Garden of Words

The Baby Factory: Reading Time

Until several months ago, Thea would wriggle and squirm her way through her evening book ritual. Our evening book ritual, rather.

And then, suddenly, There Are Cats In This Book changed everything. All we needed to do what pull the book out and Thea would be ready to read.

Last week, the game shifted again and she began pulling books off the shelf on her own, walking over to one of us, shoving the book into our hand and demanding, "Up!" When she tired of being read to, she'd squirm back to the floor to find another book.

The book of choice happens to be a gift from the family support team at Henrico Doctor's NICU, where Thea spent some time during her first week out of the womb. It's called Good Night, Gorilla and I think it is fair to say we do not love it. Not as much as Thea does.

I think she mostly loves it because I sing random, abstract songs about each animal as we leaf through the pages.

The Baby Factory: Covet Thy Cousin's Cup

We spent Saturday afternoon with Nikole's family in Chester, which gave Thea and her cousin an opportunity to bond -- particularly over the green, plastic cup from which Baker was drinking. Apparently, Thea had been using that same cup during a previous visit. The peculiar fixations of toddlers.

Baker is two months older than Thea, and he's good at the whole hugging and kissing thing. Thea must take after her father in deeper ways than her furrowed brow -- she'd just as soon get on with the business of moving onto the next activity.

In the photo above, Baker is trying to explain to Thea that certain shapes don't fit into certain holes without a lot of force. My sister-in-law Rebecca is there to mediate.

The Baby Factory: A River Holiday

Thea spent most of the Fourth of July weekend hoofing it around her great-grandfather's river property -- chasing kittens, picking up rocks and dropping them in a green bucket, laughing at her Pop Pop, and keeping us from sleeping.

Nikole's dad went to pick up her grandfather's boat from the boatyard on Broad Creek, and Nikole and Thea took a short cruise with him back to the family boathouse. Thea's first boat excursion, and she loved it!

This is what a tired baby looks like at 7:45 in the morning when she doesn't sleep the night before.

She decided that she's a big fan of sitting in the sand and picking things up.

Again and again and again.

Thea's Pop Pop

One of our best reasons to visit Deltaville is to spend time with Nikole's grandfather -- Thea's great-grandfather. Almost everyone in the family calls him Pop Pop, and he's just beside himself to have two great-grandchildren with a third on the way. (That would be courtesy of Nikole's brother and sister-in-law, I should point out.)

Another Perfect Deltaville Sunset

After spending several dozen Fourth of July holidays at one river house or another along the Rappahannock and Piankatank rivers, I think we actually experienced something close to the perfect holiday -- especially weather-wise -- this Fourth of July.

Nikole, Thea and I arrived at Nikole's grandfather's house -- his property bumps up against the Rappahannock River, the Chesapeake Bay and Broad Creek -- early in the afternoon on Friday. The temperature was in the mid-80s, the sun was shining and a strong breeze was blowing across the point. It's important to note that there was no humidity. That's a rarity in Virginia in July.

Nikole took a great series of sunset photos (these photos) that captured at least a slice of the weekend. It was fairly low-key -- hanging out with her grandfather and his wife, her dad, visiting with friends along the point, taking Thea to see some new kittens, Thea's first boat ride, cooking, reading.

We missed Nikole's brother, sister-in-law and nephew, who usually find themselves at the river with us during holiday weekends, but enjoyed a low-key few days that ended with overcast skies and showers on Sunday morning -- a great incentive to head back to Richmond and start a new week.

The Baby Factory: Visiting Omie

One of our other Father's Day activities was a trip across the river with Thea and Rilo to visit my mom -- Thea's Omie. It was loads of fun watching the two of them connect, and seeing how much fun my mom has when she gets to be a big goofball.

I think my dad and stepmother both would have been pretty smitten by our little girl.

The Baby Factory: Play Day on the Bay

We took Thea and Rilo to Nikole's grandfather's place on the Chesapeake Bay last week, and everyone had a glorious time (though I think Pop Pop wanted to kill the dog with her constant and shrill barking). I think this is a series of photos that almost speaks for itself.

The Garden, Despite Our Efforts

It's been a challenging year for the gardens at our house -- that would be the vegetable garden, as well as the flower beds. We're almost at the stage with Thea where we can actually do some things, but not quite at a place where hanging out weeding with her works as well as it should. Also, she swells like a blowfish about 20 seconds after a mosquito stings her.

But it's been nice to see the gardens flourish, despite our half-attentive efforts to keep them happy. That's especially true of the flower beds, which were mostly planted three and four years ago and are finally coming into their own.

 

Our lavender, for instance, has really thrived along the side of our house -- we have two massive clumps of the stuff now that have been flowering like mad for weeks already. (Nikole took the above picture of some of the lavender.)

 

We planted tons of echinacea from seed about four years ago and now have gorgeous clumps of the stuff rising into the air with its soft purple hue.

 

The Baby Factory: The Morning Ritual

This photo was taken on Father's Day, which was the morning that Nikole had planned for me to sleep late. Thea had other ideas, and since Nikole was up all night with her, I went on duty as the sun rose.

It's sort of a morning tradition now. Thea wakes us at an insufferable hour, wide awake and eager to greet the world. I get up with her so Nikole can have an extra hour of sleep. Thea and I change some diapers, eat some breakfast and then head out for a walk with the dog while Nikole eats and gets dressed. This gives us some semi-quality dad-and-daughter time, and preps Nikole for the next nine hours -- which usually involve her trying to keep up with our darling locomotive.

And while no one got much sleep on Father's Day, we had a lovely breakfast together at Cafe Gutenberg and Nikole and Thea loaded me down with cards and gifts.

Bipolar Puppy

The ratio is so messed up. It takes about one minute of play to generate one hour of sleep for our dog. The photo at the top is Rilo going insane on the beach in Deltaville. Hours later, back in Richmond, and we get something entirely different.