I've realized that without naps, I might go off the deep end. Naps mind you, for the little ones - not necessarily for me. Linnea is so fun to be around most of the time, but these moments of silence in the house where I can sit once a week and do whatever I want - quietly - is what keeps me from completely losing it. It has been an hour and a half so far and I might be at the half-way point if I'm lucky.
Miguel and I put an offer in on a piece of land a few weeks ago. It ended up making for a very long story, but the short version is that we withdrew our offer last week. So, we're back into the normal swing of things - no 'bids' to get on septic systems and driveway excavation. This is actually more of a relief than a sadness for us though, so we're comfortable that we made the right decision. A few driving factors for us to move are that we live in an 800sq ft house and although it is fine for the most part, we despise not having any counter space in our kitchen and we want a place to store bikes without having to cram them in between the spare tires and the lawnmower. We want more sun exposure so we can have sunny summer nights that last until - well, later than 5pm. We're tired of hearing the freeway all the time. There are lots of things we like about living here - such as being able to walk downtown, having a low house payment, having a 'secret garden' in our backyard and having a great park for Linnea to play in only 3 houses away. So, we're 'in the market' - looking for an upgrade. Chances are we'll be saying that for a while longer.
On the LE front, she's adorable, of course. She's an acrobat daredevil with good balance and a knack for falling without really getting hurt. She got new sparkle shoes from grandma last weekend that light up when she walks. The first night she wouldn't stop dancing and squealing. Words. She has hundreds of words already. She's working on a handful of 4-syllable words like He-ki-coter, a-co-ca-do and a-ge-ga-ter. She thinks 90% of the cars she hears driving by are 'ai-panes'. She's in a major mimicking stage and she's really good at getting her pronunciation right. She has a perfect "honeybee", which Miguel is quite proud of.
Miguel is taking a yoga class on Mondays. I'm in my 2nd year of a 5:30am boot camp - which I'd like to continue with for as long as possible. I actually have defined abs for the first time in my life - and I wouldn't mind keeping it that way. Plus, I get to put on boxing gloves and kick the crap out of things each morning, which really helps keep stress levels down. We take an occasional mountain bike ride when we buckle down and pay for a sitter. For Valentine's Day, we actually went out to dinner - by ourselves - to a fancy place in town. That Valentine's Dinner at The Prospect Street Cafe goes down in our book as the best meal we've ever had...which also puts an exclamation point "!" on 10 years since our first 'restaurant date' (vs running, racquetball or biking dates). Hip Hip Hooray for us!
Bye Bye,
E-der, Mi-gul, Nay-ah, Mocha, Chu-chi and the chi-chens
