It’s a slow day here at work. Dave and Charlie and I are leaving shortly to do a “store check,” one of things we do to occupy ourselves when there’s little to do around the office. We’ll visit a few stores, usually larger retail chains, and surreptitiously photograph new and interesting displays. We usually do lunch together as well, so today it’s a good thing I didn’t bring mine.<\/p>\n
I haven’t posted in a while. New year’s was a lot of fun. We drove to my parents’ in Chapel Hill for a few days, and in so doing took Penelope on her first “long” car trip. Both there and back we timed it to coincide with her happy time in the morning, after her nap and topped off food-wise. She did wonderfully, just looking around a chirping a little bit in the back seat, and dozing off near the end of both legs of the trip. Luke is a seasoned traveler and generally just needs a couple of books and snacks at regular intervals to be completely content. We may yet have a couple of world travelers on our hands.<\/p>\n
It’s been difficult to segue back into our weekly routines after the pleasant disruption that is the holidays. Nevermind the stereotypical letdown after the buildup and release of expectations that surrounds Christmas, a lot has been happening, overlapping, in our lives and it’s only by the grace of God, always, that we’re thriving. Penelope, of course, is growing so quickly (85% percentile in height and 95% in weight at her recent checkup), challenging us to learn her and understand her almost every day. But it’s amazing to see the seeds of “little girl-ness” emerge and grow and manifest themselves from the pure “baby-ness” of her first few months. She’s relational and dramatic and completely beautiful.<\/p>\n
Luke is still in the midst of potty training. He’s mastered the fine art of controlling no.1; it’s just no.2 that’s an ongoing challenge. He wore “big boy underwear” to church for the first time on Sunday and even went in the church’s restroom before his Sunday School class. I was very proud of him. On a related note, I’ve officially found the single most messy candy known to man: cordial cherries. Luke receives one as a reward for either having gone peepee five times in one day, or for going no.2 on the potty (which to date has only happened twice). Always more interested in possession than consumption, he’ll fondle his candy for about 10 minutes before picking it apart and devouring it, in the process strewing sticky entrails all over himself and anything within a 3-foot radius (I try to keep it contained). But goodness… It smells vile and he requires a full-on shower almost every time. I think we’re going to rethink that particular reward.<\/p>\n
He’s very interested in his “counting book” at the moment, a Richard Scarry book he brought home from Grandpa and Nana’a house. Each page illustrates successively larger numbers through a simple narrative of a boy bunny experiencing suitably random events all around him. It’s cute.<\/p>\n
Diane’s 30th birthday was this past Monday. I didn’t throw nearly as extensive a celebration as I should have, but her parents, sister and sister’s fianc\u00e9 came over Sunday night, and we had cake and opened presents. I got takeout from the Village Tavern and the birthday girl ate her favorite chicken Caesar salad with a glass of Pouilly Fuiss\u00e9, an excellent white wine. She received a few kitchen things, some jewelry made by her sister and a couple of Theodore Dalrymple books that she’d been wanting. Diane was 28 when we married in the fall of ’06, and it’s fun to think that our marriage has already spanned 3 years of her life (even though we’ve only just celebrated our first anniversary). She is lovelier every day and a wonderful mother to our kids. Happy 30th, love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s a slow day here at work. Dave and Charlie and I are leaving shortly to do a “store check,” one of things we do to occupy ourselves when there’s little to do around the office. We’ll visit a few stores, usually larger retail chains, and surreptitiously photograph new and interesting displays. We usually do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}