Summertime! (and the updates are more frequent...?)

We shall see. With summer finally here (could NOT have come sooner - what a year!) I hope to have a bit more free time to update the blog and keep you abreast of Important Things. Such as Dessa's swimming lessons (beginning next week), Mommy and Me Pre-School (also beginning next week) and the various trips we have planned (all local and also pretty much beginning next week. The first week of summer vacation is always very "chill" for me).

I'm already busy though, as I've taken up canning. Yes, it's very Little House on the Prairie around here, and other than one Disaster Of Which We Will Not Speak which involved hot jalapeno jam ALL OVER the stove... (and in case you're thinking of doing that yourself, I really don't recommend it. The smell of burned sugar is acrid enough but adding a dozen pureed jalapenos to it is truly dreadful) I've been very pleased. We now have pickles, 2 types of strawberry jam and a half-dozen jars of (new batch) jalapeno jam all sealed up and ready for storage. There's also 4 types of freezer jam (mixed berry, strawberry, ollalieberry and balsamic strawberry) in the garage freezer. I have about 5 lbs of peaches downstairs for both preserves and jam and some more cucumbers for sweet pickle relish and then I'm taking a break until the tomatoes ripen. Which at this rate will be in about an hour and then we'll be drowning in them. The plants are huge.

Our zucchini is coming in at an alarming rate. I really need more zucchini recipes because a loaf of zucchini bread only takes up about a cup, shredded, and we're growing zukes that are easily 2 and 3 cups alone. Many, many of them. This always happens. The plans just look so small and then... madness ensues.

Speaking of things that started small and then grew to epic proportions, we took Dessa to get her 2 year portraits done last week. We had a great photographer who was very quick on the shutter so we got a lot of action shots of our busy bee. We started out formal...

And when asked how old she was, Dessa started counting on her fingers. According to her, she's about 12, but the photographer caught her at just the right moment.



This is one of my favorites. It's taken from above her as she's lying on her back and I think it just captures something precious. She also looks a lot like my sister in this picture.



Then we got some props.



We got the package with the digital CD of all the pictures they took that day and then we ordered an insane amount of prints because that's what the package included. They should be coming in next week.

In other news, Dessa surprises me daily with her vocabulary. It's pretty entertaining to talk to her because she comes up with things I didn't know she could say. Instead of parroting all the time, she takes stuff she's heard or remembers and uses it in new ways, so it's like talking to a real person now. On Friday afternoon when I got off work I returned home and she was still napping (Dave had watched her that day). When she woke up, I went to her room and she was standing up in her crib. I swear this is how the conversation went:

Dessa: Oooo! It's not Daddy! It's Mommy! Hi Mommy!
Me: Hey there sweetie. It is indeed Mommy. Do you know something? Mommy is officially on vacation now!
Dessa: Mommy is on vacation?
Me: Yep. It's summer. That means Mommy gets to stay home with Dessa every day instead of going to work.
Dessa: (considers this) I like summer!
Me: I like it too, baby.
Dessa: But... Dessa go see Nana?
Me: Oh honey, you'll still get to see Nana, don't worry.
Dessa: And Sally?
Me: Yep, Sally too.
Dessa: Ok. Dessa go see Nana and Sally in summer. Mommy is on vacation.

She's like a news reporter. And everything is news. We heard for an hour yesterday about the fact that went to the farmers market and there were taiko drummers ("Drum goes boom at a farmer market!"). When Dave blew up a purple balloon instead of the blue as requested, she chastised him for days, gleefully announcing, "That's not blue!" every time she saw it. One of my favorite affectations of hers is that sometimes she calls us "Super Mommy" and "Super Daddy" (except it tends to come out "Duper Mommy" and "Duper Daddy"). I don't know what started our heroic alter egos or what makes her go from calling us one or the other but I admit there's something damn nice about walking into her room in the morning and hearing, "Good morning Super Mommy!"

This morning she did something new. And, as I do try to document as much as I can, as soon as she finished I raced for the camera and asked her to do it again. In a rare treat, she immediately did (generally once she's performed she gets weird when I whip out the video recorder). Enjoy the vid while I go put the Harvard admissions office on my speed dial. You can never start too early...


Posted by GoddessKristin on 06/15/09 at 01:53 PM [link] [1 Comment - Go read it!]

Long Overdue

As usual it is madness and chaos Chez Nous and I am well behind on updating our lives. But that just means there's a lot to catch up on. Strap in and let's ride!

First up, a short video of Dessa enjoying one of her favorite things - bubbles. Auntie AC got the coolest bubble making toys in the west and is showing Dess how to use them in this clip. Chatterbox Dessa makes sure we're all watching her.