Month-by-month: January

A new routine for Fridays

With Lukas a little older now, and Annika home as usual on Fridays, I realized I could give up that whole "trying to get anything at all done" thing for one day and just do fun stuff. So what we've been doing is mucking around the house in the morning (or getting just ONE thing done, like the time we went to the notary so I could order Lukas's birth certificate), then going to the diner for lunch, followed by the library and the park. It's been working out really well -- I focus on the kids, Annika and I get to have lunch together (that I don't have to cook) and Lukas gets the beginnings of restaurant training, we pick up some new books for free (and hot damn, after two weeks they go back, so if they're annoying, we're not stuck with them forever), and Annika gets to burn off some energy and hang out with "kids." (One particularly awesome park day, she came over to me just to tell me that "I am not leaving here until ALL the kids are gone.") Then it's home to a super-long, super-bubbly bath for her while I feed Lukas, and as often as not, R. brings home something for dinner. These are pretty great days, full of sunshine and fresh air, and I look forward to them all week.

Lukas update

Who is this little guy, with his crazy little left-cheek dimple? He's a sweet sweet baby, and he wants to be HELD, DAMMIT -- none of Annika's early independence there, y'all. He likes to be up in the mix, laughing his little toothless-headed laugh, sucking on his entire fist, eating every seventeen minutes, and sleeping like a champ at night.

The World's Most Absorbent Mind

So as usual, during Christmas, we had The Movie (A Christmas Story) running on TV a lot. Annika has never paid much attention to it, and we didn't think she was watching it this year either. But a couple of weeks into January, she was in the upstairs bathroom while I was in my room. I went into the hallway and she popped halfway out of the bathroom with her hands up like claws, laughing "Haaa haaaaar! aaaaaarrrrrgh!" It only took me a second to realize: This is her Scut Farkas impression. She was doing the scene where he ambushes the kids in an alley! I think I almost had a stroke from laughing -- she followed it up with a really challenging "Whoooo's next?" (just like the toady says it). So -- yeah. She was watching ...