Alphabet blocks

Alphabet blocks
Originally uploaded by pkellyspurles.

I bought these blocks at the auction in Amherst a few weeks ago where I also got the rocking chair. We've been having lots of fun with them. I make towers and imaginary crosswords, while Peter bangs blocks together and sometimes takes a baby swipe at my towers and brings them down. He's mobile enough now that he can creep across the playroom, sit up, and get a few blocks out of the basket (on the bottom shelf of the bookcase) himself.

From Nat's blog ...

It takes sunlight eight minutes to reach the earth. We never actually see the sunlight of the present, only that of the past.
Staring into the evening skies, we can gaze upon a star that scientists will tell you no longer exists, a star that went extinct ten million years ago.
Both are points made by Thich Nhat Hanh. Both cause one to stop and think for a moment what our perception is and how subject to influence it is. The observer and the observed are essentially one and the same because we inter-are. We are a part of what we are observing: If we do not exist, then nothing exists, the subject and the object are part of each other.

See Sangha Fairytales.

Forward

Peter started moving forward this evening, commando-style and pretty slowly, but definitely, definitely forward.

Catching up ...

Peter took his first step today (at 7 months and a week). He was standing balanced against my legs, and stretched one foot out as my mouth fell open. He put it down, I grabbed him before he could fall, and he grinned. He's been walking laps around the downstairs for the past few days, always aided by two steady hands from above. He's got the left-right-forward momentum technique down pat, but has absolutely no balance (or fear, for that matter). And he's figured out how to sit up from a lying position in the last week too. The first time he did it was last Friday at lunchtime. It was so slick that I almost missed it. He crawls backwards well up on his knees, then sticks a leg out sideways and takes one more step backwards with the other knee. And he's taken a few crawling "steps" forward in the past week, but never more than two at a time.

Camel, maybe?

Camel, maybe?
Originally uploaded by pkellyspurles.

Ron worked on the office for a few weekends, removing lime green carpet (and a layer lino tiles and cardboard and glue underneath that) and wallpaper border, and then painting it in a quiet camel shade. (Not a noisy camel shade! Or rather the noisy goldfinch yellow some previous owner had chosen.) I've moved one of the cream armchairs in, as well as a Moroccan rug, and one of the red Persian carpets. It's much better.

Rocking chair

I got a rocking chair at an auction over the weekend. It's very solid, but probably dates from the mid-Victorian period so it's been well taken care of. I hope rocking Peter to sleep at 4 am every day won't be the end of it; perhaps it's already rocked four generations of babies to sleep.