Yesterday & Tomorrow

This is last weekend’s trip to Multnomah Falls. We flew a super cheap kite on the beach of the Columbia and had a great time.

Little Zaeda’s eyes seem to have settled into a bright blue and she is extremely attentive to her surroundings, especially the people around her. We’ll have her on a shoulder as we do something in public and turn around to find she’s been grinning at some stranger, and if that stranger is someone’s grandma, we’ll certainly have a conversation about babies. It’s kinda funny.

Big brother seems to be one of her favorites, as he’s always putting on a show and coming over to talk and sing and tug at her arms. I don’t think he’s ever made her cry – and that’s saying something considering how rambunctious he is. I'm sure we won't be able to say that for long.

Zaeda is sitting up and balancing now. She loves to be pulled up to a standing position. Vocally, we’re getting lots of growling, cooing, and giggling. Kiss her neck just right and she chuckles out loud.

Jenny went back to work this month and we made it through the schedule adjustment in good shape. We run our household like clockwork on weekdays. Continued thanks to all the family members helping us out with babysitting!

Oliver’s two favorite words seem to be “yesterday” and “tomorrow” – all-purpose terms for the past and future, as in “Yesterday I [insert something that happened days, weeks, or months ago].” He’s readily identifying the letters in words he sees and we’re working on letters that words start with. He can recognize words like “Stop” and “Oliver” on sight but he’s not yet spelling out words from sounds. We’ll work on that in the year ahead (as well as toilet management :-) As for writing, he’s had “O” for a while. Below is a recent example of “E” and “P.”
In general, he’s goofing off and playing and grumbling like any almost-three-year-old. For the most part it’s entertaining. We recently watched “Mary Poppins.” Remember the part where Dick Van Dyke pulls down his pants to dance like a penguin? Jenny showed him how to do it himself and now he announces "I’m going to do the Mary Poppins penguin dance!” and pulls his pants to his ankles and bounces around. We agree that we should try not to let him do that outside of the house.
This was earlier today at Champoeg Park, where we watched people in old timey clothes make old timey apple cider and listened to old timey music.

Here’s what we did on a recent Sunday morning.