Reason #534,298 why I love this man

Have you heard of Colony Collapse Disorder? If you take a look around, you might notice more bee carcasses than you used to, and that is bad news for agriculture. Larry learned all about this (and more!) while watching Sixty Minutes.

Anyway, so when a bee found itself trapped in our humble abode on Thursday, my darling husband naturally took it upon himself to do his part to prevent CCD. Come hell or high water, he was going to SAVE THAT BEE!

Methods of "encouragement" used to try to coax the bee away from our skylight:

• Turning on and off lights to try to attract the bee to some other light source
• Trying to get the bee to climb onto a broom
  
• Trying to get it to climb onto a bright piece of fabric
  
• Putting marmalade on the end of the broomstick
• Blowing air from a hair dryer at the bee

In the end, what finally worked was exhaustion. The bee hid somewhere for the night and was too pooped on Friday morning to put up much of a fight. Larry offered the bee the broomstick, the bee climbed on, and Larry released him back into the wild where he belonged.

To paraphrase from the starfish story, it made a difference to that one!

Happy Anniversary, my love

1996 (dating two years)

2001 (engagement photo)

2008 (married...with child)

Seven years ago today we stood before family, friends, and God and promised to be together all the days of our lives. Every now and then I can't help but marvel at the road that got us here. Who knew that a teenaged boy asking a teenaged girl out (to combat boredom, no less) could lead to such a happy, blessed, rich life together?

Here's to many, many more years of wedded bliss!

Movie rave

Tonight Larry and I watched Lars and the Real Girl. The premise is that a man (Ryan Gosling) has a girlfriend that is a blow-up doll. Sounds weird, right? Well, it is quirky, but it is also really sweet, funny and well done! It's a much more poignant little movie than I was expecting, but I really loved it! I recommend it!

Happy Father's Day!

Larry is a really, really wonderful dad to our Baby Girl. He is attentive, loving, and very involved. He is very much my partner in parenting her: He knows when she pooped last, or what makes her laugh, or what her latest "party tricks" are. Perhaps consequently, Sara adores her daddy!

We celebrated yesterday by attending our Parent & Me swim "class" and then barbecuing over at Larry Sr.'s. Sara made her daddy a t-shirt to commemorate the occasion, and I made Larry a certain coffee cake that he has been begging for for over a month. (I would post the recipe, but it's kind of long and I'm too lazy to type it all. It's from the Taste of the Month 2008 calendar, compliments of realtors Artt and Renee.) It was a lovely day!

























Larry Sr. has a shirt with Larry and John's hands from 1984. We added Sara to the back of his.

A Mommy Milestone

Well, I am now officially unemployed. After eight rewarding, enlightening, exhausting, challenging years as a high school teacher and 7.5 months spent on leave, I have resigned. How does it feel? It feels right, actually. Going back to the classroom for the last two weeks was actually a really good thing for me, because it let me remember the things I love about teaching (relationships, creativity, the challenge) and the things I'm ready to leave behind for now (ever-increasing demands, demands, demands!).

I had such a wonderful day with Sara today, and I can appreciate the difference in how I interact with her. Today I enjoyed my daughter. When I was working (yes, those two whopping weeks) it was all about survival. Now, I know she's getting the very best of me. I'm so very grateful that I get to be her full-time mommy.

Seven months old

Wow, this is a fun age! Sara isn't quite mobile yet, but she's so much more expressive and interactive than she was a couple of months ago. I know I sound like a broken record, but I just can't believe how quickly her first year is passing.

Baby Girl has gotten much more into her Exersaucer and her doorway jumper in recent weeks. She also loves to grab her feet and eat her toes. Absolutely everything goes in her mouth. No "mama" or "dada" yet, but she has added "baaaaaaaa" to her list of sounds. "Mmmmmmmmmm" is another favorite.

As far as foods go, she seems to prefer the cereals at this point. She tolerated carrots and just barely tolerates avocado. I think we'll be starting squash or sweet potatoes next.

Here's a slideshow with some pictures from this month:

As always, you can click on it to view a larger version.

Rollin', rollin', rollin'

It seems that Sara has *finally* broken the back-to-belly rolling block she had! She isn't yet rolling to get to places, but she's all over the place in her crib and is practicing her new skill quite a bit. It's just a matter of time before she figures out she can roll herself into trouble!