Weekend with Daddy

Mama is out of town this weekend, so the girls get a weekend with daddy.  We started the weekend off letting Lily watch 'Legally Blonde', not sure that is the best use of her time, but she enjoyed it.

Zoe is becoming so active these days; she is crawling around everywhere.  I feel so much more confident in her ability to steady herself that while she is pulling up on furniture, crawling on the hard tile in the kitchen, I don't fear that she is going to tumble over every single moment.  Now, by no means do we just leave her and hope for the best, but she is growing.  Her vocal skills are growing as well.  It makes life harder knowing she is all over the place, but it is fun to see her moving about.

Lily is being a 2-year-old toot.  We take the good with the bad.  I have to say that I like each age a bit better than the previous age.  She gets more and more fun, and you just have to deal with the tantrums as they come.  The best thing she is doing now is asking where people are: "Mama go?"  "Papi go?"  You could be one room over and she'll yell that out.  She has taken to calling Norman, "Moormie"  I think the tantrums right now really come down to her not getting her way and so she just lets it out as best she can; it generally comes down to throwing things around.  But, that is the quickest way to get a time-out.

I just got finished with a week back at work after being off.  Over the first part of last week, we went down to Port Aransas.  Lily certainly didn't like getting into the water, even with floaties on, but she liked being in the baby pool and got continually braver at the beach as the week went on.  Zoe pretty much just was there to look cute in her bathing suits.  The water was yucky yucky.  Seaweed four feet wide, six inches deep coming up to the beach.  I am not sure if the seaweed come in is somehow connected to the BP oil spill off Louisiana coast (don't think so), but in comparing pictures in June 2010 to June 2009, it is dramatically dirtier.  Emily came on this trip and we had a great time.  It was odd sleeping all together in one bedroom, with a pack&play on each side of the bed.  4 people in a room, including 2 babies, is a lot to take.

I got to have some time at home with the girls later in the week.  Lily had outdoor play time in the background later in the week.  We do have some fun stuff for the background, but the problem is that if it is not water-related, it is just too hot to go out there.

The big news this week was the U.S. World Cup victory in stoppage time that put them into the next round vs. Ghana.  Let's see if they can keep it up.  Not sure this is going to do much to explode soccer as a major sport in the U.S., but it can't hurt.

The bigger sports story to me was the marathon Wimbledon tennis match.  Fifth set, no tiebreak, ended at 70-68 with John Isner beating a French guy, Mamout.  What is most amazing to me is that the guys never got their serve broken until that 138th game.  And there were relatively few break points during all that time (both in the single digits).  This is one of those things that will never happen again in sports.  This would be an equivalent of a 50 inning baseball game or 15 overtime basketball game.  We won't see this ever again.

Star Wars in Concert

Well, we just got back from a fun weekened going to the Star Wars concert.  Excellent production, I'm sure the idea started with just another money grab (and it was), but I was glad to have paid it.  There was a 3-story screen and a full orchestra playing the music from all the movies with scenes shown to correspond to the music.  Anthony Daniels was there to narrate the whole ordeal.  After awhile, the music sounded so good, it was easy to forget that it was a live orchestra and not pre-recorded music.  Katy even enjoyed it, especially when we had the carbonite freezing scene, and she heard Leia say, "I love you," and Han replied, "I know."  At intermission we found Betty and Judy and they pointed us out to the row in front of them (10th row front & center on the floor) that was empty so we watched the second half from there.  I did do my splurge and get the $30 program.  Probably not necessary but what else have I splurged on with Star Wars?

Katy and I made a weekend of it and stayed downtown (Zoe and Lily were downtown with Papi and Patty); we had drinks at Zinc's, dinner at Boudro's, and dessert at TX Land & Cattle.  Then, we took some Tylenol PM and had a long, uninterrupted by babies night of sleep.

The weekend was made even more relaxing by my spending the day alone with the girls on Friday.  Katy was at Market and with us having sent the girls to the grandparents Monday through Thursday and going downtown over the weekend, I felt I needed to stay home, and it was mostly fun.  They did drive me to some vino with my lunch, but that was ok.  Zoe is going through this weird stage where she is not able to sit down once she pulls up and is in a standing position.  So, she will roll over in her crib after we lay her on her back, push up onto her belly, and then stand up holding onto the rails.  Then, she will not know how to get down and start wailing.  I went in 3 times during her morning nap on Friday before letting her cry for 40 minutes and finally just getting her up with a skipped nap; it didn't bother Lily, at least, because Friday was National Doughnut Day and Belinda came over to take her to Krispy Kreme.

Lily's current thing is to say "My Beatia" when she needs her blanket to comfort her.  Sometimes, she gets upset when the blanket is in her hand, but since she wants some comfort, she will throw it on the ground, and then cry out, "My Beatia" until we get it for her.  We're going to have to find a way to put a stop to that move.  She is getting really fun and expressive with her verbal interaction.  If someone is not home, she'll say, "Mama go?" or "Papi go?"  It has been really fun to ask her question and she will think for a minute and then say "Ummmm" and then try to answer.  I like asking her about church or something related and she will say "Jesus" (but the 'Je' sounds like the 'che' in cheese).

Back online - new blog

I am finally back on the blog, not sure how often I can update this, but I'll certainly try.....Renamed blog to "bows and beatia".  First, I hope Zoe doesn't later think bad of me that she only got the blog with her name for less than five entries.  When I tell her how these first few months have been with her, she'll have to understand.

Then, on the blog name.  First, if you've seen our girls, you know bows are a big part of their life (and when I say "big", I mean important and also size-wise).  Beatia (pronounce "bee-t-ah") is what Lily calls her blanket, not sure where she got that from but it is a word we hear more often than any other right now.  I've already had a 30-minute discussion with Katy and Zac on how to spell it, so I am not even going to go there again.  But, these two things are what our life is all about right now:   making sure they have a good bow on their head when they leave the house and that Lily has her blanket. 

We'll share all sorts of things going on in our life with this blog....on that note, I find it ironic that this entry is the first entry since the Star Wars symphony concert blog entry back in January and here I am, 2 days away from the Star Wars concert.  I said back then that you haven't lived until you've seen 'Duel of the Fates' played live; now, I'd say you haven't lived until you've seen it played twice.

The big story going on these days is the oil spill of the BP oil rig in the Gulf off the coast of Louisiana; it is so sad what it is doing to the coastline, the environment, etc.  I think it is time for the government to get involved; charge BP for what it is costing, but something has to be done to fix it.  We'll see what happens.