just decided to get her diapered and dressed again. I think TM took over at some point, because I remember changing the sheet and matress pad in the crib. We were able to get her calmed down a bit, but before we got her back into bed, she threw up again, all over herself. See above, from "I took her into the bathroom ..." except no tub this time. She finally passed out, exhausted, nearly an hour after I went upstairs thinking I would feed her.

Two hours later (10 pm), it happened again. Fortunately, she didn't throw up as much, and we hadn't dressed her after the second stripping, so from clean up to back down was much faster (this time, though, it got in her hair, which ... ew).

Twice more: once at 11:30 and again at 12:30. Worried and exhausted, we took her temperature both times, and she had no fever. Both times, she woke up crying, we cleaned up (by this time we had perfected putting down a clean baby bath towel under her, so clean up was now quick and easy), and she passed out from exhaustion within minutes of waking. It was harder, by far, for me to get back to sleep after each episode than for her.

I woke up a couple of times between 12:30 and morning; I checked the time, and went back to sleep. At 7:30 this morning, I heard her happy little Kid A morning babble over the monitor in our room; I went in to find her beaming at me, standing up in her crib in nothing but her diaper, the towel and her quilt in a heap at the foot of her crib. She went back down for a nap within an hour of waking up, but she had a decent breakfast and some formula, and no signs of any lingering problems.

So we're initiated. Growing up, I hated stomach bugs and vomiting worse than any other kind of sickness in the world. I would cry and cry and cry any time I had to throw up. My mom is the same way. I always thought that I would not do well the first time I had to be the responsible parent in that scenario, but I did just fine: plenty of compassion, plenty of keeping my wits about me, and plenty of (intestinal) fortitude. I'm not looking for a trophy or anything; I'm just glad she seems to be fine today.

And tomorrow, we celebrate (with about 40 of our closest friends and family members) her first birthday with a big party in the park. I think about those parents who go through much worse -- those who have children with medical or behavioral problems -- and I feel so much gratitude for our happy, healthy, strapping big girl. She's the light of our lives, and I can't imagine this world without her in it.

One-year portraits

Our fabulous photographer, Nicole, came out to our place again last Saturday. Here's a sneak preview of three of the photos:

http://nicolescarborough.blogspot.com/

As of this moment (7/16/09), Kid A is the most recent blog entry; within a day or two, you may have to scroll down (or search) to see the pics. The entry is dated 7/15/09.

Don't you just want to eat her up?

Happy birthday, Audrey!

Here's our happy little water babe, a few days before her first birthday.

Chompin' on a watermelon rind in the park. She's not a kid who likes a lot of fruit, so when she finds something she does like, we tend to let her go for it!

With her buddy Molly, at the park. Look, Mama: I've got my foot! I know I do this all the time, but still: I've got my FOOT!

It's so hard for me to believe that my tiny little baby is already one year old. I know that everybody says that, and I hate to be cliche. And yet, the reason everybody trips about their baby turning one is because it goes so fast, and so slow, and the days add up, one by one, drop by drop, and before you know it, what was once your baby is now your child. I think about all the things she can do now, and how very strong her will and personality are becoming, and even the seemingly simplest things that she can do now were impossible just a short time ago.

And I'm oh so very tired, because, well, remember back when she was first born? How hard she was, how difficult to soothe, how particular her needs? Well ... I'm a little concerned that we're entering a renewed period of cantankerousness. I am praying to whatever benevolent forces might be that we're not going to go through three tough months every year. That would be, well, not fun. TM and I joke that she's hit her terrible twos early. She is an advanced child. Seriously, she has begun to throw some pretty phenomenal temper tantrums. And she seems to be tired all the time. And she sleeps, it's not like she doesn't sleep: at least two naps a day, at least one hour each, and more often at least one of her daily naps is more like two hours or more. AND she sleeps for anywhere from 9 to 11 hours at night! Oh, I'm hoping this fussy phase will be short. And I'm fearing that it might not be.

But when she isn't fussy or tired, she is just the sweetest, happiest baby around. She still loves to be on the move; she's learned to climb the stairs, and loves to chase after the cats (who really do not love to be chased. Fortunately, she rarely gets close enough to them to freak them out too badly; Georgia, in particular, is a very good sport about the whole thing). She had two weeks of swimming "lessons" with her dad in mid-June, and spent 30 minutes a day for eight days splashing and shrieking and having a grand time. Since then, they've been hitting the pool in our condo complex more days than not, and they both love it.

She's closer and closer to walking all the time. I think that's what's making her both tired and fussy: I think her little brain and body are churning out new programming at a furious rate, and when it all comes together, I think we'll all settle back into a more "normal" state. Of course, it will be a new normal, involving chasing after a toddler for 12 hours a day!

We're looking forward to her big birthday bash on July 19th, but we celebrated fairly quietly over the July 4th weekend at my mom's, with dinner out (and breakfast, too), more presents (from Nana) than a one-year-old needs (thanks, Nana -- we love you!), and, of course, her first cake:

Fortunately, she was far more interested in getting it on her than in her, so thus far we're successfully dodging the sugar beast. We'll see whether that trend continues at her next party!

I'll try to post more often than once a month, I really do try not to let so much time go by. We'll see how July works out.

Developments

This has been such a long week. I spent Tuesday and half of Wednesday in Santa Rosa, at my (hopefully!) very last CORE training. This one was on child maltreatment: indicators of physical abuse. With pictures and everything. Pretty much what you'd expect, so I won't go into detail for those who haven't ever been exposed to anything like that, and it wasn't like it was the first time I was seeing those sorts of things. But it's made it a lot harder this week to leave Kid A at daycare and go to work.

And she's been sleeping so much lately, that I hardly get to see her when I am at home. With the exception of last night, which I'll get to shortly, she's been going down between 6 and 7 pm, and sleeping until I wake her up at around 6:45 am. Considering that I drop her off at daycare as soon as she's changed and dressed, and that I don't get home until 6 pm, you can see that it leaves very little time to be together. I realized this morning, as I moved the box of formula out of my way while I made my breakfast, I've prepared maybe three bottles all week. If that. That's pitiful.

It makes me feel so sad. I know I'm not stay-at-home material. I do like my job. A lot. But Kid A is just so much fun these days -- so happy, smiling and laughing all the time, getting into everything, learning new stuff practically every day -- I would love to have more time with her. This week really makes me despise spending 40-50 minutes commuting each way. Bleh.

So last night*, she decided to stay up until 8:00. It was so nice to be able to finish feeding her her dinner, take a bath with her, and watch her play. Such a nice change from the rest of this week. TM even said she took an independent step while I ate my dinner and he supervised her playtime! We're pretty close to walking, I think. I predict before the end of the month.

* I began this post on Friday morning before work. It's now Saturday morning, and she's napping. So "last night" actually refers to Thursday night, for those of you following along at home.

Still no words yet. Lots and lots of babbling, and lots of new babbling sounds. She babbles along when TM or I sing to her, and "dances," too, by moving her little belly back and forth. A couple of weeks ago, we had our first heat wave of the spring, and we took her to TM's parents' pool, where she had an absolute blast. Splashing in such a big pool was big fun for her. Last weekend, we took her to the beach** for the first time, and she was amazed by the sand. She had an opportunity to check out both dry, sandy sand, and harder-packed sand. When we got her onto the harder sand nearer the water, she crawled around in huge loops, as fast as she could go. It was great to get her out into the fresh air and let her blow off energy. She's a very kinetic kid, constantly moving or trying to squirm her way out of a cuddle to get moving again. She loves to have her daddy hold her while he dances and jumps around -- she laughs and giggles like crazy. She loves it when we dangle her upside down. She's beginning to try to launch herself off of couches and chairs, and is starting to crawl up stairs and trying to crawl over things. She has discovered that she can open doors, and that there are things behind the doors that are interesting to check out. She opens the pantry door, and pulls herself up with the middle shelf, where there are boxes of cereal, and heavy cans of things. She'll take interesting things off of the shelf, and hold it with both hands while she sits back down to check it out. She carries things in her hands, or pushes them along with her, while she crawls all over the house.

And she is beginning to demonstrate her will. This is interesting to me. She is just beginning to push or swat at our faces if she doesn't like something. Nothing too serious yet, nothing big, but it is interesting to see her "push back" in an effort to change the course of things.

** The "beach" was actually a river beach. Even though I've been hankering to take Kid A to the ocean, our heat wave didn't last, and so we remained inland. Nice to have options, though. We'll eventually make it to the coast!

TM was laid off, and then his lay-off was rescinded. He will undoubtedly, though, be teaching at a different school in the district next year. He is credentialed in both biology and chemistry, so there's also a big chance that he might be teaching a new subject next year, as well. The district has not yet told him where he will go, and, as with most beaurocratic systems, their process leaves much to be desired. But we are thrilled that he has a job, and things are still looking ok in my line of work, so we feel very lucky and grateful.

I have taken a bunch of amazingly adorable pictures over the last few weeks, and plan to upload them this weekend, so I might add another post of pictures in the next day or so. Check back!

Oh, and Kid A is eleven months old today. The last month of her first year! I can hardly believe it.